Bob Atlas, a Strategic Advisor and President of EBG Advisors, Inc., in the firm’s Washington, DC, office, and Timothy J. Murphy, an Associate in the Health Care and Life Sciences practice, in the firm’s Washington, DC, office, authored an article in Bloomberg Law, titled “Senate GOP Health-Care Bill Aims to Repeal and Replace the ACA. Does It Do That?”
Following is an excerpt (see below to download the full article in PDF format):
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on June 22 released a “discussion draft” of the Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA), the Senate GOP’s substitute for H.R. 1628, the American Health Care Act (AHCA) that narrowly passed in the House of Representatives on May 4. The BCRA largely follows the contours of the AHCA but, on close inspection, it diverges from the House bill on a number of key provisions.
As has been widely reported in the general media, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) on June 26 released its score of the Senate bill. The CBO reported that 22 million fewer people would have health insurance in 2026 than under current law, close to the estimate of 24 million fewer insured under the House-passed bill. The CBO also projected the federal deficit would be lowered by a cumulative $321 billion over the ten-year scoring window, largely due to cuts both in Medicaid coverage and in subsidies granted to people buying plans on the individual market.
Here are some highlights of the Senate bill, some key differences from the House bill, and analysis of its effects.