A month after pulling their health care overhaul bill from the floor, House Republicans are growing increasingly confident that they may have found a way to pass it.
An amendment drafted by Tom MacArthur, a New Jersey congressman, would keep much of the American Health Care Act in place. But it would set up a waiver program that would allow states to apply to eliminate three major insurance regulations established by Obamacare. States could get a waiver if they attested that the changes would achieve one of five broad policy goals, such as increasing the choice of health plans. The change has won the endorsement of the conservative Freedom Caucus, which had opposed the original bill.
Broadly speaking, states with such waivers would be worse for Americans with more complex health care needs, but would have lower insurance premiums for people without a history of illness. Here are the rules that states could apply to waive under the new proposal.
Trumpcare 2.0: It’s Even Worse
House Republicans have revised their proposal to destroy the Affordable Care Act in an effort to win the support of far-right legislators who opposed the first version. In so doing they have made it much worse.
The original Trumpcare bill, whose spectacular failure embarrassed the White House, had a public approval rating of just 17 percent because it would have taken health insurance away from 24 million Americans, many of them poor, sick and elderly. The new version would further tighten the screws on vulnerable Americans by letting insurance companies charge older people and people with pre-existing conditions much higher premiums than they charge younger and healthier people. It would also give insurers the freedom not to cover essential health services like maternity care and cancer treatment.
The lawmaker who proposed these changes is Representative Tom MacArthur of New Jersey, who says he wants to reduce premiums. The nasty new twist in his version is a provision that, in effect, frees states from having to provide many of the protections now guaranteed by the A.C.A, or Obamacare. States will be permitted to ask the federal government to waive these requirements, and there is a real danger that many lawmakers will cave to pressures from insurance companies that see a way to save money by providing fewer protections.
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