Have you heard about the new Baucus healthcare plan unveiled today?

[babylonsister]

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_11/015634.php

THE BAUCUS PLAN.... It's just a first step, and there are all kinds of political and policy details yet to come, but Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus' (D-Mont.) healthcare blueprint, unveiled today, is a very big deal. It's not entirely in line with the specifics of the Obama plan, as outlined during the campaign, but Baucus intends to push a policy that would guarantee health insurance for all Americans, expand expanding Medicaid and Medicare, and apparently include a healthcare mandate on individuals, with subsidies for those who can't afford insurance.

"Every American has a right to affordable, high-quality health care," Mr. Baucus said. "Americans cannot wait any longer." Far from being a distraction from efforts to revive the economy, he said, "health reform is an essential part of restoring America's economy and maintaining our competitiveness."

Mr. Baucus would create a nationwide marketplace, a "health insurance exchange," where people could compare and buy insurance policies. The options would include private insurance policies and a new public plan similar to Medicare. Insurers could no longer deny coverage to people who had been sick. Congress would also limit insurers' ability to charge higher premiums because of a person's age or prior illness.

People would have a duty to obtain coverage when affordable options were available to all through employers or through the insurance exchange. This obligation "would be enforced, possibly through the tax system," the plan says.

Paul Krugman noted, "{T}his looks very good for the reformers. There's now a reasonable chance that universal health care will be enacted next year!" Families USA executive director Ronald Pollack added, "The prospects for meaningful health care reform have never looked better."

Jonathan Cohn compares and contrasts Baucus' proposal with Obama's; Ezra Klein suggests the plan "looks like Obama Plus" (with an individual mandate, without a public insurer); Blue Girl takes a look at some of the political considerations of the upcoming debate; and Igor Volsky gets into "the guts" of the Baucus plan, including how he'd pay for it.

Baucus' blueprint is also online here:
http://finance.senate.gov/healthreform2009/home.html

-Steve Benen

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http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/1108/Reacting_to_Baucus.html


Obama "Looks Forward To Working Closely" With Baucus On Health Care

Reacting to Baucus

Obama keeps it vague in response to today's proposal from the Senate Finance Committee chairman to mandate healthcare, with a statement from spokesman Tommy Vietor:

"President-elect Obama applauds Chairman Baucus’s work to draw attention to the challenges of the health system and looks forward to working closely with the Chairman and other Congressional leaders, as well as the American public, to make quality, affordable health care a reality for all Americans."

[aquart]

1. "Compare and buy"??? OH, CRAP!

Who are they kidding? That's exactly what they did to me on energy and what a platter of pasture pastry that is.

I'm sorry, Senator Baucus, but your solution SUCKS.

It still makes Americans go begging for help that should be ours by right.

I know Krugman is all excited, but he is once again applauding a bad solution in the belief that it's the best we can do.

[NotGivingUp]

2. a mandate to buy into a corrupt medical system does NOT sound like good news to me!....

not to mention the corrupt insurers.

[librechik]

3. why can't we just pass HR 676 and make it simple?

not enough kickbacks for interest groups, I suppose.

[sandnsea]

4. Mandated health insurance is not UHC

If you're going to mandate, it has to be single payer. The government has no idea what a reasonable rate is for single people, let along families raising kids. I'm glad they're moving forward on health care, but mandates is flat stupid and always has been.

[babylonsister]

5. Krugman's column here:

Krugman: A reasonable chance that universal health care will be enacted next year

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x400991

[strategery blunder]

6. Make it illegal to deny a good-faith claim.

If an insurance company wishes to deny a claim, it would have to legally prove fraud. (Edit: None of this "not medically necessary" crap--insurance companies hire legions of doctors whose fiduciary duty to employer requires them to DENY CARE)

This is the only way I could derive any kind of peace of mind from any system other than universal, single-payer. Insurance companies looooooove to deny claims for those who get "too expensive." :grr:

[question everything]

7. See also here

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3596955

[nichomachus]

8. If it's not "single payer" we're screwed n/t

[dkofos]

9. We need HEALTH CARE not rebranded health insurance.

HR676 is what we need

[Cleita]

10. Although I have been an advocate of single payer universal health care

as far back as when the Physicians' for a National Health Plan (http://www.pnhp.org) first presented the results of their research as this being the best and most economical way to deliver quality health care to everyone in the nation, I know that getting rid of the for profit health care industry is going to be a behemoth task.

If this is done right, it could be a step in the right direction. Forcing private insurers to be competitive with government plans that offer the same coverage for a lower premium could be the start of the insurance actuaries going back to their calculators to determine whether they should stay in the business of insuring health. Since government can deliver a health plan for 2% to 3% in administrative costs compared to the 15% to 30% of the private plans, it can deliver more for less.

Whatever they do, they can't allow the for profit health care lobbyists to write the bill for this like they allowed the Phrma industry to write the useless Medicare D prescription drug plan for seniors, a program that needs to be scrapped in favor of one that is actually workable.

[RC]

11. We do not need Health Insurance. We have that now.

And that is the problem. Get rid of the health insurance. What this country needs is mandated health Care for its citizens. Plow all that money that now goes to the insurance companies to pay for "Overhead", into providing health care for all. Our health care costs will drop, even if we have to pay unemployment for those legions of bean counters and top heavy management.

[Javaman]

12. just another corporate plane with a "feel good" glaze. nt