Trump admin can't use Congress to repeal Obamacare, so it's asking states to rewrite the health law

[applegrove]

Trump admin can’t use Congress to repeal Obamacare, so it’s asking states to rewrite the health law

https://thinkprogress.org/trump-admin-cant-use-congress-to-repeal-obamacare-so-its-asking-states-to-rewrite-the-health-law-89e5d3e6d9a1/

AMANDA MICHELLE GOMEZ at Think Progress

States can use waivers to redraft Obamacare rules but they can't, for example, create a Medicare for All program.

"SNIP......


Less than a month after the midterm elections ended the possibility of Obamacare repeal in Congress, the Trump administration has called on states to rewrite the health law in the image of failed GOP health bills.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued new guidance on Thursday encouraging states to implement changes to the marketplace that fundamentally undermine the goals of the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

States have always had the ability to modify the ACA, but they required federal permission to do so through what’s known as a “1332 waiver.” To get federal approval, states had to, among other things, abide by statutory guardrails. The new guidance issued on Thursday gives states far more latitude to make drastic changes to the ACA — including how they use tax credits from the federal government.

Thanks to the ACA, the federal government subsidizes private health plans for certain people — tax credits for those earning up to 400 percent of the federal poverty line — who don’t get insurance through work. But the federal government only subsidizes premiums for comprehensive health plans that play by the Obamacare rules and cover, for example, maternity care or addiction treatment.


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[wasupaloopa]

1. That will create more Democrats for 2020