Health care spending makes up 16% of the U.S. economy. Reforming the system won't happen overnight. But Democratic lawmakers are sure to add enough immediate benefits to make it pay off for them politically. You can see how the policy and political goals come together in the Senate Finance Committee bill (aka America's Healthy Future Act). People with pre-existing conditions will have immediate access to a high risk pool and get subsidies for coverage. After a couple of years small businesses and low income Americans get tax credits to buy insurance. There would be no tax penalties for employers or individuals until after the 2012 election.
And lawmakers are already considering ways to add benefits that won't take a lot of time to implement, including closing the so-called donut hole in the Medicare prescription drug coverage and letting early retirees buy into Medicare.
Comments
I do not believe there has been a clear understanding on how the Medicare Advantage programs expanded in 2007. Was there a price tag by the CBO reported? I believe PBS needs to report on the next report by David Walker IOUSA so that we can understand the fiscal consequences. I believe we should cover all Americans with health insurance to avoid adverse-risk selection. Would it be appropriate to provide a Health Plan that has preventive and catastrophic coverage for the uninsured as a starter. I would like to see a the details of a Cadillac Health Care Plan what is actually covered to make it so rich? Are these plans similar to the excesses of Wall Street? When are we going to live within our means? One of the moderate Idaho Democrats
Thank you for the helpful links.
Stephanie,
Thanks for the link to the Kaiser Family Foundation website. How do they plan to track the individual penalties, employer penalties, income eligibility levels, refunds, subsidies and all the other administrative processes for 41 million people? That seems like a lot of work.
All I can figure is that this health care reform is being used as a vehicle to add some of the 3 million new jobs promised in the stimulus package.
Call me joiner --
You also might want to check out this resource page on the NBR site: America's Healthy Future Act. It contains a link to an early draft of the Senate Finance Committee's proposal, which is being called the America's Healthy Future Act. Of course, as Stephanie points out, things are still in flux and the actual, refined legislation that might be voted on does not exist yet.
Call me joiner,
There isn't one complete "Act" per se, but three separte ideas. The Senate Finance Committee is a list of "ideas" (as opposed to actual legislative language) and can be found at http://finance.senate.gov/
The Kaiser Family Foundation has a good comparison of the different proposals at
http://www.kff.org/healthreform/sidebyside.cfm
This is what they took six months to come up with? Let's face it--- the second year of these two year terms is spent campaigning for re-election. So if something doesn't get passed early in that first year, throw the people a crumb and put it off until year 3.
Is there a place to read the complete Act anywhere online?