After months of ongoing negotiations, Senate Finance Committee chair Max Baucus (D-MT) released a 220-page draft bill today that lays out the committee’s priorities moving forward.  The short title of the bill is the America’s Health Future Act. 

The bill draft, for the most part, follows the framework released last week, does not include a public option and is projected to cost $865 billion over 10 years.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates the fully paid for package will increase health coverage and reduce federal deficit within 10 years.

According to a released statement, coverage provisions include:

• Creates health care affordability tax credits to help low and middle income families purchase insurance in the private market.
• Provides tax credits for small businesses to help them offer insurance to their employees.
• Allows people who like the coverage they have today the choice to keep it.
• Reforms the insurance market to end discrimination based on pre-existing conditions and health status .
• Eliminates yearly and lifetime limits on the amount of coverage plans provide.
• Creates Web-based insurance exchanges that would standardize health plan premiums and coverage information to make purchasing insurance easier.
• Gives consumers the choice of non-profit, consumer-owned and oriented plans.
• Standardizes Medicaid coverage for everyone under 133 percent of the federal poverty level.

Provisions included in the legislation to improve the quality of care, increase efficiency within the health care system, and lower health care costs would:

• Shift incentives in Medicare to reward better care, not just more care.
• Increase the number of primary care physicians in the system.
• Aggressively fight fraud, waste and abuse in Medicare.
• Encourage all of a patient’s physicians to coordinate care and reduce duplication and waste.
• Create incentives for health care providers to improve quality by using safer, more cost-effective health technology like electronic medical records.
• Increase health care research so physicians know what care works best for which patients.

 Provisions included in the legislation to promote preventive health care and wellness would:

• Provide annual “wellness visits” for Medicare participants and their doctors to focus on prevention.
• Eliminate out-of-pocket costs for screening and prevention services in Medicare.
• Create incentives in Medicare and Medicaid for completing healthy lifestyle programs.
• Increase federal Medicaid funding for states that cover recommended preventive services and immunizations for enrollees at no extra cost.
• Provide free tobacco cessation services for pregnant women in Medicaid.

The Finance Committee will spend the next few weeks debating and amending the mark-up before it will be merged with the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee’s bill , and finally make it to the Senate Floor for a vote.

The Chairman’s Mark can be viewed here.