Legal Commentary

What A Reconciliation Bill Could Look Like

By Big Tent Democrat

What should be the goal of a health bill this year? As Ezra Klein argues - to save lives. Getting people health insurance does that. Accordingly, the goal for a reconciliation bill should be to offer as much health insurance assistance as possible. There are 3 main components to the current proposal that does this. They are: (1) expansion of Medicaid eligibility; (2)expand Medicare eligibility to persons aged between 55-64 (exclusive of those who would not be eligible for the Exchange) and (3) subsidies for persons not eligible for Medicaid or Medicare to purchase private insurance. To do these things, tax increases on the wealthy have been proposed. Each of these provisions, including the revenue raisers, would not run afoul of the Byrd Rule, which requires that all provisions enacted under reconciliation be budget germane and budget neutral.

What do you risk? [More...] The reform package that many value (this of course could be passed in another bill.) Not much of a risk imo. Handle it in a later bill. The bigger risk imo, is the Stupak Amendment, which appears to be necessary to pass a bill in the House. However, that problem can be solved by eliminating the Exchange and turning the subsidies into a tax credit for the purchase of health insurance. For some reason, no one thinks of tax credits as government spending. Here, that strange reasoning would work to our advantage. Tax credits would also qualify under the Byrd Rule.

Such a bill would be a real progressive accomplishment. Of course it is not "reform," but let's face it, reform was dropped from this bill a long time ago. Such a bill would save lives. It would ask the wealthy to help the less well off. It would be a bill worth supporting.

Speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on December 14, 2009 (boomark / email).