The GOP’s plan to pass the American Health Care Act (AHCA) through the Senate budget reconciliation process may be hung up on abortion restrictions included in the House’s health care bill.
GOP senators don’t want tax credits spent on plans that cover abortion, but the AHCA prohibition against tax credits for plans that offer abortion may violate Senate budgetary rules.
While the Senate parliamentarian’s decision is pending, senators were told Tuesday in their working group meeting that prospects for a favorable decision didn’t look good, according to Axios.
Republicans “basically told McConnell to argue better” in persuading the parliamentarian that the anti-abortion restrictions should stay, a senior GOP aide told Axios.
While GOP Senators wait on the parliamentarian’s decision they are busy working out alternative solutions if the decision doesn’t go their way.
“I think they’re still having this conversation with the parliamentarian, but I think everybody — and I think wisely so – is sort of gaming out how we deal with all these various issues,” Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 3 Republican leader in the Senate, told Axios.
If the parliamentarian rules against them, the GOP will revert to their back up plan, which involves working within the current Obamacare subsidy structure, exactly how they would make Obamacare subsidies less costly remains unclear.
The main distinction between Obamacare subsidies and the proposed tax cuts in the AHCA is that subsidies are based on income level, location and the cost of a benchmark exchange premium, while the House bill’s tax credits are doled out based on age and phase out for higher-income people.
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