CBO: Baucus Health Care Plan Would Cost $880 Billion

Under Senator Baucus’s plan, insurers would be permitted to charge older people five times more for their health insurance premiums than younger people.

According to AARP, the lobbying organization for older Americans, the number of uninsured adults between 50 and 64 grew to 7.1 million in 2007, an increase of 36 percent over 2000. Among the main reasons for the increase: higher premiums demanded of older, sicker people seeking coverage in the individual insurance market.

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But some health policy experts argue that allowing insurers to charge older people five times more than younger ones would be a giveaway to the insurance industry, which already stands to benefit handsomely from millions of new customers if, as proposed, everyone is required to have insurance.

Proposed health care legislation would forbid insurers from charging sick people more or rejecting them outright. But by allowing insurers to charge so much more for older, often sicker people, “You’re just using age as a proxy for health status,”

http://prescriptions.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/14/how-much-should-seniors-pay-for-insurance/

So now they're dickering over a few billion OVER TEN YEARS??? Really? Do they really think they can forecast it to within 5 times that amount? Jeez.

One thing I hate about the Democrats is their need to policy wonk everything to death. The Republicans can get a bill written, marked up and passed in the time it takes the Democrats to organize a caucus meeting.

I don't believe health care reform can work without a public plan to contain costs. And no one -- NO ONE - has explained otherwise. All I ever hear about is the PO's political prospects which (putting aside the solid and sustained popular support for the PO) will be entirely irrelevant once the legislation is enacted.

I don't think it is an accident that there is no serious discussion at the national level about the PO's merits: it is because the PO wins on the merits hands-down so its opponents have used smoke-and-mirrors (a/k/a TeaBaggers and TownHall Hooligans) to deter meaningful discussion. The planned debate between Bobby Scott and Eric Cantor may the best present opportunity for a substantive discussion of HCR. Far better,of course, would be if Obama debated a Republican opponent. Obama will clean his or her clock and the event will garner tremendous attention. It could really be a game-changer. The problem is that it is unclear just how hard Obama WANTS to fight for the public option.

The Dems should remember that if they pass a crippled bill that fails, the country will suffer. And so will they, deservedly so.

The CBO Head was part of the Baucus Caucus. He's in that classic photo op. We *always* knew the CBO was going to score the Baucus Bill the best as this system was being gamed that way.

So not we're under the "magic $900B", which was down from the "magic $1T". This makes it even more likely that Snowe will demand it get down to a new "magic $800B" for her vote. Then it's amendment time and it will get hacked more as Nelson & Bayh & Co. go to town on it. Whether the House can pull it back in Conference is a major question. But expected a gutted Healthcare bill that will get Rahm his "win" that he's chasing, and leave Obama with "ownership" of it that will kill the Dems in the future.

One wonders if the White House grasps that they put themselves behind the eightball for 2012 with their accounting voodoo that causes much of the bill to not come into effect until 2013. Do they get that expectations have been raised among people who don't have healthcare that they will get it when the bill passes? Setting aside the notion that instant rollout wasn't terribly possible, it's about the expectation. This is worse than a normal delay, telling people in 2009 that they'll have to wait until 2010. We're talking about _years_.

The Dems are going for the "recisions" and "prior condition" vote. They're going to lose the "I've Got No Freaking Insurance" vote (which is growing rather large in this recessions) and the "My Bills Are Freaking Ridiculously High" vote (which is massive, growing, and this bill does ZERO to quickly address and instead has a chance of making worse initially). Rahm is so blindly chasing a "win" that I don't think the White House Brain(dead) Trust has taken a step back to scope out how that "win" will play with voters. I honestly don't think it's going to please as many as it pisses off.

John