Murkowski Introduces Uninsured Tax Credit Health Bill

MURKOWSKI INTRODUCES UNINSURED TAX CREDIT HEALTH BILL

Measure will help uninsured, small businesses afford health insurance for workers

Saying the current high numbers of families without health insurance is bad for both families and for the national economy, Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski today introduced a targeted refundable tax credit to help both low- and middle-income families, as well as small businesses, afford health insurance. Murkowski, noting that 45 million Americans, about 200,000 of which were Alaskans, were without health insurance at some point during the past year, introduced the SAVE (Securing Access, Value and Equality) Health Care Act (S. 160)to help working-class Americans afford insurance and to help small businesses afford to provide insurance for their employees. She said the measure should help reduce the societal costs - estimated at between $65 billion and $130 billion yearly -- of public health care treating acute patients, compared to the lesser costs of providing better preventative care. "It is vital that more Americans be able to afford to buy health insurance. An estimated 18,000 uninsured Americans die each year because they received too little care, too late. Uninsured women and their newborn children receive less prenatal care and are thus more likely to have more problems during pregnancy and delivery. Uninsured Americans lack regular access to medications for management of conditions such as high-blood pressure, often seeing their ailments turn into heart attacks and strokes that cost many times more to treat than preventive medicine would have cost. "If we make health insurance more affordable, it will make a real difference to the nation's physical and economic health," said Murkowski. The bill is a well-rounded approach that would work in a variety of ways: • First it would provide working-class Americans with a refundable tax credit they can use to purchase health insurance.

*The act targets three-quarters of the total number of uninsured Americans by setting the eligibility at 350 percent of the poverty level, or helping Alaskans who on average make about $41,000, or $82,000 for a family of four. * Eligible individuals would receive an annual refundable tax credit of up to $1,000, or $3,000 per family, which would be advanced on a monthly basis. * To prevent fraud, the credit would be forwarded directly to a consumer's choice of insurers electronically and the aid could be used for coverage in individual markets, through state high-risk pools or for COBRA coverage. * The act also would cover an additional 50 percent of any health insurance premiums not covered by the basic credit. This provision would help those who have pre-existing health conditions or older Americans who face higher prices and who do not have access to employer-based insurance. * The bill also awards one-half of the credit to individuals meeting the income eligibility who have access to employer-sponsored plans to help them pay for their portion of health insurance premiums. • Secondly, the act allows premiums for qualified high-deductible health insurance plans connected to Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) to be tax-deductible. This will help millions of uninsured who can not obtain employer-sponsored health insurance be able to afford coverage. • Third, the bill provides small business owners with a refundable tax credit for contributions to their employees' HSAs. Employers will get $500 credits per worker with family coverage, $200 per worker with individual coverage. The provision is important since half of the uninsured are small business employees and their families. • Fourth, the bill extends and expands state high-risk pool insurance, providing $15 million in seed money to encourage states to set up such pools and $75 million as aid to the 31 states, including Alaska, who already operate high-risk pools. • And fifth, the act would establish a grant program to help states establish Voluntary Choice Cooperatives (VCCs). They would help small businesses negotiate coverage with insurers, helping to lower their costs to provide coverage for their workers. Murkowski said her legislation, for example, would provide a qualified average single individual presently paying $2,573 for health insurance annually, a tax credit of $1,787, leaving them with a premium of just $787 a year -- about $64 a month. For an average family of four currently paying about $6,470 for health insurance, the SAVE act would provide a tax credit of $4,485, cutting their cost to $1,985 a year - about $165 a month. Murkowski, who had introduced the bill last fall to give all groups a chance to review the measure over the winter, said the measure has received solid support from the public. The bill last year won the support of the Coalition for Affordable Health Coverage, and of the Alaska Comprehensive Health Insurance Association, which is a non-profit organization credited by state statute to provide health insurance to Alaska residents who are denied health insurance in the private market because of medical conditions. "This bill should help society by lowering the overall cost of health treatment, since preventive care costs less than catastrophic case," said Murkowski, noting that the government is directly spending $30 billion a year to provide health care to uninsured Americans through Medicare and Medicaid, through aid to public hospitals and through aid to state and local governments and other programs that pay for the direct care of indigent patients. The measure, her first bill introduced in the 109th Congress, now goes to the Senate Finance Committee for its review.

http://murkowski.senate.gov/pressapp/record.cfm?id=230887