This is just a remarkably bad idea. Harry Reid wants to continue capping annual insurance benefits. Which is terrible news if you have cancer or something similar. Ezra Klein:
"A loophole in the Senate health care bill would let insurers place annual dollar limits on medical care for people struggling with costly illnesses such as cancer," reports the AP. The Senate Finance Committee barred annual caps altogether. The merged Senate bill only erases "unreasonable" annual caps. What's "unreasonable?" Hard to say.
Hill sources explain that this was inserted because CBO said premiums would "go through the roof" if insurers couldn't cap benefits. The official quote from Jim Manley, Harry Reid's spokesperson, says much the same thing. "We are concerned that banning all annual limits, regardless of whether services are voluntary, could lead to higher premiums," he explained.
Benefit caps, aka. annual limits, are one of the most abusive health insurance tricks in the book. Allowing such a thing to continue will seriously neuter the idea of healthcare reform. We pay these monthly premiums and they're supposed to finance our medical care if we get sick. But the status quo doesn't always allow that.
There are the deductibles, the co-pays, the co-insurance and the benefit caps that prevent you from getting the care you paid for. What's next? Preexisting conditions? Gotta keep those premiums down, right? Then jettison the preexisting condition and rescission language. Hell, get rid of all of the patient protections and just write up a bailout for the cartel. Good job, Mr. Reid.
By the way, as Jon Walker points out, the House bill eliminates the benefit cap and, despite that, the CBO didn't suggest that premiums will skyrocket. I think there's some conservadem/Lieberdem maneuvering going on here.