Reply #29: It's not a secret that the loophole for rescissions and annual caps somehow slipped back into the [View All]

[laughingliberal]

bill, but this is the section on rescissions:

SEC. 2712. PROHIBITION ON RESCISSIONS.

`A group health plan and a health insurance issuer offering group or individual health insurance coverage shall not rescind such plan or coverage with respect to an enrollee once the enrollee is covered under such plan or coverage involved, except that this section shall not apply to a covered individual who has performed an act or practice that constitutes fraud or makes an intentional misrepresentation of material fact as prohibited by the terms of the plan or coverage. Such plan or coverage may not be cancelled except with prior notice to the enrollee, and only as permitted under section 2702(c) or 2742(b).

As for annual caps, here are the news reports about it:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/12/11/health.care.benefit.caps/index.html


Health Care Policy
Washington (CNN) -- After hearing concerns from patient advocates, the White House on Friday said it is looking to close a loophole in the Senate health care bill that would allow caps on annual insurance benefits.
"The president has made it clear that health insurance reform legislation should prevent insurance companies from placing annual limits on health expenditures that can force families into financial ruin," said White House spokesman Reid Cherlin. "We will continue to work with Congress on this policy."
The loophole in the Senate bill reversed a previous version of the plan that would have prevented insurance companies from establishing such limits, according to three Democratic aides who spoke to CNN earlier Friday.<snip>

<snip> In acknowledging the loophole Friday, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said, "We were trying to minimize premium impacts."
When asked if the language goes against one of the fundamental promises Democrats made in health care reform, Sen. Tom Harkin, chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said it was "one of the compromises we had to make."<snip>

This loophole remained and is in the current bill. It was one of the things reform advocates were hoping could be reversed in the reconciliation between the House and the Senate that ended when the Senate race in MA was won by Scott Brown. This is not unknown.

As for the cuts to Medicare, they are well known. The president himself repeatedly stated some of the funding would come form $500 billion dollars to cuts to Medicare. $1.77 billion dollars of these cuts will come from ending the subsidies to Medicare Advantage programs. The balance of the money will come from cutting waste, fraud, and abuse and instituting best practices. The actual cuts which were in the final version of the bill which passed the Senate came to $460 billion.

A news report which discusses this and Republican attempts to use the issue and block the cuts:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34258944/

Medicare cuts stay in Senate's health care bill
AARP, the seniors’ lobby, threw its weight behind the Democrats


updated 4:49 p.m. PT, Thurs., Dec . 3, 2009
WASHINGTON - Unflinching on a critical first test, Senate Democrats closed ranks Thursday behind $460 billion in politically risky Medicarecuts at the heart of health care legislation, thwarting a Republican attempt to doom President Barack Obama's sweeping overhaul.

The bid by the bill's critics to reverse cuts to the popular Medicare program failed on a vote of 58-42, drawing the support of two Democratic defectors. Approval would have stripped out money needed to pay for expanding coverage to tens of millions of uninsured Americans.<snip>