The Senate healthcare and tax cut bill is expected to drop in a few cups of coffee. There are a ton of rumors floating around. Here is a cheat sheet on how to read it.
1) Reconciliation places severe constraints on the bill
a) The Parliamentarian is most likely going to be stripping out significant non-germane to the budget items
b) $1 billion in savings must come from each of two committees (HELP and Finance)
c) Anything the Senate passes must meet or beat the $119 billion in budget window deficit reduction that the House AHCA was scored at.
2) Three major pots of money
a) Tax cuts
b) Individual market changes
c) Medicaid cuts to pay for tax cuts
3) Follow the money
Any extra dollar used to pay for a slower Medicaid termination has to come from either Medicaid on the back-end, fewer tax cuts or lower individual market changes. Anything used to up subsidies on the individual market has to come from itself, faster/steeper Medicaid cuts or fewer tax cuts. Anything that ups the tax cuts must come from the individual market or Medicaid…etc.
4) Index rates matter
Slower terminations but lower index rates on per capita caps is a budget gimmick. It gives a little bit of money in the 10 year budget window but leads to massive cuts in the out years against the current counterfactual.
5) Market design and incentives matter
a) Look at where the work disincentives apply
a1) Medicaid expansion where the FMAP disappears once a person churns out once
a2) Medicaid expansion to individual market transition without CSR as people move from high AV low premium insurance to low AV high premium insurance if they earn a dollar too much
a3) 350% FPL instead of 400% FPL
b) How does the individual market function without a mandate and without the patient and state stability funds?
6) More coffee is better