The so-called ‘Gang of Six’ will be meeting today at 2:30pm to consider Sen. Max Baucus’s (D-MT) broad framework for a bipartisan health care bill. Previous reports have indicated that the committee was replacing the employer mandate with a free rider provision, establishing a cooperative in place of the public option, and financing reform by taxing ‘Cadillac’ health care benefits.

In early August, Baucus revealed that the preliminary estimates from the CBO show that the committee’s plan would cover 94% of all Americans, cost some $900 billion. According to media reports, Baucus’ latest framework comes in at around $880 billion over 10 years. The Wonk Room obtained a summary of Baucus’ plan and compiled this comparison of existing legislation:

It’s unclear if Baucus’ outline will attract bipartisan support. Earlier today, during an appearance on C-SPAN, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) indicated that he would not support Baucus’ bill, saying that “the document Senator Baucus would put out would not fall into that category because it is about $900 billion. I was hoping that something in the $700 billion range would work.” Grassley explained that the town hall meetings — “democracy in action,” he called it — convinced him to “slow down” and support a smaller bill with “offsets that were fairly easily to arrive at.”

Meanwhile, some liberal Democrats may be surprised that the benefits offered to the new Medicaid beneficiaries “would generally be less generous than the comprehensive benefits available to other Medicaid recipients.” The Baucus proposal also offers smaller benefit packages than the House bill, allows for higher limits on out of pocket medical costs, and requires individuals to spend a higher percent of their income on premiums before receiving subsidies.

The bill also establishes “a separate ‘young invincible’” program that “would be targeted to young adults who desire a less expensive catastrophic coverage plan.” While Massachusetts offers similar plans, most health reform advocates believe the coverage to be inadequate. According to the outline circulated by Baucus, this proposal would contain “a requirement that preventive services be covered below the catastrophic amount. Cost-sharing for preventive benefits would be allowed.”

Last month, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) was widely criticized for saying that Americans “have every right to fear” the end-of-life counseling provisions in the House health care bill. “We should not have a government program that determines if you’re going to pull the plug on grandma,” Grassley said during a town hall in Iowa.

This morning on C-SPAN, Grassley defended his statement by arguing that “there is another political leader, higher up in the hierarchy that used that than I did” and suggested that if Americans “connect several dots,” it would become obvious that the bill could euthanize seniors:

Well, there is another political leader, higher up in the hierarchy that used that than I did…And then the Washington Post, or some newspaper later on said something about Sarah Palin. Well, Sarah Palin said that presumably before I said it…But if you figure, if you connect several dots, you got, the concern about saving money in this health care bill, you’ve got the concern about a public option leading to a government run health care plan, and then you got the Veterans Administration putting out a book saying that all of the doctors have to deal with end of life issues for everyone that is in that system, and then you’ve got all of that put together. And quite frankly, between government running everything and paying a doctor to give that advise, everybody figures that the government is going to be in the middle of end of life issues just like they are in England, as an example.

Watch it:

In reality, the so-called ‘death panel provision,’ Section 1233 of the House Tri Committee bill, would allow Medicare to reimburse providers for consulting with patients about end-of-life issues; nothing in the section mandates a consultation. In fact, the provision builds on President Bush’s efforts to expand Medicare coverage to “counseling the beneficiary with respect to end-of-life issues and care options” for terminally ill patients. In 2003, Grassley voted in favor of the provision as part of Bush’s Medicare drug bill.

The Wonk Room has compiled a list of Grassley’s most egregious misrepresentations and will continue monitoring and fact checking Grassley’s statements throughout the reform process. Read the full document HERE.

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