Baucus modifies health bill

WASHINGTON — The chairman of the Senate Finance Committee was revising his sweeping health-care bill Monday to address serious concerns from fellow Democrats and a key Republican about insurance costs, part of his ongoing struggle to deliver on President Barack Obama's top domestic priority.

The changes came a day ahead of a committee session beginning today to amend and vote on the bill, which Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., hopes his panel will approve by the end of the week.

The 10-year, $856 billion package would extend coverage to about 29 million Americans who lack it now and institute insurance market changes, such as prohibiting higher premiums for women or the denial of coverage to sick people. It would make almost everyone buy insurance or pay a fee, would give subsidies to the poor to help them buy coverage and would create new online exchanges where small businesses and people without government or employer-provided insurance could shop for plans and compare prices.

Baucus faces the task of keeping his 13 committee Democrats on board without moving so far to the left that he alienates Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, the only one of the panel's 10 Republicans seen as likely to vote for the bill.

Snowe and a number of Finance Committee Democrats have raised concerns about whether subsidies in Baucus' bill are generous enough to make insurance truly affordable for low-income people. There are also concerns about a new tax on high-value insurance plans, which some fear would hit middle-class workers even though Baucus is directing it at so-called Cadillac insurance plans that he says are enjoyed by a minority of U.S. workers.

Senators have offered a raft of amendments on both issues, and Baucus is incorporating some of the approaches in revised legislation he'll unveil at today's committee meeting.

Details weren't final, but one possibility was to lower the maximum amount of income people could pay in premiums before becoming eligible for subsidies. It's now 13 percent.

Another was to adjust the new insurance excise tax - now set to hit plans valued at $21,000 for a family and $8,000 for an individual - so that it's limited to even more expensive plans over time.

Baucus will expand subsidies for people trying to buy health insurance through an online exchange, said Democratic Sen. Kent Conrad of North Dakota, who sits on the finance panel.

He's also likely to cut back an excise tax on so-called Cadillac plans so fewer people would be affected by the levy, an issue important to labor unions.

Baucus discussed other amendments with fellow Democrats, including one to lower penalties for those who fail to buy insurance. Conrad said Baucus is likely to cut in half a $3,800 penalty for families that don't meet the insurance mandate.

Liberals like Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., want the bill to include a new public insurance plan to compete with the private market. Baucus included nonprofit co-ops instead, and Rockefeller plans to try to delete those and incorporate a public plan. Committee Republicans, for their part, have readied amendments to strike core portions of the bill and replace them with GOP priorities such as caps on medical malpractice payouts.

Meanwhile, the government is investigating a major insurance company for allegedly trying to scare seniors with a mailer warning they could lose important benefits under health care legislation in Congress.

The Health and Human Services Department launched its investigation of Humana after getting a complaint from Baucus.

"It is wholly unacceptable for insurance companies to mislead seniors regarding any subject - particularly on a subject as important to them, and to the nation, as health-care reform," Baucus said Monday, disclosing the investigation.

Humana Inc., headquartered in Louisville, Ky., is cooperating with the investigation and stopped the mailer earlier this month, company spokesman Tom Noland said Monday.

Information for this article was contributed by Joann Loviglio and Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar of The Associated Press and by Lara Litvan of Bloomberg News.