GOP tries one more time to undo ACA with bill offering huge block grants to statesWashington Post, Sep 13, 2017, David Weigel and Amy Goldstein
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The Graham-Cassidy-Heller-Johnson bill, named for co-sponsors Graham, Bill Cassidy (R-La.), Dean Heller (R-Nev.), and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), would turn the billions of dollars spent on the ACA’s Medicaid expansion, tax credits and subsidies into grants managed by each state.
The bill represents a fundamentally different approach to overturning much of the sprawling 2010 health-care law than other measures Senate Republicans have attempted — and failed to achieve — this year.
It would leave in place most of the financial props that support the ACA, eliminating only a tax on medical devices. At the same time, it does not attempt to replace the current law’s policies with more conservative federal approaches, instead allowing each state to define its own rules for health plans that may be sold to residents and the help consumers should receive to afford that insurance.
“It’s a massive devolution of federal money and responsibility to states, on a scale I don’t think we’ve ever seen,” said Larry Levitt, senior vice president of the Kaiser Family Foundation. “Over time, it’s less federal money than is being spent now on health care, but it’s still a huge pot of money available to states with very few strings attached.”
While maintaining the ACA’s taxes, the proposal would repeal many of the law’s features disliked by Republicans, including the requirements that most Americans carry insurance and that large employers offer health coverage. It would allow states to waive most of the law’s insurance regulation but continue its ban on insurers refusing to cover people with preexisting medical conditions.
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