Graham-Cassidy Crashes, But Some In GOP Still Looking Down The Road (Beltway Buzz, September 29, 2017)

The Beltway Buzz is a weekly update summarizing labor and employment news from inside the Beltway and clarifying how what's happening in Washington, D.C. could impact your business.

Rep. Steve Scalise's (R-LA) triumphant return to Congress on Thursday capped another busy week in Washington, D.C.:

Graham-Cassidy Crashes, but Some in GOP Still Looking Down the Road. On Tuesday, September 26, 2017, the Senate GOP acknowledged defeat in its latest effort to dismantle the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The move had been gloomily anticipated since Monday, when Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) announced she would vote "no" on the measure, joining senators Rand Paul (R-KY) and John McCain (R-AZ) to break rank with the Republican majority. This latest in a series of embarrassing defeats for the Trump administration and the GOP-controlled Congress comes only days before the expiration of the September 30 deadline to approve it on a majority vote basis. Although now might seem like a good time to restart the bipartisan Alexander-Murray efforts, animosity among members is particularly robust, and the idea of shoring up Obamacare is less than popular with Republicans. Plus, there are already rumblings about the next ACA repeal effort, which could possibly occur next year following tax reform and which might even be tacked onto a future budget reconciliation proposal. In the meantime, insurers find themselves in "another fine mess," not yet having been given any assurances from the administration that cost-sharing subsidies will continue beyond September. Because Wednesday, September 27 was the deadline for insurers to sign contracts with the federal government to sell health plans on the 2018 ACA marketplaces, insurance rates are expected to spike significantly. (Hat tip to Stephanie A. Smithey, Timothy G. Verrall, and Richard C. Libert.)

Up Next: Tax Reform. With health care set aside for now, we expect Congress to pivot to tax reform. That debate has begun in earnest here in D.C. and will be an overwhelming topic of conversation in the weeks and months ahead. Covering all the gruesome tax-related details may be beyond the scope of the Buzz, but we will be sure to chime in when it might impact labor and employment policy issues, such as whether tax treatment of retirement savings could be on the table. For those who are interested, Republicans recently have released the full tax reform framework as well as a one-page overview. As for the Democrats, they have...

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