The Baucus Plan

By Shawn Chandok

On Monday September 20th President Obama gave a speech on how healthcare bills will place a new burden on the middle class American family. One of the controversial issues republicans are criticizing the president for is the fact or not whether providing auto insurance throughout the United States is worth the additional tax increase. Although the president has yet to declare or pass any law increasing taxes, the government’s strategy is to “provide subsidies — in the form of tax credits — to help people buy coverage through new insurance exchanges.” These subsidies are still being questioned about what is considered affordable to the middle classed American due to their large expense. “The subsidies are the biggest single cost in the health care proposals. In the Baucus bill, it is $463 billion over 10 years; the cost is $773 billion in the House bill.” The plan intends to families on the poverty line no more than 3% of their gross income on health insurance, however “this percentage would rise linearly to 13 percent up to 300 of the federal poverty level, and stay at that level up to 400 percent of the poverty level.” Lastly, one of the other issues combating this plan is whether or not illegal immigrants and their children would be covered in health insurance? The President stated that illegal immigrants should not be covered; however the children of the immigrants who were born within the United States should and will be. He also mentioned once the plan is implemented and successful, families who refuse to buy insurance or simply don’t have it will be charged a fine up to $3,800.

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