Texas Rep. Chip Roy and 23 other House Republicans are urging Senate Republicans to put a slew of provisions related to health savings accounts back in the GOP’s megabill.
In the June 23 letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, Roy and his colleagues emphasized how the HSA provisions in the House-passed bill would allow people to use their tax-advantaged accounts for a much broader range of medical services.
The language dropped by the Senate Republicans in their recently unveiled legislation would “help Americans better afford healthcare services while creating a consumer-controlled market to drive competition,” the House Republicans wrote. “It is especially problematic to tell middle-class Americans we would rather ‘save’ money by not including these provisions, while we focus on corporate tax breaks and expanding tax credits under this very legislation,” they added.
The letter includes some notable signers, including House Freedom Caucus Chair Andy Harris (R-Md.) and several members of the tax writing House Ways and Means Committee. It shows how House Republicans are scrambling to preserve their favorite provisions as Senate Republicans prepare to release the full text of their megabill as soon as tomorrow.
The dropping of the provisions by Senate Finance Chair Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) comes as Senate Republicans are facing daunting arithmetic on the marquee border, energy and tax legislation. Removing the HSA proposals would save tens of billions of dollars, according to the most recent estimate of the House-passed tax legislation by Congress’ nonpartisan tax scorer.
Among other changes to HSAs, the House-passed legislation would increase the amount of deductions certain taxpayers can take for their HSA contributions and allow married couples to pool more contributions into a single HSA plan.