[Vision2020] Health care {insurance} reform passed

[Andreas Schou]

>
>
> How in the world is anybody, let alone the country, supposed to keep this
> straight?
>

The actual law, as it'll be eventually codified, is incredibly intricate.
It's what courts and agencies need when they pull out parts of it and deal
with them on a piecemeal basis, and it's hammered out by committee staffers
long after the actual work of legislation is done. That level of detail is
necessary to ensure uniform enforcement by thousands of people in fifty
states, very few of whom actually have contact with the "home office." It's
also triple-spaced with 1.5" margins, in 14 point font,
so septuagenarian Congressmen can actually read it.

What the government actually uses to set policy is, however, much less
detailed. Most Congressmen deal with summaries of policy and descriptions of
how the policy is intended to work. The interrelations between all the
moving parts are assembled from those summaries. In this case, the main
documents involved are the chairman's marks, which are much easier to read.
This, for instance, is the text from Baucus's chairman's mark that
corresponds to the citation from the bill:

"Exemptions from the excise tax will be made for individuals where the full
premium of the lowest cost option available to them (net of subsidies and
employer contribution, if any) exceeds ten percent of their AGI [adjusted
gross income]."

Some of this (like the step up in subsidies from ten to eight percent of
AGI) has changed since the bill passed Congress. Summaries provided by
nonpartisan groups, or the chairman's mark itself, if you're willing to deal
with some outdated information, are probably the best source to engage with
the material directly.

Hope that helps.

-- ACS
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