Republicans dealt a blow to the Affordable Care Act as the Senate passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act in a 51-49 vote, Reuters reported.
The Senate-approved tax reform bill includes a provision to repeal the ACA's individual mandate, which requires all Americans who meet a certain criteria to obtain health insurance for themselves and their families or pay a tax penalty.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, or CBO, recently noted that the repeal would result in 13 million fewer Americans with healthcare insurance by 2027. It estimated that Americans in the individual, or nongroup, market would see their insurance premiums hiked by 10% in most years of the decade if lawmakers nixed the mandate. But the CBO also reported that repealing the mandate would reduce the federal deficit by about $338 billion by 2027.
An analysis by S&P Global Ratings, however, suggests that the impact could be less dramatic, with analysts estimating that voiding the ACA penalty would increase the number of uninsured by up to 5 million by 2027 and would save the federal government as much as $80 billion over the next 10 years.
A handful of Republican senators had expressed their reservations about the tax bill, particularly Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who was concerned over the ACA provision and said that the two legislative issues should be handled separately.
Senate Republican leaders won Collins' vote for the tax reform by promising to support legislation to boost the U.S. health insurance markets, Reuters noted. A bill co-authored by Sens. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., and Patty Murray, D-Wash., aims to restore ACA's cost-sharing reduction payments for two years, while another proposal from the Maine Republican and Democrat Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida. seeks to establish a two-year $4.5 billion reinsurance fund intended to offset the costs of covering high-risk individuals.
The tax bill adopted by the House in November did not include the ACA repeal measure, which makes the provision to be among those that must be reconciled with the Senate's version.
S&P Global Ratings and S&P Global Market Intelligence are owned by S&P Global Inc.
