Unpacking The Senate ’ s Take On ACA Repeal And Replace

On June 22, 2017, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) released the Senate GOP’s version of Affordable Care Act repeal, the Better Care Reconciliation Act of 2017. The Senate bill is in many respects quite different from the House’s American Health Care Act (AHCA), which was introduced on March 6, 2017; AHCA passed on May 6 by a narrow, mostly party line 217 to 213 vote after lengthy negotiations and a series of amendments.
Although the Senate bill has the same bill number at the House, it entirely strikes the House bill and adopts a new bill with a new title. All of its amendments are amendments of the ACA itself or of other existing laws, not to the House bill.
The majority of the Senate bill is focused on changes to the Medicaid program. This post includes a brief summary of the Medicaid provisions by Sara Rosenbaum, who will examine these in greater detail in a post in the near future. The remainder of this post by Timothy Jost focuses on the non-Medicaid sections of the legislation.
A Quick Review Of The House Bill
As adopted, the House, the AHCA:

Eliminated the taxes and tax increases imposed by the ACA (most, but not all of them for 2017);
Phased out enhanced funding for the Medicaid expansions beginning in 2020 and imposed either a block grant or per capita caps on Medicaid;
Permitted work requirements for Medicaid recipients and repealed various ACA Medicaid provisions;
Removed the ACA’s individual and employer mandate penalties retroactively to 2016:...

Source: Health Affairs Blog - June 23, 2017 Category: Health Management Authors: Timothy Jost and Sara Rosenbaum Tags: Costs and Spending Following the ACA Insurance and Coverage Medicaid and CHIP Source Type: blogs