We’re strong believers in an active government, but the repeated votes to repeal the ACA make us worry that some Representatives will soon develop carpal tunnel.
On Thursday, the Republican controlled House of Representatives again put the ACA on the chopping block. We went to press before the vote so maybe the ACA will be laying on history’s dustheap by the time you read this. But win or lose policy wonk Sarah Kliff notes that
votes have consequences, even they ultimately fail.
“The uncertainty that these repeal votes have created can have real consequences for the Affordable Care Act. There’s
fairly comprehensive literature that suggests that when regulations seem like they might get repealed, people resist them aggressively. When the new restriction appears to be set in stone, however, the reaction seems to be rationalization: Trying to think through why the regulation isn’t, in fact, all that bad.”
So we expect to see more attempts to overturn the ACA. But to keep track of how the law impacts medical practice, we’ll continue to read
Part B News.