Article by: Sound Accounting & Technology LLC.
Trump pick Republican Congressman from Georgia Tom Price to lead Health and Human Services. Price’s plan, Empowering Patients First Act is a plan proposing repeal of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA aka Obamacare). Empowering Patients First, as written in a Bill draft, further calls for laws amended or repealed by PPACA to be restored or revived as if PPACA had not been enacted.
Empowering Patients First would also repeal health care-related provisions of the Health Care And Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 (HCERA).
The Empowering Patients proposal includes tax incentives for maintaining “continuous coverage” in the form of tax credits. A refundable tax credit for contributions to Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) is among the list.
Under Price’s Empowering Patients plan, coverage must be provided no matter how sick a covered person gets. The insurance company can’t drop someone for becoming sick while covered. But excluding patients with pre-existing conditions may happen if a sick person changes or loses their job and can’t afford to buy an individual plan before becoming eligible for the next employer’s plan. Empowering Patients would specifically not make mandatory the guaranteed issue or community rating of healthcare coverage. In other words, the plan has the potential effect of forcing sick people out of employer healthcare plans, with no guarantee of coverage elsewhere.
