WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans today passed a bill that would keep the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) from making the new Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) health insurance purchase tax credit available in states without state-based exchanges.
Some Republicans have argued that, because the drafters of PPACA were sloppy, they did not formally give the government the authority to offer the tax credits to the users of the exchanges run by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
PPACA defenders have accused Republican opponents of PPACA of misreading the law.
The measure, symbolic because of the certainty that it will be ignored by the Democratic-led Senate, was approved by a near party-line 232-185 vote.
The legislation married two of the GOP's favorite targets: the 2010 health care law and the IRS, which in May conceded it had improperly targeted conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status for detailed investigations.
Next year, the IRS will begin enforcing the requirement that most individuals have health insurance, collecting fines from people who don't. The agency also will distribute subsidies to help people buy insurance in new exchanges.
Repealing those provisions would enfeeble the heart of the measure, which was aimed in part at making health care more affordable for lower-income people. Analysts say healthy people must purchase health care to help cover the costs of those who are ill, and the fines are designed to prod those who are fit to buy policies.
Sponsor Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., named his bill the "Keep the IRS Off Your Health Care Act."
"We simply want patients and families and doctors to be in charge of health care, not Washington, D.C., and not the IRS," Price said.
