House Debuts Their Bill for Health Insurance Reform

House Debuts Their Bill for Health Insurance Reform in Politics and Legislation

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi presented the Affordable Health Care for America Act today, the House’s health reform bill.  At 1,990 pages and $894 billion, the measure would extend coverage to 36-million people and reduce future federal deficits by $30 billion over the next 10 years.

That last fact is a big win for President Obama and the Democrats who are face daily scrutiny from their Republican counterparts on adding to the deficit.

It would broadly expand Medicare and provide subsidies to moderate-income Americans to purchase insurance. And, as promised, it includes a public health insurance plan.

The bill has strong similarities with the one emerging from the Senate, but important distinctions as well. The Senate version would fund reform in part with a “Cadillac” tax on higher-priced policies (to the vocal dismay of labor unions). But the House bill would instead tax incomes of over $500, 000, something Speaker Pelosi calls the “millionaire’s tax.” Pelosi’s version also prompts almost twice the Medicare cuts on the prescription-drug industry as the Senate’s $80 billion cuts.

Other points of note are that, as expected, the House bill bars health insurance companies from denying coverage based on health history and requires employers to offer coverage to their workers.

On a sidenote, we enjoyed the NYTimes’ reporting on some of the symbolic theatre that accompanied the bill’s unveiling. Apparently, Representative John Dingell brought out the gavel he used in 1965, while presiding over the House the year it passed Medicare. “I had the privilege of sitting in the chair when we offered Medicare, originally offered by my old dad,” Mr. Dingell said, brandishing the old mallet at the rally.

“I used this here gavel to preside over the House, and I’m going to lend it to whoever gets to preside over this legislation, because a good piece of wood doesn’t wear out with one great event,” he declared.

Mr. Dingell’s father, John Dingell Sr. began pushing for national health insurance in 1943.

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