Republicans officially pulled the plug on their last-ditch effort to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act on Tuesday.
鈥淲e don鈥檛 have the votes,鈥 said Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) after a closed-door meeting of Senate Republicans. 鈥淎nd since we don鈥檛 have the votes, we鈥檝e made the decision to postpone the vote.鈥澛燙assidy, along with Sen. Lindsey Graham (S.C.) put together the proposal they hoped could pass the Senate.
As of Sunday, though, the Senate will no longer be able to pass a health law overhaul bill with only a simple majority. That means the bill is effectively dead, for now.
That message was underscored by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who said 鈥渨here we go from here is tax reform.鈥
But that does not mean all is smooth sailing for the ACA. Here are five ongoing challenges the law faces.
1. Insurers still face tremendous uncertainty.
Wednesday is the deadline for health insurers to finalize rates for the 2018 individual market open enrollment season, which starts Nov. 1. Yet there has been no resolution to the question of whether the federal government will continue to reimburse insurers for subsidies known as 鈥渃ost-sharing reductions.鈥 Those are payments insurers are required to provide to moderate-income enrollees to help them afford deductibles and out-of-pocket costs. The law says the federal government is supposed to make those payments, but a has left that an open question, and the has repeatedly threatened to stop making the payments.
Without reimbursement of those subsidies, Pennsylvania Health and Human Services Secretary Teresa Miller told the Senate Finance Committee Monday that insurers in her state 鈥渞eported they would need to request a statewide average increase of 20.3 percent鈥 in health plan premium costs. Those increases are similar nationwide.
A bipartisan effort led by Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) to advance legislation to affirmatively fund the payments was reportedly progressing until to concentrate on efforts to pass the Graham-Cassidy legislation.
But they now appear back at it again.
Murray said Tuesday she is 鈥渞eady to keep working on the bipartisan path that could lead to results.鈥
Alexander similarly released a statement that he would 鈥渃onsult鈥 with Murray and others 鈥渙n a limited bipartisan plan that could be enacted into law to help lower premiums and make insurance available to the 18 million Americans in the individual market in 2018 and 2019.鈥
2. The Trump administration has cut funding for efforts to sign people up for insurance.
Administration officials announced earlier this month to the 鈥渘avigator鈥 program, which provides funding to community groups that guide people through the complex task of signing up for health insurance through the online marketplaces. Some groups are losing more than 90 percent of their budgets.
The cuts have forced many groups to just before open enrollment begins and limit areas they serve.
3. The 2018 enrollment period is half the length of 2017鈥檚, and now it will be shorter still.
Trump officials are also slashing by 90 percent the advertising budget that reminds people about open enrollment and how to sign up 鈥 from $100 million to $10 million.
Those cuts are even more significant this year because, for the first time since the law鈥檚 implementation, open enrollment for healthcare.gov starts in November, rather than December, and lasts only 45 days.
鈥淢ost people don鈥檛 know the open enrollment dates, and they don鈥檛 know that the deadline this year is Dec. 15, not Jan. 31, like last year,鈥 wrote Lori Lodes, who ran outreach for the ACA in the Obama administration, in .
Trump administration officials said they don鈥檛 think advertising is cost-effective, but Lodes wrote that 鈥渕y office produced reams of data that proved the overall effectiveness of outreach advertising.鈥
Additionally, HHS announced late last week that it will healthcare.gov for maintenance from 12 a.m. to 12 p.m. every Sunday during open enrollment except for Dec. 10 鈥 a step critics say could further undermine enrollment efforts.
4. The Trump administration is dragging its feet on giving states flexibility to stabilize their markets.
Back in March, Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services chief Seema Verma, who oversees the ACA, sent encouraging them to use the law鈥檚 waiver process to improve the functioning of their individual insurance markets. In particular, they suggested states could create 鈥渞einsurance鈥 programs that would help lower premiums by providing a payment mechanism for the most expensive patients.
But when Minnesota , the administration delayed its response. When it finally did grant permission last week, HHS also informed the state that it will lose significant funding for a program that provides insurance to the state鈥檚 low-income residents.
Gov. Mark Dayton, a former Democratic senator, said in a that 鈥渨e have now been informed that Minnesota would lose more federal Basic Health Plan funding than we would receive in federal support for reinsurance,鈥 and described the entire waiver process as 鈥渘ightmarish.鈥
5. Republicans could take another shot at a full overhaul next year 鈥 or even this year.
While the acknowledgment that the GOP lacks the votes to overhaul the health law means an immediate vote will not happen, the Republicans have potentially two more shots to try to pass a bill with a simple majority vote.
What triggers the ability to pass a bill in the Senate without threat of filibuster is a . Republicans have still not passed a budget resolution for fiscal 2018, which begins Oct. 1. The upcoming resolution is expected to call for a major tax cut bill. Some Republicans, notably Graham himself, have suggested adding health language to that resolution, which would be allowed. But it would complicate efforts for both bills.
More likely is that Republicans could try again for a health overhaul via its fiscal 2019 budget resolution, which is due next April. That would leave them only a few months before the 2018 elections. Still, it鈥檚 possible, particularly if they can use the time to reach consensus.
That is clearly what sponsors of the latest GOP bill have in mind.
鈥淲e鈥檙e on a path to pass鈥 his bill, Graham told reporters. 鈥淚t鈥檚 just a matter of when. It will be in this Congress, under a better process.鈥