ASAP

Bill Would Repeal Affordable Care Act, Institute Health Insurance Market Reforms

September 26, 2011
2 minute read

The deluge of bills seeking to repeal the Affordable Care Act has ebbed but not subsided entirely. On September 21, Rep. Tom Price (R-GA) introduced the Empowering Patients First Act (H.R. 3000), the latest bill that would rescind the new health care law and enact additional measures designed to promote health insurance coverage. Many of the provisions of this legislation have been included in previously-introduced bills. Notable features of the proposed bill include the following:

In lieu of providing health coverage, an employer could opt to grant employees the same pre-tax benefit through a monetary contribution, which the employee could use to purchase employer-provided coverage or alternative coverage through the individual health insurance market.
Businesses with 50 or fewer employees would be entitled to receive one-time grants of up to $1,500 for offsetting administrative burdens related to instituting an auto-enrollment mechanism or a defined contribution system that would allow employees to enroll and pay for insurance.
States that establish high risk pools would be entitled to a tax credit.
The Public Health Service Act would be amended to allow individuals to pool together to provide for health benefits coverage through Individual Membership Associations (IMAs).
Small business owners would be able to “band together across state lines through their membership in a bona fide trade or professional association to purchase health coverage for their families and employees at a lower cost.”
Insurers would be permitted to sell and individuals would be permitted to buy insurance across state lines.
A section devoted to medical liability reform would significantly limit the availability of punitive damages awards in malpractice lawsuits.
Employer wellness and prevention programs would be encouraged by amending HIPAA wellness regulations “to increase permissible variation for programs of health promotion and disease prevention from 20% allowance to 50% of the cost of coverage, effective one year after date of enactment.”

A section-by-section summary of this bill can be found here. (pdf)