Update on Baucus Health Care Legislation

Yesterday, in Washington D.C., the Senate Finance Committee began the mark-up process on Chairman Max Baucus' health-care legislation. The modifications focus largely on making care more affordable for low- and middle-income Americans by increasing the Health Care Affordability Tax Credit, lowering the penalties for people who fail to meet the individual requirement to have health insurance and increasing the High Cost Insurance Excise Tax threshold for people whose basic health care is more expensive.

Some of the changes include:

• Easing the financial burden on families with income up to four times the federal poverty level. Families with income up to four times the federal poverty level would contribute on a sliding scale, between 2 and 12 percent of their income to their insurance premium.
• Americans making less than 133% of the federal poverty level would qualify for Medicaid.
• Reducing out-of-pocket limits for families between 200 and 300 percent of the poverty level to $7,973 annually.
• Lowering the amount by which insurance companies could vary premiums based on age.
• Making it easier for people who cannot afford the insurance offered by their employer to receive tax credits in a health insurance exchange.
• Ensuring the federal government pays for costs of expanding Medicaid in states with the largest populations of people who are on Medicaid.

Click here to view a complete list of modifications made so far to America's Healthy Futures Act of 2009.

Please remember that as the process continues, changes and modifications will continue to be made, and that this legislation is in no way a finished product.

This week, I am in Washington, D.C. working on health insurance reform as part of President Obama's State Legislators for Health Reform and promise to continue sending you updates on this issue as they develop.