The biggest casualty would be the GOPs replacement for Obamacares individual mandate, which required people to buy insurance or face a penalty. Under the Senate GOPs bill, people who went more than a month without health coverage and then bought insurance later on would have to wait six months for their coverage to take effect and cover their medical bills.
The provision was considered necessary in order to encourage people to sign up for health insurance and keep the market stable. Without such a provision, experts fear the insurance market could be sent into a death spiral only the sickest people, who cost insurers the most, buy coverage, and premiums and costs continue to rise.
Another key provision for market stability the funding of Obamacares cost-sharing reductions, currently in limbo because of an ongoing Republican lawsuit was also said to be out of order under the Senate rules, according to a summary posted on the Senate Budget Committee website. The cost-sharing reductions are payments to insurers that help them meet a requirement that low-income people get help with their copays and deductibles.
Two provisions crucial for social conservatives, the defunding of Planned Parenthood and the restrictions on federal tax subsidies paying for health insurance that covers abortion, would also require 60 votes to overcome a filibuster and pass and with no Democrats willing to vote for them, those provisions appear effectively dead. Without them, it could be even harder to win conservative support for the bill.
