Sen. Grassley emphasizes that comprehensive health care reform does not have to include government health insurance program
20 03 09 - 11:25
Sen. Grassley wary of federal health benefit
By Jeffrey Young - The Hill
Key Democratic and Republican senators have given themselves just three months to get a major healthcare bill to the floor but the biggest obstacle to an agreement remains unresolved: whether to create a new, federal health benefit.
Senate Finance Committee ranking member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) underscored the difficulty of surmounting this problem while praising President Obama and his Democratic colleagues for the negotiation process so far.
During his presidential campaign, Obama proposed creating a government-financing health insurance program that would compete with private insurers. Though Obama’s budget does not include that aspect of his health reform proposal, Democrats such as Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and his counterparts in the House appear committed to erecting some form of new government benefit, which they refer to as the public plan option.
“This is a deal-breaker for Republicans if it’s in and it’s a deal-breaker for Democrats if it’s not in,” Grassley said during a briefing with reporters hosted by the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation on Thursday. “I think it’s a step toward single-payer, government-run healthcare for everyone," he said.
“Is there a compromise in between? I don’t see one today,” Grassley said. “It’s one of the most difficult things and I don’t see any compromise in this area.”
Despite this, Grassley said that his and Baucus’s plan to get a health reform bill out of their committee in June is realistic. “If we don’t set an aggressive agenda, it’s not going to get done this year,” he said.
There is broad agreement on many issues, Grassley said, such as the need to address geographic disparities in healthcare spending and medical practice, focus on primary care providers, reduce over-utilization of healthcare services and use the Medicare payment system to promote quality medical care.
Grassley also said that in addition to Obama’s recent White House health reform summit, the regular meetings and discussions between himself, Baucus, Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee Chairman Edward Kennedy (D-Mass) and ranking member Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.), and other senators, continue to be productive because no one has yet ruled anything out.
“At this point, everything’s on the table,” Grassley said. “You don’t negotiate if everything’s not on the table — even if there’s something that’s on the table that, if it’s on the table at the end, you don’t have a deal.”
Grassley also stressed that working around the disagreement public plan option may be difficult but it is not impossible. “I take the view that there’s almost anything compromisable in public affairs — except probably the issue of abortion,” he said.
However, Grassley suggested that a health reform package that establishes a minimum health insurance package could provide the kind of security Democrats think can only come from a public plan. “You set up a certain minimum that every insurance policy has to have and then the options are: Who do you want to buy from in the private sector?”
Despite the obstacle of how to handle the public plan option, Grassley reiterated his view that comprehensive health reform is necessary and that it must be legislated in 2009.
Echoing arguments made by Obama, Baucus and other Democrats, Grassley declared: “I think if it isn’t done this year, it won’t be done for the next four years.”
“If it doesn’t get done this year, why won’t it get done? One word: elections,” Grassley said, adding that the reform needs to be comprehensive. “If we do something incremental this year, we’re never going to get comprehensive healthcare reform."
Grassley dismissed criticisms that Obama and Congress cannot tackle major health reform because of the state of the economy and charges that the president’s agenda is too ambitious.
“You know, some people that maybe want to move more slowly in this area than Sen. Baucus and I do maybe have brought that up without saying that they really want to slow down healthcare reform,” Grassley said. “That’s part of [their] motive.”
“Congress legislated during World War II. We may have a war on recession but we can also legislate in this very important area and we will,” he said.
As many Republicans have emphasized, Grassley also repeated his view that health reform should move through the Senate through regular order without debate being limited by filibuster-proof budget reconciliation rules. The package also should be budget-neutral, with all new spending offset by cuts or new revenue, he said.