Today the House passed a bill that overhauls many provisions of the Affordable Care Act. The text of the American Health Care Act was first released in early March. The Act repeals most of the Affordable Care Act taxes. There has been much debate over it during the past several months. While some thought the bill may be dead, an amendment to the bill proposed by Rep. Tom MacArthur last week and another amendment proposed by Rep. Fred Upton and Rep. Billy Long this week revived the discussions and led to a House vote this afternoon. The bill passed on a vote of 217-213 with no Democrats voting for the bill.
The next step is for the bill to head to the Senate, where the Republicans could pass the bill without any Democratic support. However, the road to its passage likely won’t be that easy. Most commentators and even Republican Congressional leaders have acknowledged that the Senate may need to make substantial changes to it to get it through the Senate. We will be closely following this bill as it works its way through the Senate and will keep our readers apprised of changes as they happen.
While we do expect substantial changes to be made to the bill, the House has issued a summary of the provisions for those interested in seeing the details of the bill as it stands today.
