A Small Glimpse of the Baucus Bill

The biggest part of his bill; is that everyone will have the opportunity for insurance; however not accepting insurance could lead to fines up to thirty eight hundred dollars. But recently Baucus is re-thinking this strategy after several complaints by the Democratic Party. The one thing that he failed to address in his proposal to a certain degree, is the fact that many insurance companies are already "not for profit" he doe stalk about how he would prefer most insurance companies to not be so concerned about money, but instead focus on the quality and care of the insured, instead of profit, similar to President Obama.

A small number of people complained that the healthcare reform planned under the President would hurt small business; however under the plan of Senator Baucus, he phases in something called a Cafeteria plan in which small businesses with fewer than one hundred employees can take advantage using this system and save more money than they currently do.

The biggest factor I feel missing in the Baucus plan, is that he left the enforcement to be handled by individual states for most conflicts while appointing the National Association of Insurance Commissioners to set most of the standards for which the States are enforcing.

There is little doubt that his plan is a compromise of both sides of the issue. For example he understands that there will be people that can't afford insurance, so he plans to expand a form of Medicaid, however this concerns me greatly, if only because many states Medicaid system seems to lack responsibility; and many have went to third party administrators only to find a large amount of problems from denial of services to over compensation for services provided. Baucus does not talk about third party administrators of Government plans in his proposal though.

The one thing I agree with the most in his proposal, is allowing the government to offer their own plan of insurance, however many states have already adopted this, and few of them work efficiently, they certainly have not controlled cost like they thought they would.

Senator Baucus states "Every person in America has the right to affordable healthcare, Universal coverage is essential if we are to make meaningful progress" He goes on to say that "We must all share the burden. Neither the employer based system nor the individual market can fulfill the demand for affordable quality coverage, one way to ensure affordable coverage is to create pooling agreements, which allow individuals and businesses alike to take advantage of this collection of purchasing power and serve in administrative cost."

Many people on the right side of the issue believe that his plan contains things like the employer must pay one hundred percent of the cost; this couldn't be further from the truth. There is nothing in his bill that would indicate or recommend that. In fact I think this bill it would be the perfect fit among all parties. Currently healthcare cost is somewhere in the area of four times the cost of inflation, and our Nation can't sustain that. Also to note, that no other industry except oil and energy made more profit in the last eight years than insurance companies did, all while the cost was increasing, we witnessed large sums of money being distributed to CEO salaries and bonuses. In the Baucus bill, there is no limitation on profit, which I feel it definitely needs. Something is seriously wrong when a person is denied a service that leads to their death while a CEO makes a bonus from it. If anything it bares on the side of evil.

I believe that having a Government controlled insurance will lead the way to having cost lowered by other insurance companies, and many companies that deny certain services, will have to change in order to stay afloat. I like the idea of competition, especially with a government agency that is defined by success of the program, rather than profit of the system which is proposed in this bill.

It will be interesting to see if the marketing campaign by private insurance companies can master above the government plan like they so eloquently did with prescription drug plans. But the biggest hurdle this bill faces is not about the rejection of the medical field, or insurance companies, but rather the relentless pursuit of the "me" syndrome. For example "Why should I pay for someone else's coverage?" In my personal opinion, we are so into the "why me" we fail to focus on anything positive in our society as a whole.

One thing that his plan definitely has going for it, is it allows people to choose plans that might not only fit their budget better, but also provide the services they wish. He also proposes healthcare tax credits for those with lower income, this helps in cost of the insurance, for those having a harder time in affording it.

I believe in my heart that if the United States was to adopt this plan, that the insurance companies would have to change, or face extinction. Right after they promised the President change, they did the very opposite of what they said they were going to do, they raised rates, put more restrictions on prior authorization and increased co-pays and deductibles. Without some Government intervention in some way (Like offering their own insurance plan) Things will only get worse, until they collapse. This bill will stop this from happening and bring insurance back to an accountable standard. His bill would establish marks or limitations on what insurance companies could charge individuals for their policy, that being said however, there are exceptions, such as tobacco use, certain ages, and family composition. Premiums could also vary because of geographic location, which will be determined by each individual state. He also has included a four category system, Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum, similar to how Massachusetts has done there insurance plan, it is based on standards and percent to equal which category you are in.

One other complaint often heard from right, is that people do not want to pay for people coming into our country for medical care, the Senators bill deals with this issue by requiring a Social Security Number and a Date of Birth in order to get treatment.

Also included in his plan is an anti discrimination rule, it will be illegal for an insurance company to discriminate against anyone applying for health insurance. In recent years we have seen many insurance companies rescind insurance; this would no longer be allowed.

Probably the biggest problem I have with this bill; is the fact that if people are qualified for Medicaid under the State and they choose the Federal plan, States would be responsible on paying the Federal Government a certain amount of money. In my opinion why not just eliminate Medicaid from each State which would cut a huge amount of taxes or allow each state to use money towards education. Despite some of the problems I see in this bill, I do believe it is the best offered to date and can satisfy both parties and eventually give each individual the possibility of healthcare coverage at a reasonable price.