And so the $871 billion bill passed brilliantly through Senate on a 60-39 landslide margin.

The new bill will be merged in conference committee negotiations with the more extreme version which already slid through the House of Representatives on a taut 220-215 margin. The cross-Capitol negotiations will not involve the Republican Party.
The bill provides billions in subsidies for low and middle class Americans to purchase private insurance. All Americans would be required to be insured unless they can demonstrate that they cannot afford to do so.

Also, the bill will phase in over the next several years, insurance industry regulations. Under these new guidelines, beginning in 2014, insurers will not be allowed to deny customers due to preexisting conditions and will not be allowed to cap annual or lifetime benefits.

Insurers succeeded in stripping a public insurance option from the Senate bill that would have competed with private insurance. In the absence of a public option, state insurance commissioners will be charged with keeping insurers in line.

We here at NaturalBuy.com are happy to hear this news and are cautiously hopeful that it is a new start that the Health Care in America continues to move in this positive direction.

Merry Christmas everybody…

Given this statistic, perhaps insurance companies have less to worry about than was once expected. Drew Altman, the president of the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation last week:

“The public option is a significant issue, but its place in the debate is completely out of proportion to its actual importance to consumers. It has sucked all the oxygen out of the room and diverted attention from bread-and-butter consumer issues, such as affordable coverage and comprehensive benefits.”

In order to prevent the government-run option from piling more onto the federal deficit, most uninsured people will have to wait until 2013 for federal help. And even then, some will have to pay a significant share of their own health care costs.

The Congressional Budget Office the nonpartisan economic analyst for lawmakers, said that the scaled back government plan in the House bill would not actually overtake private health insurance, even conceptually. And in fact it might even help insurance companies.

The 2% of Americans under 65 who would actually sign up for the government option makes up 6 million out of 282 million Americans in the wide age group.

The fact is that the majority of the population would remain in private health insurance plans sponsored by employers; and low-income people, would be covered through an expanded Medicaid program.

Actually most people would not have access to the new public plan. Under the House bill, it the government option would be open only to those who buy coverage on their own or work for small companies. Still, even within that pool of 30 million people, only 1-in-5 would take the public option.

Economist Karen Davis, president of the Commonwealth Fund, said;

“The concern was that the public option would destabilize the bulk of private insurance, but in fact what Congress has fashioned is very targeted. It’s not going to be taking away the insurance industry’s core business.”

Later this week the full House will vote on the bill, whose full cost still goes undisclosed. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. Proudly declared on the steps of the Capitol, that the bill “covers 96% of all Americans and it puts affordable coverage in reach for millions of uninsured and under insured families, lowering health care costs for all of us.”

As predicted, Republicans were quick with their negative reactions. Republican House Representative John Boehner of Ohio said, “It will raise the cost of Americans’ health insurance premiums; it will kill jobs with tax hikes and new mandates, and it will cut seniors’ Medicare benefits.”
The question remains, will the Republicans be able to block the bill’s approval in a House which is made up of 256 Democratic seats, where 218 makes a majority?

The bill will provide an expansion of Medicaid, which is a state/federal run health program for the poor. Individuals making up to $16,245 and a family of four making up to $33,075 would be covered. This would add 15 million to Medicaid.

As far as private insurers, one of the bill’s features is a new national insurance market. Therein private companies may sell policies that meet federally mandated benefit levels. The government would offer competing coverage and therefore individuals may shop around for their best option.

Also, doctors, hospitals and other private providers would be able to negotiate rates with the Department of Health and Human Services (for services provided under the government insurance option).