Three leading House Republicans are proposing what they call an “off-ramp” from Obamacare if the Supreme Court strikes a major part of the law.
In an op-ed published Monday in the Wall Street Journal, Reps. Fred Upton of Michigan, Paul Ryan of Wisconsin and John Kline of Minnesota propose providing people with slightly different tax credits to buy health coverage if their existing tax credits are blocked by the court. These credits would be adjusted based on the age of the patients.
“No family should pay for this administration’s overreach,” they write.
They’d also do away with some requirements in the Affordable Care Act while keeping others. They would trash the law’s requirements for insurers to cover certain benefits along with the law’s individual and employer mandates.
But the lawmakers say they’d also keep other parts of the law, like its provisions allowingparents to keep children on their plan until age 26 and banning insurers from discriminating based on pre-existing conditions. They also call for a series of healthcare reforms Republicans have long pushed forlike allowing people to buy plans across state lines and enacting medical malpractice reform.
“So here’s the bottom line: Under ObamaCare, government controls your choices. Under our proposal, you will,” the op-ed says.
Oral arguments in the highly-watched King v. Burwell case are scheduled for Wednesday. If the court sides with the challengers, federal insurance subsidies to the majority of states using healthcare.gov would be blocked. Those subsidies are provided to low and middle-income Americans to help them buy coverage.
