Congressional committees tasked with creating legislation to gut Obamacare are planning their next steps.
A budget resolution that started the repeal process gave four Senate and House panels until Friday to put together legislation that can gut Obamacare via reconciliation, which allows bills to be passed via a 51-vote majority. However, the Jan. 27 deadline is not binding, and some Republican senators have said that date is the earliest legislation could be ready.
The committees — House Energy and Commerce, House Ways and Means, Senate Finance and Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions — are planning the next steps for making that goal, with hearings and meetings their first move. The panels will have to handle doubts by some GOP senators about repealing the law without an immediate replacement and ease insurer fears worried that such an approach could create uncertainty in the Obamacare marketplaces.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee is scheduled to meet Tuesday to hold an organizational meeting that will fill out subcommittees and adopt rules.
“After that, our focus will immediately shift to repealing Obamacare and rebuilding the healthcare markets that are collapsing as a result of this law,” a House GOP aide said.
Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill., a committee member, recently told the Washington Examiner that the committees don’t have a lot of leeway in drafting the legislation.
That is because reconciliation must apply only to budget and spending levels, hence the need to pass the nonbinding budget resolution first.
When Congress used reconciliation to gut Obamacare in 2015, the legislation affected only the law’s taxes and mandates. Shimkus doubted that any replacement provisions would be included in the new reconciliation package.
“I think you have to be very careful because reconciliation is only budgetary numbers,” he said.
One expert noted that Congress could do two reconciliation bills: one that would gut the law’s mandates for getting insurance and a second focusing on the law’s taxes on insurers, payrolls and device makers.
“It is complicated and it is not as easy as saying that we are going to repeal this law and we are going to replace it,” said Katie Allen, executive director of the Council for Affordable Health Coverage, a nonprofit funded by insurers and device makers.
Meanwhile, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee has scheduled a hearing in a few weeks on the instability in Obamacare’s exchanges and possible solutions, according to a representative for committee Chairman Lamar Alexander.
Alexander has been wary of Republican leadership’s plan to repeal Obamacare without an immediate replacement, instead opting to keep Obamacare intact for a few years while a replacement is created.
The Tennessee Republican recently told reporters that there should be some action via Congress or the Trump administration by March 1 to send a signal of stability to insurers in the individual market.
The market is used by people who don’t get insurance through their job and includes Obamacare’s marketplaces. Several major insurers in the marketplaces have been fleeing due to a sicker-than-expected enrollment population.
Alexander has expressed doubt about repealing the law without an immediate replacement. He has previously said on the Senate floor he wants to create a rescue plan for the marketplaces.
Alexander told reporters Wednesday that there should be some action either by Congress or the Trump administration by March 1 to send a signal of stability, but declined to note what exactly that could be.
March 1 is when insurers start debating the types of plans they mean to offer on Obamacare’s exchanges.
The proposed rates for such plans are due in the summer and final plans and rates must be locked in by September.
“A rescue plan for Obamacare’s exchanges is clearly the first order of business,” Alexander said after the confirmation hearing Wednesday for Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., to be Health and Human Services secretary.
The House Ways and Means Committee also will hold a hearing Tuesday on the effectiveness of the law’s individual mandate for people to have health insurance.
The Senate Finance Committee doesn’t have any hearings booked on Obamacare for next week but will hold a confirmation hearing for Price on Tuesday.
