Wyden’s ‘Free Choice Amendment’ will be included in the Senate healthcare bill
This is really terrific news for healthcare reform. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Senate Finance Committee Chairman, Max Baucus, and Oregon Senator Ron Wyden have come to an agreement on Wyden’s excellent “Free Choice Amendment” and are including a version of it in the Senate healthcare reform bill.
Under the Senate legislation as it is currently written, Americans with employer-provided coverage, whose income is below 400 percent of the federal poverty level and whose premiums are between 8 and 9.8 percent of their total income will be exempt from having to purchase health coverage but will not be able to access the exchange to qualify for government assistance to purchase insurance. The agreed to amendment will make it possible for these individuals to convert their tax-free employer health subsidies into vouchers that they can use to choose a health insurance plan in the new health insurance exchanges. The Congressional Budget Office estimates a previous version of this provision will expand coverage to more than a million Americans.
Finally something that actually does increase competition and access to healthcare! Every wonk I know of praised the original Wyden/Bennett healthcare bill above all others and then pretty much said that the next best thing would be to include the Free Choice Amendment with whatever bill we finally came up with. (Ezra Klein called it the idea that would “save health reform.”)
This watered-down version is obviously not as good as the real thing, which would have made the exchanges available to all Americans. But it’s certainly a start in the right direction, and even more importantly it paves the way toward opening the exchanges up in the future, making access to affordable insurance more readily available for everyone and increasing competition in the insurance market.
It also paves the way forward toward severing the bond between employer and insurance coverage, something that is unique to the American system and is directly related to high costs and immobility in the labor market for American workers.
All in all, this is good news, and makes the current Senate bill all that much more palatable to me.
For those interested, here’s the CBO’s score [pdf] of the modified amendment, which will cost $5 billion dollars and insure another 1 million people.
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Why should we have fork over another 10% to Obama
or go to jail? On top of 13% social security tax, medicare taxes, income taxes, state income taxes, property taxes, 10% sles taxes, car taxes, gasoline taxes…..and this crackhead Obama thinks he has a god-given edict to arrest us for not buying health care…..he is a madman…..
“convert their tax-free employer health subsidies into voucher”
…these crackheads in congress think they own us
Just wait until these crackheads discover fire arms
A major improvement to be sure. I would have preferred the Wyden approach in the less watered-down version, but having it there at all should make a big difference to a lot of people.
Absolutely. And there is the potential for future expansion to include millions more Americans – all Americans, in fact, which would be really an amazing transition from the status quo.
In response to another comment. See in context »[...] all Americans will be given the opportunity to purchase healthcare on the exchanges, despite the watered-down Free Choice amendment that Ron Wyden has tacked on to the bill. And second, that this is smart [...]