CBO on Wyden

I've been a fan of the "Free Choice Act" for awhile and it looks like the amendment might be picking up steam on the hill. The Congressional Budget Office announced today that it could save nearly 1 billion dollars over ten years. Thats not exactly as much as Senator Wyden initiatally thought, but its substantial and its not going to destabilize the markets.

So if your wondering what the amendment is all about here is the run down. The goal of the legislation is open up the health care exchanges to more Americans. Right now those exchanges are limited to employees of small businesses and the self-employed. The amendment will offer workers who are already insured by their respective company a choice. They can either keep their company insurance or if they are unhappy they can go onto the exchange and choose a plan that fits their needs. If the employee chooses an option on the exchange he will receive a voucher from his company which will pick up 60 to 70 percent of the tab. That of course leaves either 30 or 40 percent of the cost which the worker is responsible for, this is where the cost saving measures come in. If you have to pick up part of the tab your going to shop around and find a plan that not only covers your health needs, but which also fits into your price range (your gonna save some dough.)

As always with health care the big picture is we are going to be saving money, while insuring better quality. If more people are choosing their insurance on exchanges we will see competition and hopefully lower premiums.

People talk about how this bill will do nothing to control actual costs of medical care, but I think it lays a solid foundation. Think about it, if insurance companies want to lower premiums to insure more customers then they will have to change how they pay providers. Instead of the old fee- for service system doctors are going to have to provide quality care that is rational and not excessively wasteful. To end today, Judy Feder who is an expert on health care at the Center for American Progress told Ezra Klein earlier that "Until we stop paying too much for the wrong kind of service, we won't get providers to deliver the right kind of service."

TLH