House GOP Leaders Pull American Health Care Act Before Vote
Republican leaders in the House of Representatives canceled a vote on the American Health Care Act, which planned to repeal and replace the ACA.
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By - Before it could reach the House of Representatives for a vote, Republican party leaders pulled the American Health Care Act (AHCA). Because lawmakers could not agree on the structure or substance of the conservative healthcare framework, the ACA will remain in place for the foreseeable future.
A vote was supposed to take place on Thursday, March 23 but was postponed. GOP leaders reorganized with the Freedom Caucus during that time to negotiate changes to the AHCA that would make the draft legislation more attractive. *link*
On Friday, however, a vote was once again postponed. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan held a press conference shortly after to discuss the proceedings. Ryan stated that Republican lawmakers will continue to create legislation that repeals and replaces the ACA.
In order to pass, the GOP could only allow 22 Republican lawmakers to vote against the bill. Any more defectors would not allow the AHCA to pass.
Last-minute amendments were penned in the AHCA before going to a four hour debate between Republicans and Democrats. After the debate, the bill was pulled from consideration.
Revisions included the elimination for health plans to provide consumers ”essential health benefits,” as defined under the ACA.
Under the AHCA, states would have complete discretion to keep or cut any of these benefits including maternity care, ambulatory services, access to prescription drugs, and pediatric services.
In the days before the House vote, Republican leaders added amendments to the AHCA in an effort to appeal to other Republican voters.
These amendments included adding state flexibility in managing allocated Medicaid dollars, the immediate elimination of Medicaid expansion projects, and established guidelines for requesting block grants. The cuts against Medicaid would have totaled roughly $880 billion.
After these amendments took place, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that federal cost savings would lessen by $186 billion, the number of uninsured Americans would reach 24 million, and consumer premiums would be 15 to 20 percent higher.
Proposed earlier this year, the AHCA beat out other proposed bills as the GOP’s frontrunner towards ACA replacement.
The AHCA raised several concerns for healthcare leaders as 24 million americans could lose health insurance due in part to the extensive cuts to Medicaid expansion. These estimates were gathered from a previous CBO estimate on an earlier AHCA draft.
HHS Secretary Tom Price has been a supporter of the bill since its inception, and dismissed the the CBO’s estimates of AHCA outcomes. HHS launched a webpage that outlines action items in the event of an ACA repeal.
The original AHCA legislation was framed around dismantling upcoming Medicaid expansions, providing retroactive relief to consumers on ACA taxes, repealing individual mandates for health insurance, providing block grants to states to self-fund Medicaid, and giving consumers refundable tax credits to pay for health costs.
The ACA remains, but still has an uncertain future depending if lawmakers attempt to re-draft entirely new legislation that garners strong support.
