The House Health Care Bill; Public Plan Better for Physicians

From Physician News, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) officially unveiled the House health care reform bill that is headed to the House floor.

Read a summary of the bill here:
http://edlabor.house.gov/blog/2009/10/affordable-health-care.shtml

The full bill is available online here:
http://docs.house.gov/rules/health/111_ahcaa.pdf

The Affordable Health Care for America Act includes a public health insurance option that would be required to negotiate with providers. The Huffington Post reports, to appease providers concerned about losing money to a more Medicare-like option, the proposed public plan in this bill would allow doctors and hospitals to negotiate rates as they do with private insurers. The catch is that a provision was removed from this bill that would have blocked cuts in Medicare payments to physicians. That provision has been made into its own bill.