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September 30, 2009

This Week in Health Reform

Federal Legislative Overview

The Senate Finance Committee began marking up its health care reform bill, “America’s Healthy Future Act” on Tuesday, September 22. Chairman Max Baucus’ (D-MT) intention of crafting a bipartisan bill has fallen by the wayside in recent days. Nearly any support from Republicans, save for Senator Olympia Snow (R-ME), seems more unlikely as this process moves forward. Baucus also did not meet his deadline of moving the bill to the Senate floor by week’s end. The Finance Committee spent the majority of this week considering only a handful of the 560-plus amendments introduced by both Democrats and Republicans.
The amendments fall into the following eight general categories:

• Insurance Market Reform
• Shared Responsibility
• Medicaid
• Supplemental Products
• Medicare Advantage and Part D
• Government-Run Plan(s)
• Exchange
• Health Insurer Related Offsets

A number of specific amendments that Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas (BCBSTX) is watching are noted below:

• The annual fee of $6 billion on health insurers in the initial Finance Committee legislation has now been raised to $6.7 billion annually.
• Chairman Baucus removed the $750 million in annual fees from clinical laboratories.
• An amendment has been added to change the age rating band from 5:1 to 4:1. The insurance industry initially supported the 5:1 figure.
• Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) offered a number of amendments that would prohibit health care co-ops from using federal money for marketing its health plan or to lobby Congress.

The Magic Senate “60”

Massachusetts Governor Duvall Patrick named Paul Kirk, Jr. – former Democratic National Committee Chairman – as a temporary replacement to Former Senator Ted Kennedy. This brings the Democratic Caucus back to holding a filibuster-proof 60 votes moving into a vote on health care reform. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) this week also indicated that using Budget Reconciliation as a procedural way to pass health care reform is still on the table, but only as a measure of last resort.

House of Representatives

In the House, Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman, Henry Waxman (D-CA) announced that his Committee approved a number of leftover amendments from the July 31 vote on its version of the health care reform bill.

Now, each committee must work with the Rules Committee to merge the three bills. Ways and Means Committee Chairman, Charles Rangel (D-NY) stated that the committees are close to an agreement on the full legislation, but Democrats still remain divided on the government-run insurance plan. Once the legislation is completely merged, the final bill will be sent to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) for a cost estimate. Rangel is hoping to send the bill to the CBO this week with the House aiming for a vote on its legislation mid-October.

 Archives of: Past Weeks in Health Reform

9/25/09 - This week on Health Care Reform
9/24/09 - This week on Health Care Reform
9/18/09 - This week on Health Care Reform
9/11/09 - This week on Health Care Reform

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