John Dingell wields the gavel used when he chaired the committee that passed Medicare legislation in 1965 during an event at the U.S. Capitol unveiling the House of Representatives' Affordable Health Care for America Act (Photo Credit: Getty Images)
Washington (CNN) - House Democratic leaders unveiled a sweeping health care reform bill Thursday that includes a more moderate version of the government-run public health insurance option.
The bill - a combination of versions passed by three House committees - includes what is termed a "negotiated rate" public option. It will cost $894 billion over 10 years and extend insurance coverage to 36 million Americans, according to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office.
The bill guarantees that 96 percent of Americans have coverage, Pelosi's office said. The figure is based on an analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
"Today, we are ... laying the foundation for a brighter future for generations to come," Pelosi said on Capitol Hill.
Full story
From CNN Politics
© 2011 Cable News Network. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
| Advertising practices | Advertise with us | About us | Contact us | Work for us | Help
984 billion dollars the USA doesn't have.
More like $984 billion over 5 years.
I just saw portions of this farcical staged event. One would think it would be incumbent upon a "Speaker of the House" to actually have the ability to speak. Instead, poor San Fran Nan stumbles, bumbles and mumbles her way through a set of typed one-liner, bumper-sticker sloganesque comments meant to caption 1,000+ pages of so-called "legislation".
If the health care plan proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats passes, 57% of voters nationwide believe it will raise the cost of health care, and 53% believe the quality of care will get worse. That’s part of the reason that just 45% support the plan.
This is precious. They are going to help pay for the new too expensive bureaucracy by clamping down on the rampant fraud on the old too expensive bureaucracy.
Great and it has a public option. Now let's get it passed and forget the republicans. They will not be happy until America fails.
So wait... which is it? This article says $894 billion. Yet, an AP article covering the exact same story says the bill tops $1 trillion.
Would really believes this will NOT increase the deficit? Maybe the first 10 years, considering the healthcare won't start becoming available for 5 years, but the taxation starts right away. Everything the government gets involved in is always running broke and lousy. They couldn't even get enough H1N1 vaccine out like they promised, but yet people think they can actually take over healthcare?
We need this bill so bad it hurts.....
HURTS INSURANCE COMPANIES that is – which is about time since they've been denying people with pre-existing conditions that were so minor it was criminal!!
Don't get too excited Obamabots--there is still a loooonnnngggg way to go.
First, the Senate Bills and the House Bills have to be merged. And, the way that it is looking now-Reid does NOT have the votes to pass a health care version that includes the public option. Therefore, there might not be any votes/progress-as long as the Bill contains the public option.
As usual, Pelosi is just trying to make herself look important and powerful-–but this Bill is still a LONG way from passing.
NOT INCREASE THE DEFICIT????
WE NEED TO VOTE THESE NUTS OUT IMMEDIATELY. It's economics 101 that raising taxes is not a free lunch – raising taxes never translates to more money collected. By not addressing any of the underlying reasons causes of high health care costs, you are throwing this money into a pit. Pelosi calls the insurance companies' profits "outgragrous" – their profit margin last year was 2%!!!!!! – why doesn't CNN report on this "fact check"????
To start, the $894b has already been proven to be wrong.
Next, Ms. Pelosi will want be crowned Queen of America.
tax the sucessful...how about pay attention in school and get a good job that offers healthcare...
As a senior on S/S who got a cut in payments and will receive less service from medicare to pay for aborations and illeagles while the lawers and courts will run rough shod over our Dr's. Thanks DEMS see you 2010..........
Thanks for bringing it in under $900M!
The Democrats are at least trying to reform health care. From 2001-2009, the Republicans didn't even try to help the uninsurable. I looked up my local conservative newspaper's response to the medicare debate from 1962-65. Back then conservatives wrote letters saying that medicare was communism, and that the Government would own the our souls if medicare passed. Today, those people would be broke or dead without medicare. Those conservatives are now grateful for medicare. In the future, if reform passes, many of those conservatives who oppose reform will find themselves or a loved one with a deadly disease that makes them uninsurable, and they will be grateful that they or their loved one can get health insurance.
Thank you Speaker Pelosi for doing good bye the people of the USA.
As the fraud in chief once said... "it's still a pig".
We need Healthcare for every American who needs it.
We need competition for Big Pharma & Big Insurance, so that We, the People NOT the lobbyists have some power!
Let me remind everyone of the list of programs that the GOP claimed to be communism or socialism:
Social Security
Medicare
Medicaid
SCHIP
Unemployment benefits
Minimum wage (!)
Every day we read comments on these blogs telling us that President Obama is a "socialist, a Marxist, the devil, etc." these are the comments of ignorant, frightened people! People who do not know the meaning of what Marxism, i.e., communism is!
IF President Obama were a socialist/communist we would not have a free press, Faux News would have been shut down, you could not voice your opinions in blogs or worse, in public! The Tea-Party-haters would have been rounded up and jailed!
Socialism? Communism? NO....... Justice & doing the Moral thing!
Ruh Roh. Here come the cries of socialism, government takeover fiscal irresponsibility and death panels. So predictable. You neoclowns need some new buzzwords. Have a nice day!
They act like this is gonna pass. I cant believe the stupidity of these so-called lawmakers. They set themselves up to look bad when this fails to pass. LIberals make me sick when i hear them talk. Pelosi is a criminal. Wake up you idiots, this is not reform, this is govt expansion. nothing more. THIS WONT EVEN PASS THE HOUSE NEVER MIND THE SENATE. Transparent my ass! This is a nail in the liberal coffin in 2010. Watch out, the Tea Party is comming!
And where exactly is the money coming from? Oh, and you cant say Medicare savings cuz that isnt happening and we all know it.
"Pelosi's office says the bill would not increase the federal deficit. "
IMPOSSIBLE
"spending constraints in Medicare and Medicaid."
So the republicans were right that they were going to cripple these programs.
cutting medicare and medicaid......and raising taxes.....
no thanks.....
redistributing wealth is not the answer, morons..... reform the insurance companies.....can you not see what is going on here?
a government run health care system is the worst idea EVER..... it will fail miserably......you can book that..... name a country it has worked in? NONE!!!!
with the state of our economy..... do you really want the government to be responsilbe for 1/6th of our economy? NO WAY!!!!
What about the other 11-15 million uninsured???? Should we just croak? Give us a strong public option or give me death.
Obviously, Pelosi and the democrats once again failed to listen to the American people. And the pricetag is highly questionable..... it will more than likely cost trillions if this is passed. Wake up America. Stop the insanity of the left-wing fringe!
It'll be entertaining to see the accounting practices used to justify calling this "deficit neutral" over 10 years.
If it does not include a robust public option, the bill is worthless except for corporate welfare.
"Pelosi's office says the bill would not increase the federal deficit." Funniest joke I have heard this week. Put some lipstick on that PIG and sell it Nancy. The surchage on the wealthy and the non-tax tax of letting the Bush tax cuts fade away is going to do wonders for the economy. Taxpayers are not going to be rushing out spending $$.
Vote the party of NO out as soon as possible.
Obstructionists that line their pockets and do nothing for us need to go.
I hope everyone gets reasonable access to healthcare, but my main concern -and probably 90% of American's main concern- is cost reduction.
I say we fund healthcare through excise taxes on bad foods. It shouldn't cost $1 for a fast-food cheeseburger when it costs $9 for a pack of cigarettes. It should be less expensive to eat healthy than to eat unhealthy. If it was, our healthcare costs would be drastically reduced. Diabetes, the care of which represents a major portion of total healthcare spending, rates have doubled over the last 10 years. It didn't happen my magic, it happened mainly by choice. When 8% of the population is harming the other 92%, something needs to be done to curb the harmful behavior of the 8%. Massive excise taxes, similar to those on tobacco producs, for bad foods would be a great, two-way solution to both fund and curb the costs of healthcare.
I dont know what the Republicans are crying about, they cant stand for the poor to have anything! Where were they when the Bush administration started the war in Iraq. where were thier voices about all the lives taken or the COST!!!! They complain about healthcare!! Republicans are rich & dont care about the poor people. They fight everything Obama stands for.
Heads are going to roll Nancy if this bill is as watered down as we are told.You should have rammed the right bill down their throats like Bush would have done.
who is the bigger idiot....the ones who designed this.....or the fools that support it.................you know who you are
Poor congresscreatures. Many of them had not gotten past the pictures in the first 10 pages (of 1200) of the last version and now they're going to have to start over reading a new one. I hope the new version has some more interesting pictures because I know congresscreatures are more interested in photo-ops then actually reading text.
Obama and Pelosi are pushing through the worst legislation. Medicare II is not real reform. It is just a way for Obama to put a feather in his cap and say that he fulfilled a campaign promise. If Democrats really wanted reform, they'd start small, simple and focused and fix obvious problems relating directly to costs.
Democrats: the party of "NO" good or orginal ideas–universal healthcare is failing in MA and most of the other parts of the world (sustainability, quality of care, innovation...).
Pelosi says it will not increase the federal deficit. How can you tell when she's lying? Her lips are moving (though with all the botox, they don't really move very much, anymore).
This price tag is premised on future Congress's reducing reimbursement rates to doctors and hospitals under Medicare - something they have never done in the past. So, this is a complete fiction - as we've come to expect from these self-serving morons who "lead" our country.
A pity they are ignoring the easiest ways to get the price tag down: tort reform and interstate competition for insurance companies. Utterly amazing how political ideology prevents anything sensible from emerging from the muckhole called "Congress".
These idiot Democrats just don't seem to be able to get it through their prodigiously thick skulls that the country can't afford to waste a trillion bucks!
And finance it by gutting Medicare and Medicaid? Yeah, right. Like the AARP will let anyone touch Medicare, and the slime who keep buying their own re-elections by giving away other people's money are going to vote for trimming Medicaid. No, in the end, it would be financed the same way the Dems always finance things, by taxing the hell out of not only the people Pelosi chooses to define as "wealthy"–i.e., anyone with a positive net worth in assets–but out of everyone else as well.
They will be trying to get moderate/blue dog Dems from conservative districts to support a public option --after the elections in Virginia and New Jersey on Tuesday.
The Republican is going to win Virginia. And, even if the Republican does not win New Jersey, but comes very close-this is still going to scare the blue dogs--as New Jersey is a Democrat stronghold state.
I "believe" that more and more blue dogs are going to begin to say "no way" to any public option--unless they want to commit political suicide in 2010 and 2012.
Wow what a bargain: only 894 BILLION?????
The tax payers are STILL paying for this.
Illegal health care: 894 billion
Gutting the constitution: Priceless
Nobama- keep the change
Ha Ha, hey, what's another $894 billion? Just charge it! LOL!
The dollar lost more than 20% of its value since the beginning of the year; we may as well charge it all up while China is still willing to give us some credit, and before the dollar becomes worthless.
Not going to increase the federal defecit??..not going to be paid for by money borrowed from China??..do nancy and her gang of college educated idiots believe that everyone in this country flunked basic math..America is broke from bailing out the banks,automakers,insurance companies etc??..tax the rich??..there aren't any left??..voodoo economics folks!!
I'm starting to lose track of all these!
It looks as if the Dems are putting these plans forward in reaction to polls and calls to Congressional offices. That's not the best way to lead a country.
If negotiated rates are OK for the healthcare bill, it should be OK for the Medicare too. The media has been reporting that more and more doctors and health care facilities are refusing to accept medicare patients because of inadequate rates. Health care bill or not, medicare policies of cost reduction, in the face of rising health care costs is going to lead to a defacto rationing of health care for seniors because there will be fewer service providers. I had to pay so much money for my kneecap surgery, but I could afford it today. In the future, I am not so sure. Is that a prelude to death panels for medicare? You don't need republican fear mongerers to talk about death panels. Democrats are leading us there.
Looks like the top 1% may have to give back a portion of the huge tax breaks they enjoyed under Bush. All theTEA Partiers, etc being financed by rich special interest groups and individuals may just have to "lump it". I feel as sympathetic for them as they for us.
I wonder if any of these Democrats are even going to read this 1990 page monstrosity? What a joke.
Most Americans know that Republicans rail against health care reform because they're more interested in protecting (and getting money and votes from) the wealthy and the very industries that are gouging us for medical care. Do Republicans realize that we know this? There's no legitimate good reason to vote against health care reform so it makes it crystal clear to those who didn't already know that the GOP is not looking out for the majority of Americans. How can they not care that they're making their motives and interests so obvious?
Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina (and probably elsewhere) has sent a mass mailing to everyone who is insured through them. Blue Cross requests that we contact our Democratic Senator, Kay Hagan, and even includes a postage paid postcard to Senator Hagan recommending that she vote against any legislation that includes a public option or statewide cooperatives.
I've changed key words in the text of the postcard so that the message SUPPORTS the public option. My thanks to Blue Cross for providing a simple way to notify my senator of my position on this issue. I hope many others will do the same.
Obviously the executives at Blue Cross are more interested in their own multi-million dollar bonuses than they are in the health of the American people.
WAY TO GO MADAME SPEAKER – Nancy Pelosi !! And G-D BLESS YOU, ALWAYS !! My only real concern is how much longer is it going to take until we have a Final Drafted Bill Agreed Upon by both the House and Senate and ready to be signed into law by President Obama, along with the proposed Public Option? I hope this is NOT going to extend to next year's elections. It's GREAT to be a LIBERAL Democrat !!
I just checked the Republicans health care proposal at their website and I think it is cheaper. Their proposal would be cheaper because it does not include Seniors. In fact, Seniors are not even mentioned in their proposal. That's one way to cut cost for sure and also to cut Republican votes too.
Nancy PeLIEsi is delusional.She truly believes that the working American people want socialism at any cost.
I will celebrate when this bill does not pass. I am counting on the Blue Dogs to have some sense, like Senator Lieberman. Thank goodness for leaders who are reasonable and will go against the flow.
This bill just continues to get watered down to the point where it is not effective toward getting the health insurance company accountable. Those who are fighting this bill will get their wish. Higher premiums, more cost to the government to cover those who aren't covered. If no true public option or preexisting coverage, this bill isn't worth much. However, will reserve till more is mentioned but so far not happy with what I am seeing. Unfortunate. So many need help and need it now.
We need a single payer system like the rest of the industrialized world.
But we'll take what we can get I suppose.
Cry "socialism" all you wish Repubs. While you sit back collecting social security and medicare, I'm working two "part time" jobs with NO healthcare insurance because companies are getting into the habit of hiring people for 30something hours a week and keeping us "part time" so they do not have to offer healthcare insurance.
The system is raping us and all you worry about is that someone might get as much as you folks do out of the system.
I'd like to see you republicans give up your social security and medicare since you "hate" social progams so much. Put your money where your complaining mouths are.
But you wont do that will you? Of course not. Why?
Because you DO NOT hate social programs. You hate Democrats. You will fight anything Democrats do for no more reason than you've been programmed by folks like Rush and Hanity and Coulter to do so.
Period.
so,if we are to believe Pelosy it will cost around 24 mil in 10 years or 2.4 mil a year to cover 36 mil people?(if I am correct it's $66000 per person per year.)
And what happened to the rest of them?
Yesterday it was 50 mil. today 36,what's going on?
I understand math is not necessary in politics,but to loose 14 mil people overnight ???
and this will be the democrats downfall. The dems are making a huge mistake, which will cost them dearly in the next election.
Nancy you're doing a GREAT job getting this Reform to go through as per the people's wishes not the insurance companies. You've taken a lot of flak, but you hang in there, you're walking on the side of the righteous and you're not alone. Thank you.
Oh boy, here we go. Still trying to put in a public option.
anything that comes from these spend-hound dems will surely sink the US economy. there is nothing good that comes from govt. control. see the post office and amtrak. post office is $7B in debt and amtrak is debt laden. tell dems to back away and leave health system alone. they destroy everything they touch. numbers don't lie. just look at economy, cash for clunkers and the $8K program for houses. all complete failures.
Stupid idea from stupid people.The breaking of the American working class for the welfare class
The big question is: does it contain costs? Does it put a cap on what doctors and hospitals can charge? Or does it give them a blank check, paid for by the taxpayers? Insurance companies have little incentive to cap costs if the government is going to reimburse them for whatever they ask.
Th Cult mentality of the GOP is amazing. I wish Limbaugh would take his followers/worshipers to Africa and follow in the footsteps of Jim Jones.
This country needs a government that works for us, not the Insurance companies. Lieberman lives in an Insurance State (Conn), so he wants to protect his friends' profits.
VOTE NO TO THE PARTY OF NO
For everyone who believes the lies of the democrats – the insurance companies are NOT making large profits. Last year their profit margin was 2% yet Pelosi says they are thieves!!
Wake up people, throwing OUR money at this system is only going to bankrupt this country and leave the government to further control the American public.
This still has a long way to go.
The House Bill and Senate Bill have to be merged. Reid does NOT have the votes in the Senate, if it includes the public option.
Therefore, they are probably going to have to cut the public option-if they want any chance of bringing this to the floor for a vote--and if they want any chance of this passing.
They plan to get their $500 billion out of Medicare by pulling the plug on your Grandmother.
If you break down the costs, It's 400 Billion for government oversight, 500 Billion for fraud and waste, and 84 billion for people ACORN can sign up.
Liberals are the biggest hate-mongerers on the planet, yet they cry and scream that Republicans are the enemy, as if they are immune to their own insults.
Of course Republicans want everyone to have health coverage, and everyone to be rich, and everyone to have nice homes.
SOMEONE HAS TO PAY FOR IT.
You demonize the GOP and fiscal conservatives for not backing HISTORICALLY irresponsible legislation as if we enjoy watching the suffering of millions.
What's going to happen when our entire health care and financial system collapses because of this, and tens of millions are without jobs and health care? WHO WILL YOU LIBERALS BLAME THEN?
Well anyone with any sense of history can quadruple this spending forecast. These programs will 3.576 Trillion dollars over the next ten years. This program will not lower health costs but rather do the complete opposite, along with restricting health care to those who have worked and earned the privilege of having health care.
Their better be public debate before the Dems past this....
These clowns in Washington are doing nothing to stop the 200 billion dollars of fraud in Medicare every year and now they're pushing another entitlement program? What makes anyone think they can run this without everyone losing their shorts?
And not to mention the free handout you want doesn't arrive until 2014. Cmon people, wake up!!
As a money manager we will lose 40% of Drs. and Surgens if this is past. Will not work for half the money and twice the risk. I already have two moving to Austrailia to work and retire after first of year. So now we will have people with the intelligence of Harry Reed, Pelosi and barney frank given life saving surgeries! GREAT would rather my janitor do it.
Here's how to pay for it:
1. Eliminate the FICA tax cap on income above $90,000. This would generate a huge source of funds. (Right now, no FICA is paid on individual income above $90,000.)
2. Change the top tax rate to what it was under Ronald Reagan: 39%. Right now, the top rate is 36%; people making higher incomes can afford to pay an additional 3%.
Are these "taxes on the rich?" Yes, they are. And the wealthy of this country can well afford it. After all, it's the least they can do for this country that has given them the opportunity to create their wealth in the first place.
it's the end of the world!!!
or at least that's what Beck will tell me today.
btw – FOX always braggin about their ratings should consider there's a lot of folks like me who tune in to get a good dose of political comedy/propaganda coming from the whiners on the right- to see what the crazys are saying, and just how close they are to starting another civil war in our country. It's called situational awareness. Knowing who the lunatics are and where they're headed.