Health care, taxes, and a regulatory reform will dominate the Hill during Trump’s first 100 days in office, and the partisan maneuvering begins today. Both President Barack Obama and Vice President-elect Mike Pence headed to Capitol Hill to discuss the health care law this morning.
Obama’s goal is to rally Democrats.
Vice President-elect Pence met with the Republican conference, which is still sorting through which elements of the ACA to preserve and how long the transition period to a replacement plan should last. Conservatives, like the House Freedom Caucus, want as little as a six-month transition period. Other Members are mulling as long as a four-year-delay, which would keep elements of Obamacare in place past the 2020 elections. During the meeting, Pence announced the incoming Administration’s two track approach of using Congress as well as Executive Order.
There’s already questions about the timeline for repealing the Affordable Care Act because of the taxes used to fund the law, like the investment tax hike on the wealthy, the medical device tax and the Cadillac tax on expensive employer-provided health plans. Discussions remain on-going about how to best unravel the roughly $1 trillion worth of tax increases in the health care law. House and Senate Republicans will not know what the new baseline is for tax reform until those decisions are made.
The Senate voted to move ahead in debating a FY 2017 budget resolution that would include reconciliation instructions repealing the ACA. The budget instructs House and Senate committees to come up with a repeal bill by January 27th. The motion to proceed to the resolution required only a simple majority vote and the tally was 51-48 as voting continued. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) voted no. The Senate is expected to consider the resolution the remainder of the week, and the House is expected to pass it prior to the Inauguration on January 20th. It should be noted that the President does not need to sign the resolution, and it does not become law. Rather binding on Congress.