Politics

The Votes, Some Fine Print, in The House Health Care Bill

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Here's a USA Today story that has a full list of how various representatives voted on the health care reform bill.

Also included, a handy-dandy list of the main differences between House and Senate versions, a prediction that the whole thing faces an uphill battle in the upper chamber (thank god):

COST House: $1.2 trillion over 10 years.Senate: $829 billion over 10 years.

MAJOR TAXES & FEES House: 5.4% income tax surcharge on annual incomes above $500,000 for individuals and $1 million for households. Senate: 40% tax on value of insurance premiums that exceed $8,000 for an individual and $21,000 for a family, plus billions in new annual fees on health care industries.

ABORTION House: Prohibit people who receive subsidies from getting abortions through public or private health insurance plans. Senate: Require insurers to separate federal subsidies from private funds so only private money is used for abortions.

PUBLIC OPTION House: Create a government-run insurance plan similar to Medicare that would negotiate how much it pays doctors and hospitals for services. Senate: Not included in Finance Committee bill, but Majority Leader Harry Reid said final Senate bill will include a public option that would let individual states opt out.

More here.

The differences between the House and Senate plans are, shall we say, minimal to the maximus, especially when you figure the cost comparisons are almost certainly way low in terms of how the much either plan will cost in the real world (see decades of history with every other government-run health care system). And it really isn't clear what it will mean for a state to "opt out" of the public option but it seems unlikely that it will mean that a state will, you know, actually be able to forego the program and associated costs altogether. And the House version's mandated coverage is disturbing in its implications. 

Worse still, of course, is the complete lack of workable ideas that actually combine those quaint old virtues of market competition, individual choice, and more. Time to reread Whole Foods CEO John Mackey's thoughts on the matter, and to watch this video in which he spells it out.