As part of recent spending deals, Congress decided to repeal or delay several Affordable Care Act (ACA) measures aimed at helping pay for the health reform law and controlling healthcare spending, including some taxes and a Medicare cost-cutting board.
The cost checks were opposed by health providers and unions—“groups that would have faced the sharp end of those measures,” said health policy expert John McDonough of Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in a February 19, 2018 Politico article. McDonough, professor of the practice of public health at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, helped draft the ACA.
Congress nixed plans for the Independent Payment Advisory Board, which would have had authority to cut payments to providers to control Medicare spending, and delayed implementation until 2022 of a “Cadillac tax” on high-cost health care plans.
Read the Politico article: Spending deals signal end of unpopular Obamacare cost checks