Senate HELP Committee Democrats Release Public Plan and Employer Mandate Proposals - July 10, 2009

The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee has released new provisions of its Affordable Health Choices Act, which the Committee continues to mark up. These new provisions create a public plan option and require employers to offer health insurance to their employees. The HHS Secretary would administer the public plan, which would be required to abide by the same rules as plans offered in the exchange, and would negotiate provider rates, which may not exceed the average rates paid by plans participating in the exchange. The proposal would impose penalties of up to $750 per employee on employers with more than 25 employees that do not offer coverage to their employees. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has estimated that the revised bill would reduce the number of uninsured by 20 million, in contrast to the CBO’s prior estimate (before the inclusion of an employer mandate) that the bill would reduce the number of uninsured by 16 million. The Committee’s coverage proposals, which do not include a Medicaid expansion likely to be proposed by the Senate Finance Committee, are estimated to cost $611 billion over ten years.