WIN: CBPP: "House Health Reform Bill Expands Coverage, Lowers Health Cost Growth, Reduces Deficit"

[berni_mccoy]

House Health Reform Bill Expands Coverage and Lowers Health Cost Growth, While Reducing Deficits

http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=2973

The comprehensive health reform legislation that House Democratic leaders unveiled on October 29 would make significant progress in three critical areas: expanding health coverage and ensuring that such coverage is affordable, slowing the growth in health care costs, and instituting essential reforms in the health insurance market.

Moreover, the bill’s cost is more than fully offset; that is, the legislation would reduce budget deficits by $104 billion over ten years, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). The bill’s revenues and spending reductions would grow faster than the cost of the coverage provisions, according to CBO, which estimates that the bill would modestly reduce deficits in years after 2019 as well.

Policymakers could further improve the legislation by incorporating, at some stage of the legislative process, a provision to limit the tax exclusion for employer-sponsored health insurance such as a modified version of the excise tax on high-cost plans in the Senate Finance Committee’s health reform bill. This would further reduce health care cost growth.

...snip...

- Expanding coverage. Under the House bill, 96 percent of non-elderly legal residents in the United States would have health insurance by 2019. Relative to current law, the bill would reduce the number of uninsured by 36 million, or two-thirds, by 2019, according to CBO’s preliminary estimates. The bill would cover 7 million more of the uninsured by 2019 than the bill that the Senate Finance Committee approved earlier this month.

- Slowing health care cost growth. The bill would take a number of steps, particularly within Medicare, to institute efficiencies to lower costs and change how health care is delivered to improve the quality of care. CBO estimates that the bill would substantially slow Medicare’s growth rate.
CBO Director Elmendorf has noted that changing Medicare’s payment rules is one of “two powerful policy levers” that the federal government has available to encourage changes in medical practice and thereby slow the increase in health care costs. The other lever that Elmendorf identified, a limit on the open-ended tax subsidy for employer-sponsored health insurance, is part of the Senate Finance Committee bill.

- Reforming the health insurance market. The bill includes essential reforms that would greatly improve access to affordable and comprehensive health insurance coverage for people (and employers) at all income levels. It would bar insurance companies from denying coverage or charging higher premiums to enrollees that have health problems and would limit insurers’ ability to charge higher premiums to individuals simply because they are older. It also would set minimum standards regarding what insurers could offer, including an annual cap on out-of-pocket costs and a ban on annual or lifetime benefit limits. These reforms would apply to all policies purchased in the individual market and, over time, all employer-sponsored plans as well.

More at link, including sources and references.

[Cant trust em]

1. Sorry. You're going to have to post something negative to get any attention.

[berni_mccoy]

6. Isn't that the truth.

[enlightenment]

2. Win? Maybe.

The devil is in the details and despite all the numbers they throw around in that comparison of the House and Finance committee bills (and occasionally, the Senate bill), there aren't very many actual details - just projections.

How meaningful this exercise in representative democracy turns out to be remains to be seen. One thing that is pretty much a guarantee is that the bill that lands on the President's desk will be a compromise of the various bills floating around at the moment, so claiming a 'win' based on CBO projections of a single bill is a bit overly-optimistic.

[SpartanDem]

3. The two bills are very similar in their nuts and bolts

so I would expect to see similar results on the Senate side.

[emulatorloo]

4. Thanks for the link n/t

[Winterblues]

5. Don't worry Republicans are about to unveil their Bill and it will undo all of this..

:shrug:

[slipslidingaway]

7. "...reduce budget deficits by $104 billion over ten years..." Here is 72 billion ....

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=6896374&mesg_id=6900679

Generating revenue to cover the plan's cost over the 10 year period...bottom of page 7 in the CBO report. While the program itself sounds good, notice how this new piece reduces the deficit by 72 billion in the 10 year window.

Nice way to reduce the cost for Now.


http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/106xx/doc10688/hr3962Rangel.pdf

"H.R. 3962 includes a number of other provisions with a significant
budgetary effect. They include the following:

 Community Living Assistance Services and Supports (CLASS)
provisions, which would establish a voluntary federal program for
long-term care insurance. Active workers could purchase coverage,
usually through their employer. Premiums would be set to cover the
full cost of the program as measured on an actuarial basis. However,
the program’s cash flows would initially show net receipts in early
years, followed by net outlays in later years. In particular, the
program would pay out far less in benefits than it would receive in
premiums over the 10-year budget window, reducing deficits by
about $72 billion over that period..."


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=6896374&mesg_id=6903227

The headline news was that this bill would reduce the deficit by 104 billion...

BREAKING: CBO Releases Numbers On House Health Care Bill : Reduce Deficit by $104 Billion

...so where did that reduction come from, it appears a large portion (72 billion) is due to this new long term care insurance, aka CLASS.

While that is something to celebrate, the plan would have people paying in over the 10 year budget window for something they will need in the future, naturally this will be all gains until people start drawing from the fund. For reference this is shown on page 26, Table 3 of the CBO report.

It reminded me of the SS Trust Fund that was pre-financed and helped to reduce the deficits, especially during the Clinton and Bush years...

[lumberjack_jeff]

8. It is a very good bill.

http://healthreform.kff.org/SubsidyCalculator.aspx

[slipslidingaway]

9. Person/family payment as % of income - 17.6 add the $10000. cap for...

out of pocket expenses, which more people will reach, and it is about 27% of gross income or easily over 30% of net income.

Just playing with the numbers, used 90,000 income for a family of four.

[lumberjack_jeff]

10. The family in your example, if it exists at all, would go bankrupt under the status quo. n/t

[slipslidingaway]

11. 56 year old self-employed person with a family earning 90,000 ...

I would imagine they exist.

:)

[HughMoran]

13. I't save me/my small company employer $25,000/year!!!!!

:wow:

from $40k/year to 15k/year (higher cost area) for a family of 4 and NO subsidy.

[eridani]

12. Great. Health care costs are still going to grow

Age rating? There should be NONE, if you are going to force people to buy private insurance or the (now more espensive) public option.