Baucus Bill: A Big Cost For Taxpayers

Dennis Smith / October 06, 2009

An important part of a magician’s trick is to keep the audience’s focus away from what he is actually doing. In the case of health care reform, the discussion of affordability has focused on how much the individual or family will still have to pay after our health insurance system has been “reformed.” Little attention has been paid to the how much those individuals will receive from their neighbors in order to entice them to join the rest of the insured.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has provided a table that analyzes the subsidies and enrollee payments under the Finance Committee Mark that has just concluded. The table shows that CBO estimates the average cost of the “silver” plan for a family policy will be $14,400. A family of four with income between 100 and 150 percent of the federal poverty level will receive a subsidy equal to 90 percent of the cost, leaving the family to pay $1,400. That is a subsidy of $13,000. (more…)