Nate Silver over at fivethirtyeight.com gives his take on Montana Sen. Max Baucus’ healthcare reform compromise as reported by<a href="http://www.flatheadbeacon.com/articles/article/baucus_senate_group_omit_employer_mandates_from_health_bill/11996/" title=" the Associated Press Monday night”> the Associated Press Monday night. If, in fact, the legislation does eliminate a mandate that would require employers to provide health insurance for their employees, Silver argues that the bill would cover fewer people for the same cost.
Does this look familiar to anyone?
— No employer mandate
— No public option
— But yes, an individual mandateIt should — because this particular permutation on health care reform looks an awful lot like the incomplete draft of the HELP Committee’s bill that the CBO scored last month, which also lacked an employer mandate and a public option but contained an individual mandate. That bill, the CBO estimated, would cost about $1.0 trillion — but would only cover a net of about 16 million people. In contrast, the revised version of the HELP Committee’s bill, which did include both a public option and an employer mandate, would cost about the same amount but cover a net of 37 million people.