Health care reform update

By Free Press Editor Joe Spear

Lots of news coming out of health care reform bill going through the Senate. A couple of developments worthy of note:

President Barack Obama says he will support prescription drug re-importation legislation outside of health care reform, according to the Washington Post.

The pharmaceutical industry has been fighting this, and I'm not sure why Obama would propose it later versus in current reform, but don't expect it to be an easy win for him.

CBO still reports Senate Bill will cut deficit by $130 billion over 10 years, but Wall Street Journal makes an important clarification on the language. Bill will cut the deficit by $130 billion (less than it would otherwise be), which if we keep spending like crazy, could be a lot.

One of the better sites I've seen that puts together a lot of good analysis, fairly balanced is the Kaiser Foundation Health News site.

Here are some key facts to how it might affect average working person in buying health insurance. It's from the main Kaiser article titled "Individual mandate is central to health overhaul."

Here's a key excerpt:

"Under the Senate bill, people who don’t buy coverage would face a maximum penalty of $95 beginning in 2014. That would jump in 2016 to $750 or two percent of their annual income up to the cost of the cheapest health plan, whichever is greater. In the House bill, violators would pay as much as 2.5 percent of their annual income up to the cost of the cheapest plan beginning in 2013.

When people buy health insurance on their own rather than through employers, the average cost in 2016 is projected to be $5,500 for an individual policy and $13,100 for family coverage, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Both health bills would provide a sliding scale of subsidies to individuals who earn less than $43,320 or families of four who earn less than $88,200. The bills also exempt millions of people from the mandate, including for religious reasons and financial hardship."

So, depending on the subsidy, if you're making an average of say $32,400, the approximate average wage in Mankato, you'd pay $915 penalty, versus says $4,000 to $5,000 for a policy. The question being raised: Would young people just pay the penalty and go without insurance?