Two Republicans today unveiled a proposal that could revamp the current Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) commercial health insurance rules and programs rather than completely replacing all of PPACA.
Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, and Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., introduced a discussion draft of their Healthcare Accessibility, Empowerment and Liberty (HEAL) Act of 2016 bill proposal at a briefing in Washington.
Sessions and Cassidy, a medical doctor, developed the 117-page HEAL Act proposal with help from John Goodman, an economist and longtime healthy policy advisor.
The lawmakers said they want to eliminate the PPACA individual and employer coverage mandates, repeal many PPACA-related regulations, “deregulate and denationalize” the PPACA public exchange system, and make use of a universal health insurance tax credit that would be similar to the current child tax credit.
For more details about what’s in the Sessions-Cassidy proposal, read on.
1. PPACA provisions the proposal would kill
PPACA imposes individual “shared responsibility” penalties on many individuals who fail to have minimum essential coverage and some employers that fail to offer affordable coverage with a minimum level.
In addition to eliminating those mandates, the Sessions-Cassidy proposal would eliminate any statutory or regulatory barriers to letting employers give workers cash that the employees can use to buy their own individual coverage.
See also: LTCI Watch: Clintoncare
2. PPACA provisions the proposal would keep
The Sessions-Cassidy proposal would keep the PPACA provisions that are unrelated to commercial health insurance, and they would keep some of the more popular consumer protection provisions such as the ban on annual and lifetime benefits limits; the provision letting dependents stay on coverage until age 26; and the guaranteed renewability provision.