Update: Consumer Protections and subsidies in Senate Bill do not begin until 2013; Preliminary CBO score in for Reid bill- Dems meeting; Reconciliation push and Public Option in health care dead in Senate or head-fake?

Update 4: 7:16 pm EST: Carrie Budoff-Brown has some numbers from Sen Conrad:

..Unlike the House bill, there’s no surtax on the wealthy, but it does include a Medicare payroll tax of 1.95 percent on couples who earn more than $250,000 annually. The threshold for the high-end insurance tax was bumped up to apply to plans that cost more than $23,000 annually for families and $8,500 for individuals. That’s an increase from $21,000 and $8,000 respectively.

The reimbursement rates for the public plan will not be tied to Medicare, and co-ops, Conrad’s brainchild, will still be offered. And finally, the bill will include the CLASS Act, a long-term insurance program for the disabled, but will not use the revenue from the program to help pay for the bill, a move that should assuage moderates’ fiscal concerns…

Update 3: 7:05pm EST  Sen Kent Conrad says Senate bill taxes high dollar insurance plans (no dollar given and this will be key- IS IT INDEXED TO INFLATION??? Cause if not, it is a trap like the AMT to make it look good to CBO but it will catch the middle class as we go forward) and Conrad also says it will raise the Medicare Payroll tax for high earners. I assume, lol, they mean on the Medicare payroll tax that they will extend that tax to NON EARNED INCOME since high dollar earners don’t earn most of their income in a ‘payroll’ form per se.

Update 2: 6:43pm EST: Reid at the podium now, a FOX reporter said there will be a public option and states will have to offer two options one with and one without abortion.

WSJ has the CBO scoring here:

…Mr. Reid’s bill would gradually extend health-insurance coverage to nearly all Americans by providing government subsidies to help pay premiums. Starting in 2013, it would ban insurance company practices such as charging more to those in poor health, or denying them coverage altogether.

Consumer protections do not begin until 2013!? Oh boy that won’t go over well with the left.

All Americans would be required to carry health insurance, either through an employer, a government plan or by purchasing it on their own. The Medicaid health insurance program for low-income people would be significantly expanded.

The bill would set up new insurance marketplaces — called exchanges — primarily for those who now have a hard time getting or keeping coverage. Most people buying coverage through the exchanges would get tax credits to help cover the cost of premiums. They would be able to pick private coverage or a new government health insurance plan.

However, the government plan may not be available all across the country. Mr. Reid would allow individual states to opt out.

To keep down costs, the government subsidies and consumer protections don’t take effect until 2013. During the three-year transition, Mr. Reid’s bill would create a federal fund to help provide affordable coverage for people with medical problems turned down by private insurers in the meantime.

The majority of Americans who now have employer-provided health insurance would not see major changes. Among the exceptions to that rule: Children would be allowed to stay on their parents’ health insurance until their mid-20s…

FOX reporting Reid is unveiling his health care bill for the Senate Dems behind closed doors tonight, he has a preliminary CBO score. Reid’s aides indicate 849B over 10 yrs, govt run option with state opt out included, and somehow it will magically cut the deficit 127b in the first 10 years..let’s see what they say when they come out of the meeting…

RedState picks up the CQ word that reconciliation is dead in the Senate and deals are all on the table, Sounds AWESOME but I am worried it is a head fake…

I agree with RedState that it would be smart for the Dem leadership to cut a deal on this since Obama got a talking to in China about the impact of the health care bill on the deficit, and word on the street is the oncoming UE jump to 11% and the extended length of UE is likely to be so bad that they must do another ginormous stimulus asap, voters will be pixxed and they don’t need an extended fight on health care right before Son of Stimulus. The economic clock ran out on them, thanks to their own stupidity in writing the stimulus I which had an infinitesimal amount of infrastrucutre in it, the ads for the GOP in 2010 write themselves:

Senate Democrats have abandoned plans to use a fast-track parliamentary strategy to avert a threatened Republican filibuster and pass a health care overhaul — a signal that they are considering major policy concessions to moderates...The most significant of these could be restructuring or dropping altogether a proposed government-run insurance plan — the so-called public option — that many liberals consider a necessary part of the overhaul.

One possible fallback is a proposal by Thomas R. Carper, D-Del., to create a government-sanctioned insurance plan that would be available only in states deemed to lack affordable private insurance plans. Under Carper’s plan, the insurance plan would be structured as a private nonprofit entity, run by a board appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate…

But Democratic leaders had used the threat of reconciliation to try to corral support for the health care bill from moderates in both parties. That tactic largely failed.

“I think the more people studied [reconciliation], the more people realized that is not a very good way to do substantive legislation,” said Budget Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D…

In a meeting Nov. 16 with Democrats who support a Medicare-like public option, Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., indicated that he did not plan to try to move a health bill through reconciliation, other Democrats said.

“I’m not going to quote him, but suffice to say, after the meeting was over I thought it was unlikely,” said Bob Casey, D-Pa.

Regan LaChapelle, a spokeswoman for Reid, said, “We are not ruling anything out, but Sen. Reid is continuing to work to put together a bill that will garner the 60 votes needed to overcome a Republican filibuster…”…

November 18, 2009. Tags: Deficit Spending and China holding our debt, Harry Reid, health care public option, House health care plan, infrastructure stimulus, Obama economic policy, Obama health care bill, reconciliation health care bill, Reid health care reconciliation, second stimulus, Senate health care vote, Taxes. Economy, Healthcare, Obama Administration, Politics, Taxes. 1 comment.