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Making laws, it has been said, is like making sausage – it’s horribly unappealing.
Whether that’s true or not is ultimately in the eye of the beholder, but whatever the case, when it comes to health care reform, the process is complex – and messy.
Five congressional committees have had major stakes in the debate, and every tweak or amendment, every suggestion or demand alienates one faction or another and makes agreement on a bill more elusive each day.
Prodded by President Obama’s deadline of passing a House bill by the August congressional recess, lawmakers in both houses have spent months knocking out broad parameters of health care legislation and negotiating the details.
Passing a bill before the August recess is not going to happen. SAF has an full analysis of the current status of House and Senate bills. Here’s an overview:
In the House:
- The House has introduced one bill, H.R. 3200, which has been approved by both the Ways and Means and the Education and Labor committees. The House Energy and Commerce Committee is still considering the bill.
- Any employer with an annual payroll of $250,000 or more is required to provide health insurance. Employers who do not provide health insurance are subject to a payroll tax of up to 8 percent of wages. Employers with annual payrolls less than $250,000 are exempt from the requirement to offer health insurance.
- The minimum employer contribution is 72.5 percent of the cost of the plan for individual coverage, and 65 percent for family coverage.
- To pay for reform, this legislation imposes a surtax at the rates of 1, 1.5 and 5.4 percent on individuals with adjusted gross income beginning at $350,000. There is, however, a move to begin assessing the surtax at $1 million instead of $350,000.
- All individuals would be required to have health insurance either through their employer or by purchasing it on their own, or pay a penalty.
- The bill provides a tax credit for certain small businesses equal to 50 percent of the amount paid by the employer for health insurance.
- A public plan, a government-run option, would be implemented to compete against private insurance plans.
In the Senate
- The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension (HELP) Committee and the Finance Committee have jurisdiction. The HELP Committee has approved its bill, while the Finance Committee is still negotiating.
- All employers with 25 or more employees would be required to provide health insurance to their workers or pay a penalty of $750 per full-time employee annually.
- All individuals would be required to obtain health insurance or pay a penalty of no more than $750 per year.
- Beginning in 2010, employers with 50 or fewer full time employees who pay 60 percent or more of their employees’ health insurance can receive tax credits for subsidizing coverage.
The details of both bills are still very much in flux and likely to change. The Senate Finance Committee is engaged in bipartisan negotiations and drafting a bill that may not include an employer mandate nor a public-plan option. And as this issue of E-Brief goes the press, word from the Hill is that lawmakers in the House Energy and Commerce Committee are suggesting that small businesses with payrolls of less than $500,000 – an increase from the $250,000 threshold in H.R. 3200 -- be exempt from an employer mandate that they provide health insurance.
SAF has sent a letter to the House Ways and Means Committee opposing H.R. 3200 as it is currently written, and at least 120 SAF members have written to their legislators to express concern about how the bill will affect them. Click here to share your thoughts with your elected official.
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