Senate GOP Adds Measure Repealing Obamacare Mandate

Republican lawmakers are giving another go at dismantling Obamacare — this time through the Senate’s version of tax reform.

Senate GOP leaders revealed their latest tax legislation, and it includes a measure that repeals the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate, one of the least popular provisions of the healthcare law passed under President Obama.

If passed and signed by President Trump, Americans would no longer be forced to carry health insurance and would not be issued a fine for failing to do so.

Republicans in the upper chamber, despite witnessing several failed attempts at healthcare reform, appeared optimistic as they revealed the measure gutting the individual mandate.

On Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell expressed confidence in the bill’s success. The Kentucky Republican compared it with the failed Obamacare effort earlier this year.

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“Every meeting I had on health care was like a trip to get a root canal,” McConnell stated at The Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council. “Nobody wanted to be there.”

While seemingly unrelated to the overall tax bill, repealing the individual mandate would have a major effect on government revenue.

Discontinuing the mandate would essentially free up federal tax revenue because fewer Americans would be purchasing insurance, thus fewer Americans applying for Medicaid or for federal health-care subsidies.

The money saved could offset lost revenue from the proposed tax cuts.

According to an Axios report, doing away with the mandate would save the government about $340 billion over ten years, and the GOP needs that cash to offset the expected drop in revenue from $1.5 trillion in tax cuts.

The search for cuts to spending is crucial in garnering enough votes for the tax bill, as many Republican lawmakers announced they would not vote for legislation that adds to the deficit.

Republicans in the Senate plan to direct the money saved from repealing the individual healthcare mandate and direct it to tax cuts for middle-income households, increasing the proposed child tax credit to $2,000 per child and lowering rates in three tax brackets.

Adding the healthcare measure, however, adds to the uncertainty of its passage.

Already battling Democrats and moderate Republicans on controversial provisions that do away with state and local tax deductions — something popular in high-tax states — the GOP will increase scrutiny of the tax bill by throwing healthcare in the mix.

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A Congressional Budget Office report found that 13 million more people would be uninsured by 2027 if the individual mandate is removed. Younger and healthier people — the likeliest people to leave the Obamacare program if given the option — would make it more burdensome to cover the older and sicker who remain in the market.

Democrats have criticized the proposal, citing estimates that it would raise premiums and leave more Americans uninsured.

Nevertheless, Senate Republicans are pushing through with their tax agenda. The Senate Finance Committee plans to finalize the bill this week, gearing up for a vote by the Senate chamber after Thanksgiving.

Republicans and conservatives are hailing the move, as well as GOP candidates who are running for office in next year’s midterms.

A spokesman for West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, a Republican looking to oust Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin, confirmed his support for the measure, pointing The Western Journal to past tweets and statements made by Morrisey.

Manchin, like many other Democrats up for election in the same states Trump won, may be forced to take a position against the individual mandate, given its unpopularity with most Americans.

Numerous Republican candidates facing an election have also pushed for the removal of the mandate, which has been deemed as one of the most controversial parts of Obamacare.

Despite being regarded as the more partisan chamber of Congress, the House’s tax bill does not include a proposal to do away with the Obamacare mandate.

On Tuesday, House Speaker Paul Ryan indicated that the House would take a wait-and-see approach on whether the Senate can pass a tax bill that repeals the Obamacare mandate.

“We didn’t want to complicate tax reform and make it harder than it otherwise would be,” the Republican speaker said during a Fox News town-hall meeting Tuesday evening.

If the House and Senate pass different versions of tax reform, which may likely happen, then the two chambers would negotiate details in a conference.

Jason Hopkins is The Western Journal’s Washington, D.C., correspondent.

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