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President Obama is applauded after signing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act March 23, 2010. Since then, at least 14 bills have made changes to the law.(Photo: Win McNamee, Getty Images)
WASHINGTON<span style="color: Red;">*</span>— President Obama<span style="color: Red;">*</span>signed a bill Wednesday night making an important change to Obamacare that will prevent health insurance premiums for 3 million people from going up next year.
The Protecting Affordable Coverage for Employees<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Act seems like an unlikely Washington success story: A bipartisan health care bill passed by both chambers without a single no vote and signed by the president with no controversy or fanfare.
Except it's actually not that unusual. For all the raucous debate over repealing Obamacare, such technical fixes can happen. Since the Affordable Care Act was first passed along party lines in 2010, President Obama has signed at<span style="color: Red;">*</span>least 14 bills making substantive changes in his signature legislation of his presidency,<span style="color: Red;">*</span>according to an analysis by the Congressional Research Service. Eight of those have been Republican bills.
"Unbeknownst to the public, there is actually some governing going on," said Larry Levitt, a senior vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation<span style="color: Red;">*</span>who worked on health care legislation in the Clinton administration.
But don't get too excited.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>"I'm not sure this relatively modest measure<span style="color: Red;">*</span>will pave the way for a raft of bipartisan<span style="color: Red;">*</span>consensus around the health law," Levitt said. "None of the changes strike at the heart of the law or change it in any substantial way.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>So maybe it's a little overstated to say it’s actual governing."
Among the most significant changes made to Obamacare thus far:<span style="color: Red;">*</span>The 2011 repeal of a provision requiring businesses to report to the IRS any time they made a purchase of more than $600 to a single vendor, and the 2013 repeal of<span style="color: Red;">*</span>a voluntary long-term care insurance plan that the Obama<span style="color: Red;">*</span>administration found unworkable.
The law signed by Obama Wednesday makes a minor fix in the definition of a small business that could result in thousands of dollars of savings for 150,000<span style="color: Red;">*</span>businesses. Under the original<span style="color: Red;">*</span>law, small businesses of less than 50 employees have their own special rules requiring specific types of coverage with a higher cost to employers. Beginning in 2016, those special rules were scheduled to apply to<span style="color: Red;">*</span>small businesses of 51 to 100 employees.
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The new law gives states the ability to decide how to classify businesses of 51 to 100 employees, potentially saving premiums for small business employees from going up 18 percent or more, according to an estimate from the consulting firm Oliver Wyman. And there's a<span style="color: Red;">*</span>bonus: Reducing workers' insurance premiums means increasing their taxable income, resulting in a<span style="color: Red;">*</span>$280 million in additional revenues to the federal government<span style="color: Red;">*</span>over 10 years. That money will go to<span style="color: Red;">*</span>bolster Medicaid.
"There are a lot of things in the bill that need fixing. I'm for repeal and replace," said Brett Guthrie, R-Ky., the sponsor of the bill. "But here’s the situation: You have people being negatively<span style="color: Red;">*</span>affected, and so can we find a way to work together to fix it. Sometimes it’s not about who has the biggest lobbying firm. It’s when you have grassroots<span style="color: Red;">*</span>people who say they’re being negatively affected. ... And this affects businesses every congressional district in the country."
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Grace-Marie Turner<span style="color: Red;">*</span>of the<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Galen Institute, a prominent Obamacare critic, said the congressional action comes just under the wire, as<span style="color: Red;">*</span>insurance companies finish pricing contracts for 2016 coverage. And the quick, businesslike way in which the bill was passed just shows that neither side saw any benefit in politicizing the issue, she said.
"I think here the White House certainly doesn’t want to announce with big fanfare that the Republican Congress has led on making changes on the president's<span style="color: Red;">*</span>health law," she said. "And the Republicans don't want to say that they’re fixing it, because they want to repeal it entirely."
Still on the agenda for congressional Republicans: a repeal of the 2.3% medical device tax<span style="color: Red;">*</span>and the "Cadillac" tax on high-cost employer health care plans.
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