Defeated Johanns amendment had direct health reform implications

Sen. Mike Johanns' amendment to repeal the health reform law's 1099 business reporting requirement would have had a direct effect on several provisions of the law.

While most of the attention was focused on the 1099 provision itself, the Nebraska Republican also wanted to cut funding for prevention and public health by $11 billion and weaken the requirement that most Americans buy health insurance starting in 2014. The amendment failed a cloture vote by a 46-52 vote on Tuesday.

The American Public Health Association immediately praised the vote, saying the Johanns bill would have "effectively eliminated" the health reform law's Prevention and Public Health Fund.

"Today, the Senate signaled that it will not tolerate any efforts to undermine health reform and embraced public health and prevention as hallmarks of reform," executive director Georges Benjamin said in a statement. "The public health community applauds the Senate for  protecting the fund and appreciating the promise that disease prevention holds for all Americans."

The Johanns amendment would also have exempted many more people from the law's individual mandate requirement. The liberal Center for Budget and Policy Priorities estimated that the provision would result "increasing the number of uninsured people by 2 million (relative to what would occur under the health reform law), driving up premiums by as much as 4 percent for people with coverage through the new health insurance exchanges (because the pool of people in the exchanges would be less healthy, on average)."