House Republicans unveiled legislation to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (also know as Obamacare). We've uploaded the full bill text, so you can start messaging your lawmakers (even before the legislation is formally introduced and assigned a bill number). Share your thoughts, and we'll continue to update this page!
Resource shelf:
- Full bill text
- House Ways and Means Section-by-Section Analysis
- House Energy and Commerce Section-by-Section Analysis
- Markup notice
House Energy and Commerce will mark up the portion of the legislation under their jurisdiction on Wednesday, March 8 at 10 am.
Have thoughts on this legislation? Message your lawmakers now!
What the American Health Care Act (ACHA) keeps from the Affordable Care Act (ACA):
- Preexisting conditions rules (insurers must cover people regardless of pre-existing medical conditions)
- Children can stay on their parents’ insurance policies until age 26.
- Essential health benefits (insurers must offer 10 essential health benefits, including maternity care and preventive services)
- Prohibitions on annual and lifetime limits (insurers cannot set a limit on how much they have to pay to cover someone)
What the American Health Care Act (ACHA) changes from the Affordable Care Act (ACA):
- Individual mandate: No penalty for individuals who do not obtain healthcare coverage from Dec 2015 onward
- Employer mandate: No penalty for businesses that fail to over coverage to employees from Dec 2015 onward
- Medicaid expansion
- Age variation limit for premiums
- Subsidies for out-of-pocket expenses
- Premium subsidies
- Health savings account limits
- Taxes
The Numbers:
- Age-based tax credits ranging from $2,000 to $4,000 (This would replace the Affordable Care Act’s income-based subsidies.)
- Credits for a single household would be limited to $14,000
- Subsidies would be phased out for individuals earning $75,000+ and for families earning $150,000+
- Health savings account limit for individual would increase to $6,550 from $3,400. For families it would increase to $13,100 from $6,750.
- Insurers would not be able to charge older customers more than five times as much as younger customers, and states would be able to set their own ratio. (as opposed to ACA restrictions where insurers are capped at charging three times as much)
What's Included in the bill:
- Provision blocking Planned Parenthood from receiving Medicaid reimbursements
- End to ACA’s Medicaid expansion by 2019 (which has been adopted in 31 states and the District of Columbia. As of 2019, expansion beneficiaries would remain enrolled, unless they’ve dropped out of the program for 30+ days.)
- Overhaul Medicaid by giving states capped payments based on their number of Medicaid enrollees (as opposed to current open-ended federal entitlement)
- Requirement that individuals maintain continuous coverage or face a financial penalty the next time they obtain insurance (A person whose coverage lapsed would have to pay a 30% surcharge on premiums for a year when they sign up for coverage again.)
- Individuals can contribute more money to their health savings account, and let spouses make additional contributions.
- Delays the “Cadillac tax” on high cost employer-sponsored health plans until 2025 (slated to take effect in 2020)
- Phases out premium tax credits for individuals (ends in 2020) and small business health care tax credits (ends in 2020; not available 2018-2019 for plans that cover abortions)
what constituents are saying on POPVOX:
