As the U.S. Senate considers potentially sweeping changes to health care reform, it’s uncertain what sort of legislation will eventually be passed and when it will happen, according to health policy expert John McDonough of Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
McDonough, professor of the practice of public health, outlined the prospects for health care reform in the Senate in a May 31, 2017 Perspective in the New England Journal of Medicine.
In considering the American Health Care Act (AHCA)—health reform legislation passed in early May by the U.S. House of Representatives—the Senate will have to navigate “a perilous set of policies,” McDonough wrote. The proposal would largely undo some of the signature changes enacted under President Barack Obama’s health reform legislation—the Affordable Care Act (ACA)—such as Medicaid expansion, subsidies for private health insurance, ACA-related tax increases, and rules requiring insurers to cover people with pre-existing conditions. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the AHCA could result in 14 million Americans losing health insurance by 2018 and 23 million by 2026.
Senate Republicans could potentially pass the AHCA without any Democratic votes, but they disagree among themselves on certain aspects of the legislation, such as funding for abortion and Planned Parenthood. McDonough cautioned that, as the Senate debate progresses, “citizens and medical professionals should pay close attention to this urgent matter affecting American society.”
Read the New England Journal of Medicine article: Prospects for Health Care Reform in the U.S. Senate