Photo: Alamy
Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Tuesday that Republicans have united around an alternative to Democrats’ plan to extend expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies, signaling a showdown ahead of a vote expected on Thursday.
“The Democrats’ health care proposal has everything for big insurance companies and nothing protecting taxpayers from the waste, fraud, and abuse of this program,” Thune stated. “Republicans have put forward serious proposals that would lower the cost of health care.”
The focus is on a three-year extension of the subsidies, which Democrats proposed last week as part of the agreement that ended the longest government shutdown in U.S. history. The tax credits expire at the end of the year. Both the Democratic plan and the GOP alternative are expected to fall short of the votes needed for passage.
“This program desperately needs to be reformed,” Thune said. “The Democrats have decided we’re not going to do anything to reform it. And so we’ll see where the votes are on Thursday. But we will have an alternative that we will put up that reflects the views of the Republicans here in the United States Senate about how to make health insurance more affordable in this country, how to ensure that it’s not the insurance companies that are getting enriched, that it’s actually benefiting the patient.”
The Republican plan, led by Sens. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Mike Crapo of Idaho, would allow the ACA subsidies to expire as scheduled and redirect the funding to health savings accounts. The proposal would send money directly to individuals through HSAs rather than to insurance companies.
The bill also includes provisions to tighten Medicaid eligibility. It would reduce federal Medicaid funding to states that provide coverage for illegal migrants and require states to verify citizenship or lawful immigration status before granting benefits. It further bans federal Medicaid funding for gender transition services.
Another provision would prohibit taxpayer dollars from covering abortion through the HSA structure. The Senate is slated to consider both proposals on Thursday, though neither party expects its measure to advance.