House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) unveiled on Thursday an $894 billion House comprehensive health reform package.
House committees have been at work on a health reform bill since early this summer. Thursday's bill represents the most current compromise between three House bills and is the first glimpse of the actual language for the public's review. Pelosi said the 1,990-page bill would be posted online.
According to Pelosi, the Affordable Health Care for America Act (H.R. 3962) would provide affordability to the middle class, rein in premiums, co-pays and deductibles, limit out-of-pocket costs and lift the cap on what insurance companies cover each year.
"The Affordable Health Care for America Act is founded on key principles of American success: Opportunity, choice, competition and innovation," she said at a rally on Capitol Hill. "We have listened to the American people. We are putting forth a bill that reflects our best values and addresses our greatest challenges."
Pelosi said the House bill would reduce the deficit, meet President Barack Obama's call to keep the cost under $900 billion over 10 years and insure 36 million more Americans. She said it would expand coverage - including a public option to boost choice and competition in the health insurance reform - to 96 percent of all Americans and prevent health insurance plans from denying coverage based on pre-existing conditions.
No Republicans are expected to support the bill.
House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio called the bill a 1,990-page government takeover of healthcare. He said it was written behind closed doors to appease liberal special interests.
Obama said he's pleased that the bill includes a public option and called it "another critical milestone" in the effort to reform the American healthcare system.
"As I've said throughout this process, a public option that competes with private insurers is the best way to ensure choice and competition that are so badly needed in today's market," he said. "And the House bill clearly meets two of the fundamental criteria I have set out: it is fully paid for and will reduce the deficit in the long term."
Obama said he expects "much spirited debate" before a bill reaches his desk, but is confident a bill will pass.
A statement by the Business Roundtable, an association of chief executive officers of leading U.S. companies, expressed "strong concerns" about the House bill.
The Business Roundtable does not support a public option, which it says would "simply shift – rather than reduce – costs and will stifle the innovation that we need to continue improving our healthcare system." Instead, the group believes there could be greater competition by expanding the marketplace and getting more private plans to compete with new insurance market rules.
"As we pursue reform, we should not undermine the valuable coverage that the majority of Americans have," said John J. Castellani, the group's president.
The Business Roundtable claims its member companies comprise nearly a third of the total value of the U.S. stock markets and pay more than 60 percent of all corporate income taxes paid to the federal government.
The House bill comes as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) announced Monday he would be sending a Senate version of a health reform package to the Congressional Budget Office that includes a public option, but gives states the choice to opt out.
When the CBO has estimated the cost of the bill, Reid said he will bring it to the floor for an open debate and amendment process.