A revised health care plan drafted by the White House would revive individual mandates for coverage, impose a scaled-back excise tax on certain plans and create state-run insurance exchanges for the uninsured.
The estimated $950 billion, 10-year plan also would allow the federal government to regulate private insurance premiums charged to consumers.
The administration’s blueprint was released ahead of Thursday’s bipartisan, televised White House health care summit, and reflects a broader effort by President Obama to resuscitate his fading signature policy effort.
“This is a starting point,” said White House press secretary Robert Gibbs. “This is a series of ideas that relate to costs, that relate to insurance reforms, and that relate to coverage that the president would like to discuss on Thursday.”
After saying in his recent State of the Union address that jobs were his new priority, Obama has nevertheless remained preoccupied with health care reform — even as polls show Americans prefer a focus on the economy.
The new plan builds on the Senate version of health care reform. It does not include a governmen-run insurance program, but it would create state insurance exchanges run by the federal government where consumers could shop for coverage.
Presidential prescription
President Obama Monday released a new blueprint for health care ahead of Thursday’s planned bipartisan, televised summit on reforming the insurance system. Key provisions of the president’s plan include:
* Allowing the federal government a greater role in regulating the private health care industry as a means to control premium hikes.
* A phased-in tax on so-called Cadillac health care plans, plus new health care subsidies for low and moderate income families.
* Creating state health exchanges that would allow states to decide whether to provide abortion services.
* Making small businesses, the insured and self-employed eligible for state-run exchanges.
* A requirement that individuals over a certain income level obtain coverage or face financial penalties of either a flat fee or a percentage of their income.
* Expand coverage by easing eligibility for state-run Medicaid programs, with the federal government kicking in more to cover the tab.
* Eliminating a provision in the Senate bill exempting Nebraska from paying increased Medicaid expenses — a measure included to win the support of Sen. Ben Nelson, a Nebraska Democrat.
Among other things, the administration’s new blueprint aims to extend coverage to more than 30 million uninsured Americans.
In a significant concession to labor groups, the president is proposing a phased-in tax on gold-plated private health care plans. The new guidelines call for initiating the tax in 2018 on individual plans worth more than $10,200 and family plans costing over $27,500.
Senate Democrats previously had proposed initiating the tax in 2013, on plans valued at $8,500 for individuals and $23,000 for families.
The new plan would be financed by the excise tax and cuts in Medicare among other sources, according to the administration.
While the White House put the $950 billion price tag on the plan, the Congressional Budget Office said there is not enough information to make an informed cost estimate on the plan.
At $950 billion, the White House plan would cost about $75 billion more than the stalled Senate plan.
One of the more controversial aspects of the plan is likely to be the mandate requiring individuals to obtain coverage.
Obama would increase the maximum penalty for failing to get health coverage from 2 percent to 2.5 percent of an individual’s annual income, or a flat fee of $695, down from $750 in the original plan.
Getting both parties on board with an individual mandate will require a major sales job by the president, said Donald Taylor, assistant professor of public Policy at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy.
“Opposition to the mandate is being framed as a limit to freedom,” Taylor said. “But what follows from that logic is, why should providers be required to provide coverage to those who can’t pay for it?”
An employer mandate included in the blueprint would require employers with more than 50 employees to pay $2,000 for each worker if the company does not provide health coverage.
Obama’s plan also would prevent insurers from denying coverage for pre-existing conditions.
