Does the AHCA take away a veterans tax credit?

May 09--Two Inland congressmen are at odds over whether the newly passed bill to repeal and replace Obamacare imperils a health care tax credit for 7 million veterans.

As the House of Representatives debated the American Health Care Act or AHCA last week, Rep. Mark Takano, D-Riverside, took to the House floor to denounce a provision of the bill pertaining to veteran health care.

According to Takano, who sits on the House veterans affairs committee, the bill jeopardizes an Obamacare tax credit for 7 million veterans who are eligible for, but not enrolled in, health care provided by the Department of Veterans Affairs.

"This is not fear-mongering, this is not hyperbole," Takano said. "This is the text of the bill we are voting on today."

Paralyzed Veterans of America cited concerns about losing the tax credit in a letter to House Speaker Paul Ryan detailing the organization's opposition to the AHCA.

The bill passed the House 217-213 with no Democratic support. It now goes to the Senate, where it faces a potentially sweeping overhaul.

Republicans, including Rep. Ken Calvert of Corona, insist veterans will continue to be eligible for the tax credit.

"The AHCA will treat veterans exactly the same as (the Affordable Care Act) currently does," Calvert, who voted for the AHCA, said in a written statement.

"Veterans who are not enrolled in the VA health care system and who are purchasing their health insurance on the individual market will absolutely receive the tax credit. Any assertion otherwise is misinformed."

Takano and Calvert represent neighboring districts in western Riverside County.

Sparring over the tax credit is part of the fallout from the bitter fight over the Affordable Care Act, the landmark legislative accomplishment of President Barack Obama.

For seven years, congressional Republicans repeatedly voted to repeal and replace Obamacare, arguing it makes health insurance less accessible and more expensive. Their efforts were stymied with Obama in office.

With Donald Trump in the White House, Republicans were empowered to make good on their promise. But their initial effort to repeal Obamacare fizzled amid rifts between moderate and conservatives in the GOP caucus.

A compromise allowing states to seek a waiver from certain Obamacare regulations, including rules restricting higher charges on older people and those with pre-existing conditions, helped get the American Health Care Act through the House.

Democrats chastised the GOP for not waiting for an updated Congressional Budget Office evaluation of the updated bill. The veterans tax credit issue, they say, stems from a rushed process to ram the bill through the House without proper review.

In a telephone interview, Takano said the original version of the AHCA contained language protecting the tax credit. But that language was taken out, he said, to conform to the complex "reconciliation" process the Senate is using to repeal Obamacare.

"(The Republicans) themselves realized that veterans should be protected but they took that language out," Takano said. "They shortened the process. They severely restricted public debate and discussion ... they chose political expediency instead of protecting veterans."

Takano added he has no faith in the Trump administration's ability to write the fine regulatory print needed to protect the tax credit. "They just have a disdain for governing," he said.

According to information provided by Calvert's office, House committees spent 69 hours debating the AHCA. Regulations like the one providing the tax credit are still valid even if they aren't codified into law, Republicans argue.

Rep. Phil Roe, R-Tenn., the House veterans affairs committee chairman, insisted the tax credit is still in effect..

"Language that would have codified (the tax credits) was removed from an earlier version of the bill to comply with Senate rules," Roe said. "Removing that language in no way changes that existing regulation or a veteran's eligibility to receive a tax credit."

" ... I am disturbed that our colleagues in the minority would assert that it does in an effort to score political points against this legislation. Fear-mongering has no place in this debate or where America's veterans are concerned."

Rob Fuller, a Los Angeles-based attorney with administrative experience in the health care industry, said that based on his early reading of the bill, it looks as though the AHCA removes the veterans' tax credit.

"All the mechanics that were in place for the Affordable Care Act to provide tax credits and subsidies get replaced en masse with tax credits proposed in the American Health Care Act," Fuller said.

"I don't see anything in the bill that saved (the veterans' credit). I don't think (the AHCA) treated veterans separately," Fuller added. "To the extent (the credit) was part and parcel of (Obamacare), it's gone."

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