Timeline tightening on Senate Finance reform bill

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Sep 28 2009

A merged Senate bill between the Finance and HELP committees could hit the Senate floor the week of Oct. 12 and Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D- Mont., readies his committee to finish its markup by Thursday or Friday.

Roll Call: After this week, "Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has said he will huddle for several days with the White House, Baucus, and Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) to marry the Finance package with a bill that Dodd shepherded through the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee in July. Dodd was filling in for the late Chairman Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.). … The biggest uncertainty involves how fast the Congressional Budget Office can score the budgetary effect of the bill. … Reid has yet to make a decision on how to deal with one of the most vexing issues facing his Caucus — whether to bring up a bill with a public insurance option, as most of his Members would prefer, or to explore other alternatives backed by Democratic centrists" (Pierce and Drucker, 9/28).

The politics and public opinions behind the debate, meanwhile, have become increasingly complex.

Politico reports that polling has left politicians in a tizzy. "Legislators hoping to learn what their constituents think about the issue — and how to vote to keep them happy — face a dizzying deluge of hard-to-reconcile data, some of which suggests that voters are more than a little confused." Internet surveys and interest group polls are among the complicating factors (Coller, 9/28).

In a second story, Politico examines the political undercurrents on health care reform throughout America, region by region. "In its report to subscribers, The Cook Political Report argued that the 2010 midterm elections are shaping up to be an election for 'angry white seniors' who are the least supportive of President Barack Obama's domestic agenda and are poised to turn out in large numbers to the polls to express their displeasure next year. … Health care has also become a contentious issue for Democrats in rural, conservative-minded states and districts — that are traditionally resistant to change and hesitant to support any Obama-backed initiatives" (Kraushaar, 9/28).

This article was reprinted from khn.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.

Posted in: Healthcare News

Tags: Education, Health Care, Labor, OCT, Seniors

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Congressional Budget Office Estimates

HSR0601 says:

September 28, 2009 at 12:36 PM

The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that having a "public option" would squeeze $100 billion in costs from the system over 10 years because of competition with private insurers, Pelosi said.

Compromise doesn't mean compromising the essence of  policy, all know it  !!

1.  As regards a Baucus scheme, the source of funding coming from a middle class is utterly against the commitment of Democratic party.

2.  No cost-competitive advantage of the insurer-friendly scheme does not clear the grave concern about the unsustainable cost of overall health care program in the long run. Baucus scheme Doesn't Bend Cost Curve Enough, Experts Say.

The scheme proposes a "fake" alternative, nonprofit insurance cooperatives -- and it places so many "restrictions" on these cooperatives that, according to the Congressional Budget Office, they "seem unlikely to establish a significant market presence in many areas of the country."

3.  Even with some benefit for primary practitioners, the baseless scheme does not come with fundamental payment reform, or a pay for value reimbursement formula. It means that the insurer-friendly scheme is not cleaning up the concerns over a quality issue and  $9trillion of deficit over the next decade.

((Here is some of CBO analysis :  While the costs of the financial bailouts and economic stimulus bills are staggering, they are only a fraction of the coming costs from Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Over the next decade, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects that each year Medicaid will expand by 7 percent, Medicare by 6 percent, and Social Security by 5 percent. These programs face a 75-year shortfall of $43 trillion--60 times greater than the gross cost of the $700 billion TARP financial bailout)).

4. For Medicare & Medicaid system to survive from the most wasteful structure on earth,  enough savings by way of  fundamental changes need to be secured, in return, the savings thereof suffice to meet the goal of well-planned public option.

((Even with far less visits to docs, which average a half or a third of them in any other free states, Americans pay roughly twice as much per person right now)).

5.  For the record, prior to nation-wide deployment of reform, The State Of  "Yes We Can", Minnesota influenced by Mayo clinic spends "20 percent" less per patient than the national average and 31 percent less than in the highest cost state. It highlights that no substantial tax raise is needed at least for sure.

((The $583 billion of revenue package, and the astronomical savings of public option  aside, "20%" of $923.5bn (the combined Medicare and Medicaid cost per year, as of July) represents around  $184.7bn per year and 1.847trillion over the next decade, and this patient-centered value alone could be sufficient to meet the goal of public option)).

6. In brief, the long-awaited and most hopeful health care plan is to meet these criterias : Affordability, Quality, and A Check function against runaway premiums thereof.

Clearly enough, due largely to its lower overhead cost, purchasing power and fundamental payment reform, the well-planned public option would be doing moore than the fabricated scheme by THE INDUSTRY in these aforementioned regards.

Now is the moment to turn page to contemporary energy and financial upgrades glossed over in 8 years.

Thank You !


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