And it’ll achieve 94% coverage.
And it costs $849B.
CNN has more about some of the key points in the new bill…
Among other things, they’ve agreed to subsidize insurance for a family of four making up to roughly $88,000 annually, or 400 percent of the federal poverty level.
They’ve also agreed to expand Medicaid and create health insurance [...]

Maggie Mahar has an interesting observation in Sunday’s Washington Post:
If you’re a progressive like me, and you’re upset by the Stupak amendment, which bars federally subsidized insurance from covering abortions, consider this: What if we had a single-payer health-care system and someone like Jeb Bush or Sarah Palin were running the country?
The Stupak amendment is [...]

I found the following numbers from Gallup about government’s role in health care to be, well, eye opening.
Check it out…

Hmmm, what happened in 2008…I can’t really think of anything.
Republicans can not like Obama all the want, but this smacks of “Soreloserism.”
Why, just look at how this drop has effected the overall opinion on this topic…

So [...]

You can view the recently passed HR 3962, the “Affordable Health Care for America” act, at http://docs.house.gov/rules/health/111_ahcaa.pdf (PDF file). While there is still quite a bit of change anticipated before this bill is consolidated with the upcoming Senate effort, we can at least see the text of the current proposal.
The bill [...]

The Wash Post’s Ezra Klein interviewed the CEO of Kaiser Permanente and found massive differences when looking at health care costs in the US and other countries.
Yes, it’s not even close.

Gee, I wonder why we’re going bankrupt…
And those are just 3 graphs! Want to see the other 19? Click here to download the whole report [...]

Ahh, I “love” the political critters in the House. Why?
Just watch…

Here’s the thing, the reason these folks can get away with nonsense like this is because congressional districts have been so gerrymandered as to be almost completely red or blue. And given that Rep. Foxx is from North Carolina’s 5th district (very safely Republican) [...]

Slowly, but surely, we’ll be getting health care reform in a matter of months. That is, if Democrats don’t overplay their hand.
From NY Times:
The Senate Finance Committee chairman, Max Baucus of Montana, described “a sense of inevitability, the sense that, yes, we’re going to pass health reform.” In interviews, senior advisers to the president said [...]

Well, at least the opt out version.
Here’s Joe…
“We’re trying to do too much at once,” Lieberman said. “To put this government-created insurance company on top of everything else is just asking for trouble for the taxpayers, for the premium payers and for the national debt. I don’t think we need it now.”
And guess what? They [...]

So it looks as if the Senate’s bill will be released tomorrow and WSJ shares the broad strokes…
Employers with more than 50 workers wouldn’t be required to provide health insurance, but they would face fines of up to $750 per employee if even part of their work force received a government subsidy to buy health [...]

Danielle Ivory pens a shocking piece about yet another case of an insurance company acting completely immoral.
From Huff Post:
Christina Turner feared that she might have been sexually assaulted after two men slipped her a knockout drug. She thought she was taking proper precautions when her doctor prescribed a month’s worth of anti-AIDS medicine.
Only later did [...]

They helped conduct it, but the backlash at the incoherence of the findings has forced them to place the blame back on the folks who commissioned it, AHIP.
From Politico:
PricewaterhouseCoopers, the authors of AHIP’s report, put out a statement last night that basically said, “Hey, we weren’t paid to evaluate the effects of the entire bill, [...]

I’ve been following the stories today about that “study” (pdf) by the insurance industry and while I understand why it’s getting so much play, I have a hard time believing why anybody would believe what they have to say about their own products becoming more expensive.
Let’s run down some reasons…

First, if the insurance companies want [...]

SERIOUS AS A HEART ATTACK: THE INDEPENDENTS’ STORY
By: Jackie Salit
When we finally get far enough down the road on health care reform, it will become clear that a driving force in the intensity of the fight was a heart attack. Not the medical kind. The political kind.
Independents swung decisively to Barack Obama in the 2008 [...]

Not only that it’s fully paid for.
That’s the latest report from the CBO and it’s encouraging to say the very least.
Here’s more from The Hill:
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) issued a cost estimate of the healthcare reform bill under consideration by the Senate Finance Committee, concluding it would increase federal spending by $829 billion over [...]

Regardless of what you think about the current health care legislation being debated on Capitol Hill, being able to read it before it goes to the floor for a vote is the right thing to do and I’m glad to see a Senator from Missouri calling for it.
But will the Dems listen?
From Politico:
As the health [...]

Stepping out of the shadows and into the spotlight today is Dem Senator Tom Carper from Delaware. He’s offering a third way on health care that could garner enough bipartisan support to pass.
Essentially, it gives states the option to choose between private co-ops or a public option. Pretty easy.
Here’s more…
Carper wants to allow states to [...]

This is a very smart little slide deck and I’d love to hear what you think.
Personally, I think it gives a fairly unbiased view of what’s going on and what this reform debate means to all of us.

In other news, a government run public option is dead……..again.

I’m starting to notice some poll numbers that suggest an interesting trend. Basically, Americans aren’t necessarily happy with Obama’s health care plans, but they trust Republicans a LOT less.
Take a recent CBS/NY Times poll as an example:

52% of Americans trust Obama to make the right decisions for health, while only 27% feel Republicans are more [...]

I write one, Jason writes one, I write another, and Jason writes another.
And so I write this…

Perhaps he’s seeing the bipartisan/populist writing on the wall?

So, will the Baucus bill begin to get some traction in conservative circles?
More as it develop…