As we pore over the House's health care reform legislation, let's turn - as we always should - to Bernie Sanders for a reminder of what health care reform should be trying to achieve:
The function of what we're doing here is not to support private health insurance industry. I know it's a shock. The function of what we're trying to do here is to provide the best quality health care for the American people in the most cost-effective way.
(The whole video is below the fold.)
So...how does it look? For me, as you no doubt know, my benchmark is around the public option. Well, there's a public plan (pdf), which is good, although, as Ezra notes that the Health Insurance Exchange, where the public will be able to buy the public option, "will be, relative to the population, pretty limited. So the public plan will be limited, and so too will any anticipated savings." The Health Insurance Exchange could be opened up to more Americans at the discretion of "the Commissioner" - which is either good or bad, depending on how pessimistic you are about industry lobbyists being able to block any such move. (I'm leaning towards "bad.")
The subsidies and assistance for mid- to low-income families actually looks pretty decent - families of four earning up to $88K are eligible for tax credits. There'll also be a cap on insurance premiums for those families. Medicare eligibility is expanding to families at 133 percent of poverty.
Overall, at first glance, and without reading the entire bill, and still waiting for others to pitch in, I'd give it a C+. It helps a lot of folks, but the return for everyday Americans is small, and it serves in part as a subsidy to private insurers. If the availability of the public option broadens, it'd be better. Still, the bill is a band-aid, not a cure.
Expect the Senate to weaken it. |
