Health Policy in Transit

Health Policy in Transit offers “common sense” recommendations from employers like us to U.S. lawmakers considering changes to the Affordable Care Act.

The Health Policy in Transit recommendations were created by the National Alliance of Health Care Purchasing Coalitions, which developed the document to represent members that include The Alliance.

The recommendations include:

1. Don’t repeal the ACA without specifying what will replace it
2. Preserve tax deductibility of employer-sponsored health benefits
3. Avoid increasing the number of uninsured individuals
4. Continue the good progress to transform the health care payment system from one that pays based on the volume of services to one that rewards better value care
5. Continue to support the efforts by states and regions to make health care information more transparent and available to consumers
6. Continue to support investments in comparative effectiveness research – the basis for determining which treatment and therapies are high value and which are not.
7. Preserve and expand flexibility for employers to innovate through benefit plan design
8. Maintain ERISA pre-emption

These recommendations will seem familiar to our members, since they reflect our health policy platform and many of our long-range strategies and goals.

Republicans are likely to use the reconciliation process to advance some of the changes to the Affordable Care Act. Reconciliation allows for expedited consideration of certain tax, spending, and debt limit legislation.

According to experts at America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), we’re likely to see repeals of:

• Individual and employer mandates
• Cadillac tax
• Cap on FSA funds along with a loosening of rules for their use.

Things can move through the reconciliation process, so it’s important for legislators to hear from their constituents. For reference, the National Alliance released an outline of the GOP plan, you can view it here.

We will be keeping an eye on the proceedings through our partnerships with the National Alliance and the American Benefits Council and will keep you posted.