Posted on 09/16/2009 7:22:56 AM PDT by La Lydia
WASHINGTON -- Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus formally unveiled a 10-year $856 billion bill that would extend health insurance to tens of millions of Americans not now covered, moving an important step forward on President Barack Obama's top domestic priority. The sweeping measure is designed to steer a more moderate course on health policy than other major bills moving through Capitol Hill, and doesn't propose to create a new government insurance plan to compete with private insurers, as proposed in rival House legislation and favored by many liberals. Instead, the Montana Democrat is proposing to expand coverage by creating a network of nonprofit health insurance cooperatives.
More than a year in the making, the bill would overhaul the nation's health-care system and has sparked a sharp battle between Republican leaders and the White House over the size and role of government in the nation's economy. The measure would create a new national insurance exchange, where individuals and small businesses can purchase insurance. Individuals would be required to purchase insurance, but those at the lower end of the income ladder would receive federal tax subsidies to defray the cost.
Moreover, insurers would be barred from using a range of practices -- such as denying health coverage to individuals with pre-existing conditions -- that critics say have created economic turmoil and emotional hardship for millions of families....
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Illegals already get free health-care coverage for their U.S.-born children. Medicaid and SCHIP. And the pregnant illegals get free pre-natal care, courtesy of the taxpayers.
And Bacus looked happy as a clam at the presser. Delusional, just like his boss.
Now we can add a few million when word gets out that we’ve become even more generous.
It will bring them stampeding across the border. I also predict a massive wave of visitors’ visa overstays and an uptick in document fraud.
This bill still has the requirement that everyone buy health insurance or face a fine. This bill is no better than any other. It is no more conservative than any other.
A single payer plan is more conservative than forcing everyone to buy health insurance or face a fine.
Ping
***The bill would set up a verification system to make sure people buying insurance in the exchanges are U.S. citizens or legal immigrants, using Social Security data and Homeland Security Department files. The bill would impose penalties for fraud and identity theft.***
We don’t need a bill to tell our Government to enforce the laws already on the books.
needless to say we will have a lot of people refusing to pay the thousand dollar fines for not having health insurance to the IRS. Then the FBI will get involved, and that will signal the first shots across the bow for many independent business owners.
Just what I was thinking. DOA. By the way has anyone seen Obama’s plan? He keeps talking about it.
And WHOHOO! an excise tax:
Excise Tax. The consequence for not maintaining insurance would be an excise tax. If a taxpayers MAGI is between 100-300 percent of FPL, the excise tax for failing to obtain coverage for an individual in a taxpayer unit (either as a taxpayer or an individual claimed as a dependent) is $750 per year. However, the maximum penalty for the taxpayer unit is $1,500. If a taxpayers MAGI is above 300 percent of FPL the penalty for failing to obtain coverage for an individual in a taxpayer unit (either as a taxpayer or as an individual claimed as a dependent) is $950 year. However, the maximum penalty amount a family above 300 percent of FPL would pay is $3,800.
Only $3800? What a bargain! Thank you, thank you, government!
P.S. What's a "taxpayer unit"? It sounds sort of ...um...Soylent Green...or something.
Same “gift to the American people”, just different wrapping paper.
If everyone liked the Baucus plan he would have taken credit.
NOTICE ObamaCare is no longer a key word...
the money is with the doctors, not the insurance companies. Insurance companies are no more profitable here than in other countries. Doctors on the other hand, make far far more here. Lowering health care costs means lowering doctors’ pay, and compensating them partly by doing serious tort reform, and saving them time with reimbursements by rationalizing those schedules
Regardless of the kind of wax paper he used, it is still a toid sandwich.
In civilized nations, of which there are few left, that would be recognized for the armed robbery that it is.
Ain’t FREE Healthcare expensive?
Thanks, Lord knows we wont here a word of the wonderful bill from the MSM.
War Games?.
You Mean: Global Thermonuclear War?
Well, politically, that’s what the Democrats ARE playing.
If I was a Governor, I'd completely sever ties with Medicare and Medicaid and all federal healthcare rules and regulations.
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