Family Coverage Act
Latest action. Read twice and referred to the Committee on Finance.
Family Coverage Act
This bill amends the Internal Revenue Code to modify the requirements for determining the affordability of employer-sponsored minimum essential health coverage that is required under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA).
(Under current law, the coverage is unaffordable, and an employee may be eligible for premium assistance tax credits, if the employee's required contribution for an individual plan exceeds 9.5% of household income, adjusted for inflation after 2014.) The bill specifies that, with respect to an employee's family members who are eligible to enroll in the plan, affordability must be determined using the cost of family coverage rather than individual coverage to expand the eligibility of families for premium assistance tax credits.
This bill also expresses the sense of Congress that the Departments of Health and Human Service and the Treasury have the administrative authority, within their respective jurisdictions, to apply the affordability provision of PPACA so as to expand access to affordable health insurance coverage for working families without further legislation.
Written by analysts at the Congressional Research Service and published on Congress.gov, not by Civibrief. Summarized at the "Introduced in Senate" stage on November 15, 2017. It describes the bill, it is not the legal text.
Where is it in the process, and what happens next?
4 steps remain before this bill could become law.
The record's latest action, on November 15, 2017: Read twice and referred to the Committee on Finance.
- Clearing the committees it was referred to, and being scheduled for a floor vote
- Passage by the Senate
- Passage by the House
- The President's signature. If the President vetoes it, two-thirds of both chambers must vote to override.
How likely is it to become law?
Civibrief does not forecast outcomes and this page has no opinion about this one. What the record supports is a base rate, which is a fact about the whole pile, not a prediction about this measure.
In the 115th Congress (2017-18), 442 of the 11,421 bills and joint resolutions introduced became law, about 3.9 percent. That count covers every measure at every stage, including the many that never left committee.
This one is not there yet: 4 steps are still outstanding, listed above.
Has anyone actually voted on it?
No. No roll call in this Congress cites this measure. That is the ordinary outcome: most measures never reach a recorded floor vote, and a committee ends most of them simply by not acting.
A vote is not the only thing that happens to a measure. Hearings, markups, and referrals are all recorded actions, and none of them is a vote of the full chamber.
Who is behind it?
Al Franken (D-MN) introduced it on November 15, 2017, and 20 members have since signed on as cosponsors.
They are 18 Democrats, 2 independents.
Cosponsoring is a formal signature on the text. It is not a commitment to vote for the measure, it does not bind anyone's party, and a long list of cosponsors is a measure of attention rather than of prospects.
How long has it been in play?
It was introduced on November 15, 2017, 3221 days ago. The most recent recorded action was 3221 days ago, on November 15, 2017.
Measures do not carry over. Anything the 115th Congress has not finished by January 3, 2019 dies when the term ends, and has to be introduced again from the start in the next Congress.
Every answer above is assembled from this measure's own record on Congress.gov and from published counts of what Congress has passed before. Civibrief does not predict outcomes and takes no position on any measure.
Vote history
- SenateIn committee, no floor vote yet
- HouseAwaits Senate passage
- PresidentAwaits both chambers