The House of Representatives has passed a spending bill that contains provisions to drop several taxes that were implemented to fund the Affordable Care Act, according to the
Washington Post.
The bill would revoke the 40 percent "Cadillac tax" on unusually expensive health plans, the 2.3 percent excise tax on medical devices and the annual fee on health insurance providers, according to
Accounting Today. All three were delayed last year as part of the
deal to keep the government funded. At that time, the effect date of the Cadillac tax was
moved from 2020 to 2022, the effective date for the medical device was tax
delayed from 2020 to to 2025, and there was a
moratorium on the health insurance provider fee until 2020. The bill passed by the House would dispense with the delays and simply repeal them entirely.
The spending bill will now move to the Senate, which must act before midnight on Friday, Dec. 20, when existing funding for government agencies expires, in order to avoid a shutdown of the U.S. government. The bill would provide the $1.4 trillion needed to operate the government through next September.