Senate Takes First Steps to Repealing Health Care Law
Senate Republicans took their first major step toward repealing the Affordable Care Act on Thursday, voting to instruct key committees to draft legislation repealing President Barack Obama’s signature health insurance program.
With a vote of 51 to 48 the Senate is setting the stage for a special type of of legislation called a reconciliation bill. Such a bill can be used to repeal significant parts of the health law and, critically, is immune from being filibustered. The house is slated to vote on the measure on Friday.
“The Obamacare bridge is collapsing, and we’re sending in a rescue team,” Senator Michael B. Enzi, Republican of Wyoming and the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee told the New York Times. “Then we’ll build new bridges to better health care, and finally, when these new bridges are finished, we’ll close the old bridge.”
This is all happening before Republicans or President-elect Donald Trump have a clear vision of what they want to replace the health care plan with, which is causing some Republicans misgivings about setting the repeal effort into motion. On Tuesday, Trump promised his incoming administration would soon reveal a plan to both repeal so-called Obamacare and replace it with legislation to “get health care taken care of in this country.”
“We’re going to do repeal and replace, very complicated stuff,” Trump told reporters, adding that both elements would pass virtually at the same time. That promise, however, will be almost impossible to achieve in the complicated web of Congress, where GOP leaders must navigate complex Senate rules, united Democratic opposition and substantive policy disagreements among Republicans.
Some 20 million previously uninsured Americans gained health coverage through the Affordable Care Act, as Obamacare is officially called. Coverage was extended by expanding Medicaid and through online exchanges where consumers can receive income-based subsidies, and prevented insurers from denying coverage for pre-existing conditions.
Republicans have launched repeated legal and legislative efforts to unravel the law, criticizing it as government overreach. They say they want to replace it by giving states, not the federal government, more control. They also set up special budget rules that will allow the repeal vote to take place with a simple majority in the 100-member Senate, instead of the 60 votes required to move most legislation.
That means Republicans, who control 52 seats, can push through repeal legislation without Democratic cooperation. They’re also discussing whether there are some elements of a replacement bill that could get through at the same time with a simple majority. But for many elements of a new health care law, Republicans are likely to need 60 votes and Democratic support, and at this point the two parties aren’t even talking.
Queer people need to be paying close attention, as major parts of our community rely on the Affordable Care Act to keep us healthy and insured. For example, if someone living with HIV tries to get insured without the protections surrounding pre-existing conditions they could be denied coverage and be forced to dish out extreme amounts of money just to keep the virus under control.
In addition, insurance companies can’t deny transgender people free preventive services, regardless of their sex assigned at birth, gender identity or recorded gender under the Affordable Care Act.
The ACA makes sure that affordable health insurance is available in every state to individuals and families who cannot afford expensive care. In general, fewer families with parents who are LGBT have health insurance than families in the general population because many employers do not offer coverage for same-sex partners or their children. It can be very costly for parents who are LGBT to insure their entire families.
