Obamacare is an unmitigated disaster. Increasing premiums, limited provider networks, lost health plans, failing co-ops… the list goes on and on. While we continue our work to repeal and replace this law—and we’ll put a reconciliation bill repealing Obamacare on the President’s desk in January—the House will use the upcoming appropriations bill and tax extenders bill to continue to dismantle, repeal, and rescind funding for several key Obamacare provisions. The House will:
- Stop the taxpayer bailout of insurance companies through the Obamacare risk corridor program
- Delay for two years the poorly designed Obamacare Cadillac tax—a 40 percent excise tax on “high cost” employer health plans
- Put a one year moratorium on the Health Insurance Tax that drives up health care premiums and acts as a tax on small businesses
- Delay for two years the tax on medical devices which destroys jobs, hampers investment and innovation, and threatens the development of and access to medical technology that seniors, American families, and our most vulnerable rely on
- Cut funding by $15 million for the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB), which will act as a de facto rationing body by cutting certain providers and effectively stopping access to care
- Block the Public Health and Prevention Fund from being used as an Obamacare slush fund
- Require the Inspectors General at the Department of Health and Human Services and the Treasury Department to issue a report on improper payments of Obamacare’s tax subsidies
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy said the following:
“Obamacare is fundamentally flawed. It has been and always will be a failure because it denies free market principles and traps the American people in a broken system. As the House prepares to send an Obamacare repeal to the President’s desk using reconciliation, we made sure to put an end to some of the worst and most widely ridiculed parts of Obamacare. The American people need freedom and choice in health care, not extreme government controls.”
The House is committed to increasing freedom and opportunity for the American people. Obamacare stands in the way of both. Dismantling Obamacare is one of the most effective actions we can take to improve the lives of the American people.