House Bill Posted Online

[SpartanDem]

You can read it here

http://docs.house.gov/rules/health/111_ahcaa.pdf

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

1. You know what would be cool? If we could get everyone to volunteer

for a certain amount of pages and then we could post our own summary. There are 1990 pages. 10 pages each would be 199 DU'ers.
20 pages would be 100 DU's .

Anyone up for this? If we get 100 volunteers I would be willing to take the first 20.

[vaberella]

6. I'll take the next 20. 18 more Volunteers to go!!! n/t

[annabanana]

2. We should keep this kicked for all and sundry..n/t

[Oregone]

3. Two Thousand pages? Whew!

[bvar22]

4. 2000 Pages !!??? Is this necesssary?

Well, YES, if it is written by corporate lawyers and lobbyists who will make sure that it is obscure, full of loopholes and ambiguities, impossible to read and understand, and contains grounds for any large (Health Insurance) Corporation to go to court with anything they don't like.


For a comparison, see this Bill which was NOT written by Corporate Lawyers and Lobbyists.
It is less than 37 pages, and is very easy to read and understand. Takes about 5 minutes.
(HR 676)

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h109-676#at

[Cleita]

5. I read the part about the public option,

Division A, Title III, Subtitle B.

I'm finding it vague and it doesn't say what is covered and whom it will cover except in the most general terms. There was no language saying that you had to qualify as far as I could tell, but that you could choose it, which is good. There were some vague references to how certain benefits would be like Medicare and if that means it will be tied to Medicare or at least parts of it, that can't be bad either. Yet, I really want it to be more specific. Fees are to be negotiated with the caregivers. That is very good. One of the reason some doctors don't want to take Medicaid or Medicare patients is because the fees are too low and inflexible.

I dunno....conundrum here and maybe hoping that someone with more experience in legal language can clarify what is meant.

[vaberella]

7. It works like health insurance.

So you'd have to also look at some of the regulatory changes for health insurances in the bill overall to see how that would affect the public option directly.

[lunatica]

8. I need to rely on smarter DUers when it comes to the language

And I'm not un-intelligent, but I've never been able to figure out what they're saying.

[SpartanDem]

9. One of the best parts of the bill (sec 102)

The medical loss ratio is the amount of premium spent by insurers on medical care so this saying that if they don't spend at least 85% then you get a refund.


a) IN GENERAL.—Each health insurance issuer
3 that offers health insurance coverage in the small or large
4 group market shall provide that for any plan year in which
5 the coverage has a medical loss ratio below a level specified
6 by the Secretary (but not less than 85 percent), the issuer
7 shall provide in a manner specified by the Secretary for
8 rebates to enrollees of the amount by which the issuer’s
9 medical loss ratio is less than the level so specified.

[Cleita]

10. THE REPUBLICANS HATE IT!!!

I just heard it on the news. They said it's way too much big government. Now I love this bill. If the Republicans hate it, then we are on the right track. Time to write Nancy Pelosi or call her and tell her that this is what we want. Let's write the Blue Dogs too and tell them to get on board or look forward to being unelected the next time their terms come up.

[freddie mertz]

11. This is, in effect, the Blue Dog bill....

They refused to support the stronger PO language so w got what they wanted.

The president is "pleased," Health Company stocks are reportedly UP, and we the people are all, basically, screwed.

Whoopie!

[Cleita]

12. Well I only read the part about the public option and am going to dig

into the parts about Medicare reform right now. I think all BS about the exchanges could be dumped. All we really need is a public option to buy into. Trying to turn the insurance companies into caring health providers is a waste of paper, congressional and down the line ombudsman's time to enforce the law.

However, since the Republicans hate it I still think we are on the right track. If they dump the public option to get "bi-partisanship" then we are screwed.

[freddie mertz]

13. Republicans will pretend to hate ANYTHING.

They want to be on recording opposing it for future electoral purposes.

Passing a bad bill just increases their opportunity to yell "we told you so!"