Secret Obamacare bill gets leaked, and it looks like the wealthy would get less financial aid under new GOP plan

Republican efforts to repeal and replace Obamacare are being hampered by divisions within the GOP caucus over financial aid to customers.

Source: Secret Obamacare bill gets leaked, and it looks like the wealthy would get less financial aid under new GOP plan

Bill Clark | CQ Roll Call | Getty Images

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., stands with his copier on a cart as he speaks to reporters after trying to gain access to the room housing the House Republicans’ secret health care plan in the Capitol on Thursday, March 2, 2017. Sen. Paul hoped to make copies of the House Republicans’ health care plan.

A “new” Republican congressional plan to replace Obamacare, which was being kept secret from the public and even GOP senators, reportedly is considering barring wealthier people from receiving tax credits to help pay for their health insurance plans.

But the new GOP outline still contains many of the same details of a previous replacement proposal, including a provision that has drawn the ire of very conservative members of the Republican House caucus, Politico reported Friday.

That provision would offer tax credits to people based on their age, as opposed to their income, as the Affordable Care Act currently offers people who purchase plans on government-run Obamacare marketplaces. Conservatives have complained that the tax credits would make a replacement merely “Obamacare Lite,” and decry the credits as a new entitlement.

However, the new version would not allow higher-income people to get those credits, Politico reported.

The new version the site reported still plans to phase out the expansion of Medicaid benefits to nearly all poor adults and replace that Obamacare provision with block grants from the federal government to states’ Medicaid programs.

And the new plan would both eliminate Obamacare taxes, providing wealthy people with a tax break, and generate revenue “by capping the tax exemption” for insurance plans offered through a job “at the 90th percentile of current premiums.”

The fact that the new version looks so much like a recent GOP version, which was also leaked to Politico, last week, raises the question of why Republican leaders went to such lengths to hide the proposal in a basement room in the Capitol, where it could only be viewed by select congressmen and not copied to be viewed elsewhere.

READ MORE HERE – http://www.cnbc.com/2017/03/03/secret-obamacare-bill-gets-leaked-and-it-looks-like-the-wealthy-would-get-less-financial-aid-under-new-gop-plan.html