White House officials offer change to health care bill

Republicans entertained a fresh White House offer to revise the party’s failed health care bill Tuesday as the GOP tried to resuscitate the measure that crashed spectacularly less than two weeks ago.

The Times reports that for people who can’t afford traditional insurance, Republicans may re-introduce state subsidized “high-risk pools” that were common before the passage of the Affordable Care Act. But without community rating, health plans would be free to charge those patients as much as they wanted.

The goal of the meeting was to hash out differences between Republican factions over a healthcare proposal as the White House aims for a quick vote on the legislation before Congress leaves Washington for a two-week recess scheduled to begin on Friday. They still want to repeal the Essential Health Benefits, requirements that insurers have to cover services like maternity care, mental health care and hospitalization, in their plans.

Though the Freedom Caucus officially said no formal draft proposal has been presented to its members, Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., the chairman of the Freedom Caucus, sounded optimistic. This is, of course, one of the biggest “ifs” of the debate right now – and one of the big unknowns in the process is whether an acceptable middle ground for both sides even exists.

“Guaranteeing people with pre-existing conditions access to insurance with no rules about how much they can be charged means there is effectively no guarantee at all”, Larry Levitt, Senior Vice President of the Kaiser Family Foundation, told NBC News. Now there are talks about keeping them in place but allowing states to appeal to the Department of Health and Human Services to waive them on a state-by-state basis. The community rating provision was vital in helping people with pre-existing conditions to obtain affordable coverage after the ACA passed. An insurer is not allowed to charge you more just because you are sick. The party was split between those who thought AHCA did too much to turn back Obamacare, and those who thought it did not do almost enough. Implementing them in time for next year could also pose a significant challenge for both states and insurers, which must file their plans for 2018 by June 21. More moderate Republicans blasted Trumpcare for phasing out Obamacare’s expanded Medicaid programs, which provided11 million low-income Americans with health care.

A major question is whether states would choose to significantly water down essential health benefits and community rating.

“I’m not going to raise expectations, but I think that there are more and more people coming to the table with more and more ideas about how to grow that vote”, Spicer said.

Repealing Obamacare has been a top priority for Republicans since the law’s inception.

The first Republican effort to repeal and replace Obamacare never made it to a vote because House conservatives said it didn’t fully repeal Obamacare and it didn’t lower premiums.

“No deal in the works, no agreement on anything”, Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.), a Freedom Caucus member, told reporters. He argued states should not have to apply for waivers to make changes to regulation.

After speaking to the Council of Independent Business Owners in Asheville Friday, Meadows said the plan the Freedom Caucus blocked would not have lowered insurance premiums and said he and Trump are not that far apart on an Obamacare replacement. That’s why its resurrection, and the concomitant horse-trading, should be read first as an effort to reroute right-wing outrage, which is now directed at the House Republicans, toward the Senate. That’s really what people understand, and why I think they’re kind of skeptical about what the proposals are right now in Washington.

Womack, who was a “yes” on the GOP’s American Health Care Act, said despite encouraging talk from some corners of the House, a revival was not in sight.