Lobbyists get a look at the health care proposal even before the White House?
Snappy exchange with Chuck Todd over Max Baucus's draft proposal for health care compromise. When Gibbs says the White House hasn't received anything from Baucus and notes some kind of draft has been floating around K Street, Todd asks how lobbyists got the draft before the White House. "Call some of your lobbyist friends, Chuck," Gibbs says. "K Street got it, you guys haven't?" Todd asks.
Gibbs fires back: "Not surprisingly." Politico
The Baucus proposal has co-ops instead of a government insurance option:
A health-care overhaul proposal by Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus would establish a system of consumer-owned insurance cooperatives in lieu of a government-run “public plan,” and would expand Medicaid to millions more Americans.
Baucus, D-Mont., circulated his proposal over the Labor Day weekend to the “Gang of Six,” the bipartisan group of Finance Committee senators with whom he has been discussing health care overhaul for many weeks. The group was scheduled to meet Tuesday afternoon as Congress returned from its month-long recess.
The Baucus proposal would cost less than $900 billion over 10 years, at least $100 billion less than the overhaul bills approved by other congressional committees. It would be fully paid for over that period through a variety of fees on stakeholders — such as $6 billion a year from health insurers, and $2.3 billion a year from pharmaceutical companies — as well as a tax on insurance companies that offer the most expensive health insurance plans and cuts to Medicare.
To expand coverage to millions of the estimated 46 million Americans who lack insurance, everyone up to 133 percent of the poverty level would be covered by Medicaid, a Finance source said. “In addition, health care affordability tax credits would be provided to help low- and middle-income families purchase private insurance coverage,” the source added CQ Politics
