House GOP leadership outlines bill, responds to Senate Democrats struggle to keep costs down

Politico reports that "while Senate Democrats marked up a $1 trillion health care package Wednesday morning, House Republicans unveiled an outline of their own plan."

The House GOP leaders pledged that their approach "would lower health care costs, improve the private marketplace, and expand accessibility — and they promised to keep government bureaucrats out of the process. The Republican plan allows for dependents to stay on their parents’ health plans until they are 25 years of age and provides a small business tax credit to employers who offer health care."

The Republicans criticized the Democrats' proposal for the $1 trillion price tag estimated by the Congressional Budget Office earlier this week, but were not able to offer firm numbers for the cost of their own proposal. However, Rep. Dave Camp, R-Mich., the senior Republican on the Ways and Means Committee, said "I'm not going to have a bill that's larger than the GDP of most countries" (Isenstadt, 6/17).

CNN reports details of the plan:

• Incentives for individuals to build health savings accounts.
• An option for Medicaid beneficiaries to "transfer" the value of their coverage to a private insurer instead.
• Allowing youths up to 25 to remain on their parents insurance policies.
• Limits on malpractice lawsuits.
• Insurance pools that would encourage states, small businesses and others to share risk in low-cost plans.

"This House Republican plan comes a day after fellow Republican Rep. Mark Kirk of Illinois and other moderates in the so-called Tuesday Group released their proposal, which spelled out many of the same ideas as the Camp bill," CNN reports (6/17).