| Okay...so the Baucus plan didn't come out Saturday. Or Sunday. Or Monday, for that matter...officially. It's apparently still being negotiated, but a draft proposal was leaked.
As you might imagine, there's no public option.
From the WaPo:
The Baucus plan, circulating among the Finance Committee's "Gang of Six" this weekend, sets forth provisions that have already gained the group's unofficial support and adds nothing new to the mix that the group has not already deliberated, senior Senate aides said. But Democrats are wary that two of the three GOP negotiators -- Sens. Charles Grassley (Iowa) and Mike Enzi (Wyo.) could still walk away, under pressure from their Republican colleagues to allow Democrats to fight for a bill on their own.
Two of the Baucus measures reflect the group's long-standing goal to find common ground on highly contentious issues. Instead of a government insurance option, the Baucus proposal would create a network of non-profit cooperatives -- an alternative that Grassley, the lead Republican negotiator, has backed. And it would levy a fee on insurers for providing high-cost plans, a provision aimed at curbing health-care cost inflation that Democrats and Republicans have endorsed, but that would violate an Obama campaign pledge not to target more generous plan covering many union households.
Taxing health care benefits? And no public option? To paraphrase Mike Trumka, are you out of your everlovin' mind? (And can you imagine the chutzpah of releasing a proposal to tax health care benefits on Labor Day?)
I'm thrilled Senator Baucus is negotiating like crazy with Senate Republicans. But this bill won't pass the House. And with the price tag at $900 billion, one wonders why the so-called fiscal conservatives aren't backing a robust public option, which would make the price of reform cheaper.
Again, and I'm sad to say this bears repeating, but instituting a mandate without a public option is simply a payout to the insurance industry to sell policies to people that need health care coverage.
The one concession to liberals in Baucus' proposal is a fee levied on insurance companies to help pick up some of the tab for insuring the uninsured:
The separate new fee on insurance companies would help raise money to pay for the plan. The fee would raise $6 billion a year starting in 2010, and it would be allocated among insurance companies according to their market shares.
Which makes my head spin, frankly. So...we're making everyone buy insurance who doesn't have it...and we're giving subsidies to those who can't afford insurance...which goes to the private insurers...who'll then give some of it back, no doubt after raising prices...spin spin spin...
And that's not even the kicker, according to David Dayen. It's that Baucus' proposal allows insurers to provide even worse coverage than ever, mandating that insurers need pay less than 70 percent of medical costs accrued by policyholders:
The only way to keep insurance premiums down for the poor, and therefore keep the subsidies down, is to make the coverage less generous. And the insurers would only pay for covered expenses. Anything not covered by the plan would go directly to the consumer. Someone making $20,000 a year would still be on the hook for up to $6,000 in medical bills under this plan, and that doesn't include their premiums or non-covered expenses. Insurers, then, get off the hook for a huge chunk of medical costs while having to pay a nominal tax, and the goal is actually to have them not pay it at all, but simply to discourage companies from buying good insurance policies for their workers. And you would still see plenty of medical bankruptcies. Virtually everyone's health coverage gets worse under this Baucus scenario. I don't remember "Less Quality Now!" being part of any sloganeering on the reform side.
Right now, about the only good in this bill is the proposal to expand Medicaid to 133 percent of the poverty level. Frankly, enacting a community standard would do little good under this model; sure, those with preexisting conditions could get coverage, but would still hover on the verge of bankruptcy, as their out-of-pocket expenses would be prohibitively high, and that's doubly so for anyone suffering from an ailment that requires extensive and expensive treatment. That is, the same folks who this reform was targeting.
And to "twist" insurers' arms to even cover what little they will, this proposal would degrade everybody's insurance coverage.
You'll probably hear wide cry that this proposal is unacceptable to progressives because it lacks the public option. (Which is true.) But this proposal is so bad on almost every level, that no reasonable lawmaker should even consider voting for it, no matter their stance on the public option... |
