Obamacare at Six Years: Republicans Chart Path Towards Repeal and Replace

Conservative Efforts, Legislative Victories Chip Away at Health Law’s Tax Hike

When Obamacare was signed into law without a single Republican vote, it levied a slew of new taxes on a struggling economy totaling nearly $1 trillion. In 2015, when Republicans took control of both houses of Congress, they promised Americans to take action and they delivered.

Through a process known as budget reconciliation, Congress let the will of the people be heard, and sent a repeal bill to the President’s desk aimed at ending the law’s negative consequences. Unsurprisingly, President Obama blindly rejected the opportunity to reverse course on his law.

Yesterday, the Senate Finance Committee explored how the health law is impacting patients and taxpayers nearly six years after it was signed into law.

And while it will ultimately take a like-minded Congress and administration to repeal and replace Obamacare, Republicans have taken real legislative action in the 114th Congress to dismantle some of the law’s most harmful taxes. Take a look:

Suspended Medical Device Tax until 2018:

Suspended Obamacare’s 2.3 percent excise tax on products ranging from surgical tools to bed pans, providing relief for device manufacturers, who were plagued under the tax with a reduction in resources needed to create and retain jobs and invest in new product development.

Delayed Cadillac Tax until 2020:

Delayed a 40 percent excise tax placed on high cost employer-sponsored health benefits (“Cadillac” tax), preventing an expensive tax hike that other would have directly hit American workers by increasing the cost of employer sponsored health care.

Suspended Health Insurance Tax (HIT) for 2017:

Implemented a moratorium on a new annual tax on health insurance premiums, preventing it from being passed on to consumers in the form of higher premiums.

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