CQ TODAY ONLINE NEWS
– HEALTH
June 19, 2009 – 6:01 p.m.
House Health Proposal Based On Obama Priorities, Chairmen Say
By Drew Armstrong, CQ Staff
Three House committees will begin hearings next week on a health care bill that its backers say would cover 95 percent of the uninsured while driving down health care costs for the rest of the country.
The legislation, presented Friday by the Democratic chairmen of the Energy and Commerce, Ways and Means and Education and Labor committees, was written based on the vision President Obama set forth during his 2008 campaign and in recent months, they said.
That includes a government-run insurance option that will compete with private insurance companies to offer people coverage. “He’s continued to stress the need for a public option,” George Miller , D-Calif., the chairman of the Education and Labor Committee, said of Obama’s priorities for the House bill.
Miller and the other chairmen emphasized that their proposal was still a draft and that the final details — including how to pay for it — would be worked out over the coming weeks.
They do not have an estimate of the bill’s cost. “We’re waiting for the numbers to come,” said Ways and Means Chairman Charles B. Rangel , D-N.Y., blaming delays on the Congressional Budget Office.
House Democrats have vowed that the bill will be fully offset. “We’re going to pay for this bill,” said Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry A. Waxman , D-Calif.
Credits and Exchanges
To expand insurance coverage to most of the nation, there would be credits to help people with incomes up to 400 percent of the federal poverty level — $88,000 for a family of four. People could use those credits to buy coverage through the government-run plan, or through the private insurance offerings.
“It builds on what works and fixes what needs to be fixed,” said Waxman.
The public and private insurance plans would be offered through an “exchange,” essentially a national marketplace to buy coverage, in which private insurance companies would have to compete with the government plan.
“For the people who are afraid of competition, they shouldn’t be in this business,” said Rangel.
Waxman emphasized that the government plan would be on a level playing field in the exchange, an idea Republicans have disputed.
Waxman said there would be no subsidies for the public plan other than some initial start-up funding. Providers would be able to choose whether to participate. And payment rates would initially be based on Medicare, but eventually the government plan would have to negotiate rates with health care providers.
The proposal would also give new powers to the executive branch, through a board headed by the U.S. Surgeon General. According to a summary of the draft legislation, the Surgeon General would head an appointed board to recommend minimum benefits for insurance plans to be allowed into the health insurance exchange.
Summer Markups
Waxman promised that the House would finish marking up the legislation by the August recess, with the goal of getting legislation to Obama by October. “We’re going to keep on the schedule the president set out for us,” Waxman said.
Markups will also be where lawmakers decide what sort of changes to the health care system will be made to help pay for the bill, and which revenue raisers to add.
“We want the very difficult decisions about those issues to play out in the committee process,” said Robert E. Andrews , D-N.J., chairman of Education and Labor’s Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions Subcommittee.
The House legislation also contains a new requirement on businesses to participate in offering health insurance, or pay into the system. For companies that were not eligible for a waiver to get out of the requirement, they would have to pay 8 percent of their payroll costs into a pool to help people buy coverage. Some small businesses would be exempted.
Andrews emphasized that most businesses would see little change. “There will be the vast, vast majority of them that will be left alone,” said Andrews.
How small businesses would need to be to qualify for an exception has yet to be decided, he said. “Exactly where those lines will be drawn will be decided in hearings and markups,” Andrews said.
That would be paired with a mandate that individuals carry coverage. For those that did not, there would be a “modest penalty based on income.”
On Friday, Obama praised the House bill. “This proposal would improve the affordability, availability, and quality of health care, and represents a major step toward our goal of fixing what is broken about health care while building on what works,” the president said in a statement.
GOP Criticism
Republicans almost immediately attacked the proposal. House Minority Leader John A. Boehner of Ohio called the proposal “nothing less than a government takeover of health care.” Republicans have been hammering the talking point that any Democratic proposal would “delay, deny, and ration” health care services.
And Ways and Means ranking member Dave Camp of Michigan criticized Democrats for not knowing their bill’s cost. “The Democrats are refusing to reveal the price tag of this bill or how they will pay for it, but it is obvious it will cost well-over a trillion dollars,” Camp said in a statement.
Republicans have complained that they had no involvement in drafting the bill, despite Obama’s calls for bipartisanship. Andrews said that Republicans, along with moderate Democrats who have previously disagreed with proposals that appeared in the draft bill, would get to air their grievances in committee.
“This process is going to be deliberate, it’s going to be transparent, it’s going to be messy,” he said.
Comments
what needs to be done is,first forget the republicans,second pass a govt run plan with reconcilliation,three pay medicare rates,fourthmake it mandatory for all provider participation,fifth subsidize people at 300 percent of povertysith tax benefits at 16k and up seventhlimit top earners deductions,eighthsit back and watch the total cost of all health insurance stabilize and yes even decline...
POST A COMMENT
Oops! The following errors must be addressed: