Health care reform to be chalenging task for President Obama
02 03 09 - 12:36
Obama: Health care reform will be tough task
BY STEVE KRASKEKansas City Star
The president knows exactly what Kathleen Sebelius is about to step into as the nation's new chief of health care reform.
"I suffer no illusions that this will be an easy process," President Obama told Congress on Tuesday night. "It will be hard."
And complicated. Filled with partisan warfare, lurking lobbies and pitfalls at every turn.
So far, Obama has outlined only a broad vision.
"The part on how you solve the health care cost puzzle while covering everyone is still missing," Paul Keckley, director of the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions in Washington, D.C., told Bloomberg News after the speech.
To the extent that he has offered details, Obama has queued up a series of related battles with Congress.
For starters, he wants to squeeze Medicaid and Medicare spending to create a 10-year, $634 billion "health reform reserve fund" that Obama billed as a "down payment" on his goal of providing health care for all.
He'd save some money by scaling back payments to private insurance plans that serve older Americans. That'll be a fight of its own.
Obama also wants to charge upper-income beneficiaries a higher premium for Medicare's prescription drug coverage. Some members of Congress will surely balk at that.
But even members of the president's party already are shaking their heads at the overall goal of coverage for all, saying the hundreds of billions being spent on bailouts and stimulus packages have left them gun-shy.
"We're just not going to be able to go there," said Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Kansas City. "We have no money."
Experts agree that the cost of achieving universal coverage could top $1 trillion over 10 years.
Kansas Sens. Sam Brownback and Pat Roberts noted "the huge price tag," in their joint congratulatory statement to Sebelius.
Another flash point: stem cell research is funded under an agency that would be under Sebelius' purview, the National Institutes of Health. Roman Catholic bishops remain opposed to embryonic stem cell research.
And abortion opponents said Obama had made a mistake.
"It means we're all in for trouble," said Mary Kay Culp, executive director of Kansans for Life. "She has a well-developed and very liberal opinion on health care policy."
On Saturday, Obama again addressed the challenges ahead in his weekly radio and video address that ranged over his plans to reform health care, energy and education.
"I know these steps won't sit well with the special interests and the lobbyists who are invested in the old way of doing business, and I know they're gearing up for a fight," Obama said in tough-guy language reminiscent of his predecessor, George W. Bush. "My message to them is this: So am I."
Compounding the issue is Sebelius' lack of Washington experience. While she knows many congressional players, she hasn't worked with them on an issue of such import.
Still, she has her backers in Kansas, who maintained Saturday that she's up to the job.
Kansas State Treasurer Dennis McKinney, who was a key ally as House minority leader, said her insider knowledge of health care issues makes her a perfect fit.
"Health care reform is more than a passing interest with her. She's actually pretty wonkish about this," he said.
Senate President Steve Morris, R-Hugoton, said Sebelius knows how Medicaid has come to eat up state budgets, and she'll bring that perspective to Washington.
"That's a heavy-duty position that has a lot of impact on Kansas and all the other states," he said. "It's a good opportunity for her, and I think it will be a good opportunity for Kansas."