NYT: Interactive Chart Comparing the House and Senate Health Care Proposals

It puts the entire burden of setting up a public option onto the states. Combine that with the opt-out, and they've essentially killed the public option.

as it currently applies to managed care. States can opt to subsidize abortion coverage if they want.

and Neither in this summary address cost controls. Antitrust being the real factor. Also no mention of the 85% minimum for premiums to cover actual costs.

Without the controls in the house version (and even with those controls) there's little preventing the insurers and healthcare providers from getting together and determining what the "actual costs" of care are. For example: What the insurers define as costs includes the profit margins for the providers, equipment suppliers (and their margins), and drugs admistered during treatment (and their margins). So the insurance profits may or may not be limited to 15% (this isn't addressed in this chart), but that 15% is after everyone else gets paid and takes their profits.

Profits at the end are controlled, but the costs don't seem to be. As we learned from the oil companies, they've made the arguement that their margins are the same - no matter what the costs are. But we also saw them make record gross profits when gas was at 4 bucks a gallon, simply because 2% of for bucks is twice as much in dollar amount to 2% of two bucks.

Not universal, which was the point of mandates. But still mandated. The opposite of candidate Obama's declared positions, in fact it is exactly the position of Clinton, a position Obama held up for ridicule. A position his supporters did ridicule. Now they are all in favor of it, because universal means mandated. Except that universal does not leave out millions of our neighbors.

(Senate plan also saves money by not starting up the health insurance exchanges until 2014, providing less generous basic plan benefits (60% vs. House's 70%) and no subsidies for those above 300% of the federal poverty level (altho their premiums and out-of-pocket expenses are capped. There is also apparently no drug price negotiations in Medicare).

The Journal reports that the Senate approach "comes down mostly on the liberal side on the question of a new government-run health-insurance plan...," though under the Senate's public option, states could opt not to participate. "As in the House, the Senate plan would have the public plan negotiate payment rates directly with health-care providers, rather than tying payments to Medicare's low rates." In addition, "to ease the financial burden on workers," the bill would cap "premiums at 9.8 percent of income, down from 12 percent" (Hitt and Adamy, 11/19).

http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Daily-Reports/2009/November/19/Senate-Health-Bill-Overview.aspx

(I also have not figured out what subsidies, if any, apply to those in the 300-400% of poverty-altho their premiums are capped at 9.8% of their modified AGI and there is a cap on out-of-pocket expenses. Information out today is conflicting.)

In the Senate plan, subsidies kick in to ensure that people between 100 percent and 150 percent of the poverty line get coverage equivalent to platinum plans, and people between 150 percent and 200 percent get the equivalent of gold. Folks up to 300 percent of poverty (and potentially 400 percent, though I haven't totally figured it out) get coverage equivalent to the silver. So the bronze plans, which will have quite a lot of cost-sharing, are only really going to be available to folks with some money behind them.

By Ezra Klein | November 19, 2009; 11:15 AM ET

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/11/defining_health_benefits.html