The Senate voted down an amendment Wednesday from Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, to block the District of Columbia from creating its own individual mandate.
The Senate voted 54 to 44 to table Cruz’s amendment to an appropriations bill that would prohibit any funding from going towards the District of Columbia’s individual mandate law. The House already passed a bill that strips the D.C. law.
The new Republican tax law zeroed out the financial penalty under Obamacare for not having insurance starting in 2019, but states and local governments are pursuing their own individual mandates due to concerns about premium hikes.
Cruz criticized the push by local and state governments to adopt their own individual mandate. He said that penalty disproportionately affected low-income people, even though there were exemptions for low-income Americans.
“I think it is unfortunate that Democratic politicians in D.C. and elsewhere are eager to fine people who are struggling simply because they can’t afford insurance,” Cruz told reporters on Wednesday.
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the top Democrat on the appropriations committee, said that the amendment was a “poison pill” for the appropriations bill that funds the Department of Transportation, Interior, and several other agencies.
Leahy added that localities are pursuing their own amendment to blunt premium hikes from repealing the federal penalty.
“You saw a direct premium increase as a result of that repeal,” said Leahy, whose home state Vermont passed its own mandate.
He also criticized Cruz’s decision to block a law passed by the District of Columbia’s government.
“Just like Vermont, D.C. should have the authority to make its own laws,” he said.
Congress can block any laws passed by the District of Columbia’s local government but it normally doesn’t.
“Under the Constitution it is Congress that has the responsibility for the District of Columbia,” Cruz told reporters.
Some states and local governments are adopting their own individual mandate because of concerns that without one premiums will rise on Obamacare’s insurance marketplaces.
Insurers and experts are worried that the loss of the mandate penalty will take away a key incentive for younger and healthier people to sign up for Obamacare plans. Such younger and healthier people are needed in order to help mitigate high claims from sicker people.
D.C. is the latest local government to adopt an individual mandate to replace the lack of a penalty in 2019.
New Jersey and Vermont both passed laws to create their own mandate. While New Jersey’s mandate goes into effect in 2019, Vermont’s mandate will be implemented in 2020.
Massachusetts created its own individual mandate in 2006 as part of a larger healthcare plan.
