Senator Max Baucus (D-Mont.) chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, is responsible for driving health-care legislation. Baucus has put together a Bipartisan Deal That Will Seek the Implementation of a $900B Health-Care Program.
Citing that the majority of the necessary legislative work for health care has already been accomplished, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada was one of several Democratic Congressional leaders to make their opinions known to President Obama. Speaking on behalf of Congressional Democrats, Speaker of the House Pelosi is convinced she's got the votes to deliver the sweeping overhaul favored by Obama. Included among key Senate Democrats to speak with the president was Senator Max Baucus of Montana who has crafted a version of health care compromise legislation that he is ready to push through the Senate.
“We are not going to dally. We are not going to dawdle,” Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana and chairman of the Finance Committee, said after a meeting with five fellow architects of his compromise legislation.
“Time is running out very quickly,” Mr. Baucus added. A key to Senator Baucus' compromise plans success Republican Senator Olympia J. Snowe of Maine, has been quick to offer some positive assessments of the proposal crafted by Senator Baucus but she has also added that she believes that there are some adjustments still need to be made.
White House officials have been circulating the scenario that President Obama plans to discuss more details that he hopes will appear in a final version of health care when he speaks before Congress Wednesday night. In addition, Obama will use the speech to the American people to explain the need for an overhaul of the nation's health care system.
"The main audience is the American people and their stake in this," said Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff.
White House officials believe that by making his address before a joint session of Congress, President Obama will be using a venue that will allow him to have the time necessary to achieve a greater focus on the issues involved in creating health care reform for the American people.
“This is a topic that probably takes some time to walk through,” Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, said. One part of the speech, Mr. Gibbs said, would be devoted to “understanding what the public option is and what the public option isn’t.” Republicans said Democrats have misread the true opinions of Americans who used Town Hall meetings to question many parts of the Obama/Democratic plan. “The American people are asking us to start over,” said Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader. “They want reforms, but they want the right reforms.”
The Baucus plan that has emerged from conference committee, incorporates a substantial number of adjustments to the way private insurance and Medicare are currently operated.One significant change has levied fees against the drug industry to begin making payments in 2010 that would begin at a cost of $2.3 billion a year and would be assessed according to each company's share in the medical marketplace.
Senator Baucus has also raised the discount rate required of companies in the drug sector that deal directly with Medicaid recipients. The Baucus legislation increases patients rebates from 15.1 percent to 23.1 percent. In the instance of generic drugs rebates would rise to recipients from 11 percent to 13 percent.
The Baucus bill requires that every American would be mandated to have health insurance coverage. Keeping in mind that the poverty level is $10,830 for an individual and $22,050 for a family of four; penalties would be assessed on a sliding scale that would require a penalty of $750 a year per person for those who earned from 100 percent to 300 percent above the poverty level, while taxpayers with incomes greater than 300 percent above the poverty level would be charged a fine of $950 per person. For families in the100 percent to 300 percent above the poverty level bracket the charge for failing to have coverage would be a maximum penalty of $1,500 for a family and for families above the 300 percent bracket, a maximum penalty of $3,800 for a family would apply.
The New York Times reporters; Carl Hulse and Robert Pear point out that: "Employers would not be required to offer insurance coverage to their employees. But companies that did not would have to pay a fee for each low-income employee who received a subsidy, in the form of a tax credit, for coverage bought through a health insurance exchange. The maximum assessment on employers would be equal to $400 multiplied by the total number of employees."
Several important points need to be considered as Obama and the Congressional Democrats ready for their push to achieve health care reform. Among the points to include in any analysis of the state of health care reform are as follows: the many cantankerous at times Town Hall meetings did very little to change public support for reform or fragment Democratic resolve; insurance industry lobbyist remain at the negotiating table because their have failed to turn the public against health care restructuring; the Democrats remain committed as a party despite seeming public disagreements; health care legislation has passed most of its Congressional committee hurdles and is preparing to make it's way to the floor for voting to begin; the markups include protections from insurance companies from barring coverage for pre-existing medical conditions; lifetime caps on coverage have been eliminated and individuals cannot be dropped when they become ill; in the Senate Obama seems close to securing 60 votes for passage.
With this in mind there are still several obstacles facing Obama; the legislative package is extremely complex and large; Republicans and their business allies will do everything possible to corrupt the legislative process; and complaints raised among loud voices in the public arena to stop government from expanding are ever present.
A positive sign for the Democrats is that the health industry has stayed involved in the negotiating process.
An even more important reality concerning revamping the health care industry is that the public, although many have raised concerns about specifics of the plan, remain prepared to contribute their support to help build the broad coalition needed to make health care reform a reality.
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