According to an AP article from earlier this evening, details of the bill that Max Baucus is trying to finalize in the Senate Finance Committee have begun to surface.
Americans would be fined up to $3,800 for failing to buy health insurance under a plan that circulated in Congress on Tuesday as divisions among Democrats undercut President Barack Obama's effort to regain traction on his health care overhaul.
As Obama talked strategy with Democratic leaders at the White House, the one idea that most appeals to his party's liberal base lost ground in Congress. Prospects for a government-run plan to compete with private insurers sank as a leading moderate Democrat said he could no longer support the idea.
In other words, under the Baucus plan, Americans will be forced by law to buy health insurance, and yet there will be no affordable coverage option made available to them - which begs the question, "Who precisely is this supposed to help?"
The entire article can be found here:
http://news.yahoo.com/...
Here's the "money shot", as it were:
Just as auto coverage is now mandatory in nearly all states, Baucus would require that all Americans get health insurance once the system is overhauled. Penalties for failing to do so would start at $750 a year for individuals and $1,500 for families. Households making more than three times the federal poverty level — about $66,000 for a family of four — would face the maximum fines. For families, it would be $3,800, and for individuals, $950.
This means that no matter how little you make per year, you are liable for at least $750 in federal fines (I assume this would be assessed annually) if you don't find a way to pay for private health insurance.
Okay, fine... so some poor slob who's barely getting by to begin with and who cannot afford health insurance is going to get dinged almost 800 bucks if he doesn't manage to buy some junk plan - which will likely cost far more than $800.
And yet, aside from the progressives in the House, Congress overall seems bound and determined to ensure that there is no affordable public option for people to buy into if they cannot afford private insurance - which has, of course, been the problem that was supposed to have been solved by healthcare reform - people can't afford health insurance!
Yes, I understand that under the Baucus plan the insurance industry would probably lose most of their ability to play the old "pre-existing condition" game - but that doesn't increase affordability, it merely increases access. Affordability is still the elephant in the living room here, and without a strong, inexpensive not-for-profit coverage option there will really be nothing to shift that elephant out the door.
The problem is and has been all along that we have a healthcare system that is the equivalent of a $500 loaf of bread, and an increasing number of people cannot afford it. The Baucus plan mentions some level of tax credits to help individuals making less than about $32,000 per year pay for health insurance, but with health insurance being as prohibitively expensive as it is for individuals these tax credits are likely to be little more than a drop in the bucket as far as what individuals will be forced to shell out to the insurance companies. So perhaps the $500 loaf of bread now becomes a $350 loaf of bread - that we are all now forced by law to somehow find the money to buy whether we can afford it or not.
I know that there are plenty of folks here who will argue that we need to be supporting ANY attempt at healthcare reform that comes down the pike, lest President Obama end up having difficulty with his 2012 reelection bid. Believe me, I understand this. However, if something like the Baucus plan ends up being what Obama signs into law, I honestly believe that a handful of Kossacks "making with the negative waves, Moriarty" will be the least of his electoral worries. After all, how does one successfully campaign amongst working-poor Americans who are saying "What do you mean the government is forcing me to buy health insurance? I can't AFFORD health insurance! Wasn't that what we elected you to fix last time?"
So again, healthcare reform for whom?
For the insurance companies who will be getting a massive windfall of forced enrollment under this plan?
For the pharmaceutical companies who have evidently already been promised a sweetheart deal of their own by the White House whereby Congress can neither negotiate drug prices, nor buy less expensive (yet often still Made-In-America) drugs from foreign countries?
It is certainly looking less and less like this "reform" package will actually be for those who need it the most, and who we worked to elect Obama in order to help. I'm honestly not sure how we're supposed to continue to faithfully support Obama's healthcare reform efforts if the final product ends up being the corporate giveaway that it's looking more and more like it is destined to be.