With an early morning tweet on Friday, President-elect Donald Trump declared “The ‘Unaffordable Care Act’ will soon be history!”
His enthusiasm followed a Senate vote on Thursday to pass a budget bill gutting key provisions that tie together Obamacare, and puts the GOP on a path to move forward with a complete repeal once the inauguration takes place and Trump is in office.
House Republicans must first pass their own version of the Senate bill, and a complex special process is probably going to be used in order to make it filibuster proof. As a result, the country’s $3 trillion healthcare system will have a new look and feel, possibly as early as this year.
Where we are at in the repeal process
Through a budget resolution recently passed, House committees are under pressure to come up with language in repeal legislation by Jan. 27.
After Health and Human Services secretary Tom Price is confirmed, Trump has promised that there will be a plan in place that makes it to his desk for reviewal.
“We’re going to be submitting—as soon as our secretary’s approved, almost simultaneously, shortly thereafter, a plan. It’ll be repeal and replace. It will be essentially simultaneously,” he said at his press conference on Wednesday.
Several popular components of the law, including a mandate that insurers cannot deny coverage for preexisting conditions, will remain part of the GOP’s plan. “Everyone wants to say the Republicans don’t have a plan,” Rep. Buddy Carter recently said.
“The problem is we have too many plans, and we’ve got to coalesce around one, and we’re going to.”
When the new will bill go into effect
Once a new bill is signed into law, which Trump has repeatedly signaled will be done within his first 100 days, the provisions will take some time to actually kick in.
Changes to Medicaid and Medicare would affect constituents who take part in those programs almost immediately, although just how much the GOP intends to make provisions to those programs or other tax deductions remains up in the air.
The folks most affected by the new plan would be those who purchase their own insurance, either through the private market or state healthcare exchanges. Almost immediately, their insurance providers would be forced to reconcile their programs with the new law.
But for individuals and families who have insurance through an employer, the changes would be more gradual. Jobs-based plans cover 150 million Americans, and facets of Obamacare that guarantee coverage to dependents, put a cap on out-of-pocket expenses, and cap costs on preventive care could be undone by 2017.
However, several lawmakers are calling for a compromise that would keep some (or all) of these provisions in tact.