Budget Deal Kills One Business-Hated Piece Of Obamacare, Slashes Funding For Another
Apr 10, 2011 3 Comments ›› Pat Dollard
The budget deal reached Friday would affect two initiatives contained in last year’s health-care law that were bitterly opposed by businesses, killing one outright and slashing funding for the other.
The agreement would eliminate a provision of the health-care law enabling low-income workers to opt out of employer-offered health insurance and shop for more affordable coverage on insurance exchanges to be created in 2014, according to congressional aides and business groups.
Under the provision, employers would have had to help pay for the insurance purchased on the exchange. Ending the program would save the government $4 billion over 10 years, but it wouldn’t result in any immediate spending cuts because it isn’t set to begin for three years.
Oregon Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden sponsored the provision, calling it “Free Choice.” A spokesman for Mr. Wyden, Jennifer Hoelzer, said Saturday that “both parties claim to support choice and competition in health care, but their closed-door decision to kill off Free Choice makes it pretty clear that their real goal is to keep health care in the hands of special interests.”
Spokespeople for the Business Roundtable and the National Association of Manufacturers, organizations that opposed the measure, couldn’t be reached for comment. A spokeswoman for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which also opposed the measure, declined to comment.
The budget bill will also cut $2.2 billion in funding from a program that would encourage the development of health-care cooperatives—not-for-profit entities that would compete with private, for-profit health-insurance companies.
The cut represents half of the budget for the cooperatives in the current fiscal year, but the program’s funding levels would revert back to $4.4 billion in fiscal year 2012 unless there is further congressional action to limit it.
The cooperatives measure was sponsored by North Dakota Democratic Sen. Kent Conrad amid opposition by Republicans and some Democrats to a proposal for a government-run insurance plan known as a “public option” that would have provided insurance coverage to low-income people or others unable to find coverage in the private market.
A spokesman for Sen. Conrad couldn’t be reached for comment.
A senior Republican congressional aide said the health-law changes were put forward by Democrats in the budget negotiations, though Republicans have been seeking opportunities to chip away at the law.
A spokeswoman for the White House didn’t respond to a request for comment.
The health-law changes would mark only the second time Congress has tinkered with the law since its enactment just over a year ago.
Details are continuing to emerge concerning the nearly $39 billion in spending cuts contained in the budget deal reached shortly before midnight Friday to fund the government for the remaining six months of the fiscal year.
Congressional aides said legislation incorporating the agreement was being written over the weekend. Congress is expected to vote on the bill next week. In the meantime, the federal government is operating under a stopgap-spending measure Congress approved early Saturday morning, which President Barack Obama signed into law later in the day.
Had lawmakers not been able to reach the budget agreement, most nonessential services provided by the federal government would have been forced to shut down beginning Saturday until a spending deal could be worked out.
