The Senate plan proposes around-the-clock inspections of Mexican trucks at the border and would require Mexican trucking companies to get insurance from an insurer licensed to operate in the United States.
Millions of people get insurance from companies that do not meet the target.
At the moment, eight other employees get insurance from spouses who work elsewhere, leaving 13 permanent and temporary staffers without any insurance at all.
That seemed a safe enough promise to make, because most who today get insurance from their employers will not be entering the Obamacare exchanges.
Whether they get insurance from their employer or buy it themselves, workers would receive the same credit, creating an incentive to shop around for the cheapest coverage.
Between one-quarter and one-third of them probably do not get insurance from their employers, according to health insurance experts.
Speaker Silver said this week in an interview that he still supported repealing the law, on the theory that most car renters can get insurance from credit card companies.
It needs to look for a way to protect Americans' ability to get insurance from terrorist attacks that does not amount to a wholesale giveaway of taxpayer dollars to private industry.
As a result, any sensible health-insurance system going forward needs to sever Americans' ability to get insurance from job status — people need to be able to quit their jobs, start new businesses, and so on, and still know that they won't go bankrupt if they get sick.
Under this system, by the way, a few people — basically young, healthy individuals who don't already get insurance from their employers, and whose incomes are high enough that they won't benefit from subsidies — will end up paying more for insurance than they do now.
