House GOP unveils replacement plan, if ObamaCare goes down [tax credits and subsidies]

The Hill ^ | 03/03/2015 | Peter Sullivan

[GIdget2004]

Three House Republican chairmen on Monday night outlined a healthcare plan to replace ObamaCare, if the Supreme Court guts the president's signature healthcare initiative. The court is this week hearing arguments in a challenge to key ObamaCare subsidies.

The plan from Reps. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and John Kline (R-Minn.) joins a separate proposal from Senate Republicans unveiled on Sunday night. Republicans are looking to show that they will be ready if the Court invalidates subsidies that help people buy insurance in roughly three dozen states. If the Court rules against the law, the chairmen write in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, "Then what?"

"What about the people who will lose their subsidies—and possibly their coverage?" they add. "No family should pay for this administration’s overreach. That is why House Republicans have formed a working group to propose a way out for the affected states if the court rules against the administration."

The plan would roll back ObamaCare's mandates to buy insurance while also providing tax credits to help people afford coverage.

The proposal is framed as an "off-ramp" from ObamaCare because it allows states to opt-out of mandates. Gone would be the requirement for individuals to buy insurance and for employers to provide it.

ObamaCare includes protection for people with pre-existing medical conditions buying insurance, whether they already have coverage or not.

This plan guarantees that people who already have coverage are able to renew it. It also includes some elements of ObamaCare, such as letting people stay on their parents' plans until they are 26 and prohibiting lifetime limits on benefits.

The second main element of the plan would offer people in states losing ObamaCare's subsidies some tax credits to help them buy insurance.

[babble-on]

Well you’re the one who made the assertion, I merely pointed out that you fabricated it.

But we do know that 61% of subsidy recipients are non-hispanic whites and 61% live in the South, for starters. And if you look at the political leanings of white southerners, that’s who elects Republicans.

[babble-on]

Well you’re the one who made the assertion, I merely pointed out that you fabricated it.

But we do know that 61% of subsidy recipients are non-hispanic whites and 61% live in the South, for starters. And if you look at the political leanings of white southerners, that’s who elects Republicans.

[Mr Rogers]

“But we do know that 61% of subsidy recipients are non-hispanic whites and 61% live in the South, for starters.”

So 36% of subsidy recipients are poor, non-hispanic white southerners. Apart from the other 64% who are not, what makes you assume poor whites vote Republican? And many of the subsidized I’ve met are single moms. How many poor, white single moms vote GOP - even in the south?

[babble-on]

I have proved nothing, but you have proved less than nothing.

[Mr Rogers]

I’m not trying to PROVE anything. IMHO (and experience), people who are getting handouts tend to want more handouts. They vote democrat because democrats are the handout party. The GOP cannot compete by trying to out-demoncrat the demoncrats...