We're still waiting on details. There's been no mention of pre-existing condition coverage yet, but most assume it will scrap those protections, like the House bill. As folks get to analyze the bill and the CBO releases its score (which is required if the bill is to pass via reconciliation), we'll find out more.
Here's an initial summary, with full text of the bill: LINK
Here's an initial summary, with full text of the bill: LINK
After weeks of secret negotiations, the US Senate has released an anticipated draft of a bill that could upend the healthcare system for millions of Americans.
The Senate’s 142-page proposal unveiled Thursday would eliminate or reduce key benefits provided by the Affordable Care Act, strip funding from the women’s reproductive health provider Planned Parenthood and dramatically cut and restructure Medicaid, America’s public health insurance program for low-income and disabled Americans.
The legislation mirrors the House bill that narrowly passed last month, but with modest changes intended to win support from moderate Senators. Meanwhile, Republican leaders emphasize the legislation is subject to change as they negotiate details of the proposal in an effort to win 50 votes, the minimum required to pass.
Experts believe the bill could leave millions of Americans without health insurance, and could have a stark impact on vulnerable populations such as recovering drug addicts, aging middle-class baby boomers and women and children.
That impact is likely to prompt questions about how senators can sell voters on a bill that left the House with a 17% public approval rating, and the expectation that 23 million Americans will lose health insurance.
Senators want to give the middle-class tax credits to buy insurance, but the tax credits would still be worth less than those currently provided by the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare. People would also need to earn less money to quality for them.
The bill would also slash Medicaid, a program that pays for half of all births in the United States and provides health insurance to one in five Americans. If passed, changes in the Senate bill would be some of the most significant health reforms for low-income Americans in more than 50 years.
The bill would change Medicaid from a program that matches states’ contributions, no matter the spending, to one with a capped budget called “per capita” spending. The House bill would have cut more than $800bn from the program. Those levels of cuts were expected to result in 14 million people being pushed from the program. As states look for ways to save money, they could be pushed to cap levels of spending on individual recipients, impacting costly beneficiaries like the elderly and disabled.
Some especially vulnerable populations could also see major changes to their healthcare. An estimated 220,000 recovering drug addicts depend on Medicaid for drug treatment, an analysis by the left-leaning Center for Budget and Policy Priorities found. That could worsen America’s ongoing opioid overdose crisis, which killed more than 50,000 Americans in 2016.
The bill would also prohibit Planned Parenthood from participating in Medicaid for one year, forcing hundreds of thousands of women to find a new source of reproductive health care.
Each year, about 1.6 million patients, mostly women, receive sexually transmitted infection tests, contraception and cancer screenings at Planned Parenthood through federal programs like Medicaid. Planned Parenthood, in return, receives roughly half a billion dollars annually in federal Medicaid reimbursements.