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Nearly everyone in America should have health insurance. A government-backed plan should compete against private insurers. And the government should help pay for coverage for those earning up to four or five times the poverty level.

Those are the broad outlines of both the health-reform bill Sen. Ted Kennedy released yesterday, and of a draft plan presented to House Democrats also yesterday. The House plan, which would also expand Medicaid, will define the “liberal end of the negotiating spectrum,” the WSJ notes.

The creation of a government-backed plan is opposed by many Republicans, and last week a group of fiscally conservative Democrats suggested that such a plan be used “only in the absence of adequate competition and cost containment.”

Leaders aren’t saying much yet about how they intend to pay for expanded insurance subsidies, but we’re still keeping our eye on taxes on high-end, employer-sponsored benefits, which are generally not taxed in the current system. Some Republicans (including John McCain) have backed this sort of tax.

Sen. Max Baucus said yesterday that he plans to release a measure next week that would tax employer-sponsored health benefits above a certain threshold, the Washington Post reports this morning.

And Charles Rangel, who chairs the House Ways and Means Committee, appears to have shifted a bit on the issue. A month ago he said there was “no way” he would back a tax on employer-backed health benefits. Asked yesterday whether he would consider such a tax, he said: “There is nothing, no matter how stupid it sounds, that I am rejecting,” the New York Times reports.

Photo: Associated Press

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Health Reform: Kennedy Releases Bill, House Dems Get Rolling