CQ's Schuler Addresses AHPs, HSAs, Budget

Main Category: Health Insurance / Medical Insurance
Article Date: 15 Mar 2006 - 23:00 PDT

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Congressional Quarterly reporter Kate Schuler discusses legislation that would help small businesses with health plans, health savings accounts, the fiscal year 2007 budget in this week's "Health on the Hill from kaisernetwork.org and CQ." Schuler notes that last week Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chair Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) revised a bill (S 1955) that would allow small businesses to join together to obtain better health insurance rates. Initially, Enzi's bill would have required such health plans to include coverage for anything mandated by at least 45 states. Last week, he offered a bill that would allow plans to bypass state laws if they included benefits similar to state government health employee plans in one of the five most populous states -- California, Florida, Illinois, New York or Texas. In a markup of the bill, Democrats prepared 68 amendments and the debate "proceeded slowly," with the committee reconvening Wednesday, Schuler says. Schuler also discusses President Bush's plan to expand HSAs, including Senate Finance Committee Chair Chuck Grassley's (R-Iowa) statement last week that his committee likely would not mark up such legislation. In related news, data released last week by America's Health Insurance Plans shows that enrollment in high-deductible health plan has risen from 438,000 in September 2004 to about 3.2 million in January. Finally, Schuler talks about how lawmakers have abandoned plans to include another round of spending cuts for Medicare and Medicaid in the fiscal year 2007 budget (Schuler, "Health on the Hill from kaisernetwork.org and CQ," 2/21).

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The complete audio version of "Health on the Hill," transcript and resources for further research are available online.

"Reprinted with permission from http://www.kaisernetwork.org. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at http://www.kaisernetwork.org/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for kaisernetwork.org, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation . © 2005 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.

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