As House Speaker Nancy Pelosi pushed forward with plans for House members to vote on the House Democratic Leadership’s proposed health care reform package, Congressman Michael Burgess (R-Tx), a physician, on November 4 introduced a much shorted health care reform proposal, the Guaranteed Access to Health Insurance Act of 2009 (HR 4020).
HR 4020 proposes various reforms intended to expand coverage by enabling States to establish reinsurance programs or high risk pools to ensure that high risk individuals are able to access health insurance.
Under HR 4020, Congress would provide grants to states to “encourage” each state to provide a backstop to help ensure the availability of health care coverage by establishing either a qualified State reinsurance program or a qualifying State high risk pool as described in HR 4020. As proposed, HR 402 provides that only citizens and nationals of the United States could participate in a qualifying State high risk pool or qualifying State reinsurance program receiving funding under its provisions. Congressman Burgess proposes that Congress initially authorized $20,000,000,000 to be appropriated to fund the grants.
If you have questions about or need assistance monitoring, evaluating, commenting on or responding to this or any other health care reform proposal or other federal or state health care, workforce or other legislative, regulatory or other developments or concerns, please contact the author of this article, Curran Tomko Tarski LLP Labor & Employment Practice Group Chair Cynthia Marcotte Stamer. Board Certified in Labor & Employment Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization and Chair of the American Bar Association RPTE Employee Benefits & Other Compensation Group, Ms. Stamer is experienced with assisting employers and others about compliance with federal and state health care, employee benefit, workforce and other legislation and regulation. Ms. Stamer has advised and represented clients about these and other health care labor and employment, compensation, employee benefit and other personnel and staffing matters for more than 20 years. Ms. Stamer also speaks and writes extensively on these and other related matters. Her public policy experience includes ongoing involvement in these concerns within the U.S. for 30 years, as well as serving as a policy advisor on Social Security Reform to the Government of Bolivia and providing input or other representation to various other clients on workforce, health care and other policies in various other regions of the world.
For additional information about Ms. Stamer and her experience or to access other publications by Ms. Stamer see here or contact Ms. Stamer directly. For additional information about the experience and services of Ms. Stamer and other members of the Curran Tomko Tarksi LLP team, see here.
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