Last evening, the Republican leadership in the House proposed a number of changes to the committee-passed healthcare legislation. The changes have been offered as proposed amendments (see here) and will still need to be formally adopted to become part of the official legislative package.
The proposed changes were offered to garner enough support from among the House Republicans still unsupportive of the bill to ensure its passage. President Trump met with the entire House Republicans earlier today to urge that they support the bill.
Among the proposed changes are:
• Allowing states to place work requirements on Medicaid recipients
• Allowing states to turn Medicaid into a block grant
• Repealing a number of taxes created by Obamacare a year earlier than currently planned
• Changing Medicaid reimbursement rates for states
• Delaying the “Cadillac tax” on insurance benefits from 2025 to 2026
• Instructing the Senate to offer bigger tax credits for those who are 50 to 64 to offset premium increases
It remains to be seen whether these changes will win over enough of the members who are still either undecided or opposed to the measure to gain passage.