WASHINGTON, D.C. — Senate negotiators said Thursday they are close to finalizing a $1 trillion health-care reform bill that would be fully funded by tax increases, Medicare cuts and new penalties for employers that don’t offer health benefits, according to the Washington Post.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus said members of the panel would consider several financing and policy issues over the July 4 recess with the goal of producing a 10-year bill that doesn’t add to the national deficit shortly after Congress returns July 6, the Post said.
“We’re getting a lot closer to an agreement,” Baucus, a Democrat from Montana, told reporters after the committee reviewed new Congressional Budget Office cost estimates Thursday, the Post said.
Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, the senior Republican on the finance committee, confirmed that talks are moving ahead but said, “There’s still a lot of decisions that have to be made.” The announcement capped two weeks of tough negotiations with price tags as high as $1.6 trillion over 10 years that sent senators back to the table several times, according to the Associated Press.
Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, a North Dakota Democrat, said said the finance committee reduced the cost of its bill by cutting subsidy levels for uninsured people. Conrad said committee members had not resolved the issue of the “public plan,” a government-backed alternative to private health insurance plans, but he said discussions continue to focus on a member-owned cooperative model, according to the Post.
At the moment, the bill includes substantial spending cuts for the Medicare and Medicaid programs, as well as nearly $300 billion in new taxes on health benefit provided by employers and a new penalty for employers that don’t offer health insurance.
As the bill takes shape, Conrad said prospects for bipartisan support appear to have brightened, the Post said.
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
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