Top Ten Reasons Senate Health Bill is Fake Repeal
A PDF version of this document can be found at the Texas Public Policy Foundation website.
- Retains Obamacare Insurance Subsides. The bill modifies, but does not repeal, Obamacare’s system of insurance subsidies—an expansion of the welfare state, administered through the tax code.
- Retains Obamacare Medicaid Expansion. The bill as written would never repeal Obamacare’s massive expansion of Medicaid to able-bodied adults, while it would not fully eliminate the enhanced match states currently receive to cover those adults until 2024—nearly seven years from now.
- Expands Obamacare Insurance Subsidies. Rather than repealing all of the law “root and branch,” as Sen. McConnell claimed was his goal, the bill instead expands Obamacare’s subsidy regime—eliminating the law’s so-called “family glitch” and expanding eligibility for subsidies. Some conservatives may question the need to “fix” Obamacare, when the legislation should repeal Obamacare.
- Retains ALL Obamacare Regulations. While modifying some and allowing states to waive others, the bill does not repeal any of Obamacare’s onerous insurance regulations—the prime drivers of the premium spikes that have seen rates more than double since Obamacare went into effect.
- Retains Obamacare’s Undermining of State Sovereignty. Because the bill keeps in place the federal mandates associated with Obamacare, states must ask permission to opt-out of just some parts of Obamacare, which remains the default standard. This turning of federalism on its head will allow Democratic Governors—and/or a future Democratic Administration—to reinstitute Obamacare mandates quickly and easily.
- Appropriates Obamacare Cost-Sharing Reductions. Unlike Obamacare itself, the bill actually spends federal tax dollars on cost-sharing reductions authorized, but not appropriated, under the law. While conservatives might support a temporary appropriation to ensure a stable transition as Obamacare is fully repealed, the bill does the former—but certainly not the latter.
- Extends and Expands Obamacare’s Corporate Welfare Bailouts. The bill includes not one, but two, separate “stability funds” designed to make slush fund payments to insurance companies. Between now and 2021, the bill would spend at least $65 billion on such payments—over and above the cost-sharing reduction subsidies listed above.
- Includes Obamacare’s Work Disincentives. The Congressional Budget Office previously estimated that the subsidy “cliffs” included in Obamacare would discourage work—because individuals could lose thousands of dollars in subsidies by gaining one additional dollar of income—and that the law would reduce the labor supply by the equivalent of over two million jobs. The Senate bill retains those subsidy “cliffs.”
- Continues Obamacare Pattern of Giving Too Much Authority to Federal Bureaucrats. The bill gives near-blanket authority to the Administration on several fronts—from creating the “stability funds” to giving Medicaid incentives to states—that would allow federal bureaucrats to abuse this excessive grant of power.
- Obamacare Architect Admits It’s Not Repeal. Speaking on CNN Thursday, famed Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber said that “this is no longer an Obamacare repeal bill—that’s good.” He continued: “If you look at what’s criticized [about] Obamacare, it was subsidies, it was regulations…this law wouldn’t really change those…It really [doesn’t] change very much.” Those admissions come from an individual who received hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Obama Administration to consult on Obamacare.