The Trouble With Killing Obamacare's 'Essential Health Benefits'
Get ready for the “mommy tax.”
One of the most powerful arguments against House Republicans’ embattled legislation to repeal the Affordable Care Act has been that it imposes an “age tax” by raising health-insurance premiums and out-of-pocket expenses for older, working adults.
To woo recalcitrant conservatives whose resistance forced the House leadership to delay a vote on the legislation Thursday, Republicans are considering changes to the bill that could not only compound that problem, but also significantly raise the cost and diminish the availability of maternity coverage. That’s a shift critics are bound to portray as a tax on motherhood.
More broadly, many health-insurance experts say, the latest round of revisions—which are still under negotiation—would undermine Republican promises to protect consumers with preexisting health conditions and could leave comprehensive health insurance virtually unavailable at almost any price on the individual market.
The changes sought by the conservative House Freedom Caucus attempt to lower the price of insurance premiums by revoking the ACA’s requirement that insurers cover an array of 10 “essential health benefits”—spanning maternity care, mental health, and
