Uh Oh: O'Care Repeal Bill Counts The Same Pot Of Money Multiple Times

Talking Points Memo
Alice Ollstein · Thursday, July 13, 2017, 5:44 pm

GOP leaders unveiled the Senate’s revised health care bill on Thursday, and the updated legislation included a version of a controversial amendment drafted by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) that would allow insurers to offer cheap, bare-bones plans that cover few health care services as long as at least one plan per state complies with Obamacare’s regulations.

To address concerns that Cruz’s amendment would lower prices for the young and healthy by making them skyrocket for the people who need a comprehensive insurance plan or have a pre-existing condition, the amendment purports to allocate billions in additional funding that states could use “to assist such health insurance issuers in covering high risk individuals.”

But as Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) told reporters on Thursday, there is no additional money. Instead, the amendment takes money already appropriated in the bill for other needs and says it can be used for these payments to insurers under the Cruz Amendment.

“It seems to me you’re using that money over and over again,” she said. “It’s supposed to relieve the cost of high premiums. It’s supposed to solve the problem with deductibles being unaffordable. It’s supposed to be available for high-risk or reinsurance pool. It’s supposed to be available under the Cruz Amendment to help prevent a huge increase in rates for people with pre-existing conditions.”

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