rssReconciliation Bill on Its Way to the White House
Thursday, March 25, 2010 at 9:02 pm
- 20 Comments
For the second time this week, the House tonight passed a health care reform bill designed to complement the larger reform package that President Obama signed into law Tuesday.
The vote was a technicality. The House had passed the bill Sunday night, sending it over to the Senate. But obscure rules governing the reconciliation process forced Senate lawmakers to strip two small provisions before they passed the bill this afternoon. The changes meant that the House would have to approve the proposal again before it could go to the president’s desk — which it did by a vote of 220-207.
Here’s a recap of how reconciliation tweaks the larger bill:
1) Funding: The Senate bill would hit the wealthiest Americans — individuals earning more than $200,000 and families earning more than $250,000 — with a 0.5 percent increase in the Medicare payroll tax. The reconciliation bill would add a 3.8 percent tax on unearned income — a category that includes things like interest, dividends and capitol gains on investments.
The Senate bill also applies a 40 percent tax (beginning in 2013) to the highest-priced insurance plans — those costing more than $8,500 for individuals and $23,000 for families. The reconciliation bill keeps the tax, but hikes the dollar threshold that trigger it — to $10,200 for individuals and $27,500 for family plans. In both the Senate and reconciliation bills, the thresholds are even higher for those in high-risk jobs like coal mining and firefighting. The reconciliation bill also postpones the tax until 2018.
2) Doughnut Hole: As part of its $80 billion deal with Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), the pharmaceutical lobby agreed to cut the cost of name-brand drugs by 50 percent when seniors hit the doughnut hole, which is the not-meant-to-be-flattering name of the coverage gap in Medicare’s prescription drug benefit. And that’s where the Senate bill leaves it.
The reconciliation bill builds on that foundation, giving seniors in the doughnut hole an additional $250 toward their drugs in 2010, and then hiking that amount incrementally until the doughnut hole is fully closed by 2020.
3) Individual Mandate: The Senate bill requires most Americans to buy health insurance or pay a financial penalty of either $750 or 2 percent of income, whichever is larger. The reconciliation bill would alter the penalty slightly, to the larger of $695 or 2.5 percent of income.
4) Medicaid Rates: While expanding Medicaid coverage to include most folks living below 133 percent of the federal poverty level, the Senate bill would leave Medicaid rates alone. This is a problem, because Medicaid rates are so low that more and more doctors are refusing to see those patients. Recognizing that there’s little value in a health insurance program that doctors don’t accept, House leaders in their reconciliation bill hiked Medicaid rates for primary care services to at least the level that Medicare pays.
5) Cornhusker Kickback: The Senate bill includes the now infamous sweetheart deal that Democratic leaders carved out to win the vote of Nebraska Democrat Ben Nelson. Under that provision, the federal government would pay 100 percent of the cost of expanding Medicaid in Nebraska — forever. (By contrast, the other states would begin paying a portion of those costs over time.)
The reconciliation bill strikes the Cornhusker Kickback dead.
The reconciliation bill also eliminates $61 billion in federal subsidies to the private middlemen who make student loans.
20 Comments
Pingback posted March 25, 2010 @ 9:32 pm
[...] Reconciliation bill passes and on its way to the President: The vote was a technicality. The House had passed the bill Sunday night, sending it over to the Senate. But obscure rules governing the reconciliation process forced Senate lawmakers to strip two small provisions before they passed the bill this afternoon. The changes meant that the House would have to approve the proposal again before it could go to the president’s desk — which it did by a vote of 220-207. [...]
Trackback posted March 25, 2010 @ 9:43 pm
Social comments and analytics for this post…
This post was mentioned on Twitter by TWI_news: Reconciliation Bill on Its Way to the White House http://bit.ly/agpZgx...
Pingback posted March 26, 2010 @ 1:05 am
[...] Reconciliation Bill on Its Way to the White House « The Washington … [...]
Pingback posted March 26, 2010 @ 1:08 am
[...] Reconciliation Bill on Its Way to the White House « The Washington … [...]
Pingback posted March 26, 2010 @ 1:48 am
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Jesse Baer, WashIndependent, Eric Jaffa, Bill Humphrey, TMC Member Feed and others. TMC Member Feed said: Wash. Independent: Reconciliation Bill on Its Way to the White House: For the second time this week, the House ton… http://bit.ly/blCg6T [...]
Pingback posted March 26, 2010 @ 2:08 am
[...] Reconciliation Bill on Its Way to the White House « The Washington … [...]
Pingback posted March 26, 2010 @ 3:29 am
[...] Reconciliation Bill on Its Way to the White House « The Washington … [...]
Pingback posted March 26, 2010 @ 3:50 am
[...] Reconciliation Bill on Its Way to the White House « The Washington … [...]
Comment posted March 26, 2010 @ 4:41 am
THIS MOMENTOUS DAY!
Not one day in anyone’s life is an uneventful day, no day without profound meaning, no matter how dull and boring it might seem, no matter whether you are a seamstress or a queen, a shoeshine boy or a movie star, a renowned philosopher or a Down’s syndrome child.
Because in every day of your life, there are opportunities to perform little kindnesses for others, both by conscious acts of will and unconscious example.
Each smallest act of kindness – even just words of hope when they are needed, the remembrance of a birthday, a compliment that engenders a smile – reverberates across great distances and spans of time, affecting lives unknown to the one whose generous spirit was the source of this good echo, because kindness is passed on and grows each time it’s passed, until a simple courtesy becomes an act of selfless courage years later and far away.
Likewise, each small meanness, each thoughtless expression of hatred, each envious and bitter act, regardless of how petty, can inspire others, and is therefore the seed that ultimately produces evil fruit, poisoning people whom you have never met and never will.
All human lives are so profoundly and intricately entwined – those dead, those living, those generations yet to come – that the fate of all is the fate of each, and the hope of humanity rests in every heart and in every pair of hands.
Therefore, after every failure, we are obliged to strive again for success, and when faced with the end of one thing, we must build something new and better in the ashes, just as from pain and grief, we must weave hope, for each of us is a thread critical to the strength – the very survival – of the human tapestry.
Every hour in every life contains such often-unrecognized potential to affect the world that the great days for which we, in our dissatisfaction, so often yearn are already with us; all great days and thrilling possibilities are combined always in THIS MOMENTOUS DAY!
Excerpt from Dean Koontz’s book, “From the Corner of His Eye”.
It embodies the idea of how the smallest of acts can have such a profound effect on each of our lives.
Pingback posted March 26, 2010 @ 8:19 am
[...] Reconciliation Bill on Its Way to the White House « The Washington … [...]
Pingback posted March 26, 2010 @ 8:19 am
[...] Reconciliation Bill on Its Way to the White House « The Washington … [...]
Pingback posted March 26, 2010 @ 9:13 am
[...] Reconciliation Bill on Its Way to the White House « The Washington … [...]
Pingback posted March 26, 2010 @ 9:16 am
[...] Reconciliation Bill on Its Way to the White House « The Washington … [...]
Comment posted March 26, 2010 @ 11:46 am
So wait, the student loan stuff is still in there? I thought that's what got stripped out in the Senate earlier in the week.This is very confusing.
Pingback posted March 26, 2010 @ 1:04 pm
[...] Reconciliation Bill on Its Way to the White House « The Washington … [...]
Pingback posted March 27, 2010 @ 12:43 pm
[...] Reconciliation Bill on Its Way to the White House « The Washington … [...]
Pingback posted March 27, 2010 @ 2:14 pm
[...] Reconciliation Bill on Its Way to the White House « The Washington … [...]
Pingback posted July 6, 2010 @ 4:01 am
[...] rise to some of the now infamous “backroom deals” such as the Cornhusker Kickback (which was ultimately removed in the reconciliation [...]
RSS feed for comments on this post.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
