The Essential Health Benefits (EHB) rule may be among the many parts of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that are on the chopping block as the Trump Administration and Congress seek to repeal and replace the law. Essential Health Benefits, which define what health care benefits plans in the Marketplaces and certain other health plans must cover, go to the heart of what it means to have health insurance and what health care we, as a society, want to ensure people can access.
Today, critics of the EHB cite them as a cause of high health insurance costs and as an example of federal overreach. They say the EHB are too expansive and too prescriptive. Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) was quoted as saying, “In order for us to actually have real impact on making sure that this becomes a patient-centric approach to health care, we're going to have to address those definitions, the essential benefits, giving more liberty and more flexibility for those definitions.” The Heritage Foundation has cited EHB as one of the mandates of the ACA that drives up insurance premiums. Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-TX) recently expressed his view that EHBs are expensive and force people to buy insurance they do not want.
