The House proposal would require the Secretary of Health and Human Services to develop cost reporting standards for ASC as a condition for coverage. The legislation proposes that some of the standards would include: quality of services furnished, such as data on health care associated infections.
Keep in mind that this is very early in the process. Senate versions of the legislation have not discussed ASCs.
The following is my latest analysis of the federal legislation. Mr. Obama’s original plan was to sign legislation into law by the first part of October 2009. However, he is now stating that early December is more likely (if it happens at all).
Keep in mind that the Senate Finance Committee will likely be the vehicle for moving a health care overhaul bill. The tremendous price tag associated with the public health insurance option (similar to Medicare) led to the Finance Committee scrapping that idea. Instead, they are now focused on a new federal charter called the Consumer Owned and Operated Plan (CO-OP). However, the public option could always come back into play.
The committee released its new concepts last week. They did not include potential offsets. Those will come after the July 4th congressional recess.
CO-OP Details (It’s in the Concept Stage)
Senate Budget Committee Chairman and Finance Committee Member Kent Conrad (D-ND) has floated a “compromise” that would create a new non-profit entity to facilitate the creation of “non-profit, non-government” health insurance plans. While the entity could be referred to as CO-OP, the acronym actually does not stand for “cooperative.”
The entity would require a national chartering and financing organization that provides seed money to form nonprofit health plans in each state. It would have the authority to go approve a nonprofit health plan in each state and override state insurance commissioners. An advisory committee would make recommendations to HHS regarding new seed money and other items to create non-profit plans.
More liberal Senators want a national health insurance co-op instead of Senator Conrad’s state-based insurance plans. So there is a battle over this right now.
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