Committee approves part of Obamacare replacement in marathon hearing

Ways and Means Committee Republicans have passed a part of their Obamacare replacement allowing insurers to deduct more executive pay from their taxes, nine hours into a marathon hearing stretching into Wednesday night.

The Affordable Care Act says health insurance companies can deduct from their taxes only $500,000 of the pay of each top executive, even though the cap is typically $1 million for other corporations. The lower cap was intended to discourage insurers from paying their executives increasingly high salaries.