How The Health Law Might Be Changed By The Next Presiden

Preface; Kaiser Health News encourages people to use their material  if Kaiser is given credit.  

 

Here are excerpts from a November 1 Kaiser Health piece by Mary Agnes Cary, Here are adjustments Obama and Romney might make.

Obama’s Prospects

Scale Back Subsidies: As part of that effort to reduce federal spending, there could be pressure to scale back the health law’s subsidies that help low-income residents afford coverage. People who earn up to 400 percent of poverty – currently about $92,000 for a family of four – are eligible to get financial help in purchasing coverage. Another big-ticket item is the expansion of Medicaid coverage to anyone up to 133 percent of the poverty level, or about $30,656 for a family of four.

Change in Age Rating Bands: The ACA prohibits insurers from charging more than three times as much for a policy sold to an older person than to a younger person. (This does not affect people over 65 who are covered by Medicare.) This is a change from current law in most states where there are no limits on how much more insurers can charge older people. America’s Health Insurance Plans is advocating that the law’s rating bands be changed to 5:1 to prevent what the group describes as “rate shock” for younger people and families.

Medical Device Tax Cut: Of the many taxes in the health law, one has come under especially withering criticism: a 2.3 percent tax on the sale of any taxable medical device. Medical device manufacturers have loudly opposed the tax and won some key congressional support.

IPAB: One of the most contentious provisions of the health law is the creation of a 15-member panel charged with making recommendations to reduce Medicare spending if the amount the government spends grows beyond a target rate. Congress must pass alternative cuts of the same size, or the recommendations from the panel, known as the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB), become law. IPAB members are prohibited from making recommendations that would increase revenues or change benefits, eligibility or Medicare beneficiary cost-sharing.

The board is disliked by many lawmakers. Some Republicans charge it amounts to health care rationing while members from both parties hate the idea of surrendering the power of the purse.

"IPAB is not a political must-have for the president," Mendelson said. "It is the kind of thing that could be treated in the context of other legislative adjustments…."

Romney’s Prospects

Gov. Mitt Romney has promised a full-scale repeal of the ACA. "He will repeal it in its entirety and replace it with reforms of his own," Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul said in an e-mail.

But short of Republicans controlling both chambers of Congress, he would have to rely on the federal regulatory process to choke off funding and give states wide latitude to implement – or ignore -- the law. If Republicans took control of the Senate but had fewer than the 60 votes needed to pass most legislation, Romney could be forced to use a difficult legislative process known as "reconciliation" to try to dismantle the measure.

Slowing Down Implementation: The health law gives tremendous power to the secretary of Health and Human Services to implement the health law, and a Romney administration could use that power to slow the rulemaking process to a crawl.

But reconciliation can be a cumbersome and difficult process. In addition, it only applies to budget measures so large chunks of the law would be unaffected. And changes made under the process can’t increase the deficit.

Waivers: Romney has said he would allow states to opt-out of the health law by using a waiver process. He could also use the process to give states wide latitude to implement provisions, like health insurance exchanges, that differ from requirements in the ACA. But there are many rules that govern the waiver process; ignoring those might not be so easy, analysts say.

What Might Stay: Romney has said that he expects insurers to keep coverage that allows adult children to stay on a parent’s health insurance policy until age 26, although it’s     unclear if he would support legislation or regulations to make that happen. He also has expressed support for states to set up health insurance exchanges and high-risk pools to cover the uninsured.

Avik Roy, a senior fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute and an outside adviser to the Romney campaign, says Romney wants most people to own their own health insurance rather than rely on their employers for coverage. "There are still other things you can do to expand [existing federal] protections to people who have credible coverage," he said. "And then for people who still have those gaps, do more with high-risk pools and do other things to make sure that the people who can’t get insurance today have the ability to get it through subsidized high-risk pools at the state level."

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