Jeb Bush Offers Health Plan That Would Undo Affordable Care ActWASHINGTON — Jeb Bush on Tuesday offered a detailed proposal to replace much of the Affordable Care Act with a more conservative health care plan that could lower individual insurance costs but would probably not protect as many people as President Obama’s initiative.
“Innovations, not mandates, will bring down health care costs,” Mr. Bush said at St. Anselm College in New Hampshire. “If we’re going to fix health care in this country, we need to wrest control away from Washington and give it back to the states, citizens and their care providers.”
Mr. Bush would dismantle the elaborate structure of the health care law, offer income-tax credits for people to buy catastrophic coverage and offer states a sort of block grant to finance care for low-income people.
He would allow states to impose work requirements on able-bodied Medicaid beneficiaries, requirements that are opposed by the Obama administration but favored by some state officials.
Mr. Bush promised to work with states to develop a transition plan for 17 million people who are currently covered under the health law, or, as he put it, “entangled in Obamacare.”
The president’s health law was “written by special interests, for the special interests,” Mr. Bush said.
His proposals are consistent with priorities long favored by Republicans. He would give states more discretion over health care and more authority to regulate health insurance, rolling back many of the detailed federal standards set by the Affordable Care Act and in rules issued by the Obama administration.
Some of Mr. Bush’s proposals could upset some people with employer-provided coverage. For example, he would limit the amount of tax-free health benefits that employees can receive from employers, capping the value at $12,000 a year for an individual and $30,000 for a family. Under current law, the value of employer-sponsored insurance is not counted or taxed as income for employees...
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/14/us/politics/jeb-bush-offers-health-plan-that-would-undo-affordable-care-act.html?_r=0
