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By JACKIE CALMES
Published: July 2, 2009
WASHINGTON — To warm words from President Obama, the Democratic leaders of the Senate health committee unveiled a revised plan Thursday to provide health coverage to nearly all Americans. The plan would require most employers to offer benefits to their workers or pay fees to the government and would create a public competitor to insurance companies.
The proposal clears the way for the committee to vote on a package next week as the House and the Senate hustle to pass separate health bills this month before Congress leaves on its August break. But a second Senate panel, the Finance Committee, is still struggling to reach consensus.
The health committee’s blueprint builds on an incomplete version that was much criticized two weeks ago when the Congressional Budget Office reported that it would cost more than $1 trillion over 10 years and still leave up to 37 million Americans uninsured. That budget report was widely considered a setback for a health care overhaul, Mr. Obama’s top domestic priority.
Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, the health committee chairman, and Senator Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut subsequently filled in details of the plan and scaled back subsidies that would help low-income people buy insurance.
Attached to the revised outline they presented Thursday was a new budget office analysis projecting that the plan would cost $611 billion over a decade and, together with expected changes from the Finance Committee, cover 97 percent of Americans.
The Finance Committee, which has jurisdiction over Medicaid is expected to propose expansions to that government health program for the poor that would add several hundred billion dollars more to the legislation’s cost, depending on how it is designed.
Mr. Obama and the Democrats who control Congress are seeking to hold the upfront costs of overhauling the health care system to roughly $1 trillion over a decade. In the course of time, they argue, the changes would rein in health care spending through efficient practices and lower insurance costs.
Their main idea for controlling insurance costs is the proposal for a public option. Along with private insurers’ offerings, it would be part of a new insurance exchange from which consumers without employer-provided coverage could choose. On Thursday, Mr. Obama said again that the public option would help in “keeping the insurance companies honest.”
In a statement, the president hailed the Senate health committee’s work. It “reflects many of the principles I’ve laid out,” he said, including the insurance exchange and a requirement that insurance companies cover people with pre-existing conditions.
Under the Kennedy-Dodd proposal, employers with 25 or more workers would have to provide coverage or pay the government an annual fee of $750 for each full-time worker and $375 for each part-timer. The government would pay the start-up costs for the public insurance option as a loan to be repaid, and premiums would be set up so that the option was ultimately self-sufficient.
See--http://harlemvoiceblogs.blogspot.com/
Published: July 2, 2009
WASHINGTON — To warm words from President Obama, the Democratic leaders of the Senate health committee unveiled a revised plan Thursday to provide health coverage to nearly all Americans. The plan would require most employers to offer benefits to their workers or pay fees to the government and would create a public competitor to insurance companies.
The proposal clears the way for the committee to vote on a package next week as the House and the Senate hustle to pass separate health bills this month before Congress leaves on its August break. But a second Senate panel, the Finance Committee, is still struggling to reach consensus.
The health committee’s blueprint builds on an incomplete version that was much criticized two weeks ago when the Congressional Budget Office reported that it would cost more than $1 trillion over 10 years and still leave up to 37 million Americans uninsured. That budget report was widely considered a setback for a health care overhaul, Mr. Obama’s top domestic priority.
Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, the health committee chairman, and Senator Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut subsequently filled in details of the plan and scaled back subsidies that would help low-income people buy insurance.
Attached to the revised outline they presented Thursday was a new budget office analysis projecting that the plan would cost $611 billion over a decade and, together with expected changes from the Finance Committee, cover 97 percent of Americans.
The Finance Committee, which has jurisdiction over Medicaid is expected to propose expansions to that government health program for the poor that would add several hundred billion dollars more to the legislation’s cost, depending on how it is designed.
Mr. Obama and the Democrats who control Congress are seeking to hold the upfront costs of overhauling the health care system to roughly $1 trillion over a decade. In the course of time, they argue, the changes would rein in health care spending through efficient practices and lower insurance costs.
Their main idea for controlling insurance costs is the proposal for a public option. Along with private insurers’ offerings, it would be part of a new insurance exchange from which consumers without employer-provided coverage could choose. On Thursday, Mr. Obama said again that the public option would help in “keeping the insurance companies honest.”
In a statement, the president hailed the Senate health committee’s work. It “reflects many of the principles I’ve laid out,” he said, including the insurance exchange and a requirement that insurance companies cover people with pre-existing conditions.
Under the Kennedy-Dodd proposal, employers with 25 or more workers would have to provide coverage or pay the government an annual fee of $750 for each full-time worker and $375 for each part-timer. The government would pay the start-up costs for the public insurance option as a loan to be repaid, and premiums would be set up so that the option was ultimately self-sufficient.
See--http://harlemvoiceblogs.blogspot.com/
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