Insurance-industry fee proposed
WASHINGTON -- Sen. Max Baucus yesterday pushed a new health-care plan that includes an industry fee to help pay for covering the uninsured.
Baucus, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, is part of a six-member bipartisan group trying to craft a bill satisfactory to both parties, and the group is set to meet today as Congress returns from its August recess.
It's unclear whether the fee, designed to create competition in the insurance market, would satisfy two Republicans in the group: Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Mike Enzi of Wyoming. The Baucus proposal reflected many of their priorities, chief among them the decision not to include a government-run plan to compete with private insurers.
Under the Baucus plan, health-insurance exchanges, with information on different plans and prices, would allow small groups and individuals to buy policies at lower rates. Medicaid would be expanded to cover more low-income people. Nonprofit cooperatives would be established as an alternative to for-profit insurance companies. Tax credits would allow low- and middle-income Americans to buy private coverage.
The package would cost under $900 billion over 10 years.
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