Hillarysworld

A GOOD summary of the health-care reform bill that looks likely to pass out of the Senate can be found in our report on the homepage. Democrats may be annoyed that the bill was stripped of the "public option", but the Senate version does deliver on a number of areas of concern to the Left:

it obliges everyone to have health-insurance, and sets out a generous system of subsides to help the uninsured obtain coverage, along with a system of government-regulated exchanges that should encourage competition among private insurers. It fines employers who do not offer health cover to their workers. And it makes it illegal for insurers to refuse people coverage on the basis of pre-existing medical conditions, as well as putting strict limits on the way that premiums are allowed to increase with age. The hope is that tens of million of Americans currently without coverage will now be able to get it, and many tens of millions more, who have insurance but fear losing it through redundancy or ill-health, will have those worries lifted from their shoulders.

Republicans hate the bill for many reasons, some real, some illusory. Megan McArdle points to the most legitimate case against the measure, saying, "I think that it's going to be a fiscal disaster for my country, because the spending cuts won't be—can't be—done the way they're implemented in the bill.  We've just increased substantially the supply of unrepealable, unsustainable entitlements." She may be right. The Senate bill covers its costs through a tax on "Cadillac" insurance plans (likely to be implemented) and by factoring in deep cuts to Medicare (unlikely to be fully implemented).

Still, even accepting Ms McArdle's argument, many on the left would say that its worth it. As Paul Krugman argued last week, "With all its flaws, the Senate health bill would be the biggest expansion of the social safety net since Medicare, greatly improving the lives of millions." On top of bringing most of the uninsured under coverage, here's one projection of how the legislation might lower costs for families around the poverty line.

A write-up of those numbers can be found here.

Somewhere along the line health-care reform turned into health-care expansion, and that is the main thrust of the Senate and House bills. They do not include the type of cost-bending experiments that many experts had hoped for. They do not target the perverse incentives that make our pay-for-service system both expensive and subpar compared to other rich nations. It is meaningful that most of us will not feel any of the health-care-related effects of this legislation. Yet, as Ezra Klein says, the legislation "is, without doubt or competition, the single largest social policy advance since the Great Society." That is certainly important. But Republicans will rightfully ask, can we afford it?

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I liked the summary table in this and thought I'd share that with you.

The table quite interestingly indicates there would be cost saving in every income category until $84,462/yr (family of four). Cost saving is expected in both insurance premium and out of pocket expenses.  The table was originally published in Kaiser Health News Article and Table.