GOP/HEALTHCARE/OBAMACARE(ACA)/TAXES: “Congress is moving to prevent the Internal Revenue Service from enforcing one of the more unpopular provisions of the Affordable Care Act, which requires most Americans to have health insurance or pay a tax penalty.
The plan is separate from Republican efforts to repeal the health care law, and appears more likely to be adopted because it would be written into the annual spending bill for the Treasury and the I.R.S.
But it has a similar purpose: to weaken the health law that President Trump and Republicans in Congress want to dismantle.
Congress has been working for months on a bill to repeal President Barack Obama’s health care law, including the coverage requirement. That provision, known as the individual mandate, is widely disliked, according to opinion polls.
In case that effort fails or bogs down, the House Committee on Appropriations has drafted a provision to stop the I.R.S. from enforcing the mandate. The restrictions, for the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1, are included in an appropriations bill that was approved on Thursday by the Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government…
The bill would also prohibit the I.R.S. from enforcing a requirement that employers and insurance companies inform the government of the name and Social Security number of anyone to whom they provide health insurance coverage. The government uses these reports to help administer the individual mandate and other requirements.”
-Robert Pear, “Congress Moves to Stop I.R.S. From Enforcing Health Law Mandate,” The New York Times online, July 3, 2017