Kennedy and Baucus release outlines of their health care plans.

[madfloridian]

Kennedy:

Kennedy Circulating Health Reform Plan

Looks like it will include mandatory purchase of insurance like the MA plan

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) is circulating the outlines of sweeping health-care legislation that would require every American to have insurance and would insist that employers contribute to workers’ coverage.

The summary document, provided by two Democrats who do not work for Kennedy, closely resembles a reform law enacted in Kennedy's home state three years ago and would place requirements on individuals to purchase health insurance and mandate that virtually all employers contribute to the cost of an employee's care, according to a summary document distributed to members of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

The Kennedy plan, which does not detail how Congress might pay for universal coverage, also includes an ambitious expansion of the federal-state Medicaid program and creates a Federal Health Board modeled after the Federal Reserve Board.

Kennedy spokesman Anthony Coley said Thursday evening that "we are still actively negotiating with members of the committee" and that "there is no final policy." He refused to elaborate on the bill summary being passed around on Capitol Hill.

He does advocate for a government run plan to compete with the private plans.

In an article published in today's Boston Globe, the chairman of the Senate Health Committee pointedly refers to "our legislation," a notable shift from other generic references to the overall push in Congress. In the piece, Kennedy forcefully advocates creation of a government-sponsored health program that would compete with the existing private market.

More from the Baucus committee:

Senate committee releases final health care reform options

Exploring current health care tax expenditures

Several options for modifying the current tax treatment of health-related expenses to eliminate inconsistencies and discourage wasteful health care spending are explored:

* exclusion for employer-provided health insurance,
* modify health savings accounts,
* modify or eliminate flexible spending accounts,
* standardize the definition of qualified medical expenses,
* modify the itemized deduction for medical expenses,
* modify the special deduction for non-profit BlueCross BlueShield and similar organizations,
* modify the FICA tax exemption for students,
* extend the Medicare payroll tax for all state and local government employees, and
* modify the rules pertaining to nonprofit hospitals.

Lifestyle tax proposals

Two proposals to promote wellness and healthy choices, and curb activities that increase overall health care costs are proposed. They are:

* increasing the excise tax on alcoholic beverages from $13.50 per proof gallon to $16 per proof gallon; and
* imposing a excise tax on beverages sweetened with sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, or other similar sweeteners. The tax would not apply to artificially sweetened beverages

I would like to see them extend Medicare to many more people than just government employees. If that is what Baucus is considering his public option, it is not sufficient.

I don't like the idea of forcing mandatory coverage when so many people are unemployed and without financial resources to do so.

[leftstreet]

1. I'm sure Obama will come out against mandatory coverage

:sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm:

[avaistheone1]

2. This plan is not inspiring at all. It doesn't take care of working and middle class families

who pay for all or most of their own medical costs. Those medical costs can be as much as more than a mortgage payment. Therefore, many people forgo health insurance altogether. Forcing people to pay for it who can not afford it is an insult, not a remedy. It is not only the poor who can not afford medical insurance. Once again our elected officials missed this point. Yet their own medical needs are well taken care of by us taxpayers.

Thanks for the bogus reform Washington.

[ima_sinnic]

3. they can preventively detain me now for refusing to buy health insurance

because I am self-employed and I will NEVER give "health insurers" one thin dime. FUCK THAT SHIT. Et tu, Kennedy? I thought the system in MA was proving to be a failure. I guess even he has his "sponsors" who come before We The People. Thanks a lot for NOTHING.

[dsc]

4. you are misunderstading the provision in regards to government employees

currrently many local and state government employees don't pay medicare tax as they don't participate in medicare even in retirement. It is the tax he is extending to them and the retirement medicare. That is totally divorced from his public option which would be open to all.

[SpartanDem]

5. There will more than likely be a subsidy

if there is mandatory coverage most articles talking about potential plans have mentioned this

WASHINGTON — Senators were meeting Thursday to consider whether the federal government should jump into the health insurance business as House Democrats began looking at big health care changes, including federal aid to help families earning up to $88,000 pay for insurance and a requirement that all must carry coverage
.....
The subsidies for health insurance would be offered on a sliding scale to those earning up to four times the federal poverty level, or $88,200 for a family of four, according to the document.


http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-05-14-senators-health-insurance_N.htm

[madfloridian]

7. It would not be reform....it would just be requiring folks to carry insurance.

Which is really an insult to our intelligence.

It is a big boon to the insurance companies.

[SpartanDem]

9. Plenty of countries do that

Germany and the Netherlands come to mind where there is compulsory insurance

[madfloridian]

11. Then we must do it also.

Require it that is.

:shrug:

Hey, I don't care. Any which way.

[quakerboy]

24. Do they regulate the services?

If you have a real mechanism to make sure that I'm not going to be gouged and then denied service, thats one thing. If you jsut have a promise from insurers that they won't be bad, as seems more likely, then thats a whole different ball of wax.

[slipslidingaway]

6. Thanks for the update nt

[JimWis]

8. Thanks for the info. Looks to me to be a big complicated mess.

More complicated taxes, forcing people to buy insurance which probably won't cover anything, etc., etc.. They are trying to come up with ten ways from Sunday to try and pay for this. You know we could do something very simple - single payer - naw, that's to easy and makes sense.

[snowdays]

16. its tinkering around the edges--NOT true reform. What a joke.

[snowdays]

10. Tom Daschel has this fingerprints all over this --esp the revised Mass-Kennedy

plan.

[Thrill]

12. Kennedy has been working on this his whole career and this what he's come up with?

I question if this is really Teddy's plan

[Kalyke]

13. Nothing to help the vast majority of us except force us to comply.

Hey Kennedy and Baucus:

[Sebastian Doyle]

14. Baucus is hopeless, but Teddy should know better

Then again, how could he? He's been a Senator since 1962 and a Kennedy all his life. He's never had to worry about affordable health care. Still, I would have thought his recent experiences might open him up to the reality that millions of Americans do not have the access to the treatments he did.

[Thrill]

15. Kennedy has been working on this his whole career and this what he's come up with?

I question if this is really Teddy's plan

[ieoeja]

17. Baucus' Medicare proposal is more about increasing taxes than increasing coverage.

Currently, State & Federal employees hired before 31 March 1986 can opt-out of Medicare (having their own, better coverage). All that Baucus proposes is eliminating that option.

So they will begin paying the 1.45% Medicare tax immediately. But they will only be eligible for coverage under the same rules we all are, e.g. after turning 65 or becoming disabled. Baucus and the Republicans are certainly not proposing that Medicare cover active, working employees.

In fact, if this forces them to use Medicare after retirement while stripping them of their current post-retirement plan, then I believe this would be DECREASING coverage. Given that this is from the conservative Baucus working with Republicans, then I'd be surprised if that is not their plan.

http://finance.senate.gov/sitepages/leg/LEG%202009/051809%20Health%20Care%20Description%20of%20Policy%20Options.pdf

[madfloridian]

20. Thanks for the explanation. I don't trust Baucus and his buddies.

None of the plan sounds that encouraging.

[Beacool]

18. After all the years working on a plan THIS is what Kennedy and Baucus came up with?????

x(

[Jakes Progress]

19. Anyone here had to deal with the Senior Drug plan?

I had to help my mother with it. This sounds a little like that. Lot's of rules, exceptions, red tape, exclusions, confusion. But mostly a tax paid boon to the insurance companies. Guaranteed income for very little product.

[solstice]

21. Now I feel sucker punched by Kennedy just as I do by Obama.

[neverforget]

22. This is change from Congress? Lipstick on a pig more like it.

[dflprincess]

23. Both plans are just gifts to the insurance companies

Baucus doesn't surprise me, but Kennedy's plan is a shock. He's been working on this since his son had cancer (35 years ago?) and he woke up to what people without his kind of money or Congressional insurance plan have to go through. This is a terrible let down. Ted should have just signed on to Bernie Sanders' single payer bill.