Good news:
Health care reform passed the House this weekend.
Consumerist has a good summary of what’s in the bill:
- Insurance mandate - Uninsured Americans will pay a penalty; low-income people exempt. House bill charges a penalty of 2.5% of adjusted gross income: that’s $500 on $20,000, for example.
- Employer coverage – All employers with a payroll above $500,000 must help pay for some kind of health insurance for their employees, or pay a tax. The Senate Finance Committee version of the bill does not have this requirement.
- Insurance exchange – Allows people who are not covered to buy health insurance in nation- or state-wide markets. Available to employees of small businesses, and others not eligible for coverage.
- Public plan – Would create a new federal government-run insurance plan with its own physician and hospital rates, separate from those negotiated by Medicare. Senate Finance Committee instead offers nonprofit insurance cooperatives in each state.
- Subsidies – Households earning up to 400 percent of the federal poverty level would be eligible for subsidies of health insurance premiums when they buy insurance through the exchange.
- Small business subsidies – Tax credits for small employers that provide health care coverage for employees.
- Coverage – House and Senate Health Committee versions require plans to pay for 70% of all health care spending that the plan covers; Senate Finance Committee version requires 65%. Insurers cannot deny coverage because of pre-existing conditions, and premiums may not vary according to age on the individual insurance market as widely as they do now. People receiving federal subsidies for insurance may not enroll in a plan that includes coverage of abortions.
- Medicaid – Households with incomes up to 150% of the federal poverty level would now be eligible for Medicaid. Senate Finance Committee would expand to 133% of the federal poverty level, starting in 2014.
Bad news:
Health care reform barely (by 5 votes) passed the House where Democrats have a commanding advantage. In order for the reform bill to become law it still has to pass the Senate where Democrats have less of an advantage and need 60 votes to overcome filibuster threats from Republicans and Joe Lieberman. That means the bill that comes out of the Senate will likely be a lot more watered down than the House version. So, don’t get too happy yet.
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The margin is no surprise given the payoffs some of the Dems get from health care companies.
While waiting in a doc’s office today, they had Fox News on in the waiting room (as they do in every medical facility I’ve been into in NC for some reason) and one of the talking heads was saying how Congress should not be focusing on health care but creating jobs. It snapped into my head “Wait, you don’t want the gov’t to have a hand in health care but you want them to intervene in job creation? I thought you don’t want gummint involvement at all.” The opposing talking head basically said the same thing two seconds later. Not justifying my abilities as a news pundit psychic but it seems the right’s arguments continue to fracture and not make any sense (if they ever did). What’s frightening is the amount of money being poured into commercials against the legislation. Some are targeting old people, one of the groups that actually do call their congresspeople, despite the AARP roundly supporting the legislation. Others are issued by the US Chamber of Commerce, which sounds -almost- like a gov’t entity but is some sort of lobbying union for business owners.
At least this is a first step. Hopefully, something will pass in the Senate. Then, over the coming years, all the issues can be ironed out. I don’t know why this is framed as a definitive process on the news – legislation is always changing and they can always pass bills and amendments to make things better. It’s up to the American people to hold their congressmen and women responsible for that.
more bad news –
“The House’s 11th-hour change to its health bill removes abortion coverage from millions of insurance policies that consumers would get under the legislation, including from private insurers…. Those who receive an insurance subsidy and want coverage for abortion would need to buy a separate rider policy. “What woman would buy a plan for an unplanned pregnancy?” said Ms. Rubiner of Planned Parenthood. She said only a handful of states currently allow for such a policy.”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125772887262937473.html?mod=rss_Health
Odd how this abortion part of the bill is only coming out now, during and after passage. I think it would’ve killed the bill with Dems if it had been more publicly broadcast. I wonder if it was a Repub concession or there in the first place.
A serious question I have: Is abortion usually covered by insurance? I’m adamantly pro-choice, but I’m personally having trouble seeing it as a medically necessary treatment in situations where the woman’s health is not in danger. I personally don’t have any problem with abortions not being covered by government insurance, but I am more than willing to be convinced by a left-wing ideologue. Maybe I am missing a reason as to why.
I think it varies.
Grain of salt on this one, but Y! Answers says:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071227174220AAD9HTQ
This site says yes: http://www.fwhc.org/abortion/flyer.htm
If you do a search on the Planned Parenthood website for ‘insurance’, individual state pages come up which makes me think that it could vary by state and/or provider.
Not sure if I should be surprised by the cost of ‘day after’ pills as mentioned in the second answer on the Y! Answers post. $100-$500.
Thanks for the info. Morning after pills don’t cost that much I don’t think. Planned Parenthood makes a lot of these things affordable.