a good start...i hope it slides thru the House like an egg thru a hen, but i doubt it. corporations aint done wantin' to screw us, evah.

and then there is the clown car senate -- a thing of horror these days like satan's spawn...

"For more policy details, I found these materials put together by the House Committee on Education and Labor helpful."

Unfortunately the complete bill PDF is 1990 pages, impossible to read online and too much to print, and the HCEL website lists a lot of things that look they are supposed to be live links but aren't:
Top Line Changes »
4 Page Bill Summary »
Section by Section »
Myth Vs. Fact »
Health Care by the Numbers »

What Health Insurance Reform Means for You »
Top 10 Ways Health Insurance Reform Works for You »
What You Need to Know about Health Insurance Reform »
The Cost of Inaction »
What Takes Effect Immediately »

Key Provisions:

Public Health Insurance Option »
The Health Insurance Marketplace »
Shared Responsibility »
Guaranteed Benefits »
Making Coverage Affordable »
Consumer Protections and Insurance Market Reforms »
Employers and Health Reform »
Strengthening the Nation’s Health Workforce »
Lowering Health Care Costs »
Delivery System Reforms »
Preventing Waste, Fraud and Abuse »
Strengthening Medicare »
Improving Medicare Part D Drug Program »
Maintaining and Improving Medicaid »
Medicare Advantage »
Debating Reforms: By the Numbers »
Paying for Reform »
Prevention and Wellness »

Women Have the Most to Gain »
Small Businesses »
Middle-Class Families »
A Guide for Seniors »
Young Americans »
Rural Communities »
Health Care Disparities »

This by way of atrios:

http://edlabor.house.gov/blog/2009/10/affordable-health-care.shtml

Affordable Health Care for America Act

By Kruger, Mike on October 29, 2009 10:30 AM

For the first time in U.S. history, all Americans would have access to quality, affordable health care under updated health insurance reform legislation unveiled by House Democrats.

The Affordable Health Care for America Act [H.R. 3962], which blends and updates the three versions of previous bills passed by the House committees of jurisdiction in July, embodies President Obama’s key goals for health reform. It will slow the growth in out-of-control costs, introduce competition into the health care marketplace to keep coverage affordable and insurers honest, protect people’s choices of doctors and health plans, and assure all Americans access to quality, stable, affordable health care.

The key components of the Affordable health Care for America Act include:

Increasing choice and competition. The bill will protect and improve consumers’ choices.

If people like their current plans, they will be able to keep them.
For individuals who aren’t currently covered by their employer, and some small businesses, the proposal will establish a new Health Insurance Exchange where consumers can comparison shop from a menu of affordable, quality health care options that will include private plans, health co-ops, and a new public health insurance option. The public health insurance option will play on a level playing field with private insurers, spurring additional competition.

This Exchange will create competition based on quality and price that leads to better coverage and care. Patients and doctors will have control over decisions about their health care, instead of insurance companies.

Giving Americans peace of mind. The legislation will ensure that Americans have portable, secure health care coverage - so that they won’t lose care if their employer drops their plan or they lose their job.

Every American who receives coverage through the Exchange will have a plan that includes standardized, comprehensive and quality health care benefits.

It will end increases in premiums or denials of care based on pre-existing conditions, race, or gender, and strictly limit age rating.

The proposal will also eliminate co-pays for preventive care, and cap out-of-pocket expensesto protects every American from bankruptcy.

Improving quality of care for every American. The legislation will ensure that Americans of all ages, from young children to retirees have access to greater quality of care by focusing on prevention, wellness, and strengthening programs that work.

Guarantees that every child in America will have health care coverage that includes dental, hearing and vision benefits.
Provides better preventive and wellness care. Every health care plan offered through the exchange and by employers after a grace period will cover preventive care at no cost to the patient.
Increases the health care workforce to ensure that more doctors and nurses are available to provide quality care as more Americans get coverage.

Strengthens Medicare and Medicaid and closes the Medicare Part D ‘donut hole’ so that seniors and low-income Americans receive better quality of care and see lower prescription drug costs and out-of-pocket expenses.

Ensuring shared responsibility. The bill will ensure that individuals, employers, and the federal government share responsibility for a quality and affordable health care system.
Employers can continue offering coverage to workers, and those who choose not offer coveragecontribute a fee of eight percent of payroll.

All individuals will generally be required to get coverage, either through their employer or the exchange, or pay a penalty of 2.5 percent of income, subject to a hardship exemption.

The federal government will provide affordability credits, available on a sliding scale for low- and middle-income individuals and families to make premiums affordable and reduce cost-sharing.

Protecting consumers and reducing waste, fraud, and abuse. The legislation will put the interests of consumers first, protect them from problems in getting and keeping health care coverage, and reduce waste, fraud, and abuse.

Provides transparency in plans in the Health Exchange so that consumers have the clear, complete information, in plain English, needed to select the plan that best meets their needs.
Establishes consumer advocacy offices as part of the Exchange in order to protect consumers, answer questions, and assist with any problems related to their plans.

Simplifies paperwork and other administrative burdens. Patients, doctors, nurses, insurance companies, providers, and employers will all encounter a streamlined, less confusing, more consumer friendly system.

Increases funding of efforts to reduce waste, fraud and abuse; creates enhanced oversight of Medicare and Medicaid programs.
Reducing the deficit and ensuring the solvency of Medicare and Medicaid. The legislation will be entirely paid for - it will not add a dime to the deficit. It will also put Medicare and Medicaid on the path to a more fiscally sound future, so seniors and low-income Americans can continue to receive the quality health care benefits for years to come.

Pays for the entire cost of the legislation though a combination of savings achieved by making Medicare and Medicaid more efficient - without cutting seniors’ benefits in any way - and revenue generated from placing a surcharge the top 0.3 percent of all households in the U.S.(married couples with adjusted gross income of over $1,000,000) and other tax measures.
The Congressional Budget estimates the bill will reduce the deficit by at least $100 billion over ten years.

Estimates also show the bill will slow the rate of growth of the Medicare program from 6.6 percent annually to 5.3 percent annually.

"What's more, coverage would extend to 96% of the population."

I've been hearing things like this for many months, but I've never heard why not 100%.

What four percent is not covered, and what's the reasoning behind it?

I never understood the Medicare +5 idea. I'm personally not interested in what doctors get, how much are the premiums? If I had to pay the same as the government pays for Medicare, I would be broke. And the younger you are, the less sense the Medicare +5 model makes when you are describing premiums and benefits. And, BTW, I don't need a scooter, and the scooter stores seem to not mind the Medicare rates.

asdf - I don't know what their reasoning was, but it occurs to me that there are people in this country who are so far out of "the system" that there's no way to pull them in under mandates, etc. For example, the homeless. Given their lack of income or assets, you aren't going to get them to sign up for health insurance, and you don't have any way of holding them to the mandate to get insurance. Of course they are eligible for Medicaid, but if Medicaid is like most other forms of public assistance, you have to have an address to sign up for it. Then you've got your folks who are operating outside the traditional economy - this would be people who are engaged in illegal activities but also those who do work on a "cash-only" basis; they never file a return so there's no way to impose a mandate upon them. The only way folks like the homeless and these others would ever be covered would be if we had a no-questions-asked, universal, single-payer system.

Like I said, I don't really *know* the answer, but this would be my best guess.

KILL THE BILL! Without a true, affordable public option based on Medicare rates, this will only make things worse.

As this thing stands, I hope the Republicans and Blue Dogs can kill it. I'm in favor of Medicare for all and would rather have no bill at all than give so much more money to insurance companies, who will then have even more cash to buy senators with.

I'm in favor of Medicare for all

Well, you ain't gettin' Medicare for all, because we live in a country where that's considered "soshalizm." If your bottom line is something we can't foreseeably have, you're effectively in favor of waiting until the people who mainline Fox News all day are too dead to keep ruining America. That's going to be at least 20 years. I'll take half a loaf now and set myself up to take a big honkin' bite when conditions have been made more propitious.

I feel like kissing FlipYrWhig for that post.

Posted by: neill on October 29, 2009 at 11:16 AM |

Thanks Neill for that summary.

Congress caters to the good of the private ins industry over and above the people normally but had the progressives not fought so hard we wouldn't even have this watered down version of the public option.

Most of us know Medicare for all would have been so much easier and simple to do but it would have destroyed the profiteering of private ins....and that is exactly why we didn't get it.

People are already willing to elect republicans again like in gov. races or state elections, like they lost their memory of the past 12yrs. Repubs brought nothing but disaster yet there is an effort to include them in decision making. The sadly funny part is repubs have not changed and have just gotten worse...why would anyone vote for one?

Now all we'll here is hate, spite, and the horrors of the dem plan...nothing constructive or designed to help make it better...just condemnation. Now we wait for the senate's vomit or how to pass what is least harmful to corporations and still look like reform.

The American system costs twice as much as the British system, where everyone is covered and survival rates for breast cancer (for example) at 83% are the highest in the world. So if America had the British system it would save $1 trillion annually.

The American system costs twice as much as the British system, where everyone is covered and survival rates for breast cancer (for example) at 83% are the highest in the world. So if America had the British system it would save $1 trillion annually.

I had always been taught that the Senate was the superior, more prestigious institution. But it is the House that is coming through here. The Senate has become a joke of preening jackasses.

This bill is not about making health care affordable nor is it for Americans... Americans must not live in America.

http://theprogressivecapitalist.blogspot.com/2009/10/affordable-health-care-for-america-act.html

If you dislike corporations, remember that the U.S. Government is the largest multinational corporation in the world.