Rep. Dave Brat, R-Va., has introduced a bill in the House that, if passed, will allow individuals to decide how they want their health care funds to be spent, without the influence of the government or health insurance providers.

Brat said that the health savings account legislation is a way for lawmakers to prove to the American people that they have a plan to replace Obamacare after repealing it.

“First and foremost, we are putting through one of the biggest public policy initiatives of the decade with an Obamacare repeal,” Brat told The Daily Signal in a phone interview. “And so that has become very important to people, what you are going to replace it with. People want assurances that they are going to be better off.”

Labeled the Health Savings Account Expansion Act, or H.R. 247, “this bill equalizes the tax treatment for health insurance and care between different ways of paying for it,” according to a statement from Brat.

Mia Heck, the director of the health and human services task force at the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, told The Daily Signal that health savings accounts help individuals plan for their future.

“A health savings account (HSA) is a pre-tax medical savings account available for taxpayers who are enrolled in a high-deductible health plan,” Heck said in a statement provided to The Daily Signal. “The high-deductible health plan serves as catastrophic coverage, while encouraging individuals and families to save money to use toward future medical expenses. Funds deposited into an HSA are not subject to federal income tax.”

According to Brat, health insurance accounts enable consumers to shop around for plans that best suit their needs.

“Instead of having to get coverage approved from the government, an employer, or an insurance company, people will be able to use their [health savings account] funds directly for the products and services that they value,” Brat said.

Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., has reintroduced a companion bill in the Senate.

Flake said that the Health Savings Account Expansion Act puts individuals in charge of their health care decisions without penalty from the government or their insurance provider.

“[Health savings accounts] give consumers greater control over their health care dollars by providing them with a tax-advantaged savings option for their medical expenses,” Flake said in a speech Wednesday on the Senate floor. “This means that the dollars they work so hard to save can grow over time, tax-free, and be withdrawn, tax-free, for qualified medical expenses.

The Health Savings Account Expansion Act includes several reforms, according to Brat’s website.

First, it enlarges contribution limits to $9,000 to $18,000 per year for people who file single or jointly.

Second, it removes restrictions imposed by Obamacare for items that are purchased over the counter.

Third, it permits users to allocate health savings account funds to pay their health insurance premiums and other health care costs, such as doctor visits.

Fourth, it simplifies regulations “by eliminating the high-deductible health plan mandate.”

This legislation, according to Brat, is a free-market solution to the health care crisis.

“People are going to be very rational when it comes to allocating your own dollars that the doctor or whatever service you are going for,” Brat told The Daily Signal.

Brat sees his proposed legislation as a way to plan for the future and address the problems Obamacare has created.

“The reason Obamacare policy is so important is because it is right in the middle of Social Security and the Medicare crisis,” Brat said. “Both of those programs are insolvent in 12 years. And the kids won’t get any of those programs if we don’t do something about this.”

The campaign of President-elect Donald Trump has also spoken favorably of health savings accounts.

His presidential campaign website stated that they would be of “great benefit” to individuals. (For more from the author of “New Legislation Could Open up Health Care Options After an Obamacare Repeal” please click HERE)

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President-elect Donald Trump may be following President Barack Obama’s lead come Jan. 20, using executive orders to roll back parts of the outgoing president’s signature health care law.

During a meeting with Republicans on Capitol Hill Wednesday, Vice President-elect Mike Pence said the president-elect plans to kick off his administration by signing executive orders to begin dismantling Obamacare.

“We’re working now on a series of executive orders that will enable that orderly transition to take place even as Congress appropriately debates alternatives to and replacements for Obamacare,” Pence told reporters after the meeting.

Pence did not elaborate on which parts of the law the president-elect would dismantle using his executive authority, and Trump’s transition team did not return The Daily Signal’s request for comment.

But health care experts believe there are several steps the president-elect can take on his first day in the White House that would deliver a blow to the health care law even before Congress acts legislatively.

“This is the problem with expansion of executive branch powers is that it cuts both ways,” Seth Chandler, a visiting scholar at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center and a professor at the University of Houston Law Center, told The Daily Signal. “I think a lot of liberals gave Obama a pass when he did it, and they’re now potentially going to have to face the consequences of permitting the executive to greatly expand its powers.”

Individual Mandate

Experts believe Trump could first decide not to enforce the individual mandate, which requires people to have health insurance and fines those who do not.

The provision was designed to balance out the population of consumers who enrolled in coverage under Obamacare and ensure healthier enrollees offset the higher costs associated with a sicker enrollment population.

But if the president-elect decided not to enforce the individual mandate, it “could make a real difference to the vitality of the exchanges going forward,” Nicholas Bagley, a professor at the University of Michigan Law School, told Kaiser Health News.

The president-elect also could announce his intention to seek hardship exemptions for all enrollees, effectively exempting everyone from the individual mandate, Chandler said.

“Obama expanded the hardship exemption for all sorts of reasons,” he said. “He has paved the way to a larger set of exemptions.”

The individual mandate is also likely to be the target of congressional Republicans in a reconciliation bill repealing parts of Obamacare.

Cost-Sharing Reductions

The president-elect can move to end the cost-sharing reductions or drop an appeal the Obama administration filed in response to the House’s lawsuit on the cost-sharing reductions in 2014.

Cost-sharing reductions are discounts offered to eligible consumers who purchase silver-level plans. The federal government then reimburses insurers for the reductions.

Last year, a federal judge ruled in favor of House Republicans, but the Obama administration filed an appeal to a higher court.

Dropping the appeal would allow U.S. District Court Judge Rosemary Collyer’s ruling to stand, and the payments to insurers would end.

If the payments ended, insurers would still be offering discounts to customers, but would no longer receive subsidies from the federal government to help with the cost.

As a result, insurance companies would likely begin to leave Obamacare’s exchanges, Chandler said.

“[Rep.] Tom Price voted to authorize a lawsuit to stop those payments because Congress never authorized them,” Chandler said of Trump’s pick for Health and Human Services secretary. “It becomes a little difficult for having said the payments are illegal to continue to keep taking them.”

Reinsurance Payments

In addition to the cost-sharing reductions, insurance companies received money from another program, the reinsurance program, under the Affordable Care Act.

Under the program, payments are made to insurers who enroll higher-risk populations.

But $5 billion was supposed to be returned to the Treasury before it was distributed to insurers. The Obama administration, however, has prioritized at least $3.5 billion to insurers over the Treasury.

Now, Republicans in Congress are pushing the Department of Health and Human Services to return the money paid to insurers under the reinsurance program to the Treasury.

Chandler said Trump could issue an executive order instructing the government to repay the Treasury.

Basic Health Program

Under the Affordable Care Act, states had the option to create a Basic Health Program, which was designed to offer public health insurance to low-income residents who did not qualify for Medicaid but were below 200 percent of the federal poverty line—$48,600 for a family of four in 2016.

Just two states implemented Basic Health Programs: New York and Minnesota.

Like the cost-sharing reductions, Trump could decide to no longer allocate money the states receive for Basic Health Programs, which would “throw the market in those two states in disarray,” Chandler said. (For more from the author of “The Obamacare Executive Orders Trump Could Issue on Day One” please click HERE)

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In less than three weeks’ time, when Donald Trump becomes our next president, he will take an oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.

It is fitting, then, that Trump has committed to repealing and replacing one of his predecessor’s most infamous unconstitutional policies, the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare. But he won’t be able to do it alone. Repealing Obamacare requires Congress to write legislation for the president to sign into law.

Congress can and should do this in January, before Inauguration Day. There is no excuse not to.

A lot has happened in the last eight years, since Nancy Pelosi first claimed “we have to pass the bill to find out what’s in it.” Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber reveled in the “stupidity of the American voter” and “lack of transparency” that helped pass the bill, and President Barack Obama told PolitiFact’s Lie of the Year in 2013: “If you like your health care plan, you can keep it.”

The so-called Affordable Care Act was a mandate when Congress needed to shove it through, and it was a tax when the Supreme Court decided to look the other way.

Many thousands of Americans have lost their insurance plans or their doctors, or seen their premiums hiked up to unbelievable levels. Seventeen of the original 23 Obamacare insurance co-ops have collapsed. The massive centralization of health insurance has hurt patients and providers alike. And, of course, there has always been the rotten, unconstitutional core of Obamacare: the federal government forcing citizens to buy a product.

That’s why conservatives have been fighting against Obamacare for years. That’s why, since they swept the elections in 2010, Congress has voted over 60 times to repeal all or part of it.

They just need to do it one more time.

To avoid a predictable Senate filibuster from the left, Congress can employ the “reconciliation process”—a parliamentary procedure used to help the House and Senate pass budget bills. Obamacare repeal can be easily included in this legislation. We know, because Congress did just that to get a repeal of Obamacare on the president’s desk in 2015.

Then, Obama used a veto to protect his signature law. But in a few short weeks, Congress will be sending bills to a different president entirely.

Of course, this doesn’t mean we won’t see foot-dragging from some in Congress. When I was in the Senate, they would use every excuse to avoid fighting for conservative priorities. “Wait until we get the House.” Done. “Wait until we get the Senate.” Done. “Wait until we get the White House.” Done and done. There are simply no alternatives left but to repeal Obamacare and win the fight (a shocking prospect for some!)

Fortunately, Republicans can’t afford to throw conservatives under the bus on Obamacare repeal. Republicans have consistently campaigned on repealing Obamacare and won. It’s a promise that must be kept.

Many Americans care deeply about getting the government out of their health care decisions and finances. Being forced to live under Obamacare has motivated millions of hardworking people across our country to get involved in politics—abandoning them now would cause an electoral backlash to rival the one which put Trump in the White House.

Obama signed his namesake legislation seven years ago, and soon his successor will sign a bill to repeal it. But just as Congress made the original mistake of passing Obamacare, it must start working—now—to have that bill on Trump’s desk on Inauguration Day.

Once repeal legislation establishes a certain date when Obamacare will expire, Congress can begin a step-by-step approach to make health insurance more affordable and available for every American.

No excuses. (For more from the author of “Obamacare Repeal Must Be on Day One: Congress Has No Excuses” please click HERE)

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In the midst of open enrollment for Obamacare, there is plenty of bad news for health law supporters, from skyrocketing premium rates to diminished insurer participation. Public opinion remains steadily opposed to the law.

While some tracking polls try to highlight satisfaction with individual components of the law, Obamacare as a whole has largely been unpopular.

After a fluid first few months in 2009 as the plan got underway in Congress, public opinion of Obamacare settled into a consistent trend in early 2010, with opposition outweighing support—often by a sizable margin.

Gallup’s tracking, for instance, shows that since the law took effect in 2013, a majority of Americans have consistently disapproved of it, ranging from a low of 48 percent in July 2015—just after the Supreme Court’s ruling upholding the law’s federal subsidies—to a high of 56 percent.

Gallup shows disapproval averaging at 51.4 percent for this time period, an average of nine points higher than the law’s average approval rating of 42.6 percent.

In the world of political polling, inconsistency among polls is an occasional hazard to be grappled with, but not in the case of Obamacare polling. Pew Research Center’s tracking of the law’s approval ratings tells a remarkably similar story to Gallup’s.

Disapproval averages at 49.5 percent since 2013, and approval comes in at 42.3 percent, an average of seven points lower.

Disapproval soars around the time of the botched rollout late in 2013, and dips after the Supreme Court ruling that upheld a key component of the law in July 2015. Disapproval rebounded in 2016 to 54 percent, while approval fell again to 44 percent, leaving a 10-point gap.

Even Kaiser’s monthly tracking study, which is one of the more positive measures of the health law, shows that unfavorability usually outranked favorability at an average of 44 percent over 40.1 percent.

(One of the few exceptions was shortly before the 2012 presidential election when President Barack Obama was re-elected—the only point at which Gallup showed approval for the law rising above disapproval.)

Kaiser started monthly tracking of the law in early 2010—earlier than Gallup and with more regularity than Pew—shedding some light on the period before the law went into effect.

Before public opinion settled into consistent disapproval, there was a more fluid period in 2010. Favorability spiked in April after the Senate, lacking the 60th vote needed to end debate and pass the bill, did so with a simple majority using the process of budget reconciliation.

Approval spiked again mid-year and then in September as some of the more popular aspects of the law, including the measure protecting access to insurance for those with pre-existing conditions, began to take effect.

Yet, in October, favorability dropped down to 42 percent, where it would largely remain over the next six years.

Given the proliferation of polls on this controversial law, a few news aggregation sites have produced tracking averages based on multiple poll sources.

RealClearPolitics shows average disapproval of the law fluctuating right around the 51 percent mark, while the average in favor of the law comes out around 40 percent, consistent with Gallup and Pew. The Huffington Post’s average against the law fluctuates around 49 percent, while average approval for the law varies around 41 percent.

Moreover, all of the trend lines show that the gap between disapproval and approval is gradually widening—that in fact, a law that has never received popular support is actually growing more unpopular with time.

The American people don’t like Obamacare and never have, and it’s not hard to see why. Pew and Gallup both report that year after year, more Americans say the law has had a negative effect on them and their families (31 percent and 29 percent in 2016, respectively) than a positive effect (23 percent and 18 percent).

Pew reports even worse numbers for the law’s effect on the country as a whole—44 percent believe it has been negative. In addition to soaring premium costs, Obamacare has led to rising out-of-pocket costs, shrinking networks and accessibility, and fewer options.

Given these numbers and the negative effects Obamacare has had on the system as a whole, it’s time for a new direction. Now is the time to repeal Obamacare and focus on solutions that Americans want. (For more from the author of “Obamacare May Soon Be Over. Here’s What Americans Have Thought of the Law Since 2010.” please click HERE)

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House and Senate budget leaders, along with conservative lawmakers, are beginning to unite around a proposal that would avoid a filibuster from Senate Democrats and put a bill repealing key provisions of Obamacare on President-elect Donald Trump’s desk not long after his inauguration—a bill that is likely to earn his signature.

Republicans’ talks of repealing the Affordable Care Act became a possibility following Trump’s victory over Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton last week.

In the days following the election, scholars and lawmakers began floating plans to unravel the health care law.

But now, House and Senate budget leaders have endorsed a proposal that involves Congress passing two budget resolutions—one for 2017 and one for 2018—early next year, the first of which would instruct lawmakers to use a budget tool called “reconciliation” to dismantle the health care law.

Under reconciliation, legislation under consideration by the Senate needs just a simple majority, 51 votes, to pass, blocking a filibuster by Senate Democrats.

Because Congress failed to pass a budget resolution for 2017—a proposal stalled in the House—budget experts say Republicans could pass a revamped fiscal roadmap for next year, one that includes reconciliation instructions for Obamacare’s repeal.

To ease the transition for consumers, that reconciliation bill would likely have a delayed enactment date to give congressional Republicans time to craft and pass a replacement plan.

After passing a budget resolution for 2017, GOP lawmakers could then craft a second budget resolution for 2018, which could also include reconciliation instructions to tackle another legislative priority, such as an overhaul of the tax system.

Using this two-budget approach to repeal Obamacare would give Republicans the chance to put a bill dismantling the health care law on Trump’s desk soon after his Jan. 20 inauguration, lawmakers said.

“I think having the opportunity to have two reconciliation bills as opposed to one, two reconciliation processes as opposed to one, is wise,” House Budget Committee Chairman Tom Price, R-Ga., told CQ.

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., also endorsed the plan, according to Politico.

Enzi told Politico that this double reconciliation strategy would allow Republicans to address their top legislative initiatives without having to worry about filibusters from Senate Democrats.

Price and Enzi are at the helm of the committees that draft the budget resolutions that would include reconciliation instructions.

Not only have Congress’s budget leaders endorsed the use of reconciliation to dismantle the health care law, but the strategy also earned the support of House conservatives, who have long said they have an obligation to voters to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

“Health care will be better and more affordable when Obamacare is repealed, plain and simple,” Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, told reporters Wednesday. “Everyone understood that as a huge issue in the election.”

“We have to use the reconciliation process, so let’s do it the right way, but let’s do it as quickly as we possibly can,” he continued. “It was part of the mandate that the American people sent to this town last week.”

Congressional Republicans have voted more than 60 times to repeal Obamacare and were only successful in getting a repeal bill, passed using reconciliation, to President Barack Obama’s desk earlier this year.

Because the GOP will lack the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster from Senate Democrats—Republicans will hold 52 seats in the next Congress—Rep. Matt Salmon, R-Ariz., said reconciliation is the only way to ensure such a bill gets to Trump.

“The only guarantee is to go through reconciliation. The Senate will never get a repeal of Obamacare off the floor. They’ve never been able to get an appropriations bill off the floor,” Salmon told reporters Wednesday. “So when it comes to heavy lifting for something as major as this, it’s probably going to have to be like we did it through the reconciliation process again.”

To successfully repeal Obamacare using reconciliation in 2017, congressional Republicans could follow a blueprint they mapped out in 2015.

That year, GOP lawmakers drafted a budget resolution for 2016 that included instructions for budget committees in both chambers to draft a reconciliation bill repealing the Affordable Care Act.

Their legislation ultimately repealed the law’s individual and employer mandates, Medicaid expansion, tax credits, and the medical device and Cadillac taxes. The reconciliation bill also stripped the government of its authority to run Obamacare’s state and federal exchanges, and lessened the fines for failing to comply with the mandates to $0.

Both chambers of Congress ultimately passed the bill, but Obama vetoed the legislation.

House Republicans then attempted to override the president’s veto, but lacked the two-thirds majority needed to do so.

Now that Republicans will control both the executive and legislative branches in 2017, GOP lawmakers have said they plan to follow through on their promises to repeal Obamacare.

Just one day after Trump won the presidency, Republican leaders were laying out their agenda for the 115th Congress, with the health care law topping the list.

“I would be shocked if we didn’t move forward and keep our commitment to the American people,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said last week.

Republicans have discussed a replacement for the Affordable Care Act, though an official bill doesn’t yet exist.

Several GOP lawmakers have drafted their own individual proposals over the last few years, and Speaker Paul Ryan rolled out a replacement plan in June under the Wisconsin Republican’s “A Better Way” agenda.

According to CQ, it’s unclear if the GOP’s plan would be included in a reconciliation bill repealing the health care law or when a proposal would be rolled out. (For more from the author of “Republicans Begin to Unite Around Obamacare Repeal Plan” please click HERE)

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