What Went Down On Health Care This Week

We’ve spoken a lot about how unpopular the Republican health care bill is. But the party may have found a popular alternative in the so-called skinny repeal. This would seek to eliminate the insurance mandate and the medical device tax. Both of these help to pay for the ACA. The mandate — the part of the ACA that requires nearly all Americans to have health insurance or pay a fine — has polled poorly. In November 2016, the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care think tank, found that the mandate had a 63 percent unfavorable rating, compared with a 45 percent unfavorable rating for the ACA overall. A majority of Americans, 57 percent, favored repealing the medical device tax — the part of the ACA that taxes the manufacturers of medical devices such as artificial joints — in a September 2015 Kaiser survey. The popularity of these two pieces of the skinny bill stands in stark contrast to the Republican health care plan, which hasn’t had a favorable rating from a plurality of Americans in any poll since at least May 2017. Keep in mind, though, that surveys asking about the mandate and medical device tax were taken before the current debate on the Republican health care bill. It’s possible that both proposals would poll differently now.