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Uncertain fate of health law giving health industry heartburn

Six years into building its business around the Affordable Care Act, the nation’s $3 trillion health care industry may be losing that political playbook.

Industry leaders, like many voters, were stunned by the election of Donald Trump and unprepared for Republicans’ plans to “repeal and replace” Obamacare.

In addition, Trump’s vague and sometimes conflicting statements on health policy have left industry officials guessing as to the details of any substitute for the federal health law.

“It will be repealed and replaced,” Trump said in a Nov. 13 interview on CBS’ “60 Minutes.” At the same time, he vowed to preserve popular provisions of the law like ensuring that people with preexisting conditions can get insurance and allowing young adults to stay on their parents’ health plans.

Charles (Chip) Kahn, chief executive of the Federation of American Hospitals, said that before the election, health groups had not been meeting with Republicans about a rewrite of the law “because the working assumption was we had a program that wasn’t going anywhere. That working assumption is now no longer operative.”

Upending the health law plays havoc with a health industry that had invested heavily in strategies geared to the ACA’s financial incentives. The flipped script initially left some industry groups speechless. Others issued bland statements pledging cooperation with the next administration as they awaited greater clarity from the next president.

Said Donald Crane, who heads CAPG, a national trade group for physician organizations: “Nobody was ready for this. We didn’t have a Plan B.”

The results appear to have rattled the fragile industry coalition that the Obama administration carefully crafted to support the law. Looking ahead, some health sectors might have even more reason to worry.

The hospital industry may be the most vulnerable to proposed changes, which could result in millions of Americans losing health coverage, both through the insurance exchanges and expansion in the Medicaid program for those with lower incomes.

Hospitals cut a deal with Congress and the Obama administration in 2009, when the Affordable Care Act was being drafted. They agreed to substantial cuts in Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement, anticipating that those cuts would be offset by increases in paying customers who were newly insured.

“If you’re a hospital, you’ve sort of made this deal that you’re going to get more coverage [so you] accepted Medicare cuts,” said Dean Rosen, a longtime Republican congressional staffer who now represents hospital, insurance and other health interests in Washington. “What’s going to happen now?”

If expanded coverage under Obamacare goes away, said Kahn, then those cuts should be restored, “because those were done with the notion that uninsured people were going to have coverage.”

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