Liberal Senators Plan More Modest Health Care Package

With the passage of a comprehensive health care reform package looking more and more unlikely, some liberal senators are putting together a plan that would insure all children and give the states money for long-term home care. Moderate Republicans have responded favorably to the plan, which aides say is modest in scope and cost, adding that while the plan is not true reform it does point Congress in the right direction.

Such a plan would cost no more than $240 billion over 10 years - about the same as Senator Bob Dole's plan, and about $100 billion less than the mainstream plan. Elements of the proposal include: giving low income families subsidies to buy insurance for children under 18 to achieve universal coverage for that group; allowing full deduction of insurance costs for the self employed; giving states block grants for home and community based long-term care; making insurance portable from job to job; and doing away with noncoverage of pre-existing conditions and limits on lifetime benefits.

The plan would raise $75 billion through Medicare savings and it would require wealthy seniors to pay a larger share of their doctor bills, saving another $35 billion. The balance of the financing would come from raising the cigarette tax by between 75 cents and a dollar.