Congressional & Administration Leaders Close to Health Care Deal

Throughout the week, top White House officials, Congressional Democratic leaders, and Democratic committee chairmen have been furiously working on negotiating a final health care reform bill. At issue and receiving significant mainstream media attention are, among other things, disagreements over the role of states in health insurance exchanges, subsidy levels to make insurance more affordable for middle-class Americans, an excise tax on high-priced insurance plans, the ability of the bills to contain overall health costs, and the Massachusetts special election to replace the late Sen. Ted Kennedy.

On Thursday, January 14th, media outlets reported that House Democrats had issued statements that a deal on the financing portions of the bill had been struck. The revised bill is slated to be sent to the Congressional Budget Office on Saturday to receive a cost analysis. Congressional Democrats are increasingly feeling a sense of urgency over next week's special election in Massachusetts. Republican State Senator Scott Brown, as of today, holds a slight lead, albeit within the margin of error, over his Democratic opponent, Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley. Mr. Brown has indicated that if elected and present for the vote on the health bill, he would vote against it, thereby foiling Democrats' hopes of passing historic health reform.

To read more, click here for the story from The Hill.

Late Thursday, labor leaders reported that a deal had been struck on the proposal to tax high-priced "Cadillac plans". According to The New York Times, in a conference call with reports, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka provided additional details:

• The threshold for the tax would be $24,000 for families and $8,900 for individuals. The Senate bill called for a threshold of $23,000 for families and $8,500 for individuals.
• The threshold would be increased each year by the amount of the rise in the Consumer Price Index plus 1 percent — that’s the same rate of indexation called for in the Senate bill.
• The formula will be adjusted for inflation from 2010 to 2013. The initial inflation threshold period will be adjusted upward if inflation increases above current assumptions.
• For high risk professions, the threshold would increase to $27,000.
• There would also be adjustments creating higher thresholds for employee groups whose health premiums are higher because the groups contain a disproportionate percentage of older workers and women. Those two groups tends to have higher health premiums than other workers. There would also be adjustments for those living in high-cost states.
• As of 2015, dental and vision costs would not be counted toward the threshold.
• Collective bargaining plans were to have been excluded from the exchange. Starting in 2017, collective bargaining agreements at all levels will be able to participate in the exchanges.

The New York Times also reports that "workers covered by collective bargaining agreements, as well as state and local employees, will be exempted from the tax until 2018."

For more on this, click here to access The New York Times story.