Collins to co-sponsor ACA replacement plan

Courtesy / Office of Sen. Susan Collins U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, announces on the floor of the Senate Tuesday that she will introduce with U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., an Affordable Care Act replacement plan next Monday.

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By James McCarthy

U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, speaking from the Senate floor Tuesday afternoon, told her colleagues that she will introduce with U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., an Affordable Care Act replacement plan next Monday.

“The Patient Freedom Act of 2017” would increase choice and access to affordable health care, Collins said in a statement Tuesday.

Collins said in her Senate remarks, which are available in a video link provided by her office, that the goal of the proposed bill “is to make sure every American has access to affordable health care.”

“There has been much debate lately on the best approach to replacing and reforming the Affordable Care Act,” Collins said from the Senate floor. “Some of my colleagues have argued for immediate repeal without any replacement, an option that I reject for it risks leaving millions of vulnerable Americans without affordable health insurance and would undo important consumer protections provided by current law. Others have proposed repeal with the delayed effective date of two or three years to allow time for the Senate to devise legislation that would provide a better approach to health insurance. My concern with the repeal and delay plan is that the Obamacare exchanges, already on very shaky financial grounds, would go into a death spiral as consumers would face uncertainty and insurers would have no basis for pricing their policies.”

Details of the plan were not provided in the release posted on Collins’ website.

Modeled after 2015 'Patient Freedom Act'

On Cassidy’s website, a June 2015 posting details the “Patient Freedom Act,” legislation he introduced that had included Collins as a co-sponsor.

Among its provisions, as spelled out in that posting:

It would repeal “unpopular” Obamacare federal mandates, including the “individual mandate, employer mandate and federal essential health benefits mandate.”

States could choose to receive health care funding to go directly to patients “through either a per capita patient grant or a federal tax credit, depending on the state’s preference.”

Health Savings Accounts would be reformed “to allow patients to use their health care dollars for more options.”

Those with pre-existing conditions are protected.

Patients can move between health insurance plans without penalty each year.

Providers must publish a cash price for services reimbursed from HSAs, empowering patients to make informed decisions.

In her Senate remarks Tuesday, Collins indicated the 2015 proposal “is the basis for the legislation we are going to be introducing very soon and would allow states to have more choices. If they like the Affordable Care Act, they can keep the Affordable Care Act. If they want to go an alternative route that is more patient centered, that would provide more choices and help to restrain costs, they could do that too and the federal government would bundle the funding that would otherwise be used for the ACA subsidies and expansion of Medicaid in their state and allow them to proceed along a more creative route.”