In a last effort to give the Senate a bipartisan health care bill, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee circulated a comprehensive proposal on Sunday to overhaul the health care system and proposed a new fee on insurance companies to help pay for coverage of the uninsured.
Mr. Schumer said, “The health insurance industry should pay its fair share of the cost because it stands to gain over 40 million new consumers under health care* reform legislation.”
Translation: We bailed you out with the mandate. Now, give a cut to the uninsured with this fee.
Of course, the insurance companies will immediately pass the fee on to their existing policy holders:
A recent report by Oppenheimer & Company, the investment bank, said, “It will be very difficult for the Senate Finance Committee to structure the fees in a way that they won’t be immediately passed on to customers in the form of higher premiums.”
Which, as Digby points out, makes it the Baucus proposal "a back door approach to lifting the employer exclusion."
The motivation? Why, fiscal prudence, of course.
Too bad "progressives," our tribunes of the people on the A list, and the Democrat Party leadership took single payer off the table. We could be arguing about how to spend the $350 billion dollars in savings a year (minimum) instead of trying to figure out how to force the little guys with insurance to pay for the little guys without insurance. Oh well.
NOTE * I think Schumer means "health insurance reform." Eh?
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smell the "hope"
The hope is that employers would buy cheaper, less generous coverage for employees, thereby reducing the overuse of medical services.
You know, I was wondering how I could get shittier insurance so I could stop my addiction to being healthy. Thank goodness this is in the works.