Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
GOP To Take Up Bills Relaxing Rules Insurers Say Have Created Unbalanced Marketplace
House Republicans have filed four separate bills intended to stabilize the individual insurance market while they pursue their strategy of repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act. The bills, to be discussed at an Energy and Commerce Committee hearing Thursday, address issues that insurers say have increased their costs and unbalanced the risk pool, thus driving up premiums and making the individual market a less viable business for them. But consumer advocates caution that these measures could make coverage and care less accessible and affordable for lower-income, older, and sicker people. (Meyer, 1/30)
As part of their plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, the Trump administration and congressional Republicans say they will take rapid steps to stabilize the individual health insurance market and roll back onerous ACA rules though executive branch actions. But legal experts say they'll be constrained in revising or eliminating these regulations by the formal rulemaking process, which can take months. Now conservative legal activists are pushing Republicans to make unprecedented use of a 1996 law they claim would allow the Congress to swiftly ax ACA-related and other rules issued over the entire length of the Obama administration. Experts say it's very possible congressional GOP leaders may try this, but that this approach is legally untested and would be politically explosive. (Meyer, 1/30)
A leader of the Republican effort to revamp President Barack Obama's health care law says the message from GOP lawmakers at last week's private strategy session was for "a very deliberate, thoughtful approach." ... Texas GOP Rep. Kevin Brady chairs the House Ways and Means Committee. He says lawmakers told leaders: "Let's not rush. Let's get it right." (1/30)
In other news, the聽American Action Network launches an ad campaign to get constituents to continue to press their lawmakers over repeal and a Koch-funded group pushes its vision for health care聽鈥
A political group that backs House Republican leaders is using a $1.3 million television ad campaign to press two dozen representatives to back GOP efforts to scuttle President Barack Obama's health care overhaul. And most of the lawmakers they're aiming at are Republicans. The 30-second spots are by the American Action Network. They come as Republicans struggle to unite behind a plan to replace Obama's law, nicknamed "Obamacare." (Fram, 1/31)
The commercials, from American Action Network, will target eight House Democrats, all of whom reside in districts that Trump won in November. 鈥淩ising premiums and deductibles. Washington intruding between doctors and patients. Expensive mandates that destroy jobs. Rick Nolan supports Obamacare, and Minnesota families are paying the price,鈥 says the commercial targeting Nolan, a Democratic congressman from Minnesota鈥檚 Iron Range. 鈥淲e deserve better.鈥 (Isenstadt, 1/31)
A conservative group funded by the Koch brothers is pushing for high-risk pools and a freeze on Medicaid expansions as lawmakers try to coalesce around a replacement for ObamaCare. Freedom Partners began circulating a聽memo聽on Capitol Hill Monday with specific reforms it thinks lawmakers should pass, including: the creation of high-risk pools at the state level to cover people with pre-existing conditions; the elimination of the ObamaCare mandate, which required everyone buy insurance or pay a penalty; and the expansion of access to health savings accounts, so people can save and pay for healthcare with pre-tax dollars. (Hellmann, 1/30)
