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Key Senator Says ”˜Time Has Come’ to Act on Health Care

Posted on September 10, 2009 by Kendall Harmon

With President Obama poised to deliver a nationally televised address to a joint session of Congress on health insurance reform Wednesday night, Senator Max Baucus, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said that his panel would take up sweeping legislation and start voting on it in two weeks, with or without the support of Republicans.

“The time has come for action, and we will act,” Mr. Baucus said.

Mr. Baucus said Wednesday that he very much hoped to win support from Republicans with whom he has been negotiating for months. But he said he firmly intended to “mark up” a bill the week of Sept. 21.

“Irrespective of whether there are any Republicans, I will move forward,” Mr. Baucus said after meeting Wednesday with Democrats on the committee. “We have to move forward. If there are not any Republicans on board, I will move forward in any event.”

Mr. Baucus said his bill ”” the starting point for the committee’s work ”” would not include a new government-run health insurance program, or public option, because “a public option cannot pass the Senate.”

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Posted in * Culture-Watch, * Economics, Politics, Health & Medicine, Politics in General, Senate

3 comments on “Key Senator Says ”˜Time Has Come’ to Act on Health Care”

  1. Branford says:
    September 10, 2009 at 3:13 am

    Mr. Baucus also says that each U.S. family could pay up to $3800 per year for failing to get government-approved coverage:

    . . . Democratic plans call for requiring most Americans to carry health insurance. Failure to comply could cost families as much as $3,800 a year, according to a new Senate proposal. . .
    A bipartisan group of senators huddled in the afternoon to decide whether to move forward on an overhaul plan that Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D., Mont.) began circulating over the weekend. The plan includes some of the stiffest penalties Congress has proposed for Americans who don’t carry health insurance coverage.

    Sen. Baucus emerged from a meeting with the six-member bipartisan group saying he had given his colleagues until 10 a.m. Wednesday to provide feedback on his draft. The group will meet again Wednesday afternoon in an attempt to come up with an agreement before Mr. Obama’s address.

    Under the plan, people who earn between 100% and 300% of the poverty level (or between about $22,000 a year and $66,000 a year for a family of four) would face fees ranging from $750 to $1,500 a year.

    For taxpayers with incomes above 300% of poverty, the penalty starts at $950 a year and reaches as high as $3,800 for families. Nearly 12 million people fit in this category, according to the National Institute for Health Care Management. . .

    Starting next year, the plan also calls for annual fees of $6 billion on health-insurance providers, $4 billion for medical-device makers, $2.3 billion on drug makers and $750 million on clinical laboratories. The fees would be levied on individual companies based on market share. Insurers also face an excise tax of 35% for any health plan worth more than $8,000 a year for individuals and $21,000 a year for families. . .

  2. libraryjim says:
    September 10, 2009 at 5:50 am

    [url=http://demint.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?Fuseaction=SponsoredBills.HealthCareFreedomAct]Here[/url] is a better plan.

  3. Lapinbizarre says:
    September 10, 2009 at 12:11 pm

    Sure, Libraryjim, a “plan” from Jim DeMint, who a few days ago, at a forum in Columbia, told a medical student who suffers from controlled (by medication) epilepsy but “has trouble getting medical coverage through insurance companies”, “Yeah, there will be some people who are turned down. [You] don’t build a system around those who can’t make good decisions.”

    “Those who can’t make good decisions” – nice, Christian way to describe those who get sick without having the luck and opportunity to afford medical insurance.