Progress Report On The Healthcare Legislation

There are two sources for this article, Politico, which is reporting on the healthcare bill that has come out of the Finance Committee, and The Hill, which is reporting on the deal offered to doctors in return for their support of the bill.

Politico reports:

The bill that has come out of the Finance Committee is 1,502 pages long.  Politico has a link to the entire bill, but also posts highlights at the link above.  Some of the highlights:

Some of the Senators are concerned that the tax on high-end health insurance plans will also be levied on plans that are not so high end.  The 40 percent tax on high-end insurance plans will apply to plans that cost an individual more than $8,000 and a family more than $21,000 would be taxes.  That's a plan costing a family $1,750 a month.  That is not high end.  In Massachusetts, that's probably low for a good plan.

This is not the final form of the bill.  Senate Majority Leader Reid and Sens. Max Baucus and Chris Dodd along with senior White House aides are merging the Finance and Health Committee legislation into one bill that will be considered on the floor of the Senate.  This will go on behind closed doors, and we probably won't have a chance to study the bill that comes out of that merge.  So far, there is no transparency in this process.

The Hill reports:

Senator Harry Reid met with doctors' groups last week and said the Senate would consider legislation separate from the healthcare bill to halt scheduled Medicare cuts in doctor payments over the next 10 years.  Senator Reid stated that in return he expected doctors to support his healthcare reform bill.  Senator Reid also asked doctors not to push for tort reform in the legislation.  Trial lawyers are a major part of the Democrat party donors, and those lawyers oppose tort reform.

I am also convinced that the purpose of the $250 payment to senior citizens who are not getting a cost of living increase in their Social Security payments is to distract them from what the Obama Administration is about to do to their Medicare coverage.

Healthcare reform without tort reform and without portability of personal healthcare insurance across state lines is not healthcare reform--it is only a government takeover of the healthcare insurance industry.