After several days of mystery and voting for and against amendments on a bill that doesn’t really exist, Republican leadership in the Senate has finally released the text of the Health Care Freedom Act, better known as the “skinny” Obamacare repeal bill.
The Senate Budget Committee released the bill [PDF] via Twitter shortly after 10 p.m. ET on Thursday night. We presume they were waiting to see who was evicted from Big Brother.
The 8-page bill does the following:
• Negates the “individual mandate” — the requirement that all people must have some form of insurance or pay a penalty — by reducing the penalty for not having insurance to $0. This appears to be effective immediately and retroactive to the beginning of 2016.
• Negates the “employer mandate” — the requirement that businesses of a certain size must provide full-time employees with qualifying coverage — by reducing the penalty for not having insurance to $0. This appears to be effective immediately and retroactive to the beginning of 2016.
• Delays the current tax on medical device manufacturers, retroactively to the beginning of 2017, and through 2020.
• Allows for increased maximums on Health Savings Accounts, starting in 2018.
• Denies federal funds to Planned Parenthood (or any similar program, but the definition is so specific that it’s really just Planned Parenthood) for one year.
• Shuts down all funding to the Prevention and Public Health Fund, which provides funding to a variety of public health concerns, like Alzheimer’s research, diabetes prevention, heart disease prevention, anti-smoking initiatives, immunization, scientific support for state and local officials to detect and respond to outbreaks, and much more. This fund is about 15% of the entire budget for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Funding would end starting in 2018, with no replacement offered.
• Allows states to seek “innovation” waivers. These waivers would give states the option of allowing insurers to not comply with several aspects of Obamcare, including the requirement that all plans must cover certain “Essential Health Benefits.”
• Additional funding for the Community Health Center Fund for 2017. This money comes from the funds that would have gone to Planned Parenthood.
The GOP leadership has posited the Health Care Freedom Act as basically a procedural matter: Something at least 50 Republicans can vote on with the intention of sending the bill to a conference with the House of Representatives, where the finer details would be hashed out before passing a final version on to the White House.
However, Democrats and even some within the Republican party are concerned that this “skinny” bill is nothing but a pretense to get any repeal plan passed as quickly as possible.
Sens. John McCain (AZ), Lindsey Graham (SC), and Ron Johnson (WI) voiced their worries publicly Thursday afternoon, with Graham calling the “skinny” bill a “fraud” if there is no conference and the House GOP passes this bill on a fast-tracked vote.
That concern seemed to have some merit when it later revealed the House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (CA) had advised lawmakers in the House that they may have to declare “martial law” on Friday morning, indicating there may be a rushed, immediate vote with no conference.
McCain and his other senators called on Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (WI) to assure them that such a fast-lane vote would not happen, and that the bill would go to conference if it passed the Senate.
Ryan issued a response that acknowledged that sending the bill to conference was a possibility but stopped short of guaranteeing it.
“If moving forward requires a conference committee, that’s something the House is willing to do,” said Ryan in a statement released Thursday evening. “The reality, however, is that repealing and replacing Obamacare still ultimately requires the Senate to produce 51 votes for an actual plan.”
This did not immediately appear to be sufficient for Graham, who said that if he doesn’t receive more concrete assurances from Ryan, he’s a “no” vote.
“I’m not going to vote for a pig in a poke,” said Graham. “I’m not going to vote for a bill that is terrible policy and horrible politics, just because we have to get something done.”
While McCain has called for more definite assurances from the House that they won’t rush to pass the skinny bill — and also gave a stirring speech before his fellow senators on Tuesday, asking for more bipartisan participation on this and other issues — he has voted against multiple efforts by Senate Democrats to send healthcare reform back to committee where a true bipartisan reform of health insurance could be hammered out.
More to come…
by Chris Morran via Consumerist