WASHINGTON (AP) – Conservative senators are pushing to diminish insurance coverage requirements imposed by President Barack Obama’s health care law as Senate Republicans try fashioning legislation overhauling the nation’s health care system.
Their ideas include erasing Obama consumer protections, such as barring higher premiums for people with pre-existing medical conditions, but allowing states to opt into them.
That’s a more conservative twist on the health care bill the House narrowly approved last week. That measure retains the coverage protections but lets states get waivers to drop some of them.
Conservatives are also talking about curbing health care tax credits Republicans want to provide and slowing the growth of the Medicaid program for poor and disabled people.
Obama’s insurance requirements are among the most popular aspects of his 2010 law, and conservatives’ chances of annulling them in whatever bill GOP senators produce are uncertain. They’re getting pushback from more centrist Republicans, and their proposals may not even be allowed into the measure because of special rules the Senate is using.