A House panel will meet Thursday to vote on a key amendment to an Obamacare repeal bill, even though lawmakers are already on their way home.
The House Rules Committee will meet Thursday afternoon on an amendment to the American Health Care Act, which would partially repeal and replace Obamacare, to create high-risk pools and risk sharing. High-risk insurance pools are used for sicker people who receive subsidized coverage from the state. They generally are for people who insurers won’t cover.
The amendment would provide an additional $15 billion to states to fund the high-risk pools, which help cover people with pre-existing conditions.
In addition, any leftover funds from a $115 billion stability fund given out to states could be used for the pools.
The amendment also creates a risk-sharing program that forces insurers to share the burden to cover premiums for sicker people.
The amendment is expected to help entice Republican centrists, as conservatives want to make mandates for insurers to cover people with pre-existing conditions optional.
The full House adjourned Thursday for its two-week Easter recess without a vote on the American Health Care Act. The Republican leadership’s bill was pulled from the floor last month because of insufficient support, with both conservatives and centrists opposing it.
Now the White House is driving a new compromise that could let states opt out of the Obamacare regulations, although officials have not decided which regulations.
The Freedom Caucus wants states to be able to opt out of the requirement for insurers to cover essential health benefits, a price control called community rating and the mandate to cover people with pre-existing conditions.
While the mandate for pre-existing condition coverage is popular among some rank-and-file Republicans, the Freedom Caucus believes that high-risk pools can ensure they are covered.
Before Obamacare, more than 30 states used high-risk pools.
However, Obamacare made the need for the pools obsolete because the law forced insurers to cover people with pre-existing conditions. The law also included a price control called community rating, which requires insurers to charge everyone in an age group the same rate.
That ensured that insurers didn’t charge sicker people exorbitant prices.
