I’ve been busy lately … How’s everyone doing?
Has anyone read the following?
Ezra Klein: Have Scott Brown and Ron Wyden figured out the way forward on health care?
- This morning, Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Scott Brown (R-Mass.) introduced the “Empowering States to Innovate Act.” The legislation would allow states to develop their own health-care reform proposals that would preempt the federal government’s effort. If a state can think of a plan that covers as many people, with as comprehensive insurance, at as low a cost, without adding to the deficit, the state can get the money the federal government would’ve given it for health-care reform but be freed from the individual mandate, the exchanges, the insurance requirements, the subsidy scheme and pretty much everything else in the bill.
- Wyden, with the help of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), was able to build a version of this exemption into the original health-care reform bill, but for various reasons, was forced to accept a starting date of 2017 — three years after the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act goes into effect. The Wyden/Brown legislation would allow states to propose their alternatives now and start implementing them in 2014, rather than wasting time and money setting up a federal structure that they don’t plan to use.
Please go and read the entire article.
And if you are wondering what it is that the two of them are attempting to have implemented before 2017 — here is the portion of the law that Wyden had gotten placed in the bill during mark-up:
Try Page 212 : SEC. 1332. WAIVER FOR STATE INNOVATION pdf
They are attempting to move the date of the implementation of that section up from the planned start date of 2017.
I hope this helps you get a grip on what Wyden and Brown are working on.
Once Upon a Paradigm 
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