H.R. 3962, the Affordable Health Care for America Act, passed the House last night, 220 for and 215 against. Every Republican except one voted against it.  There were 39 Democrats that voted against it.  The Senate now has to pass their version of the bill.

So what’s this mean?  Here’s a list of some of the key provisions of the bill (from CBS News’ Political Hotsheet):

• Creates a public health insurance option and a national exchange for the uninsured and small businesses to purchase health insurance. The Secretary of Health and Human Services would negotiate rates with doctors and hospitals on reimbursement rates.
• The bill includes mandates for individuals to purchase and businesses to provide health insurance or pay a fine. Individual penalty is 2.5 percent of gross income unless they get a waiver. Businesses that don’t offer insurance pay a fine equal to 8 percent of their payroll. Businesses with a payroll of less than $500,000 are exempt from the mandate.
• Insurance companies are prohibited from denying coverage based on a pre-existing condition. There are caps on deductibles and annual out of pocket spending is capped at $5000.
• Allows individuals up to 27-years-old to stay on their parent’s health insurance
• As amended, it prohibits federal funds from covering abortions. Women would need to purchase riders to insurance purchased on the exchange if they wanted that coverage.
• The bill taxes individuals making more than $500,000 and $1 million for couples. It is a 5.4 percent tax.

The public option will only be open to people who do not have insurance. I’m not sure how this will actually save money, but then again, I’m not an economist. It seems to me that if the goal was to lower health care costs, the public option should be open to everyone. The more people that are enrolled in the non-profit, government run health insurance, the less costly it will be.

I don’t like the provision that will fine people who choose not to purchase insurance. I think fining someone 2.5% of their gross income if they choose to go uninsured is too low. That’s less then they would pay for health insurance. If the goal is to get people to sign up for health insurance, then the fine should be something substantially higher then what they would pay for health insurance. If the fine is too low, some will choose to pay the fine. I also don’t like forcing businesses to offer insurance. Once again, a robust public option open to everyone would allow businesses to get out of the health insurance business and instead concentrate on their business.

I like the part about capping out-of-pocket expenses. I like it a lot. I’m just concerned that it’s too low. Five grand a year is a lot of money if you just don’t have it. The goal is to stop forcing people into bankruptcy if and when something catastrophic happens to them. Don’t get me wrong, a $5,000 cap is better than no cap.

The part about not covering abortions was put in the bill to appeal to members of the anti-abortion party, also known as the Republican party. A lot of good it did. All but one Republican voted against the bill. The bill does allow abortion in cases of rape, incest or where the life of a mother is threatened. How exactly does that work? Say a woman is raped and as a result, she becomes pregnant. Just how then is she to get her insurance to pay for the procedure? Does she have to first wait until her rapist is caught and then tried in a court of law? If her rapist is acquitted, does that mean she wasn’t raped? Also, how does one go about proving that the pregnancy is a result of incest? The whole thing seems incredibly stupid to me.