Modern Healthcare quoted Manatt’s Joel Ario, a managing director with Manatt Health, for an article about the possibility of modifying the Affordable Care Act rather than repealing and replacing it.
In a repeal-and-replace scenario, one of the biggest clashes between the parties looms over the size of the subsidies that would replace the ACA’s tax credits and cost-sharing reductions, the adequacy and affordability of the replacement coverage, and the percentage of the population that would gain or lose insurance. Republicans want to replace the ACA’s income-based tax credits with smaller tax subsidies for far more people, without regard to income. They also envision leaner benefit plans with higher deductibles and out-of-pocket costs.
“It’s a smaller pot available to a larger number of people,” said Ario. “It’s thinning the soup. That’s a difficult issue to get through.”
Read the article here.