When was the America's Healthy Future Act first proposed?
America's Healthy Future Act
The America's Healthy Future Act () was a law proposed by Democratic Senator Max Baucus of Montana, who chairs the Senate Finance Committee, on September 16, 2009. It is also colloquially known as the Baucus Health Bill, the Baucus Health Plan, or BaucusCare. Baucus initially publicly released a 223-page summary of the proposal. It started going through the Senate mark-up process on September 22. That amendment process finished Oct. 2, and was passed by the Finance Committee on October 13 by a 14 to 9 vote. An October CBO report stated that enacting the proposal would, on net, end up reducing the federal deficit by $81 billion over the 2010–2019 period.
Dick Armey
In 1999, Armey sponsored the Fair Care for the Uninsured Act, something that would later be proposed by Mark Kennedy after Armey left Congress. It proposed using tax credits to offset the cost of health insurance, allowing individuals to go outside the workplace to obtain private health coverage directly from an insurance company, and the creation of a "safety net" for the uninsured. The law never made it through Congress, but some of these concepts did make it into the Massachusetts health care reform of 2006 and from there into the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in 2010. Armey is a vocal opponent of the individual mandate to purchase health benefits. He also voiced public opposition to the individual mandate when it was proposed by First Lady Hillary Clinton during the contentious national health care reform debate of 1993 and 1994.