President Obama is making headway on coming up with a single Democratic overhaul proposal before next week’s televised health summit with Republicans, according to reports this morning.
The presidential plan is supposed to be posted on the Internet by Monday, which — given the differences between the bills already passed by House and Senate Democrats — is taking some doing. Nonetheless, There will be one proposal with “some of the best ideas” form both bills, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said yesterday.
The New York Times reports Democratic officials say the Obama proposal would add coverage for more than 30 million Americans and have a price-tag of about $900 billion over a decade, in line with both congressional bills. It also would mandate most individuals have coverage and health insurers couldn’t cite pre-existing conditions for denying coverage.
To help pay for it, the combined plan would include a version of the Senate proposed tax on high-value policies, according to the article. How to handle the tougher restrictions on insurance coverage for abortions contained in the House bill but not approved by the Senate hasn’t been resolved, it said.
The Los Angeles Times says top Dems are close to dropping the idea of special federal Medicaid money for Nebraska included in the Senate bill. The paper says low- and moderate-income Americans would be able to get health policies through new insurance exchanges, and uncovered costs in Medicare’s drug coverage for seniors known as the “doughnut hole” would be plugged.
Obama wants to give Republicans a chance to digest his proposal before the Feb. 25 summit in Washington. But lots of Republicans want to start with a clean slate and the NYT notes some unhappiness in the Democratic ranks about the presidential drive to hammer together one plan. There has not been a collaborative process,” one congressional Democrat told the Times.
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