Outline Of Senate Health Bill Agreement Emerging

[Javaman]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/09/outline-of-senate-agreeme_n_386437.html

Senate Democrats emerged from a caucus-wide meeting Wednesday evening tight-lipped about the elements of the "broad agreement" that has been reached on health care reform - in some cases literally so: Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Oregon) declined to answer questions by pointing at his sealed lips.

There's a reason for the opacity. If details of the policy proposals sent to the Congressional Budget Office are leaked, the CBO no longer feels as if it needs to keep the analysis confidential. Keeping the many pieces secret for a few more days gives Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) the opportunity to share them first with colleagues and combine them in a way that gets all 60 members of the caucus on board.

Reid reiterated the importance of confidentiality during the meeting. Fortunately, HuffPost spoke to Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) before the gathering began.

He confirmed that at least four items had been sent to the CBO for an estimate known as a score: an expansion of Medicaid; broadening Sen. Maria Cantwell's (D-Wash.) Basic Health program to people within 300 percent of the federal poverty limit; the much-discussed national plans that would be run by the Office of Personnel Management and first reported here, and allowing people 55-64 to buy into Medicare -- first reported here. It's still unclear how the "trigger" for the public option, which is still on the table, will be designed. On Tuesday evening, TPMDC reported that the public option would be triggered into effect if private plans did not come into being. The details of the trigger are crucial: written by a public option advocate, a hair-trigger could bring a public plan into being on the first day; written by insurance companies, it would never be triggered, just as the trigger for Medicare Part D's prescription drug program has never been pulled despite soaring prices.

[eleny]

1. Federal Poverty Guidelines here...

http://www.safetyweb.org/tools/fplcalc2009.asp

[dflprincess]

2. Certainly is less impressive when you look at the actual amounts

Notice how they always say 300% rather than "3 times". I guess 300% just sounds so much more impressive and they think we're idiots and can't do the math for ourselves.

[Schema Thing]

3. eh?

[dflprincess]

4. The FPL for a single person is an annual income of $10,830

(see chart in other post). 3x or 300% of that is $32,490 - not really an impressive amount of money especially if a person lives in an urban area. But, it sounds like so much more if they say 300% instead of 3x.

One of the less bright tools at work was marveling at the House bill allowing subsidies for incomes up to 400% of the FPL - until I told her what that amount is ($43,320) - though I had to open up and Excel spreadsheet to convince her. I really believe she was thinking 400x the FPL - which would be an impressive amount.

[eleny]

7. In defense of using percentages...

It's been a long time since I retired from working in social services - but I recall that there have been some program whose eligibility requires income less than 150% of the Poverty Level. So it's just easier to talk in percentages when you aren't talking in whole hundreds. It's a Federal system that's been in place for decades.

[blues90]

5. sort of like a turd emerges from ones ass? nt.

[Javaman]

6. Kick for the morning folks.nt