Looks like the congressional Dems are floating their new health care idea through the NYT. It looks woefully inadequate to me - with all its flaws the Senate health plan looked better. Too bad congressional Dems can't suck it up and pass the damn thing. And, too bad Obama has decided he still doesn't want to show leadership on the healthcare issue. What they're thinking below the fold:
Lawmakers, Congressional aides and health policy experts said the package might plausibly include these elements:
¶Insurers could not deny coverage to children under the age of 19 on account of pre-existing medical conditions.
¶Insurers would have to offer policyholders an opportunity to continue coverage for children through age 25 or 26.
¶The federal government would offer financial incentives to states to expand Medicaid to cover childless adults and parents.
¶The federal government would offer grants to states to establish regulated markets known as insurance exchanges, where consumers and small businesses could buy coverage.
¶The federal government would offer tax credits to small businesses to help them defray the cost of providing health benefits to workers.
¶If a health plan provided care through a network of doctors and hospitals, it could not charge patients more for going outside the network in an emergency. Co-payments for emergency care would have to be the same, regardless of whether a hospital was in the insurer’s network of preferred providers.
http://www.nytimes.com/...
So, it looks like insurers can still discriminate against people with pre-existing medical conditions if they're older than 19 and there will be state insurance exchanges not national ones (less competition between insurance companies). Health care is not provided to everyone.
I am so disappointed by the Dems and Obama. This is not at all what I voted for. The Dems still have a wide majority in congress and in the Senate, and this is what we're going to get?
I'm going to exercise my voting rights in November if it turns out like this. Dems will not be getting my vote.