Document Dump: Affordable Health Care for America Act

by Steven Allen Adams

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi , surrounded by Democratic lawmakers on the West Front of the Capitol , formally unveiled a health care bill today that she says would extend coverage to 36 million people.

The California Democrat said lawmakers are close to making affordable health insurance available to all Americans.

The bill, which includes the controversial “public option,” will be presented on the House floor next week and is on track for passage by the Democratic-controlled body before Veterans Day , Nov. 11.

It must then be combined with whatever bill emerges from the Senate , and will then go back to both chambers for a final vote.

Democratic officials are hoping to have a final bill for President Obama to sign by year’s end.

The Congressional Budget Office offered Pelosi and her team some good news and some bad news. The good news is that the bill shouldn’t add to the deficit over the first decade after its enactment. The bad is that the legislation is projected to create deficits over the second five years, a fact that should give budget hawks plenty to worry about.

Pelosi’s decision to strip a $245 billion package of doctors’ payments also threatens to anger party moderates. The so-called “docs’ fix,” which would fill a long-standing shortfall under Medicare reimbursement rates, would put the overall cost of the bill well over $1 trillion and create more than $200 billion in red ink for the federal government over the next 10 years – two big “no-nos” from President Barack Obama ’s perspective.

The bill should cause plenty of headaches for the industries impacted.

The legislation imposes as much as $150 billion in Medicare cuts on the prescription-drug industry – almost double the $80 billion cuts in the Senate bill. It imposes a 2.5 percent tax on medical device manufacturers, a quietly influential force on Capitol Hill, And health insurers, who have already agreed to end many of the practices banned by the bill, would have to compete with a government-run insurance vehicle that would put pressure on them to lower premiums.

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