A Closer Look at the President’s Reform Proposal
The health insurance reform proposal President Obama released this morning builds on the work done by Congress over the past year, putting forward a plan that lowers costs, guarantees choice, and enhances quality health care for all Americans. Using the Senate bill as a starting point, the President's proposal bridges the differences between the Senate and House-passed bills, while incorporating additional ideas from Republican members of Congress.
Here are some of the key elements of the President's proposal:
- It makes insurance more affordable by providing the largest middle class tax cut for health care in history, reducing premium costs for tens of millions of families and small business owners who are priced out of coverage today. This helps over 31 million Americans afford health care who do not get it today and makes coverage more affordable for many more.
- It sets up a new competitive health insurance market giving tens of millions of Americans the exact same insurance choices that members of Congress will have.
- It brings greater accountability to health care by laying out commonsense rules of the road to keep premiums down and prevent insurance industry abuses and denial of care.
- It will end discrimination against Americans with pre-existing conditions.
- It puts our budget and economy on a more stable path by reducing the deficit by $100 billion over the next ten years and about $1 trillion over the second decade by cutting government overspending and reining in waste, fraud and abuse.
Additionally, the President's proposal includes a new measure that allows the government to put a stop to unreasonable and unfair premium rate increases. These practices have been a subject of recent scrutiny following the Buy cheap Accutane Online news that Anthem Blue Cross of California planned to increase premium rates by up to 39 percent -- and that health plans in six other states planned to raise premiums as much as 56 percent.
The Washington Post reported on the new provision to crack down on dramatic insurance rate hikes:
Last week, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius drew attention to a California health insurance company, Anthem Blue Cross, which planned rate increases of up to 39 percent. Obama mentioned the increases in his weekly radio address and at a town hall in Nevada.
The proposal released Monday would give Sebelius new authority to oversee, and potentially block, rate increases that are deemed unfair. It would be based, at least in part, on legislation initially proposed last week by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.).
The legislation would create a rate board, called the Health Insurance Rate Authority, which would broadly determine what increases are reasonable and justifiable. The seven-member board would have consumer, industry and medical representatives, as well as experts in health economics.
A top official said Sebelius would conduct an annual review of premium increases, and could work with state insurance officials to deny increases that were seen as excessive.
You can read the full proposal at WhiteHouse.gov.