Today's nationally-televised health care summit, as well as upcoming November elections, have renewed the urgency for a health care reform bill, despite problems reconciling the House- and Senate-passed versions. The summit will include leaders of both parties and the White House.
In the days leading up to the summit, several Democratic senators explored using the partisan reconciliation process to pass reform that includes a public option against the desire of moderates in their party. While the president did release an outline of his own plan this week, it remains uncertain if Democrats will have an official agreement or if the Republicans will make significant contributions to the process.
The president's proposal attempts to bridge the gap between the House and Senate and the summary released outlines some changes to the employer mandate provisions. The proposal:
- Requires employers to help defray the cost of coverage for their employees who receive tax subsidies to purchase health coverage on their own.
- Changes changes the transition to the employer responsibility policy for employers with 50 or more workers by subtracting out the first 30 workers from the payment calculation (e.g., a firm with 51 workers that does not offer coverage will pay an amount equal to 51 minus 30, or 21 times the applicable per employee payment amount).
- Changes the applicable payment for firms that do not offer coverage and have more than 50 employees to $2,000, one-third less than the average House assessment for a typical firm and less than half of the average employer contribution to health insurance in 2009. (A significant note to the construction industry is the proposal applies the same firm-size threshold across the board to all industries, unlike the Senate version that singled out the construction industry.)
- Fully eliminates the assessment for workers in a waiting period, while maintaining the 90-day limit on the length of any waiting period beginning in 2014.