Senate Republicans just released a significant change to their healthcare bill

The legislation — called the Better Care Reconciliation Act of 2017 — debuted on June 22. The bill proposes rolling back much of the ACA, the healthcare law better known as Obamacare, including various tax provisions.

The revised version of the bill includes a provision that's meant to replace the individual mandate by punishing people whose insurance has lapsed, locking them out of coverage for six months.

The revision closes a loophole in the original bill that could have hurt the health insurance market. To avoid adverse selection in the individual insurance market, there needs to be a continuous-coverage provision to keep healthy people buying insurance instead of waiting until they're sick to do so.

Healthier people paying into the pool helps ensure that costs for everyone stay lower. To make sure the market isn't full of sick people — resulting in higher costs and financial losses for insurers — there needs to be some reason for healthy people to sign up. The most effective way to do so is by having the carrot of coverage benefits and the stick punishing those who do not have coverage.

Under Obamacare, this stick was the tax penalty for not having coverage. In the House Republicans' bill, people who did not maintain coverage the year before could have their premiums raised by as much as 30% as a penalty.

According to Larry Levitt, a senior vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health-policy think tank, the new provision may not work as intended.

"I doubt this encourages many healthy people to sign up," Levitt tweeted on Monday after the changes were announced. "That requires a lot of foresight among people not very focused on insurance."

The bill also tweaks some of the language in Section 106, which discusses stability-program funding for states.

What else is in the BCRA

The legislation proposes scaling back funding that goes toward health coverage for low-income Americans and tax credits for middle-income earners who purchase their own health insurance.

The plan would also provide funding designed to help stabilize the Obamacare insurance markets in the near term and funnel money through programs to cut off access to funding for abortion providers.

The Senate legislation contains key differences from the American Health Care Act, the House GOP's legislation to dismantle Obamacare. The disparities could be sticking points if the two chambers have to compromise on the bill, which they would have to do before it could reach President Donald Trump's desk.

But first, the legislation faces an uncertain future in the Senate, as it faces some pushback from conservative members who think it may not go far enough in repealing Obamacare and moderates concerned about its slashing of Medicaid spending. Like the House legislation, it could be subject to significant changes to get the needed number of votes.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is pushing for a vote by the end of the week, in part to avoid further public scrutiny of the bill over the weeklong July 4 recess. Similar scrutiny periled the original version of the House legislation. McConnell can afford to lose just two members of his conference for the bill to pass.

Here's a rundown of the key provisions that were already in the bill:

Tax credits:
Medicaid expansion:
Medicaid spending growth:
States can institute Medicaid work requirements:
Cost-sharing subsidies:
State waivers for Obamacare regulations:
Repeal Obamacare's taxes:
A fund to provide grants to fight the opioid crisis:
No funds can be used for abortions:

Here is the full updated bill:

Senate Republicans just released a significant change to their healthcare bill

What else is in the BCRA

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