Will Baucus Plan Make Health Care Affordable?

Posted by Cathy Levine on 21 September 2009 | 0 Comments

Tags: HealthCare Reform, Senator Baucus, affordable health care

Did Senator Max Baucus hear the President’s speech on October 9th?

In that speech, President Obama said, “No one should go broke because they get sick.” Indeed, health care reform should end medical bankruptcies, medical foreclosures, and avoidable deaths from going without needed health care. That means health care reform must make health care truly affordable to every American. We must get the details right.

The biggest part of the price tag for health care reform is providing subsidies to help low and moderate income families so that they can purchase insurance through the new Exchange. Because no employer is contributing, individuals and families have to pay the whole premium (averaging $4,347 for an individual and $12,145 for a family in Ohio). That’s why subsidies are critical.

All the bills create an affordability standard – caps on yearly premium and out-of-pocket costs; adequate benefits; exempting very low-income people from premiums; and narrowing the rate differences between young and old folks. Even under the standards in the HELP and House bills, many low and moderate income families will struggle to afford coverage.

But, to lower the price tag for health care reform, Senator Baucus takes a bit out of those standards. In other words, he’s saving an estimated $200 billion over 10 years off the backs of our most vulnerable citizens. The savings amount to a mere $20 billion annually – chump change for the federal budget when you think about what they spent on tax cuts to the rich, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, bank bailouts. And when you recognize that the US spends $2.4 trillion per year on health care.

Health care is a moral issue and THE defining justice issue for our nation today. Will we finally decide, as a nation, that every American has a right to health care? Then, we must ensure that health care is affordable. Otherwise, the right will be an empty one. People who get sick will continue to go broke. People will continue to die from lack of health coverage.