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- Aug 10, 2013
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Some handy cliff notes on Biden's health care plan from HMA this week. The highlights:
More competition via a public option:
More generous premium subsidies to increase affordability:
Better functioning health care provider markets:
Checks on pharma's pricing power:
All-in-all, a pretty solid and straightforward Dem approach to protecting and building on the Affordable Care Act, doubling down on affordability and increasing coverage. Very much in line with the health care agenda the House Dems have been pushing in recent years.
And a sharp contrast with Trump's non-agenda on health care, which seems to be limited largely to throwing out the ACA and bringing back pre-existing conditions.
More competition via a public option:
Biden hopes to insure approximately 97 percent of Americans by creating a public health insurance option like Medicare. The public option, referred to as the Biden Plan, would negotiate lower prices from hospitals and providers to reduce costs for patients. There would be no co-payments for primary care. It would be available for purchase through the individual health insurance marketplace. In non-expansion states, the 4.9 million individuals who would have gained Medicaid through expansion, would be offered premium-free access to the public option.
More generous premium subsidies to increase affordability:
The Biden Plan would increase tax credits to purchase coverage through the individual marketplaces by calculating them based on the cost of a gold plan, rather than a silver plan. The cost of coverage for everyone would be limited to 8.5 percent of income, compared to the current 9.86 percent for low income families. The income cap for tax credits would also be eliminated, so families making more than 400 percent of the federal poverty level would be eligible for tax credits. Families that receive insurance from their employers, would be able to switch to a plan on the individual marketplace.
Better functioning health care provider markets:
In addition to increasing tax credits and removing the income cap to make healthcare more affordable, the Biden Plan would stop “surprise billing” by barring health care providers from charging patients out-of-network rates when the patient does not have control over which provider they see in an in-network hospital. Biden would also use existing antitrust authority to address the lack of competition in the market to lower prices and increase wages for low-wage health care workers such as home care workers.
Checks on pharma's pricing power:
The Biden Plan would repeal the exception that allows drug manufacturers to avoid negotiating with Medicare over drug prices and would limit launch prices for drugs that face no competition through external reference pricing or by an evaluation by independent board members for Medicare and public option plans. All brand, biotech, and generic drugs will be prohibited from increasing their prices more than the general inflation rate.
All-in-all, a pretty solid and straightforward Dem approach to protecting and building on the Affordable Care Act, doubling down on affordability and increasing coverage. Very much in line with the health care agenda the House Dems have been pushing in recent years.
And a sharp contrast with Trump's non-agenda on health care, which seems to be limited largely to throwing out the ACA and bringing back pre-existing conditions.