House rolls out plan to make health care a right
By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR and ERICA WERNER

Associated Press Writers

House Democrats on Tuesday rolled out a far-reaching $1.5 trillion plan that for the first time would make health care a right and a responsibility for all Americans, with medical providers, employers and the wealthiest picking up most of the tab.

The federal government would be responsible for ensuring that every person, regardless of income or the state of their health, has access to an affordable insurance plan. Individuals and employers would have new obligations to get coverage, or face hefty penalties.

Health care overhaul is President Barack Obama's top domestic priority, and his goal is to slow rising costs and provide coverage to nearly 50 million uninsured Americans.

Democratic leaders said they would push the measure through committee and toward a vote in the full House by month's end, while the pace of activity quickened on the other side of the Capitol.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said he wanted floor debate to begin a week from Monday. Other officials said that timetable was likely to slip. Even so, it underscored a renewed sense of urgency.

The House legislation unveiled by Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats would slow the growth of Medicare and Medicaid payments to medical providers. From big hospitals to solo physician practices, providers also would be held to account for quality care, not just ordering up tests and procedures. Insurance companies would be prohibited from denying coverage to the sick. The industry also would face stiff competition from a new government plan designed along the lines of Medicare.

The liberal-leaning plan lacked figures on total costs, but a House Democratic aide said the total bill would add up to about $1.5 trillion over 10 years. The aide spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the private calculations. Most of the bill's costs come in the last five years after the 2012 presidential election.

The legislation calls for a 5.4 percent tax increase on individuals making more than $1 million a year, with a gradual tax beginning at $280,000 for individuals. Employers who don't provide coverage would be hit with a penalty equal to 8 percent of workers' wages with an exemption for small businesses. Individuals who decline an offer of affordable coverage would pay 2.5 percent of their incomes as a penalty, up to the average cost of a health insurance plan.

With Obama pressing Congress to act on health care this summer, House leaders want to move their bill quickly through three committees and to a floor vote before the August congressional recess. But a group of moderate and conservative Democrats has withheld support, and no Republican votes are expected.

The House bill seemed unlikely to win broad backing in the Senate, where the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee was expected to finish its version of the legislation Wednesday in what was looking to be a party-line vote. Another panel, the Senate Finance Committee, was striving to unveil a bill by the end of the week.

Standing before a banner that read "Quality Affordable Care for the Middle Class," Pelosi, D-Calif., called the moment "historic and transformative." The bill would provide "stability and peace of mind" by braking costs and guaranteeing coverage, she said.

"We are going to accomplish what many people felt wouldn't happen in our lifetime," said House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., one of the main sponsors. Obama, who issued a statement hailing the measure, plans to keep up the pressure on Congress by delivering remarks in the Rose Garden on Wednesday.

Speaking in Warren, Mich., where he was promoting new spending for community colleges, Obama anticipated a congressional confrontation over health care.

"There's going to be a major debate over the next three weeks," he said, deviating from his prepared text. "And don't be fooled by folks trying to scare you saying we can't change the health care system.We have no choice but to change the health care system because right now it's broken for too many Americans."

Separately, Obama spoke by telephone with Sen. Charles Grassley, the Iowa Republican viewed as critical to the fate of bipartisan negotiations in the Senate.

House Democrats said the income tax increase in their bill would apply only to the top 1.2 percent of households, those who earn about one-quarter of all income. The wealthiest 4 percent of small business owners would be among them. The tax would start at 1 percent for couples making $350,000 and individuals earning $280,000, ramp up to 1.5 percent above $500,000 of income, and jump to 5.4 percent for those earning above $1 million.

The tax would raise an estimated $544 billion over 10 years.

Business groups and the insurance industry immediately assailed the legislation. In a letter to lawmakers, major business organizations branded the 1,000-page bill a job-killer. Its coverage mandate would automatically raise the cost of hiring a new worker, they said.

"Exempting some micro-businesses will not prevent this provision from killing many jobs," the letter said. "Congress should allow market forces and employer autonomy to determine what benefits employers provide, rather than deciding by fiat."

The business groups also warned that the U.S. health care system could be damaged by adding a government-run insurance plan and a federal council that would make some decisions on benefits, as called for in the legislation. Thirty-one organizations signed the letter, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable representing top corporate CEOs and the National Retail Federation.

The House bill would change the way individuals and many employers get health insurance. It would set up a new national purchasing pool, called an exchange. The exchange would offer a menu of plans, with different levels of coverage. A government plan would be among the options, and the exchange would eventually be open to most employers. Insurers say that combination would drive many of them out of business since the public plan would be able to offer lower premiums to virtually all Americans.

But backers of a public plan - including Obama - say it would provide healthy competition for the insurance industry.

Under the House bill, the government would provide subsidies to make coverage more affordable for households with incomes up to four times the federal poverty level, or $88,000 for a family of four and $43,000 for an individual. Medicaid - the federal-state health program for the poor - would be expanded to individuals and families up to 133 percent of the poverty line. About 17 million people would remain uninsured - about 6 percent of the population - and half of them would be illegal immigrants.

The legislation also would improve the Medicare prescription drug benefit by gradually reducing a coverage gap known as the 'doughnut hole.'

The individual and employer coverage requirements would raise about $192 billion over 10 years, the Congressional Budget Office said.

Even before the bill was unveiled, the House Ways and Means Committee announced it would vote on the proposal beginning on Thursday. The panel is one of three that must act before the bill can go to the full House, probably later in the month.

Some House Democrats privately have expressed concern that they will be required to vote on higher taxes, only to learn later that the Senate does not intend to follow through with legislation of its own. That would leave rank-and-file House Democrats up for re-election next year in the uncomfortable position of having to explain their vote on a costly bill that never reached Obama's desk or became law.

Health bill unveiled, with extra tax on rich

By ROBERT PEAR and DAVID M. HERSZENHORN

The New York Times

WASHINGTON — House Democratic leaders Tuesday took a big step toward guaranteeing health insurance for most Americans as they unveiled a bill that detailed how they would expand coverage, slow the growth of Medicare, increase taxes on high-income people and penalize employers who do not provide health benefits.

A day after President Obama pressured Democratic leaders to speed up work on his top domestic priority, three House committees announced plans to begin voting on the measure this week.

Starting in 2011, a family making $500,000 would have to pay $1,500 of additional tax to help subsidize coverage for the uninsured. A family making $1 million would have to pay $9,000 more.

Employers who do not provide health insurance generally would have to pay a fee or penalty to the government. The fee would be equal to 8 percent of wages for an employer with an annual payroll of more than $400,000.

After months of setbacks and uncertainty, House Democrats were jubilant as they introduced their proposal to achieve a goal that has eluded presidents for six decades.

"This is indeed a happy day, for today we are introducing historic and transformative legislation that will benefit all Americans, a health-insurance act for the great middle class of America," Speaker Nancy Pelosi said.

Obama hailed the bill, which he described as a product of "unprecedented cooperation" by three committees.

Speaking from Warren, Mich., Obama said, "Don't be fooled by folks trying to scare you by saying we can't change the health-care system — we have no choice but to fix the health-care system because right now it's broken for too many Americans."

A partial, preliminary estimate by the Congressional Budget Office said the legislation would cost slightly more than $1 trillion over 10 years to expand coverage as provided in the House bill.

But Democrats said the cost would be fully offset by proposed savings in Medicare and other health programs and by revenue-raising changes in federal tax laws. Douglas Elmendorf, director of the budget office, said that by 2019 the bill could reduce the number of people without health insurance by 37 million, leaving 17 million still uninsured. Nearly half of the uninsured would be illegal immigrants, he said.

Still, in a letter to lawmakers, major business organizations described the 1,018-page bill as a job-killer. They said its coverage mandate would automatically increase the cost of hiring a new worker.

In a summary of the bill, House Democrats said their proposal for a new surcharge, or surtax, would raise $544 billion over 10 years — roughly half the cost of the bill — and affect "only 1.2 percent of all households in the United States."

The surtax would apply to any adjusted gross income exceeding $280,000 a year for an individual and $350,000 for a couple filing a joint return. The surtax would range from 1 percent to 5.4 percent.

The additional tax on high-income people could rise significantly in 2013 if the federal government did not achieve specified savings in federal health programs such as Medicare and Medicaid.

On the other side of the Capitol, after more than three weeks of work, the Senate health committee was poised to become the first panel to approve comprehensive health legislation.

But the Senate Finance Committee still is struggling to find ways to pay for it all, and the chairman of the panel, Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., acknowledged he had yet to secure the bipartisan support he had been seeking for months.

The House bill would create a new government-run health plan, which would compete with private insurers, starting in 2013.

People could buy individual coverage from the new government plan, and those with modest incomes could receive federal aid. Workers who have access to insurance through their employers could sign up for the government plan if premiums for the employer coverage would consume more than 11 percent of family income.

While employers not providing coverage generally would have to pay a fee or penalty equal to 8 percent of wages, there would be some exceptions. For example, an employer with a payroll less than $250,000 a year would not have to pay any fee or penalty.

The fee would be equal to 2 percent of wages for a company with an annual payroll of $250,000 to $300,000; 4 percent of wages for an employer with payroll of $300,000 to $350,000; and 6 percent of wages for businesses with payroll of $350,000 to $400,000.

The CBO said such "pay-or-play requirements" could reduce the hiring of low-wage workers.

"Employees largely bear the cost of health insurance," the budget office said. But, it added, employers cannot reduce wages for workers receiving the minimum wage, so "a play-or-pay provision could reduce the hiring of low-wage workers." The report did not say how many people might be affected, but suggested "the effect would probably be small."

The House Republican leader, Rep. John Boehner of Ohio, said it was "criminal malpractice" for Democrats to be pushing what he called "a new small-business tax" in the current recession.

But Democrats said small businesses, for whom health insurance often is prohibitively expensive, would be among the prime beneficiaries of the bill, in part because they could obtain federal tax credits to help them buy coverage in an insurance market subject to stringent new federal rules.

Quoted:
Well, the first of at least two, maybe three or more competinh Senate versions is out.
BTW, did you know "senate" shares the same root word as "senile"?

Question of the day, thoguh, hass  to be "What happens to the price of a cheeseburger when McDonalds has to pay for full health care for every illegal alien burger-flipper and fry-dipper?"

At work again, no linky, but look at the Seattle Pravda article about The Dear One "going into campaign mode."

Posted Via AR15.Com Mobile

Quoted:
I've said it once, I'll say it 100 times, I"ll support national Healthcare when the obese are required to stop eating fast food and workout once in a while.  Outside of that, the dems can fuck themselves, I'm not paying for a fat fuck that concsiously makes poor health choices and destroys their bodies!

Quoted:
Are we becoming China?

Quoted:
Kindly explain to me why I should be responsible for anyone's health care but own, and my family's.

Posted Via AR15.Com Mobile

EDIT:  


(Note to usnpjs:  I would like to think you were being sarcastic or something; if so, assume the following is me practicing for the rant on this subject I am going to post on my blog...)

snip

Quoted:


Actually I said obese, not just fat, theres a difference between a guy that weighs 230lbs, and a guy that weighs 300lbs.  Being as heart disease is a huge issue in this country and everyone is too busy shoving 700 calorie $.99 sandwiches down their face to go for a jog or to do anything other than sit on their ass and swill beer all night, I think it needs to be addressed.  I have been to countries where they don't have fast food joints on every corner, and you know what? They don't have problems with obesity.  I'm sorry but if someone doesn't give a shit about taking care of themselves, why should I have to foot the bill when their body can't handle it anymore?

I'm not agreeing with this proposed healthcare plan by any stretch of the imagination, I think its total communist bullshit, its just the one thing that really bugs me is whats listed above.  I was immensly overweight at one point in my life, I'm more than good now though and I eat fast food at most about once a month.  But then again I workout for roughly 20min every night too, so call me crazy but i know its possible to be healthy.

       


   





 


   





 


   





 


   





 


   





 


   





 


   





 


   





 






     





 



   





 



   





 



   





 



   





 



   





 



   





 



   





 



   





   

Quoted:
I would support the health care bill IF.....

1. No .gov involvement other than regulation and funds.
2. No lobbyists from corporations able to speak their part (I also believe that Lobbying should be illegal.)
3. They didn’t go around and ask HMO and PPOs their opinions.

The sad thing is I think that 40-50 years ago we could have implemented one of the best systems in the world. Light years ahead of other countries. And before publicly traded companies had more say in this country then the citizens that are taxed and discarded so easily.  

Quoted:


Actually I said obese, not just fat, theres a difference between a guy that weighs 230lbs, and a guy that weighs 300lbs. ...

Quoted:




"ONLY" regulations and funding?  
Shut the corporations out, and only let the Obamunists butt-buddy commie lobbyists and "community organizers"  have a say?
Ignore what the care providers have to say?

Any OTHER rights you want to barter away a little bit at a time?

How does that kool-aid taste, anyway?

On second thought, never mind, I'm not interested...
http://www.vssr.org/images/flags/Culpeper2.jpg

Quoted:


You also said "fat fuck."  Consider this a teachable moment:  The opposition will key in on emotion-laden,  "hurtful speech" like this and ignore the possibility that you might have had "facts" in mind.

Besides, it does not change the fact (ha!) that "they" will not exclude any "unhealthy lifestyles" from money here, but will, in all probability, use this as a lever to regulate their idea of unhealthy lifestyles.

Quoted:


Um, fucking duh?  thats was my enitire point; no matter if you take care of yourself or not, you will end up paying for the stupid ignorant fat fucks that make up the majority of this country.  I don't want to do that. That my friend, is my complaint.

And I could give a good god damn about "hurtful speech", this isn't a some idiot debate class, I don't ever care if I "offend" people because if it hurts their feelings I have this tidbit of advice: less cheeseburgers, more pushups.  Theres 2 people that are always ok to make fun of, Athiests, and Fatties, guess which one I am and guess how much I care.

Quoted:






Um, fucking duh?  thats was my enitire point; no matter if you take care of yourself or not, you will end up paying for the stupid ignorant fat fucks that make up the majority of this country.  I don't want to do that. That my friend, is my complaint.



And I could give a good god damn about "hurtful speech", this isn't a some idiot debate class, I don't ever care if I "offend" people because if it hurts their feelings I have this tidbit of advice: less cheeseburgers, more pushups.  Theres 2 people that are always ok to make fun of, Athiests, and Fatties, guess which one I am and guess how much I care.

SEC. 102. PROTECTING THE CHOICE TO KEEP CURRENT COVERAGE.

(a) Grandfathered Health Insurance Coverage Defined- Subject to the succeeding provisions of this section, for purposes of establishing acceptable coverage under this division, the term ‘grandfathered health insurance coverage’ means individual health insurance coverage that is offered and in force and effect before the first day of Y1 if the following conditions are met:

(1) LIMITATION ON NEW ENROLLMENT-

(A) IN GENERAL- Except as provided in this paragraph, the individual health insurance issuer offering such coverage does not enroll any individual in such coverage if the first effective date of coverage is on or after the first day of Y1.

SEC. 111. PROHIBITING PRE-EXISTING CONDITION EXCLUSIONS.

A qualified health benefits plan may not impose any pre-existing condition exclusion (as defined in section 2701(b)(1)(A) of the Public Health Service Act) or otherwise impose any limit or condition on the coverage under the plan with respect to an individual or dependent based on any health status-related factors (as defined in section 2791(d)(9) of the Public Health Service Act) in relation to the individual or dependent.

Quoted:
So, back to the bill...

This turkey is 1018 pages long, and that's before they start piling on the pork. (Link to the PDF, for those with plenty of time to read and annotate it.  Link to the text online, for the brave or insomniac.)



Some feel this means "no new insurance after January 1st of whatever year this crap is passed."


Would seem to say "Alcoholic? Drug-addict? History of suicidal gestures, obese, already diagnosed with fatal disease?  Doesn't matter, we'll cover anybody!  C'mon on down to Honest Barry's Health Care Lot!"

Quoted:
Wave if your parents had health insurance when they were your age.

Quoted:


bump... I want to argue

Quoted:
Wave if your parents had health insurance when they were your age.

“Authorizes a demonstration program to improve immunization coverage. Under this program, CDC will provide grants to states to improve immunization coverage of children, adolescents, and adults through the use of evidence-based interventions. States may use funds to implement interventions that are recommended by the Community Preventive Services Task Force, such as reminders or recalls for patients or providers, or home visits.”

We can't cure health care if we misdiagnose the disease: Who are the 47 million uninsured, really?

By Kristen Lopez Eastlick
Special to NYDailyNews.com

Wednesday, July 15th 2009, 4:00 AM

Fifteen years after Hillarycare crashed and burned as the potential solution to America's health care problems, President Obama's Democrats are taking another wobbly stab at comprehensive reform.

For the next few weeks, Capitol Hill denizens will breathlessly debate what is right, what is wrong and what is too expensive about Sen. Ted Kennedy's trillion-dollar health care plan.

Apparently the Democrats, in their zeal to claim that they have solved the health care "crisis," believe that no price is too high for reform. They press on in a frenzy to provide "affordable health care for all" without truly understanding who the uninsured are and what methods would be most cost-effective for insuring them. The Republicans, on the other hand, are too paralyzed with sticker shock to offer any truly thoughtful solutions themselves.

But before either side gets bogged down in the details of the latest health care bill, they would do well to take a deep breath and a step back from the political precipice to better understand the problem they propose to solve.

The whole conversation surrounding health care rests on the false but widely held assumption that there are currently 47 million uninsured Americans. That number is on the tongue of every cable news pundit and policy wonk in Washington. After all, you can't have a massive solution without a massive-seeming problem.

In a new study by former Congressional Budget Office Director  June O'Neill, commissioned by the Employment Policies Institute, it was determined that 43% of people counted in the overblown 47 million uninsured estimate actually have incomes of at least 250% of the poverty level (averaging about $65,000) and could afford to purchase private health coverage. They are not insured because they choose not to pay for insurance. I'd bet dollars to doughnuts that the people in this 43% pay for dinners out, cell phones, cable TV and many other "higher" priorities.

A healthy 25-year-old single man making $50,000 a year is a member of what O'Neill calls the "voluntarily uninsured," meaning he could afford private health care coverage, but instead chooses to spend his disposable income on something else.

Now, I'm not saying it's a bright idea to go without health insurance, but I am saying that any health care plan that endeavors to "provide affordable health care for all" needs to take into account that covering our 25-year-old man requires a very different kind of solution (i.e., low-cost catastrophic coverage) than covering a 50-year-old man with cancer who has three kids and was recently laid off.

The one-size-fits-all solution currently being debated fails to recognize the vast differences among the uninsured.

Beyond the fact that nearly half of the purported uninsured could actually purchase health care coverage if they so chose, there are other rarely mentioned groups being included in the bogus 47 million statistic. MIT economist Jonathan Gruber estimates that illegal immigrants constitute 13% of the uninsured population. Kennedy's bill, or any likely health care bill for that matter, would not cover undocumented and illegal workers, so it makes no sense to include them in our uninsured head count.

Immigration, not health care, reform is required in order to address that 13%.

Along the same line, 40% of the "involuntarily uninsured," meaning those who cannot reasonably afford health insurance, are unemployed. Since employment typically brings with it the benefit of health insurance, it would seem that before we overhaul our entire health care system, we ought to think about ways to make that 40% more employable, and perhaps find ways to help them purchase temporary private coverage.

And then there's Medicare: A totally unsustainable government program that, much like Social Security, is paying out more than it is bringing in. Over the next 75 years, this program is estimated to have a $36 trillion shortfall in funding. Before we create any new government programs, we might want to fix the one we already have.

If we fail to consider the real facts on the ground, instead relying on discredited and wildly inaccurate statistics, we risk building a system that would be both unaffordable and ineffective. We all want a better health care system, so let's take the time to do it right.

Eastlick is senior economic analyst for the nonprofit Employment Policies Institute.