2010-02-26
The White House and Democratic and Republican
congressional leadership convened a televised summit February 25, 2010, intended to break the gridlock on health-care
reform. Discussion focused on the President’s proposal, which is based on legislation previously
passed by Democratic majorities in the House (HR 3962) and the Senate (HR 3590).
The President’s
proposal, released on February 22, includes provisions aimed at appealing to
House Democrats, such as:
- Providing
significant additional federal financing to all states for the expansion of
Medicaid;
- Closing
the Medicare prescription drug “donut hole” coverage gap;
- Strengthening
provisions to fight fraud, waste, and abuse in Medicare and Medicaid;
- Increasing
the threshold for the excise tax on the most expensive health plans and
starting that tax in 2018 for all plans; and
- Improving
insurance protections for consumers and creating a new Health Insurance Rate
Authority to conduct reviews of unreasonable rate increases and other unfair
practices of insurance plans.
The President’s proposal also attempts to
appeal to fiscally conservative Democrats by not including the controversial public
option provision.
The White House estimates the plan would cost
$950 billion over 10 years, which would be offset by spending reductions and
tax increases sufficient to reduce the deficit by about $100 billion in its
first decade and $1 trillion in its second. The plan would require almost all
Americans to obtain insurance, expand Medicaid to cover everyone near the
insurance premiums for low- and middle-income people, and penalize employers
whose workers obtain subsidized coverage.
Given the politics surrounding the health reform issue, many policy
analysts have only limited hope of bipartisan progress from the summit;
however, many still are confident that some health reform legislation will pass.
Because Democrats no longer have a filibuster-proof
majority in the Senate, the leadership has developed a strategy to pass
elements of health reform through the budget reconciliation process. Reconciliation
requires only a simple majority vote in Senate and debate is limited.
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