Benefits of health care reform to New Jersey

by: Hopeful

Thu Mar 25, 2010 at 12:54:36 PM EDT

To concentrate their minds, though, here is an analysis of the benefits to New Jersey (PDF) of the whole reform package:

Provide tax credits for up to 107,000 New Jersey small businesses to help make coverage more affordable. [HealthReform.gov, accessed 3/20/10]

Prohibit insurance companies from excluding coverage of pre-existing conditions for the 2 million children in New Jersey, starting this year. [U.S. Census Bureau, 1/7/10]

Close the "donut hole" and improve other Medicare benefits for 1.3 million New Jersey seniors. [HealthReform.gov, accessed 3/20/10]

Reduce Medicare premiums for the 1.1 million New Jersey seniors who are not enrolled in Medicare Advantage and will no longer subsidize these private insurance plans. [Senate Finance Committee]

Ensure affordable coverage options for 1.5 million New Jerseyans who are uninsured and 326,000 New Jerseyans who purchase health insurance through the individual market. [HealthReform.gov, accessed 3/20/10]

Create 16,200 - 25,900 jobs by reducing health care costs for employers. [U.S. Public Interest Research Group, 1/20/10]

Allow 758,000 young adults to stay on their parents' insurance plans. [U.S. Census Bureau, 1/7/10]

Provide more federal funding for 134 Community Health Centers in New Jersey. [National Association of Community Health Centers, 2009]

There is also an analysis of each congressional district. Each is pretty similar, of course, since districts are about the sample population, so let's look at our black sheep, John Adler and NJ3 (PDF). Now, since Adler seems to only care about costs and businesses, and not citizens, I'll pick out just those kinds of benefits for his district:

Helping small businesses obtain health insurance. Under the legislation, small businesses with 100 employees or less will be able to join the health insurance exchange, benefiting from group rates and a greater choice of insurers. There are 16,000 small businesses in the district that could benefit from this provision.

Tax credits for small businesses. Small businesses with 25 employees or less and average wages of less than $50,000 will qualify for tax credits of up to 50% of the costs of providing health insurance. There are up to 14,600 small businesses in the district that could qualify for these credits.

No deficit spending. The cost of health care reform under the legislation is fully paid for, in large part by eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and excessive profits for private insurers. The legislation will reduce the deficit by $130 billion over the next ten years, and by about $1.2 trillion over the second decade.

Financial security for families. There were 1,300 health care-related bankruptcies in the district in 2008, caused primarily by the health care costs not covered by insurance. The bill caps annual out-of-pocket costs at $6,200 for individuals and $12,400 for families who purchase insurance through the exchange or who are insured by small businesses. It also eliminates annual and lifetime limits on all insurance coverage. These reforms ensure that no family will have to face financial ruin because of high health care costs.

Menendez Should Sign on To Reconciliation

by: vmars

Sat Feb 20, 2010 at 05:02:23 PM EST

Frank Lautenberg signed it, but Bob Menendez hasn't.  It's time for him to do so.

Rob Andrews on the health care endgame

by: Hopeful

Tue Sep 29, 2009 at 12:31:00 PM EDT

To get the bill he ran on, he was going to have to make sure that the public option passed on the House side and, since it could not pass on the Senate side, that it be included in the Conference Report. At that point, one of three things would happen.

     1. If the Dems didn't have 60 votes, the Republicans would filibuster and take the blame for obstruction, setting up the argument for using reconciliation.
     2. Seeing the momentum for health care reform, one or two Republicans would vote for cloture and the bill would pass.
     3. If the Dems did have 60 votes, they could muscle the few doubters to vote for cloture, even if they opposed the underlying bill.

The only thing that could go wrong is if there were any Democrats who were willing to filibuster the president's highest priority item. This was the strategy, and it hasn't changed much at all.

The Democrats are in good position.

The pessimist's case, widely available at other blogs, is that the Democrats will abandon the public option and leave us with a poor bill. This theory emphasizes the Obama administration's repeated statements that the public option is not essential.

All this setup is for Michael O'Brien of The Hill's talk with Rob Andrews. I interpret it as saying Booman's optimist case is right:

Andrews predicted that the preliminary Senate bill would not include the public (or "government-run") option coming into conference, but predicted "some accommodation" between the two chambers' versions of health legislation coming out of conference.

The New Jersey lawmaker seemed confident, though, that reconciliation would come into play in the later stages of the health debate to pass the public option. The budgetary rule allows the Senate to short-circuit filibuster rules, and pass legislation with a simple majority of votes.

It seems to me that every Democratic Senator should vote against a filibuster, but reconciliation would work too for the public option. Although there is an October 15 deadline, according to Chris Bowers there are easy ways around the deadline. In any case, Rob Andrews is warning us that he does not expect a public option in the initial Senate bill. Public pressure seems necessary to encourage the negotiators, because it sure takes a lot of faith to think Democrats will suddenly improve the bill at the end.

Oh great

by: Hopeful

Sun Sep 06, 2009 at 01:26:04 PM EDT

Though Obama originally wanted Congress to pass health care reform before August, Menendez said the new reality is that a reform bill is unlikely to pass Congress and reach Obama's desk before the end of the year.

In other words, Menendez is abandoning reconciliation, the process which has already been authorized for health care reform and was used by Republican Presidents to pass their agenda. Thanks Bob.