AHIP CEO Mike Tuffin. Credit: AHIP
The head of one of Washington's most influential trade groups says Republicans in Congress need to change the health program sections in the One Big Beautiful Act tax and budget package.
Letting the package become law in its current form could hurt "health care systems across the country, particularly in rural communities, where providers really face challenging circumstances," Mike Tuffin, the chief executive officer of America's Health Insurance Plans, said earlier this week in Las Vegas.
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Tuffin was talking to an audience of health insurance company executives and health plan support services firm executives at AHIP's annual conference.
AHIP is a Washington-based group that represents giants insurers like CVS Health's Aetna unit, Elevance Health, Health Care Service Corp., Humana and Centene, along with many of the independent Blue Cross and Blue Shield carriers and other carriers.
The Congressional Budget Office says the OBBA version passed by the House in May would cut Medicaid funding by $698 billion over 10 years, or about 10%.
AHIP lobbyists and members are telling members of Congress and their aides that the cuts could wipe out many hospitals and medical practices in rural areas, and that letting providers in rural areas fail would be bad for employer plans as well as for people with government plan coverage.
What it means: The Health Insurance Association of America, an AHIP predecessor organization, blocked health system change efforts in the 1990s, when Bill Clinton was president.
AHIP later backed efforts by Congress to pass the Affordable Care Act, when Barack Obama was president, in exchange for the elimination of provisions that could have ended the sale of commercial health coverage.
Tuffin's remarks are a sign that major efforts to shape the new, Trump-era health system change proposals are still underway.
The employer plan impact: The House version of the OBBA package included 14 health savings account and reimbursement arrangement provisions, and a new draft posted by the Senate Finance Committee this week included none.
For employers, confirmation that major health provision negotiations are still underway suggests that same version of the HSA and HRA provisions could make a comeback.
Related: Senate Finance tax bill section draft leaves out House HSA and HRA provisions
The ongoing negotiations also raise the possibility that negotiators could still try to narrow the federal income tax exclusion for group health benefits.
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Allison Bell
Allison Bell, a senior reporter at ThinkAdvisor and BenefitsPRO, previously was an associate editor at National Underwriter Life & Health. She has a bachelor's degree in economics from Washington University in St. Louis and a master's degree in journalism from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. She can be reached through X at @Think_Allison.
