In an attempt to push the Republican Party to speed up efforts on an alternative to Obamacare, Sen. Rand Paul presented his own replacement bill for the healthcare law Wednesday, The Hill reported.
"There is no excuse for waiting to craft an alternative until after we repeal Obamacare, and the Obamacare Replacement Act charts a new path forward that will insure the most people possible at the lowest price," Paul said in a statement.
Paul has been at the forefront of urging his GOP colleagues to have a plan ready to replace Obamacare at the same time it is repealed, an idea which he said has been gaining support within the party. He said otherwise there would be confusion in the individual insurance market, The Washington Times reported.
The central idea of Paul's plan is a tax credit of up to $5,000 per person, which is larger than what Republicans have offered in other proposals, to save for care and prescription drugs, as well as the ability to shop for care across state lines.
Another feature of Paul's proposal is it would get rid of many main components of Obamacare, such as the mandate everyone has coverage. It would also rescind the minimum standards for which health services an insurance plan must cover, which he says would create less comprehensive plans which are also cheaper.
Paul's plan would provide a two-year window for those with preexisting conditions to sign up for care, then go back to pre-Obamacare rules in which people with preexisting conditions could still get coverage in the group market, Business Insider reported.
His bill would also include a universal tax deduction for health insurance and eliminate the exclusion of employer-sponsored health plans from taxation.
Paul's proposal follows the release of another plan earlier this week by two other Republican senators, Bill Cassidy and Susan Collins, The Hill reported. Their proposal was more centrist, because it maintains the Affordable Care Act taxes and lets states have the choice of keeping the existing healthcare law.
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