It’s just something that makes healthcare policy observers want to ask, “how public is this public option going to be after the merger of House and Senate versions of the reform bill occurs”? Now that the Baucus bill has been released and is being met favorably by fiscally conservative Democrats (as expected) and the more progressive wing of the party (somewhat surprising), criticisms are beginning to emerge in advance of Baucus’s committee’s vote on it next week. Most notably, a current report by the RWJ finds that older Americans under the Senate Finance Cmte. version will be paying more in premiums than much younger adults; this would only apply to those patients finding coverage on the open healthcare market or are uninsured.

This pits the actions of two groups of observers/lobbyists, the AARP and the AHIP, as a potential source of political friction once the Senate Finance version passes. Insurance plans would stand to gain in a plan in which the government would have to subsidize the inclusion of younger patients in a given pool of beneficiaries to offset the high risks incurred by covering, say, those over 65 who lack affordable insurance coverage. The AARP, needless to say, will be watching the merging process very closely in the run up to the final reform bill. They obviously have much to gain if uninsured seniors are not forced to pay premiums which may be as much as 5 times higher than what a younger adult under the Baucus-led bill would pay. | LINK

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