Posted on 09/07/2009 10:01:34 AM PDT by nickcarraway
After months of deliberations, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus has distributed a plan to overhaul the health system that would cost less than $900 billion over a decade and expand insurance coverage to tens of millions of Americans.
Mr. Baucus's plan requires most Americans to carry health insurance and gives tax credits to low- and middle-income people to help them buy it. But as expected, the proposal wouldn't create the type of government-run health-insurance plan that President Barack Obama has pushed for. Instead, it would create new nonprofit health-insurance cooperatives to compete with private insurers, a compromise aimed at helping draw support from some Republicans and moderate Democrats.
Mr. Baucus's plan is paid for through a series of new revenue increases and spending cuts and is designed not to increase the deficit. It includes a tax on insurance companies when they offer particularly generous health-insurance plans. It also expands the government's Medicaid program to help cover the poor.
To make it easier to buy insurance, the plan calls for new health-insurance exchanges that would provide standardized information on insurance plans and pricing to make it easier for individuals and small businesses to shop for coverage.
The new plan, sent late Saturday to committee members, closely resembles what the committee was seeking before the Senate left Washington for the August recess. The committee needed to plug a $100 billion shortfall in the plan's budget over a decade, and Mr. Baucus, a Montana Democrat, assembled a combination of spending changes and revenue increases to make up for the gap, according to people familiar with the proposal.
The proposal is Congress's best hope for reaching a bipartisan agreement on sweeping legislation to overhaul the health system.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Would the co-ops receive gov’t money? If so - no go. If not, this could be OK.
I thought Medicaid was already in deep trouble. If so, why expand it into even deeper trouble?
This is just the 'public option', aka goobermint-run health insurance/care, with a thin translucent sheet placed between the conmen and the audience. Don't be a sucker.
It still forces people to have insurance.
Funny, I can’t find the text of his plan on either his personal office or Finance Committee websites. Does anyone have a link?
“It includes a tax on insurance companies when they offer particularly generous health-insurance plans. It also expands the government’s Medicaid program to help cover the poor.”
So...rationing disguised as a tax on ‘generous’ plans? And, increased direct costs by broadening the reach of Medicaid?
Nope, I ain’t buyin’ it. This one stinks, too. It’s well past time for the government to get back within the confines of the Constitution. That means getting the hell out of healthcare, all together. There is simply NO CONSTITUTIONAL AUTHORITY for this garbage.
It’s time to take back the country.
Bingo.
You mean like Boston's Big Dig, which was only supposed to cost $2.5 billion and ended up costing $22 billion at last count?
Government cost projections have historically proved worthless, almost always vastly underrating the actual cost by orders of magnitude.
Besides. We don't have another trillion bucks to throw at this. The American people are tapped out.
One thing I’m having a problem with. They mention “A co-op” Vs “co-ops” If they have “a” co-op, that means one co-op. Who’s going to decide which companies are in “the co-op”? “Co-ops” give more choice, more companies involved.
If they only have one “Co-op”, your choices will be controlled by the government.
No offense but any republican plan that is considered a ‘compromise’ plan I will not be for.
It needs to be our own plan that is not compromise.
On the surface - given taxes for “generous program” providers, co-ops managed by what will probably be SEIU thugs, forced membership, etc. - this should go in the shredder. I’m sure Snowe will think kindly of it though.
“cost less than $900 billion over a decade” translated to reality means “cost more than $9 trillion over a decade.”
The politicians underestimated the real costs of Medicare back in the 1960’s.
No more government expansion. No more government spending.
Cut back government and cut spending.
Over 3 trillion dollars a year is totally unacceptable.
I wonder what a “particularly generous plan” is? My plan (I am one of the company owners and we pick the plan ourselves) has a $10 copay for doctors, no deductible, moderate copay for prescriptions. Is that a generous plan?
Considering that it isn’t free! We pay a pretty penny for this coverage, but it is what we, as owners want for not only ourselves, but our employees. We pay a little less in wages but more than make up for it in benefits.
So will my company be taxed into submission? Will we have to offer the $5000 deductible plan (the premiums on that are, by the way only about 30% less).
In debates on health insurance and cost I ALWAYS go back to one line - TORT REFORM! Considering that about 35% of every medical dollar is going for either insurance or to pay someone who won a lawsuit it makes sense to me to do something about that.
I would be perfectly happy to sign a waiver that says as long as the doc is not drunk or high on drugs when doing a procedure that if something bad happens I won’t sue in exchange for paying 35% less. But that is currently illegal as I understand it.
I will be perfectly happy to have ONE test done rather than 15 (as is done now) and let my doctor advise me based on that one test. But that is not in keeping with the requirements placed on the medical establishment by liability insurance and various medical associations who establish what is the proper care. Just x-ray my lungs and forgo the ct scan, the pints of blood and urine tests to determine that I have bronchitis.
This medical cost reform stuff isn’t rocket science!
bfl
Let's just assume that it only costs 90 billion a year for ten years. That's a lot of money from a deficit neutral plan.
Let's keep the gov completely out of it. I liked the insurance ideas, not sure if they went far enough. Though I am against taxing them on one hand and forcing them to cover everything on the other. Prices are going to sky rocket.
Keep it simple. I want to know why we can't have the same coverage that they have, considering we are paying for it. Seems fair to me
Create a “non-profit, Government-run” ANYTHING, and it will immediately become a political tool and an expensive time bomb.
No, it will not be..
It's all window-dressing; the Kenyan MUST persuade his hard-left acolytes that there will be a total takeover...and if they'll just be patient, they'll see it.
All the ''co-ops'' will, in any case, be stacked chock-a-block with goobermint dildoes...er, bureaucrats.
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