The Baucus compromise bill is likely to hurt consumers as much or more than a public option or anything else in previous bills.
Two of the problems are new restrictions on consumer-driven plans and $3,800 fines for families that go without insurance.
The bill pays for most of its reforms with new fees for health insurers, pharmaceutical and medical device makers, and clinical laboratories. And that’s where the problems really start. Because we will be forced to purchase insurance and that insurance will pay for most of our care, those higher fees are new taxes that will simply become higher prices for the rest of us.
Lobbyists and their clients win. Patients lose. And none of it makes health care any cheaper.
There is a better way.
It is time to stop the madness in Washington, focus on expanding consumer-driven options and removing the tax penalty for purchasing insurance in the individual market. States should open their borders to insurance products from across their borders, break up the licensing and certificate of need monopolies, and stop packing new mandates into insurance products. Give patients and their families a voice by allowing them to be consumers.