The invaluable Paul Krugman explains health care reform for easy understanding:
The essence is really quite simple: regulation of insurers, so that they can’t cherry-pick only the healthy, and subsidies, so that all Americans can afford insurance.
Everything else is about making that core work. Individual mandates are a way to prevent gaming of the system by people who don’t sign up until they’re sick; employer mandates a way to hold down the on-budget costs by preventing a rush by employers to drop insurance; the public option a way to create effective competition and hold costs down further.
But what it means for the individual will be that insurers can’t reject you, and if your income is relatively low, the government will help pay your premiums.
Let me summarize the Republicans plan: status quo.
Now, that’s easy isn’t it?
In other health insurance reform (preferred term now) news:
The health insurance reform bill was voted out of the final House committee late on Friday after a deal was struck between the Blue Dogs and the Progressives. I’m sure you’re surprised to learn that no Republicans voted for the bill. This means that a bill can be voted on by the House when they get back from their August recess. The House leadership has also promised to allow a floor vote on a single-payer healthcare bill. The amendment is sponsored by Rep. Anthony Weiner (yes, this Anthony Weiner). It’s sure to fail but it allows the Progressive Caucus to register support for single-payer.
In the Senate, the secretive negotiations between know-nothings Baucus and Conrad with know-nothings Grassley and Enzi continue. Baucus has now set a date for the end of negations as September 15, perhaps realizing that he’s getting played by Republicans. He’s now threatening to pass a bill out of the committee without Republican support. Perhaps the threats of voting him out the of committee chairmanship are working.
Nebraska “Democratic” Senator Ben Nelson threatens to kill health insurance reform because groups are running ads in his district urging him to support it. Keep in mind Senator Nelson is set, he has a gold-plated government-run health care plan. I’m sure Nelson’s plan will work because we all know that sitting back quietly and hoping someone will notice you is how you get things done in American politics.
Hey! Republicans have put out their own health care plan! Guess what it is? Health insurance deregulation. We all know that deregulation worked great for the banking industry, what’s not to love?