Healthy Americans Act

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The Healthy Americans Act (HAA), also known as the Wyden-Bennett Act, is a Senate bill that had proposed to improve health care in the United States, with changes that included the establishment of universal health care. It would transition away from employer-provided health insurance, to employer-subsidized insurance, having instead individuals choose their health care plan from state-approved private insurers. It sought to make the cost of health insurance more transparent to consumers, with the expectation being that this would increase market pressures to drive health insurance costs down. The proposal created a system that would be paid for by both public and private contributions. It would establish Healthy Americans Private Insurance Plans (HAPIs) and require those who do not already have health insurance coverage, and who do not oppose health insurance on religious grounds, to enroll themselves and their children in a HAPI. According to its sponsors, it would guarantee universal, affordable, comprehensive, portable, high-quality, private health coverage that is as good or better than Members of Congress have today; A 2008 preliminary analysis by the Congressional Budget Office concluded it would be "essentially" self-financing in the first year that it was fully implemented.

Specific provisions include:^[1] Making employer-provided insurance portable by converting the current tax exclusion for health benefits into a tax deduction for individuals; for example, the deduction that a typical family of four would receive would be $19,000 nearly 50% more than the $13,000 they spent on health care;^[2] The establishment or identification of a "State Health Help Agency" in each U.S. state government which would administer the HAPI plans in each state, help its citizens evaluate the options available, oversee enrollment, and help with the transition from Medicaid and CHIP, among other responsibilities; The Federal Employees Health Benefits Program and State Children's Health Insurance Program would be replaced;^[3] Medicaid participants are transitioned out of that program (the bill's co-sponsor, Senator Ron Wyden (D-Oregon), calls Medicaid a "caste system ... that is unfair" to the poor and to taxpayers).^[2]

It was introduced in January 2007 (S. 334) and re-introduced in February 2009 (S. 391), each time with over a dozen co-sponsors from both major parties.^[4]

Senators Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) and Robert F. Bennett (R-Utah), the bill's two sponsors, asked the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) to provide a preliminary analysis of a version of the Healthy Americans Act. In a letter dated May 1, 2008, CBO and JCT provided a preliminary conclusion that the proposal would be "roughly budget-neutral in 2014." The letter cautioned, however, that this did not constitute a formal estimate.^[5]