House health reform bill released

Under pressure from the Obama administration to stay on schedule, the House released all 1,018 pages of the America’s Affordable Health Choices Act. DeAnn Friedholm, Consumers Union’s health care reform campaign director, has been following it closely and released this statement today:

“This bill is a major milestone on the road to health reform.  The bill ensures that virtually every American will always have dependable, affordable, comprehensive health care. It sets in place measures to reduce health inflation and improve the quality of care.  It goes a long way toward addressing consumers’ fear of bankruptcy from high health care costs.

“We’re especially pleased that the House added a requirement for the public reporting of healthcare acquired infections. An American dies about every 5 minutes—100,000 die every year—from largely preventable hospital acquired infections. At long last, this bill offers a national response to this deadly problem, by providing public information on what each local hospital is doing to stop these unnecessary deaths. The light of publicity will enable consumers—and dedicated medical staffs—to insist on major quality reforms.”

The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein likes what he sees, and notes that the Congressional Budget Office has scored it as covering 97 percent of Americans for $1 trillion over ten years.

Here’s the full bill*. Happy Reading!

UPDATE: For more analysis of the House Bill from Consumers Union's heath advocates, see their post at PrescriptionForChange.org. Also see our previous discussion of the House bill.

—Kevin McCarthy, associate editor

*links to PDF

Comments

[Jesse Arnold]

I now question Consumer Reports claim of being non biased. The glowing review of the health care plan with no comments or concerns is very alarming to me. I now wonder what other information you have given me is tainted as well.