What's next at the national level with health care reform?

The Colorado Health Policy Coalition shared these thoughts last week:

"The dust is beginning to settle from the vote to pass the American Health Care Act in the House. Here are answers to a few key questions and a look at what we know so far about next steps...

What is in the bill that was passed?
Timothy Jost, an Emeritus Professor at Washington and Lee University School of Law and contributing editor to Health Affairs, has been doing an excellent job following the progression of the AHCA for the Health Affairs blog. His post from May 4th provides a very helpful summary of the final bill, as passed with amendments. This excerpt from that post is the most concise summary I’ve seen. In sum it:

• Eliminates the taxes and tax increases imposed by the ACA;
• Phases out enhanced funding for the Medicaid expansions and imposes either a block grant or per capita caps on Medicaid;
• Removes the individual and employer mandate penalties:
• Increases age rating ratios from 1 to 3 to 1 to 5 in the individual and small group market and allows states to go higher by waiver;
• Permits states to waive the ACA’s essential health benefit requirements;
• Imposes a penalty on individuals who do not maintain continuous coverage.
• Alternatively allows states to obtain a waiver to allow insurers to health status underwrite individuals who do not maintain continuous coverage.
• Creates funds of $138 billion to assist states in dealing with high-cost consumers and for other purposes
• Ends the ACA’s means tested subsidies as of 2020 and substitutes for them age-adjusted fixed-dollar tax credits.

The Denver Post ran a story analyzing how the proposal would impact Colorado. And then The Denver Post ran a story re: Colorado’s experience with our state high-risk pools.

What happens next?

Leadership in the US Senate has indicated that they will begin working on their own health care bill, but has not set a timetable for introduction. Senator Mitch McConnell appointed a 13 member Senate workgroup, which includes Colorado Senator Cory Gardner, to craft the Senate bill.

While the content and timeline for the Senate bill remains unclear, Senator Roy Blunt (R-Mo) did commit over the weekend that the Senate will get the Congressional Budget Office to score the bill before voting and indicated that he anticipates what comes out of the Senate will be substantively different from the House bill, thus requiring a conference committee before final passage – meaning this process is far from over."

Stay engaged with the Protect Our Care Colorado campaign as the Senate works on its version of repeal!