Yesterday evening, the House Ways and Means and Energy and Commerce Committees released the text of legislation they are introducing to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. Taken together, these two pieces of legislation are called the American Health Care Act and, if enacted, will repeal many of the Affordable Care Act provisions and will replace them with reforms laid out by President Trump. In general, our practice has not been to blog about bills before they become law and not to expend too much energy on what may become law. But since the Affordable Care Act is a huge part of my practice (and because the text of this legislation was released literally while I was writing out my notes for a presentation this morning on Transitioning to the New Administration from an HR and benefits perspective), I had no choice but to dig right into this legislation.
While I felt compelled to blog about the existence of this new information, I don’t want to outline the details for you because I don’t want to cause confusion yet. Because while this gives us a great idea of what the legislation may look like, it also could significantly change before becoming law. The Ways and Means Committee is scheduled to meet at 10:30 on March 8th to begin marking up the legislation. However, if you are like me and can’t wait to see what is being proposed, both committees issued section-by-section summaries of their legislation. For a summary of the House Ways and Means Committee provisions, please click here.
For a summary of the House Energy and Commerce provisions, please click here. These summaries are the best way to determine what is actually in the legislation as the summaries put out by the mainstream media often summarize to the point of inaccuracy. More to come . . .
