At issue is a new GOP plan that would allow states to get waivers to certain provisions of the Obama health law, like the essential health benefits that would have to be covered in any health insurance plan sold to consumers.
Here is the text in play:
As usual, it looks like bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo to most people; but when you look at the provisions where waivers would not be allowed - Section 1312(d)(3)(D) pops up on the radar screen - and when you look at the underlying Affordable Care Act - you find this provision:
"(D) MEMBERS OF CONGRESS IN THE EXCHANGE," is what it reads in federal law.
What does it mean?
"Members of Congress are not going to lose essential health benefits or be subject to health status underwriting," wrote Timothy Jost in his healthaffairs.org blog.
The text of the amendment comes from a deal worked out over the Easter recess by Rep. Tom MacArthur (R-NJ) and more conservative members of the House Freedom Caucus, all part of an ongoing push to reach a deal, and bring about a vote on health care in the U.S. House.
Critics of the Republican health effort immediately seized on the provision.
No vote has been set on health care as yet in the House.
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