Chairman Baucus Releases Health Care Reform Proposal
from Senate Finance Committee
CBO says it will not add to federal deficit: to be
fully paid for mostly through quality, efficiency, prevention and
adjustments in federal health programs
Sept.
16, 2009 – Since the day President Barack Obama said he was going to ask
the Congress to take the lead in developing a plan for health care
reform, it has been widely assumed that the most important proposal
would come from the Senate Finance Committee. It did today. Chairman Max
Baucus (D-Mont.) introduced America’s Healthy Future Act, saying it
would lower costs and provide quality, affordable health care coverage.
The announcement from the chairman’s office said,
“The Chairman’s Mark will make it easier for families and small
businesses to buy health care coverage, ensure Americans can choose to
keep the health care coverage they have if they like it and slow the
growth of health care costs over time.
It will bar insurance companies from discriminating
against people based on health status, denying coverage because of
preexisting conditions, or imposing annual caps or lifetime limits on
coverage.”
It also added that “the bill would improve the way
the health care system delivers care by improving efficiency, quality,
and coordination. The $856 billion dollar package will not add to the
federal deficit.”
The Congressional Budget Office estimates the
Chairman’s Mark would make an $856 billion investment in the health care
system over ten years. That investment would be fully paid for mostly
through increased focus on quality, efficiency, prevention and
adjustments in federal health program payments, without adding to the
federal deficit, according to Baucus.
The Finance Committee will meet to begin voting on
the Chairman’s Mark next week.
“The cost of America’s broken health care system
has stretched families, businesses and the economy too far for too long.
For too many, quality, affordable health care is simply out of reach,”
said Baucus.
Baucus
Health Measure Receives 'Luke-Warm' Greeting, White House Sees
It As 'Building Block' to Reform
Sept.
16, 2009 -
The Wall Street Journal: "Senate Finance Committee Chairman
Max Baucus formally unveiled a 10-year, $856 billion bill that
would extend health insurance to tens of millions of Americans
but that found lukewarm support among other key senators,
indicating changes to the measure are in store."
As of
this afternoon, the measure had yet to win any Republican
support. "Sen. Olympia Snowe, one of three Republicans Mr.
Baucus has wooed for the package, said the bill is inadequate to
win her support even as it 'moves in the right direction.'"
She
identified three specific areas where changed were needed --
"tax credits to make insurance affordable to consumers; cost to
the government of expanded coverage; and ensuring competition in
the new insurance exchanges created by the bill."
Additionally, Sens. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., the
two other Republicans who have been involved
in negotiations with Mr. Baucus, "have also said they are
disappointed with the Baucus proposal and can't sign on." But
both expressed willingness to keep talking with Mr. Baucus
toward a deal.
Meanwhile,
"some Senate Democrats... also were measured in their
assessment." And Baucus will now begin moving the bill toward
committee action, which will likely start on Tuesday (Hitt,
Yoest and Vaughan, 9/16).
On the House
side, Glenn Thrush reports on his
Politico blog that Speaker "Nancy Pelosi's reaction to the
release of the Baucus health care reform bill was chilly at best
-- with a not-so-subtle swipe at the Senate Finance Committee's
stripping away of the public option preserved in current House
proposals."
Pelosi's
support for the public option has been "publicly
consistent" despite signs from other House Democrats "that the
final House-Senate compromise could be passed without [it]"
(Thrush, 9/16).
The word
from the White House, The
Associated Press reports, is that the Baucus mark is "'an
important building block' in getting closer to comprehensive
health care reform. ... White House spokesman Robert Gibbs says
the president doesn't see the lack of bipartisan support as the
end of the debate. He says the legislative process will continue
and that he hopes Republicans will listen to their constituents'
concerns about rising health care costs" (9/16).
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“This is a unique moment in history where we can
finally reach an objective so many of us have sought for so long. The
Finance Committee has carefully worked through the details of health
care reform to ensure this package works for patients, for health care
providers and for our economy.
“We worked to build a balanced, common‐sense
package that ensures quality, affordable coverage and doesn’t add a dime
to the deficit. Now we can finally pass legislation that will rein in
health care costs and deliver quality, affordable care to the American
people.”
Provisions included in the legislation to ensure
Americans have quality, affordable, health care coverage would,
according to the staff report:
● Create health care affordability tax credits
to help low and middle income families purchase insurance in the private
market;
● Provide tax credits for small businesses to
help them offer insurance to their employees;
● Allow people who like the coverage they have
today the choice to keep it;
● Reform the insurance market to end
discrimination based on pre‐existing
conditions and health status ;
● Eliminate yearly and lifetime limits on the
amount of coverage plans provide;
● Create web‐based
insurance exchanges that would standardize health plan premiums and
coverage information to make purchasing insurance easier;
● Give consumers the choice of non‐profit,
consumer owned and oriented plans (CO‐OP);
● Standardize Medicaid coverage for everyone
under 133 percent of the federal poverty level.
Provisions included in the legislation to improve
the quality of care, increase efficiency within the health care system,
and lower health care costs would:
● Shift incentives in Medicare to reward better
care, not just more care;
● Increase the number of primary care doctors in
the system;
● Aggressively fight fraud, waste, and abuse in
Medicare;
● Encourage all of a patient’s doctors to
coordinate care and reduce duplication and waste;
● Create incentives for health care providers to
improve quality by using safer, more cost effective health technology
like electronic medical records; and ● Increase health care research
so doctors know what care works best for which patients.
Provisions included in the legislation to promote
preventive health care and wellness would:
● Provide annual “wellness visits” for Medicare
participants and their doctors to focus on prevention;
● Eliminate out‐of‐pocket
costs for screening and prevention services in Medicare;
● Create incentives in Medicare and Medicaid for
completing healthy lifestyle programs;
● Increase federal Medicaid funding for states
that cover recommended preventive services and immunizations for
enrollees at no extra cost; and ● Provide free tobacco cessation
services for pregnant women in Medicaid.
Sept.
16, 2009 – Since the day President Barack Obama said he was going to ask
the Congress to take the lead in developing a plan for health care
reform, it has been widely assumed that the most important proposal
would come from the Senate Finance Committee. It did today. Chairman Max
Baucus (D-Mont.) introduced America’s Healthy Future Act, saying it
would lower costs and provide quality, affordable health care coverage.
