Members of the Senate today voted 49-51 to approve their version of H.R. 1, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act bill, along a mostly party-line vote.
All Democrats and independents who participated voted against the bill.
Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., was the only Republican to vote in favor of the bill.
The legislation the Senate actually approved appears to be a 479-page substitute amendment released late Friday by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. A copy of the Hatch amendment is available here.
Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, introduced one version of H.R. 1 in the House in early November. The House has already approved that version.
Hatch, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, posted a Senate version about a week later. When the committee was marking up the original Hatch version of the bill, the committee also posted a packet proposed by committee members.
Medical Deduction Floor
One major difference is treatment of the medical expense deduction.
The House bill would eliminate the deduction.
The Senate bill would expand access to it, by letting taxpayers use the deduction when medical expenses exceed 7.5% of income, rather than 10%.
But the medical device tax fooor change applies only in 2017 and 2018 for all taxpayers, and for 2013 through 2016 for taxpayers ages 65 and older.
Health Insurance
One question is whether the true final version of the legislation the Senate approved today will be identical to what Hatch posted.
If the version posted today is the final version, the Hatch substitute amendment would eliminate the Affordable Care Act individual coverage mandate starting after Dec. 31, 2018.
The mandate requires many people to have what the government classifies as solid major medical coverage for much of the year or pay a penalty equal to 2.5% of modified adjusted gross income over the tax filing threshold.
Analysts at the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) have predicted that elimination of the amendment could lead to a big drop in the number of people who have health coverage.
Some Affordable Care Act supporters have equated individual mandate repeal with repeal of the Affordable Care Act individual major medical market programs.
Other health insurance market observers, including Jeffrey Smedsrud, a longtime insurance marketer, have argued that the current mandate is weak and may not have much effect on health insurance purchases.
