“Yesterday I noted that in the wake of the passage and signing of HR 1319 (the American Rescue Plan, or ARP), which includes a dramatic (if time-limited) upgrade & expansion of ACA individual market subsidies, Senate Democrats are hard at work pushing for several other important bills to make President Biden’s larger healthcare policy vision a reality on a permanent basis.
The three bills I discussed in Part 1 are:
- Mark Warner’s Health Care Improvement Act of 2021 (S.352)
- Michael Bennet & Sen. Tim Kaine’s re-introduced “Medicare X” Act (S.386)
- Jeanne Shaheen’s Improving Health Care Affordability Act (S.499)”
“Of the three, the one which seems most likely to actually have a shot at passing both the House and Senate and being signed into law by President Biden during the 2021 – 2022 legislative session is Sen. Shaheen’s S.499, which would:
- Permanently codify the 8.5% maximum cap on ACA benchmark Silver plan premiums;
- Permanently codify the beefed-up subsidy formula below the 8.5% threshold;
- Upgrade the ACA individual market benchmark plan from Silver to Gold;
- Expand the ACA’s CSR subsidy structure from the current 250% FPL threshold to 400% FPL;
- Upgrade the CSR formula so that all enrollees earning less than 400% FPL would qualify for a Platinum or Gold Plus plan; and…
- Pay for a large chunk of the above by formally appropriating CSR reimbursement funds…” Read the full post here.
Source: ACA 2.0 *is* Happening, Part 2, March 19, 2021. Daily KOS.
