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Obama Releases Revised Health Care Reform Blueprint
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President Obama this morning released his version of health care reform legislation that combines elements of the Senate and House bills passed late last year. The new plan was unveiled in preparation for Thursday’s televised bipartisan White House health care summit.
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said working families “look foward”
to moving the ball forward this week toward the goal of quality, affordable health care for all Americans. Republicans in Congress have an opportunity to stand with working families or continue to protect the profits of the insurance industry. We are prepared to work with the White House and leadership in Congress to advance a comprehensive health care bill that will be passed into law.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said this morning the revised proposal “contains positive elements” from both bills. She is scheduled to meet with the other House Democrats today to review the bill further. In a statement, Pelosi said:
Our nation is closer than ever to guaranteeing affordable health care to America’s middle class and small businesses, lowering costs and strengthening Medicare for seniors, holding insurance companies accountable, and reducing our deficit. The cost of inaction is too great for our nation and for every family facing the heartbreaking reality of skyrocketing health care costs and denied care or coverage.
An excise tax on health benefits that remain in the plan has been modified even further than an earlier agreement reached by the White House and union leaders. Under the latest proposal, the tax wouldn’t kick in until the annual premium cost for all families reached $27,500 and would not take effect until 2018.
The bill also includes: higher subsidies for low- and middle-income families to help pay for health insurance: closing the Medicare prescription drug ”donut hole”; new authority to control health insurance premium increases; applying the full Medicare tax (both employer and employee share, or 2.9 percent) to unearned income for families earning more than $250,000; an increase in the penalty for employers that do not provide health benefits from $750 per worker to $2,000; increased Medicaid funding for all states; raising from $23 billion to $33 billion the assessment of drug companies; a ban on denial of coverage for pre-existing conditions. Click here for a full summary.
House and Senate Republicans who have unanimously opposed the reform bills and blocked action were invited to post an alternative health care plan on the White House website so voters could compare ideas. But Republican leaders refused the offer. However, they do say they will attend the Thursday summit.
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For a more critical, socialist perspective and information on how Obama’s “Health Care Reform” will affect working people is presented in the article below from the World Socialist Web Site. The link below gives access to the full article, with several paragraphs below.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/feb2010/heal-f23.shtml
Obama unveils health plan ahead of bipartisan summit
By Kate Randall
23 February 2010
President Obama posted his proposal for health care legislation Monday on the White House web site. He has made his plan public in advance of an all-day, televised health care “summit” at the Blair House in Washington on Thursday that will bring together Congressional Democrats and Republicans.
The president’s plan largely follows the version passed by the Senate in December, with minor changes based on the House bill passed in November. The bill also makes minor concessions to Republicans in the form of targeting health care “waste, fraud and abuse,” whose inevitable effect, if enacted, would amount to cuts in payments and services, particularly to Medicare.
The White House says the plan would cost $950 billion over a decade, and aims to reduce the deficit by $100 billion over the next 10 years—and approximately $1 trillion over the second decade. This is to be achieved in large part, the report on the plan notes, by “cutting government overspending.”
Cynically, the report on the “The President’s Proposal” does not indicate where the major portion of these funds will be cut. As in both the House and Senate plans, to achieve these deficit reductions, the plan will include hundreds of billions of dollars in cuts to Medicare, the government-run health care plan for seniors and the disabled.
The release of the White House proposal also comes only a few days after the president established by executive order a panel that will be tasked with slashing spending on Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. (See, “Obama appoints panel to slash social programs”)
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The Senate plan also proposed reductions of about $200 billion in Medicare payments to health care providers, as well as more than $100 billion to be axed from Medicare Advantage, the program by which more than 10 million seniors receive Medicare benefits through private health insurance plans.
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[Note: follow the link above to read the details in the article as well as links to related stories.]
AMERICANS HAVE HAD IT WITH OBAMA , PELOSI AND REIDS HEALTH CARE AND BACK ROOM DEALS AND ALL THE CLOSED DOORS PASS THE BUCKS ,
THIS HEALTH CARE SHOULD BE SCRAPED TO THE DUMPS ASAP , CREAT JOBS , TORT REFORM FOR DOCTORS , REGULATIONS ON INSURANCE COMPANYS AND LET ALL INSURANCE COMPANYS CROSS STATE LINES , GET RID OF ALL LOBBYIST AND SPECIAL INTEREST IN DEALING WITH AMERICANS BETTER INTEREST AND ITS WELL BEING . WE SHOULD PUT ABOUT 2 TRILLION RIGHT INTO ENERGY NUKES , SMALL 3 5 YEAR PLANTS TO BUILD , THE BEST DESIGNS OF TODAY , WE AS AMERICA USE 30 MILLION BARRELS OF OIL A DAY IN AMERICA , 60% GOES TO ENERGY , WE CAN ONLY PRODUCE 2 MILLION BARRELS OUR SELF , SO WE NEED TO GET 28 MILLION FROM THE WORLD EACH DAY , LOOK AT ALL THYE MONEY AMERICA SENDS OVER SEAS TO BY OIL , WHY OUR WE IN THE PROBLEMS WE OUR TODAY , FOR WE HAVE LET SPECIAL INTEREST WITH LOBBYIST BY CONGRESS AND THE U S SENATE , THETE TO BUSY MAKING MONEY ON AMERICANS .
WE NEED TO SCRAP HEALTH CARE NOW !
Come on, how much more of this phony garbage are we going to put up with the president not doing what we the American people want, a Public Option?
I was a big supporter of Pres.Obama but now I am very disenchanted with him and the Senate democratic leadership.
Come on, Labor, Wake Up, we are not going to get enough help from either party.
We need a Labor Party!!!!