Two things in the Senate bill critics ignore while complaining about a public option and choice

[ProSense]

• Multi-state option. Health insurance carriers will offer plans under the supervision of the Office of Personnel Management, the same entity that oversees health plans for Members of Congress. At least one plan must be non-profit, and the plans will be available nationwide. This will promote competition and choice.
  
  
• Free choice vouchers. Workers who qualify for an affordability exemption to the individual responsibility policy but do not qualify for tax credits can take their employer contribution and join an exchange plan.

PDF

[NJmaverick]

1. Thanks for providing this useful information

:hi:

[jaxx]

2. Page 4....

ISSUE HOUSE SENATE
Exchanges
National Exchange with State option to operate
Exchange if it meets the federal standards. Health
plan bidding based on local market areas.
Combines individual and small group markets into
one insurance pool and one Exchange.
State Exchange with federal back-up. Health plan bidding
based on local market areas.
Maintains separate insurance pools for individual and
small group market, and separate individual and small
group Exchanges in each State. Permits States to set up
additional Exchanges within the State.
States can also apply for a block grant to provide health
insurance for families with income below 200% of the
federal poverty level rather than permitting those
individuals to qualify for their federal tax credits and
coverage in the Exchange.
Public option National public option administered by HHS and
using negotiated rates to pay providers.
No public option.
Office of Personnel
Management plans
National exchange has responsibility for overseeing
plan availability and has authority to negotiate with
budding plans; no provision for OPM involvement.
In lieu of a public option, Office of Personnel
Management has obligation to make sure that there are
two multi-State qualified plans (at least one of which is
non-profit) in each State Exchange.
Individual mandate
requirement
Uninsured contribute 2.5% of income above filing
threshold (e.g., ~$20k), capped at the amount of the
average premium.
Exemption for those for whom the contribution
would constitute financial hardship.
Uninsured contribute fixed dollar amounts per person
coupled with income-related contribution: phases up from
$95 in 2014 to $495 in 2015 to $750 in 2016; 50% for
children; $2,250 family max; or, if higher than these flat
dollar amounts, a contribution phasing up to 2 percent of
income in 2016, capped at the the average premium level.
Hardship exemption.

http://www.politico.com/static/PPM136_100104_health_reform_conference.html

[dkf]

3. Why can only people who qualify for the affordability exemption choose?

Doesn't make sense to me. I'd like to change providers.

[liberalpragmatist]

6. Because BOTH business and labor opposed letting everybody choose

Labor because they felt that if employees had a free choice of insurance options, it would limit their leverage to negotiate for good insurance policies. And big business because they like being able to hold their employees captive with benefits. Wyden had proposed letting ANYBODY select a voucher in lieu or employer benefits and buy insurance from the insurance exchanges. That died in committee.

Now, there is actually one good reason not to which is that the exchanges need time to be set up. The bills do allow ALL businesses to instead have their employees buy coverage from the exchange after a few years, so by the 2020s most Americans would have a choice of insurance, not just what their employers provided, and at that point it would be a fairly easy fix to allow the rest the choice of plans as well.

[dkf]

7. After a few years? Got a date?

Hope it's not a trigger. We all know how those work

[liberalpragmatist]

8. It's not a trigger

House bill is that all businesses can join the exchange after 2015. Senate bill I'm not sure about, but will update you if I can find a date for the opening of the exchanges (I believe the Senate bill may leave that up to states, since the exchanges are state-run according to the Senate provisions.)

[dkf]

10. I did notice there is a lack of articles and analysis on the latest senate bill.

Googling does not answer my questions and pulls up older articles that may or may not be outdated. I wish I could read the bill and understand it's implications but that Ensign wording would have never caught my eye. Nor would I have understood the implications of the Cadillac plan without all the back and forth I have found here.

Yet I cannot trust our reps to make good decisions for us. There are too many beholden to who knows what.

[Cha]

4. Rec for more postitive information.

[Warren Stupidity]

5. If you poke through shit frequently you can find edible kernels of corn

and other good stuff to eat. It is still shit.

[ProSense]

9. More flawed logic being dressed up as wisdom.

The kernels found in shit aren't edible.

The fact is that no matter how much good is in the bill, the critics will continue to dismiss it as shit.

[neverforget]

11. .

[Lydia Leftcoast]

12. Minnesota insurance companies ARE non-profit, and they still price gouge

I'm not impressed.

[TheKentuckian]

16. Yup, they knew the co-op brand name was crap so they just did an edit

I love all these new converts to the Baucus bill and how the gang of seven..oh that's right Hatch quit because it wasn't bipartisan enough..er gang of six and their insurance company masters want to structure health care.

This is one of the biggest and hypocritical flips by a large amount of people i've seen since the fundies had a change of heart on teen pregnancy summer before last with Palin.

I said at the time that it would get better and all my good little cheerleader bullshit but I also said I'd call for the bill to be killed and expect Obama to veto it if it reached his desk.

I'm stand by my words.

KILL THE BILL!

[depakid]

13. Pretty shameless, considering that you were THE top "advocate" for a public option

- and for a robust one, before it became "inconvenient."

Guess all those arguments didn't mean much after all.

[ProSense]

14. This explains your inability

to understand that being an advocate for something doesn't mean that one cannot recognize that there are other things that are also important.

[depakid]

15. Nope- what it shows is the ability to recognize a poster with no principles

other than devotion to a politician and the party line of the day.

Whatever it might be.

[ProSense]

17. In your alternate reality, bitterness and whining = principles. n/t