Health Plan Includes Billions In Biz Taxes

Both businesses and individuals would be on the hook to buy health insurance under a reform plan being considered in Washington.

Health reform would be paid for by billions of dollars in business taxes under a proposal offered by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus that's being discussed by a bipartisan group of six senators.

The $900 billion plan is the only one that's being discussed in a friendly way by both Democrats and Republicans. Democrats in the House are pushing through legislation opposed by Republicans and a number of conservative members of their own party. President Obama lays out his reform demands tonight in a prime-time address to Congress.

Individuals would be required to buy insurance beginning in 2013 under the Baucus proposal and would pay steep penalties if they fail to do so. Families up to 300 percent of the poverty level that fail to buy insurance would pay as much as $1,500 a year. Higher-income families would pay up $3,800 a year. Insurers and a group of big employers favor an individual mandate to buy insurance as part of any reform.

Businesses would have their own mandate: firms above 50 employees would be required to insure their workers or pay a fee to the government. These fees would raise $300 billion over 10 years, a third of the plan's cost.

Companies that don't provide insurance to their employees would pay into a fund. The Baucus proposal stops short of calling this an employer mandate. Instead, a so-called "free-rider" fee would be assessed on business who don't insure their workers.

But it looks a lot like a mandate, something that small businesses have opposed.