WASHINGTON, Jan. 29 — Millions of low-income people would have to pay more for health care under a bill worked out by Congress, and some of them would forgo care or drop out of Medicaid because of the higher co-payments and premiums, the Congressional Budget Office says in a new report.
The Senate has already approved the measure, the first major effort to rein in federal benefit programs in eight years, and the House is expected to vote Wednesday, clearing the bill for President Bush.
The general debate, about HSAs and whatnot, is going to be a bit trickier. It'll be easy for Bush to do much what he did with Social Security - never actually propose a plan as the Broders of the world demanded the Democrats propose a plan to fix what wasn't broken - by framing it in nice terms like choice, and tax cuts, and some bogus stats pulled from a non-specified plan which will prove that x million new people will be "insured" under his non-plan, of course that insurance won't actually cover anything.