Friday, June 23, 2017

The long-awaited Senate Obamacare replacement plan

I spent some time today reading through the new Senate healthcare bill, lovingly called the "Better Care Reconciliation Act of 2017". Compared to the House bill (which I did not read), this seems to leave a good chunk of Obamacare alone. I think I have to agree with Rand Paul that this truly is "Obamacare lite". It tweaks some things, repeals most of the new taxes associated with the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, and adds a few new programs ostensibly designed to constrain Medicaid and other healthcare costs. But it doesn't really take any new direction, and it seems to do little in the way of reducing our nations huge healthcare costs.

These are the biggest changes I see in the bill compared with current law: