Today, the Senate Finance Committee voted 14-9 to report their health care reform bill out of Committee to the full Senate for consideration. Unfortunately, this bill represents more of the same bad policy. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its analysis of the Senate Finance Committee health care reform bill and there is much to be concerned about. By the CBO’s estimate, the Senate bill will increase premiums for young Americans by 10-20 percent, something those who are just starting out in their careers can ill afford. Additionally, three million people in employer-sponsored plans will lose their current coverage and 14 million people will be moved into the CHIP program (PeachCare in Georgia) and Medicaid. According to the Republican staff on the Senate Budget Committee, when the bill is fully implemented, the 10 year cost is actually $1.8 trillion while cuts to Medicare/Medicaid add up to $1 trillion from FY2014 – 2023. A study by PriceWaterhouse Coopers found that, on average, the cost of a family plan would increase an average of $4,000 by 2019 over the predicted baseline. Premiums would increase for every insurance market, with the largest increases felt by small businesses and individuals without employer-sponsored coverage.

Want to know what’s worse than this plan? Click here to find out.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 13th, 2009 at 5:13 pm and is filed under 11th Congressional District. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.