Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and House Republicans last week unveiled the Lower Health Care Premiums for All Americans Act, the House GOP model to lower healthcare costs.
Johnson said in a statement last week:
Nearly 15 years ago, the Democrats’ Unaffordable Care Act broke the American health care system. Since its inception, premium costs have skyrocketed, networks have shrunk, and the system has become bloated, inefficient, and riddled with waste, fraud, and abuse. While Democrats demand that taxpayers write bigger checks to insurance companies to hide the cost of their failed law, House Republicans are tackling the real drivers of health care costs to provide affordable care, increase access and choice, and restore integrity to our nation’s health care system for all Americans.
Earlier this year, Democrats had a chance to help make life more affordable by supporting the Working Families Tax Cuts legislation. Instead, they voted to raise taxes, protect waste and fraud, and continue providing free health care to illegal immigrants. Democrats’ ‘affordability’ charade has gone on long enough. Republicans are offering clear, responsible alternatives that will lower premium costs and increase access and health care options for all Americans. The Lower Health Care Premiums for All Americans Act will actually deliver affordable health care — and we look forward to advancing it through the House.
The House Republican bill would:
- Increase transparency for pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs)
- Appropriate cost-sharing reduction payments (CSRs) that would lower premiums
- Expand access to Health Association Plans (AHPs) that would allow self-employed workers and other membership-based organizations such as Costco, Amazon, or Sam’s Club to create their own health insurance pools
- Ensure small- and mid-sized employers can protect themselves from catastrophic claims
- Codify first Trump term-era rules that would allow employers to offer defined contributions to employees to purchase their own health insurance
Ryan Long, the director of congressional relations and a senior research director for the Paragon Health Institute, found that these provisions would substantially lower Americans’ premiums:
Appropriating CSRs more efficiently targets taxpayer assistance, restoring the original ACA structure by directly funding insurers and unwinding destructive silver loading. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that a CSR appropriation would cause silver plan premiums to drop by 12 percent, resulting in average annual premium savings of roughly $900 for a 40-year-old single adult… Lower benchmark premiums would also reduce federal premium subsidies, saving taxpayers more than $30 billion on net over ten years.
The House-passed Big Beautiful Bill appropriated CSRs; however, this was removed from the bill after Senate Democrats objected, meaning that including the provision in the bill would require 60 votes and not a simple majority in the Senate. Long argued that lower benchmark premiums thanks to the CSRs would reduce federal premium subsidies and thus save taxpayers roughly $30 billion over ten years.
Long explained that Association Health Plans would also offer much lower premiums compared to Obamacare:
Savings from these new AHPs were as high as 23 percent to 29 percent (depending on commercially insured versus self-funded plans). As The Washington Post noted at the time, a review of over two dozen of these health plans indicated they were “offering generous benefits and premiums lower than can be found in the Obamacare marketplaces.” The rule allowed groups like the Southern Arizona Chamber of Commerce to offer affordable coverage to small businesses in seven southern Arizona counties. Despite this promising start, 11 states successfully sued to block the rule, and these coverage options were forced out of the market.
He concluded, “The Lower Health Care Premiums for All Americans Act contains a strong initial set of policies that expand choice, particularly for small employers, enhance competition and transparency, and reduce ACA silver plan premiums by 12 percent while lowering federal spending by roughly $30 billion.”
Breitbart News
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