Affordability Is Major Challenge for Reform

Burden on Middle Class Is a Top Concern
By Shailagh Murray and Lori Montgomery
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, September 18, 2009

Lawmakers in both parties raised concerns Thursday that the health-care reform bill offered by Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus a day earlier would impose too high a cost on middle-class Americans and said they will seek to change the legislation to ease that potential burden.

The Baucus plan is the product of a year-long effort to find a middle ground between the expansion of government-run health care that liberal Democrats are seeking and the private insurance overhaul that many Republicans favor. But with finance panel members on both sides expressing concerns about the Baucus draft, major revisions could come through amendments in committee and on the Senate floor and in final negotiations with the House.

How to make insurance more affordable to the estimated 30 million uninsured people who would be required to buy coverage under the Baucus proposal is emerging as a central challenge as the long-awaited plan advances to full committee debate Tuesday. Democrats and Republicans alike worry that a bill intended to address one source of financial hardship -- the skyrocketing cost of health care -- could lead to another, in the form of hefty premiums.

"It's very clear that the driving issue of this debate is affordability, particularly for middle-class folks. And the Democratic caucus is very much committed to getting this issue right," said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a Finance Committee member who said he will offer amendments next week in an effort to improve affordability and choice.

(More here.)