Baucus told the Lee Newspapers State Bureau that he hopes to move quickly on the reform plan next year, in concert with his colleagues in Congress and President-elect Barack Obama, because rising health care costs and a deteriorating health system are hurting the country and its economy.
“My goal is to get this thing passed,” he said. “The costs of inaction are going to be far greater than the costs of action.
A central pillar of the Baucus proposal is requiring Americans without health insurance to obtain it in some way, either through their employer or purchasing it on their own.
Baucus proposes setting up a “health insurance exchange” that would be a national clearinghouse of private policies, where Americans could have “one-stop shopping” for insurance policies.
Insurers would be required to offer minimum coverage and they could not refuse coverage to someone with a pre-existing health condition.
Subsidies would be available for those who couldn't afford the coverage and tax credits would help small businesses buy it for employees.
Baucus said the requirement to obtain insurance would be phased in over several years. He didn't have a pricetag for the plan.
Baucus, the Democratic chairman of the powerful Senate Finance Committee, revealed the proposals at a news conference in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday.
He said he's spoken about his plan with Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., who chairs the Senate Health, Education and Welfare Committee and who has said health care reform must happen quickly.
In a statement today, Kennedy called the Baucus proposal “a major contribution to the debate on health care reform” that provides “thoughtful recommendation for reform.”
“I look forward to working with Sen. Baucus, our colleagues in Congress on both sides of the aisle, and the Obama administration to see that we at last achieve the goal of quality, affordable health care for all Americans,” Kennedy said.
Tommy Vietor, spokesman for Obama's transition team, also said Wednesday that Obama “applauds Chairman Baucus' work to draw attention to the challenges of the health system” and looks forward to working with him and other congressional leaders on health care reform.
It's been 15 years since then-President Bill Clinton attempted broad health care reform, which went down in flames before Congress in 1994.
Baucus said Clinton made a mistake by waiting too long to introduce his proposal and made it “too much top-down,” failing to enlist the advice of Congress in the process.
“This time, we the Congress are acting first, very aggressively, and very cooperatively with President-elect Obama and the right committees,” he said.
Other aspects of the Baucus proposal include:
Expansion of existing government health insurance programs, including Medicare, Medicaid, the Children's Health Insurance Program and the Indian Health Service.
People ages 55 to 64 would be allowed to “buy in” to Medicare, the federal program that currently covers people 65 and older. This aspect would be a temporary fix while the national health insurance exchange is developed, with the hope that the exchange would offer the 55-to-64 age group more options to buy private insurance.
Encouraging the current system of employer-based health insurance. Companies that do not provide health insurance would contribute to a fund that helps cover the uninsured.
Small companies would be exempt from contributing to the fund.
Strengthening the role of primary care in the health care system, by increasing the number of primary-care doctors and reforming a payment system so it better rewards these physicians for their time.
The goal is to increase primary care and thus reduce the amount of people who go to the emergency room for care, and thus reduce costs.
Cutting costs by detecting waste in public programs; reducing overpayments to private insurers that provide Medicare Advantage, which is an insurance product; and some “careful reforms” of medical malpractice laws.
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