A draft proposal in the Senate to overhaul the nation’s health-care system would require most people to buy health insurance, authorize an expansion of Medicaid coverage and create consumer-owned cooperative plans instead of the government coverage that President Obama is seeking. The document, distributed among members of the Senate Finance Committee yesterday afternoon, addressed none of the funding questions that have consumed House and Senate negotiators in recent days. But it included an array of coverage provisions that were drastically scaled back from earlier versions, as lawmakers seek to shrink the bill’s overall cost. The proposal, for instance, would reduce the pool of middle-class beneficiaries eligible for a new tax credit meant to make insurance more affordable. The absence of a ‘public option’ marks perhaps the most significant omission. Obama and many Democrats had sought a public option to ensure affordable, universal coverage, but as many as 10 Senate Democrats have protested the idea as unfair to private insurers. In its place, the draft circulated yesterday outlines a co-op approach modeled after rural electricity and telecom providers, subject to government oversight and funded with federal seed money. Yesterday, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) met with […]