ACA replacement plan expected to be detailed this week

Reuters reports Republican lawmakers in Congress plan on introducing the full text of its plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA) this week.

A legislative aide, speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity, said there have been a series of phone calls finalizing the plan involving Speaker Paul Ryan, HHS Secretary Tom Price, White House budget chief Mick Mulvaney, President Donald Trump’s domestic policy advisor Andrew Bremberg and others.

“We are in a very good place right now, and while drafting continues, we anticipate the release of final bill text early this week," said the aide, who added the bill is a “Republican consensus plan.”

While no full bill has been released—even after Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, and Democratic lawmakers went on a “search” for the legislation throughout the Capitol—there have been clues about what will be in it. On the “Opportunity Lives” podcast, Ryan said the plan would resemble the “Empowering Patients First Act” sponsored by Price when he was in Congress.

That bill included age-based tax credits for buying insurance, rather than the ACA’s income-based credits, the elimination of the individual and employer mandates and the Medicaid expansion, as well as lesser-known provisions, like banning HHS from using research based on comparative effectiveness or patient-centered outcomes.

Other Republicans, however, have said their own caucus is still divided on many details. Former House Speaker John Boehner said at HIMSS 2017 in Orlando said the divisions are so deep that he predicted the repeal-and-replace plan is “not what’s going to happen.”

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who has proposed her own ACA alternative, said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” on March 5 that on healthcare reform, “there is no consensus” among Republicans.

“This is very difficult to achieve the president’s goals and the goals that many of us have of wanting to expand access to coverage and have a damper on the prices,” she said.