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Here Is The Full Text Of The Republican Healthcare Bill

Update:  Senate Republicans have just released their official 142-page healthcare bill.

Here are some initial takeaways from the Wall Street Journal:

  • The bill seeks funding for insurers through 2021
  • The bill provides tax credits, lowers income eligibility
  • Tax cuts on high-income households largely unchanged from House plan
  • Bill suspends 'Cadillac Tax' on employer health plans through 2025

Specifically on Taxes:

Bill would end ACA penalties for people who don't have insurance

 

The tax cuts in the Senate bill look largely similar to those in the House bill. That includes repealing a 3.8% tax on investment income retroactively to January 2017 and delaying the repeal of a 0.9% payroll tax until 2023.

 

Both of those taxes only apply to individuals making more than $200,000 and married couples making more than $250,000.

 

The bill would also remove taxes on some health industries.

 

http://www.scribd.com/embeds/351994582/content

 

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Here is our update from earlier:

After weeks of drafting in private, much to the dismay of Chuck Schumer, details of the Senate's healthcare bill are set to be revealed today.  While we're still awaiting the official text of the bill, the New York Times, courtesy of leaks from some D.C. lobbyists, has previewed some of the details which apparently include large cuts to Medicaid, an end to the "mandate" that requires everyone to have health care and a repeal of "virtually all the tax increases imposed by the Affordable Care Act."

Senate Republicans, who have promised a repeal of the Affordable Care Act for seven years, took a major step on Thursday to achieve that goal as they unveiled a bill to end the health law’s mandate that nearly everyone have health care, remake and cut the Medicaid program and create a new system of federal tax credits to help people buy health insurance.

 

The Senate bill — once promised as a top-to-bottom revamp of the health bill passed by the House last month — instead maintains its structure, with modest adjustments. The Senate version is, in some respects, more moderate than the House bill, offering more financial assistance to some lower-income people to help them defray the rapidly rising cost of private health insurance.

 

But the Senate measure, like the House bill, would phase out the extra money that the federal government has provided to states as an incentive to expand eligibility for Medicaid. And like the House measure, it would put the entire Medicaid program on a budget, ending the open-ended entitlement that now exists.

 

It would also repeal virtually all the tax increases imposed by the Affordable Care Act to pay for itself, in effect handing a broad tax cut to the affluent, paid for by billions of dollars sliced from Medicaid, a health care program that serves one in five Americans, not only the poor but two-thirds of those in nursing homes. The bill, drafted in secret, is likely to come to the Senate floor next week, and could come to a vote after 20 hours of debate.

Bloomberg has provided additional details:

The plan, to be released Thursday after a private Senate GOP meeting, includes $15 billion a year in market-stabilizing funds over the next two years and $10 billion a year in 2020 and 2021, the person said.

 

It also would provide $62 billion allocated over eight years to a state innovation fund, which can be used for coverage for high-risk patients, reinsurance and other items. The draft bill would phase out Obamacare’s expansion of Medicaid over three years, starting in 2021.

The assessment being made by senators will be shaped in part by an analysis of the bill to be released by the Congressional Budget Office, the official scorekeeper on Capitol Hill.

Of course, time is of the essence as the deadline for insurers to finalize their coverage and pricing plans for 2018 is just around the corner on August 16th.

 

Meanwhile, with the bill now up for debate and all 48 Democrats expected to vote 'no', the race is on to figure out which Republicans will join them.  Of course, Mitch McConnell can only afford to lose 2 Republican votes which would result in a tie and leave Mike Pence the deciding tie-breaker vote.

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