Aaron Bean strives for consensus on health care credits

As Congress wrestles with health care subsidies, U.S. Rep. Aaron Bean hopes to find a solution that a broad range of Americans can support.

While Bean, a Fernandina Republican, said he doesn’t want to see a straight extension of subsidies set to expire at the end of the year, he said it’s important for Congress to find a workable solution. He held a “Path to Consensus” summit on Capitol Hill that explored the role of tax credits in modern health care.

“What will it look like if we were to build a health care plan that we can afford, the American people can afford?” Bean asked. “What components does it have? How do we make it more affordable?”

At the event, he hosted lawmakers and a range of experts to discuss health care policy.

Bean, for his part, said he can’t support a proposed multiyear extension of Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies at levels expanded during the COVID pandemic.

“Not in their current form,” Bean stressed. “There would have to be major reform. All the data that I’ve seen shows that they’re not making it more affordable, they’re making it more expensive. The more money we’ve put in there, they’re driving inflation. So we need reform.”

That’s not altogether a different take from the hard-line position taken by U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, a Naples Republican, and the House Freedom caucus at another summit held the same morning as Bean’s event.

But Bean’s event included a range of health experts with different views discussing the impact of subsidies on the health care industry. Emily Murray, who worked for former Speaker Kevin McCarthy during the “Repeal and Replace” debate in 2017, moderated a panel on the state of subsidies today.

Mike Tuffin, CEO of America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), said health care professionals shared a desire for safeguards on affordability.

“We would call for even stronger eligibility checks for consumers,” he said. He also supports caps on income for eligibility so that government isn’t subsidizing costs for those making certain incomes, such as a proposal to end subsidies for those making more than $200,000.

He added that other issues, like rising medical equipment cost and other regulatory issues, are also driving inflation in costs.

“What expiration of tax credits will do is dramatically increase what people will pay,” Tuffin said.

But Ryan Long, director of Congressional Relations for Paragon Health Institute, said that because of the way the ACA is structured — different from Medicare and other health care programs — the federal government is the only entity that sees a price increase if the cost of health care and insurance premiums goes up.

He suggested there needs to be a structural change to the policy to help get costs under control.

Long also said the government should allow small businesses to band together in insurance pools to enjoy the same type of insurance savings as large corporations.

“To me this is a 25-year fight, and that blows my mind,” he said.

He also supported a minimum contribution from consumers in a plan. That would stop some fraud of accounts getting subsidies for people who never use insurance, and may not even exist. Even a $5 a month plan would fight fraud.

“If you are real, you would pay it,” he said.

Long said it’s important for Americans to know that only pandemic-era tax credits expire at the end of the year, something lost in political messaging in recent months.

“There has been an intentional attempt to mislead the public that all subsidies expire,” he said. “That’s not even part of debate. Do they need to be reformed? Yes, the ACA needs to be reformed.”

The issue of subsidies is especially important in Florida, which has the highest number of ACA marketplace users of any state. That’s part of why Bean held the debate and is potentially a reason he won’t dismiss the use of some subsidies out of hand. The event also was focused on finding consensus, and even lawmakers highly critical of subsidies spoke about the need for pragmatic solutions.

Rep. Jodey Arrington, a Texas Republican, joked that when he received angry calls from hospital groups over his resistance to health care credits, he “never felt more like a man.” But he also said there’s a hunger in Congress for a solution to health care affordability with broad support.

“I think we can build consensus pretty easily,” he said. “If we can do it with Democrats, that’s all the more sustainable, all the more patriotic, in my opinion.”