New Senate Bill, Same As The Old Senate Bill

The new Senate healthcare repeal bill released today is the same as the old Senate bill, including all of the disastrous cuts, cost increases and the millions who would lose their health insurance, that made the old bill the most unpopular bill in three decades.

 

 

Old Senate Repeal Bill

New Senate Repeal Bill

Slashes Medicaid and ends ACA's expansion

Hurts efforts to combat the opioid epidemic and could make it even worse

Kicks millions off their health care plan

Lets insurers charge older Americans 5 times more than younger Americans

Increases out-of-pocket costs and makes people pay more for less

Defunds Planned Parenthood and lets insurers offer plans that don't cover maternity care

Allows insurers to offer plans that don’t cover essential health benefits

Looks out for the wealthy over lower and middle-income Americans

Provides handouts to insurance companies

Ends the ACA's guaranteed protections for those with pre-existing conditions

 

Slashes Medicaid and ends the ACA's expansion.

 

Old Senate Repeal Bill:

The Hill: “The Senate’s healthcare bill would cut Medicaid spending by 35 percent over the next 20 years, according to a new analysis from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) … The new analysis looks beyond the 10-year window of the original CBO score and analyzes the impact of the bill’s lower cap on Medicaid spending after 2025.”

New Senate Repeal Bill:

Roll Call: “The updated language would still phase out the current law’s Medicaid expansion by 2024, impose a stricter growth rate on the Medicaid program in 2025 and transition it from an open-ended funding stream to amounts based upon the state’s population.”

Hurts efforts to combat the opioid epidemic and could make it even worse.

 

Old Senate Repeal Bill:

Vox: “The Senate bill could also worsen the opioid epidemic through changes to Medicaid, a program that covers 34 percent of the 2.66 million Americans addicted to opioids. The Senate bill would phase out the Medicaid expansion, which covered millions of low-income, childless Americans, beginning in 2021.”

New Senate Repeal Bill:

Five Thirty Eight: “If the Medicaid expansion is phased out, which the Senate bill proposes to do, that’s a problem not only for funding treatment but also for keeping existing clinics and treatment centers up and running. Advocates and experts say that $45 billion is a tiny fraction of the money that would be needed to make up for Medicaid cuts and that targeted funding is a poor substitute for guaranteeing that addiction treatment is covered.”

Kicks millions off their health care.

Old Senate Repeal Bill:

ABC: Headline: “CBO Estimates 22 Million More Uninsured By 2026 Under Senate Health Plan.”

New Senate Repeal Bill:

CNN: The revised Senate bill “maintains significant cuts to Medicaid, meaning 15 million fever people could [be] insured by the program by 2025.”

Lets insurers charge older Americans five times more than younger Americans.

Old Senate Repeal Bill:

Politico: “The Senate's sweeping Obamacare repeal plan released Thursday would strike the biggest parts of the health care law, end Medicaid as an open-ended entitlement and give states the ability to waive the health law’s insurance requirements. Here are key features: … Older customers could be charged more: Insurers would be allowed to charge older customers five times more than younger ones for the same health plan. Under Obamacare, that ratio is three-to-one.”

New Senate Repeal Bill:

Politico: “Many prominent provisions in the original plan were retained. They include making tax credits available to Americans earning up to 350 percent of the federal poverty level, as opposed to 400 percent under Obamacare. The plan would also allow insurers to charge older enrollees up to five times as much as their younger customers — compared to a 3-to-1 ratio permissible under current law.”

Increases out-of-pocket costs and makes people pay more for less.

Old Senate Repeal Bill:

Vox: “This basic idea is also present in the plan’s changes to Medicaid. The Senate’s plan begins to phase out the Medicaid expansion in 2021, and fully repeals it in 2024. Low-income people who were on Medicaid get moved to the exchanges, where the plans cover less, cost more, and require more out-of-pocket spending.”

New Senate Repeal Bill:

Bloomberg: “The revised draft would keep the earlier bill’s language allowing people earning up to 350 percent of the poverty level to receive subsidies. And it would keep a skimpier benchmark for subsidies than the Affordable Care Act’s silver plan, which would result in higher out-of-pocket expenses.”

Defunds Planned Parenthood and lets insurers offer plans that don't provide coverage for maternity.

Old Senate Repeal Bill:

New York Times: “The Senate bill, like the House bill, would cut off federal Medicaid payments to Planned Parenthood for one year. The money reimburses clinics for birth control, cancer screenings and other preventive care. About half of Planned Parenthood patients are on Medicaid.”

Vox: If the Better Care Act passes, it could mean we could turn back to a time before the Affordable Care Act, when some 88 percent of plans on the individual market did not provide maternity coverage.”

New Senate Repeal Bill:

The Atlantic: “In another blow to Collins and Murkowski, McConnell also retains provisions blocking federal funds from going to Planned Parenthood and banning the use of subsidies to purchase plans that cover abortion.”

NBC News: “The Senate bill would change that. It includes a modified version of a proposal by conservative Senators Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Mike Lee, R-Utah, that would allow insurers to sell plans that do not meet Obamacare’s regulations. That means they don’t have to not cover ‘essential health benefits,’ which include everything from hospitalization to maternity care.”

Allows insurers to offer plans without coverage for essential health benefits like prescription drugs, mental health care and hospitalizations.

Old Senate Repeal Bill:

Bloomberg: “As in the House bill, states could receive waivers of some of Obamacare’s consumer protections including provision of ‘essential health benefits.’”

New Senate Repeal Bill:

Roll Call: “Individuals would now be able to use tax credits on what are known as ‘catastrophic plans,’ or insurance plans with high deductibles and low monthly payments. Under the current law this was not allowed.”

Looks out for the wealthy over lower and middle-income Americans.

Old Senate Repeal Bill:

Vox: Headline: “At its core, the Senate health bill slashes Medicaid to finance a tax cut for the rich.”

New Senate Repeal Bill:

Politico: Headline: “Richest Americans gain the most from the Senate’s health care bill”

NBC News: “The new bill does add a tax break favored by conservatives that primarily helps higher-income families. It allows people to pay for premiums on individual insurance plans using their tax-exempt contributions to a Health Savings Account. Since lower income households usually don’t have extra cash to contribute to an HSA, the change is unlikely to benefit them much. The tax benefits are also proportionally bigger for people in higher income tax brackets.”

Provides handouts to insurance companies.

Old Senate Repeal Bill:

Kaiser Health News: “If Senate GOP leaders have their way, the check may not be in the mail. Many consumers collected unexpected rebates after the Affordable Care Act became law, possibly with a note explaining why: Their insurer spent more of their revenue from premiums on administration and profits than the law allowed, so it was payback time. More than $2.4 billion has been returned to customers since the provision went into effect in 2011, averaging about $138 per family in 2015. Those rebates could end under the Senate proposal — now on hold until after the July Fourth holiday — to repeal the ACA.”

New Senate Repeal Bill:

USA Today: “Like the earlier version, the new bill would also still end the ACA’s requirement that insurers spend a specific amount of the premiums they collect on benefits, instead of on profits, administration and other expenses.”

Ends the ACA's guaranteed protections for those with pre-existing conditions.

Old Senate Repeal Bill:

Kaiser Health News: “Built into the bill are loopholes to states to bypass those protections and erode coverage for preexisting conditions. That could lead to perverse situations in which insurers are required to cover chronically ill people but not diseases they suffer from.”

New Senate Repeal Bill:

Associated Press: “A health care proposal from Senate conservatives would let insurers sell skimpy policies provided they also offer a comprehensive plan. It’s being billed as pro-consumer, allowing freedom of choice and potential savings for many. But critics including the insurance industry say it would split the sick and the healthy, leading to unsustainably high premiums for people with medical problems and pre-existing conditions, who may get priced out of the market unless taxpayers bail them out.”