I just saw a beaming Susan Collins and Ron Wyden on MSNBC. They were touting their new amendments to the Senate health care proposal and telling us that what we mostly care about is bipartisanship. While they were extemely short on details, the gist of it was that Americans want choice and the choice they are going to make sure we get is the choice to buy a high-deductible, low-coverage policy otherwise known as a catastrophic plan.
Under their amendment, employers will be able to dump their employees into the exchanges so they can purchase high deductible, low coverage insurance that's cheaper because it provides less coverage. So, along with those of us in the private market who have to buy lousy insurance because that's all we can afford. Now, people who get their insurance from their employers will get the right to buy lousy insurance. Welcome to the $5000 (or more) deductible my non-self-employed friends.
Here's the most detail on this new proposal that I was able to find. I shouldn't really call it new because it's not so different from something Max Baucus brought up a couple of months ago.
So, do Americans care about bipartisanship. Not so much. They really just want solid health care.
This is just another sad example of how out of touch all of our Senators are. It will be interesting to see how HCAN spins this into a new version of the public option.