Last week, ATR endorsed the House GOP alternative to H.R. 3926, the Pelosi healthcare bill. Below are the major provisions of this alternative:
219 pages (compared to 1990 pages for House Democrat bill, H.R. 3926)
Uses the word “shall” 362 times (as opposed to 3,424 times in the House Democrat bill)
Major Provisions
- HSA improvements, including:
- Saver’s credit can be used for HSA contributions
- HSA funds can be used to pay for insurance
- Greater coordination between HSA administrators and insurance companies
- HSA funds can be used for medical expenses incurred after insurance is bought but before HSA is opened
- Let individuals purchase health insurance across state lines (a.k.a. “Shadegg bill”)
- Association health plans (AHPs) to allow businesses and other groups to pool together across state lines to purchase coverage
- Medical malpractice tort reform
- Improve state high risk pools to give hard-to-insure people a place to buy affordable insurance
- Give cash rewards to states who find ways to lower health insurance premium cost growth
- Allow auto-enrollment for health plans at work
- Allows companies to incentivize wellness programs
- Ends federally-controlled comparative effectiveness research
- Beefs up fraud enforcement in Medicare and Medicaid
- Abortion funding restriction and conscience clause protection
- Gives increased patent benefits to follow-on biologics