Coming Back to Healthcare

The big news in Congress this week? Healthcare! Glad I didn’t miss anything in the three weeks I was gone.

Yesterday, in a 14-9 vote, the Senate Finance Committee voted to approve the healthcare bill proposed by Senator Max Baucus. By far the most conservative of the bills passed by the various senate committees, the Finance Committee version does not contain a proposal for a public option and would impose fines on people who do not obtain health insurance.

Senator Harry Reid (D-NV), the Senate majority leader (who you can usually see putting the moves on Nancy Pelosi during their joint press conferences), plans to combine the Finance Committee bill with the more liberal Health Committee bill and the final version will come before the full senate (tentatively) the week of October 26th.

With the vote yesterday, healthcare reform is officially the farthest it’s ever been in the U.S. Government. Since FDR first proposed reform almost an entire century ago, the fact that there is about to be a real debate on the floor of the full Senate is practically a miracle.

On the other hand, if you thought it was ugly before, this is just the beginning. The Democratic leadership on the Finance Committee has pledged that a public option will be part of the combined bill, which as you might imagine, is going to send insurance companies and their lobbyists spinning.

Plan to see scary articles about how much your insurance costs will go up if a public option goes into play. Including the letter to the editor in the San Jose Mercury News last Sunday, entitled “Public option would merely shift costs”:
http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_13528549?nclick_check=1

Notice that the author of the letter is the CEO of the National Association of Health Underwriters Arlington, VA, the people who ultimately decide whether or not you are worthy of health insurance.

Oh, and don’t forget the study done by PricewaterhouseCoopers (sounds legit right?), paid for by health insurance companies which concludes that the costs to the average consumer for healthcare will skyrocket based on certain provisions in the Finance Committee bill. As it turns out, the study only looked at the four most costly provisions and did not include any analysis of the impact of new subsidies on insurance costs to households.
http://www.politico.com/livepulse/1009/PWC_statement__Not_so_helpful_for_AHIP.html

Expect to see a backlash from the other side also. Almost thirty unions are already running ads in your newspaper letting everyone know they are opposed to the Senate Finance Committee healthcare reform bill. Citing the lack of a public option and the tax on expensive policies, labor leaders plan to use the tag line “real health care reform and nothing less.”
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091013/ap_on_go_co/us_health_overhaul_union_ad