2009-09-17
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) has released his
long-awaited health reform proposal.
After months of negotiations between Chairman Baucus and a small
bipartisan group of senators, a compromise could not be reached. The
proposal released by Chairman Baucus currently does not have any Republican
support. Despite the apparent lack of
bipartisan support, Chairman Baucus plans to begin Finance Committee
consideration of the proposal on September 22.
Many
of the details in the proposal were already known. The Baucus proposal is more conservative than
the liberal versions already considered by the Senate Health, Education, Labor,
and Pensions Committee and the House committees and is estimated to cost
less than $800 billion over 10 years in contrast to the trillion-dollar price
tag of the House legislation. The Baucus
proposal would require most individuals to have health insurance, expand the
Medicaid program, provide subsidies for lower and middle income workers to
purchase health insurance, and provide a marketplace for individuals and small
businesses to purchase health insurance, but does not include a government or
public insurance option.
The
proposal also includes a one-year fix for the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule,
averting a 20 percent cut scheduled to go into effect on January 1, 2010, and replacing
it with a 0.5 percent increase.
It
appears that Republican opposition to the proposal remained over a number of
issues, including language in the proposal related to individual coverage
mandates, abortion language, Medicaid expansion, coverage for illegal
immigrants, and rebates for generic drugs.
Next Steps
Sixty votes are needed in order to bring health reform
legislation to the floor in the Senate. With the recent death of Senator
Kennedy, the Democrats currently count 59, including Independents Senators Joe
Lieberman and Bernie Sanders. If Senator Baucus is unsuccessful in engaging
support from any of the Republicans on his committee, Senate leaders have indicated
they would attempt to consider the measure in the Senate under a process known
as reconciliation, which is tied into the budget process and allows for
consideration under a simple majority of 51 votes. It appears that the House of Representatives
is awaiting the outcome of the Senate Finance Committee’s deliberations before
proceeding with further action on its bills.
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