While Ezra Klein tries to convince us that even though the Baucus bill is not "reform," it could be worse...
While big PhRMA starts spending a $150 million ad to convince us the Baucus bill is the best thing since sliced bread...
While Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid begin their slow walk away from a commitment to insist that a public option, no matter how weak, be included in any final bill...
The health insurance corporations have now officially begun their all out assault on the few industry regulations left standing in the bill.
In an article entitled "Baucus Bill Would Destroy Private Health Insurance; Increased Regulations Undermine Competitiveness," the insurance corporations warn that their industry must not "breathe a sigh of relief" that the Baucus bill doesn't contain a public option. They have now set their sights on killing whatever regulations are left standing in the bill, saying these regulations will "doom the private insurance industry."
According to the Baucus bill, any insurance plan that caps benefits would be prohibited. It doesn't matter if the cap is $1 million or $10 million. There's no way to avoid greater costs with such mandated expansiveness of coverage. The same rule applies to any ban on higher fees for pre-existing conditions, a prohibition that is in every Democratic health care plan.
There is a tax for those who don't buy insurance, which ranges from $750 for the poorest individual to $3,800 for families. This doesn't come close to covering costs even with limited benefits. In 2008, average health insurance costs were $4,704 for individuals and $12,682 for families. If there were no penalty for having pre-existing conditions, people would simply pay the tax and wait until they got sick to buy insurance. This would raise costs dramatically because sicknesses tend to be worse when care is deferred to the last possible moment.
Get that, America? Drop the pre-existing requirements, drop the prohibitions against benefits caps, and the insurance industry might, just might, be able to live with this bill.
I don't know how much more "reform" I can take.