- House G.O.P. Leaders Outline Plan to Replace Obama Health Care Act New York Times by Robert Pear and Thomas Kaplan—House Republican leaders on Thursday presented their rank-and-file members with the outlines of their plan to replace the Affordable Care Act, leaning heavily on tax credits to finance individual insurance purchases and sharply reducing federal payments to the 31 states that have expanded Medicaid eligibility.
- Conservatives Balking at GOP Leadership's Obamacare Plans Politico by Rachael Bade—Hardliners are set to demand that leadership move now to repeal the law, even if that means a replacement has to wait. House conservatives—anxious that the GOP’s effort to end Obamacare is getting bogged down in the fight over what a replacement should look like—are plotting a major push to repeal the law immediately without simultaneously approving an alternative. The House Freedom Caucus and a number of Republican Study Committee members this week will urge Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and his lieutenants to forego their plan to add replacement provisions to a repeal bill, dubbed “repeal-plus.”
- Why High-Risk Pools Won't Crack the Preexisting Condition Dilemma Modern Healthcare by Harris Meyer—Some Republican leaders are promoting state high-risk pools as an alternative to the Affordable Care Act's popular provision requiring health plans to accept consumers regardless of preexisting medical conditions. They cite Wisconsin's pre-ACA pool, the Health Insurance Risk-Sharing Plan, as a model. But a Wisconsin insurance official recently cautioned a House panel that high-risk pools need a stable funding source and are not a solution for every state. Other experts say state high-risk pools generally were a policy failure across the country, and making them work properly would require a large amount of taxpayer funding.
- IRS Won’t Withhold Tax Refunds If Americans Ignore ACA Insurance Requirement Washington Post by Amy Goldstein—The Trump administration is taking its first steps to put its imprint on the Affordable Care Act, reversing plans to withhold tax refunds this year from Americans who flout an insurance requirement in the law while proposing a series of rule changes to encourage insurers to remain in ACA marketplaces. The Internal Revenue Service has revoked an Obama-era instruction to taxpayers that was taking effect during the current filing season as a way to further compliance with the ACA’s requirement that most Americans carry health insurance or pay a tax penalty.