According to PNHP
http://www.pnhp.org/news/2010/february/how-much-does-president-obama-expect-us-to-pay-for-health-care<snips>
His proposal still falls far short on two of the most important goals of reform: 1) insuring everyone, and 2) ensuring that health care is affordable for each of us. Merely tweaking the Senate version, which is what they did, could not have attained these goals since the most effective policies were already traded away before serious negotiations began.
That said, let's look at what the President expects a family of four with an income of $66,000 to pay for health care. The premium contribution would be 9.5% of income, or $6270 for the basic plan with an actuarial value of 70%. If they wanted or needed a better plan, they would have to pay the full difference in the premium. At an actuarial value of 70%, they would also have to pay an average of 30% of all health care costs. This can vary considerably because of plan design in the form of deductibles, copayments, coinsurance, non-covered benefits, stop loss, out-of-network care exempt from stop loss, and other factors. If they either elected not to or were unable to pay the premium, they would have to pay a penalty of $1650, but then, of course, they would have no protection at all against potential health care costs.
Clearly, President Obama has not done any better than Congress in protecting families from financial hardship should they have the misfortune of developing significant medical problems. Unaffordable underinsurance is not the change that we needed.
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From PNHP's letter to supporters:
<snip>
The bad news is that President Obama's health proposal, as expected, retains all the structural flaws of the Senate health bill: A mandate that individuals (but not employers) purchase private coverage; over $400 billion in subsidies to the private health insurance industry; and funding through a steep excise tax on comprehensive health plans. At best, the plan will leave over 25 million Americans uninsured and tens of millions more underinsured.
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From WaPo
<snip>
Among the changes Obama seeks is a delay of the tax on high-end insurance plans until 2018, an end to the special Medicaid deal that negotiators had cut for Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson (D) and new federal authority over health-care insurance rate increases. The plan does not call for a public option health plan despite pressure from progressives in Obama's Democratic party to do so.
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As the PNHP letter noted, Obama keeps the mandates. From ABC News
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=9912609Like the bills approved last year by the House and Senate, the proposal would require most everyone to be insured or pay a fine. There is an exemption for low-income people. The Senate bill exempted people with incomes under the federal poverty level ($21,200 for a family of four) whereas Obama's plan, like the House version, would exempt people under the tax-filing threshold ($45,295 for a family of four). But the fines levied under the insurance mandate would be higher than the Senate proposed. Obama also keeps a "hardship exemption" that excuses anyone from buying insurance if it would cost more than 8 percent of their income.
Some other relatively minor differences from the Senate plan (still from ABC):
—TAXES: Obama scaled back a tax on high-cost insurance plans that was opposed by House Democrats and labor unions. The tax would be delayed from 2013 until 2018 and the thresholds at which it is imposed would be moved up from policies worth $8,500 for individuals and $23,000 for families, to $10,200 for individuals and $27,500 for families. Those changes mean $120 billion in lost revenue over 10 years that Obama would replace mostly by applying an increased Medicare payroll tax to investment income as well as wages for individuals making more than $200,000, or married couples above $250,000. The Senate bill had applied the tax only to wage income.
—PRESCRIPTION DRUGS: Obama would close the "doughnut hole" coverage gap in the Medicare prescription drug benefit that kicks in once seniors have spent $2,830. The Senate bill would have provided a 50 percent discount on the cost of brand-name drugs in the doughnut hole but Obama would close the gap entirely by 2020. The added cost, which the White House did not disclose, would be paid for in part by an additional $10 billion in fees on the drug industry.
—EMPLOYER RESPONSIBILITY: Obama keeps the approach in the Senate bill, which doesn't require businesses to offer coverage, but charges fees to companies with more than 50 employees if the government subsidizes employees' coverage. Obama increases the fees to $2,000 per worker instead of $750, but grants companies an allowance that was not part of the original Senate plan.
—SUBSIDIES: Obama provides more generous subsidies overall for purchasing insurance than the Senate bill did. The aid is available for households making up to four times the federal poverty level ($88,000 for a family of four).
—GOVERNMENT-RUN PLAN: Obama did not include the government-run insurance plan sought by some Democrats. He kept the Senate approach, which gives Americans purchasing coverage through new insurance exchanges the option of signing up for national plans overseen by the federal office that manages the government health plan available to members of Congress. Those plans would be private, but one would have to be nonprofit.
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Okay, so
*no public option
*like the Senate plan, the Obama plan covers only 31 million people. As PNHP says in their letter:
A mandate that individuals (but not employers) purchase private coverage; over $400 billion in subsidies to the private health insurance industry; and funding through a steep excise tax on comprehensive health plans. At best, the plan will leave over 25 million Americans uninsured and tens of millions more underinsured.
*as for prescription drugs -- if you're under 65 and not on Medicare and don't have a A1 insurance plan, you're pretty much fucked when it comes to the cost of prescription drugs
*he keeps the screwed up tax on high-cost insurance, even if he does alter it a little
*he didn't change anything about the Senate abortion language
*he retains the mandate he adamantly and repeatedly claimed he opposed as candidate Obama
True to form, PNHP requested to be part of the 2/25 health summit -- their requests have "gone unanswered."
I suppose I shouldn't have expected anything different -- Obama certainly doesn't like to roil the waters!
I am beyond disgusted and dismayed. My trust in "the system" had been so destroyed over the years and it began to feel glimmers of some revival with Obama's election coupled with the Democratic majority. My trust is slowly being crushed with the actions of Obama & the Democratic majority.
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