This Week in Health Care

Now that Congress is back in session (yup, as of yesterday, we are all screwed), the only thing anyone is talking about is health care. So guess what we’re talking about today?

The general theme is the same, but the tune is wildly different depending on who you talk to. So here are all the things you should know about the health care debate right now:

* The plan emerging from the Senate Finance Committee would create nonprofit cooperatives to compete with insurance companies instead of a government-run insurance plan (We’re going to call this the Baucus plan after the Chairman of the committee Senator Max Baucus, Democrat from Montana. More on this plan in a few bullet points.) http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090908/ts_nm/us_usa_healthcare

* Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), has declared that a public option health insurance plan is pretty much essential to the passage of the health care bill in the House of Representatives.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090908/pl_afp/uspoliticshealthcareobamacongress

* The overview of the Baucus plan: The plan would cost approximately $900 billion over 10 years, paid for by Fees on insurance companies, drug makers, medical device manufacturers and insurers. Tax of 35 percent on insurance plans costing above $8,000 for individuals and $21,000 for families, applied to premium amounts over the threshold. Cuts to Medicare and Medicaid. A fee on employers whose workers receive government subsidies to help them pay premiums. Fines on those who fail to get coverage, up to $950 for individuals, $3,800 for families. Oh, and everyone HAS to get coverage otherwise you have to pay those fines. As an example, $950 fine for me would be cheaper than one year of premiums, so do I really have a strong incentive to get health care? Of course not, so in the end we'll still likely end up with large amounts of people uninsured.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090908/ap_on_go_co/us_health_care_glance

If you’re interested in what the president has to say (although after the whole speech to schoolchildren debacle I’m starting to think most people aren’t… how sad when people will no longer show any respect at all to the nation’s highest office), President Obama will be addressing the country tonight and afterwards, “the country will know exactly what he thinks is the solution to controlling spiraling health care costs.” http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090908/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_obama_health_care_speech

Also, for an interesting article from The Economist comparing the state of health care in the U.S. to that of health care in Britain, check this out: http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14258877.