Centrist Democrats voice their opposition against public health insurance plan
08 05 09 - 12:36
Centrist Dems stake out ground on healthcare
By Jeffrey Young - The Hill
Centrist Democrats in both houses of Congress sought to make their voices heard on health reform Thursday as the Democratic lawmakers at the heart of the effort move closer to introducing legislation.
In the House, the New Democrat Coalition issued a statement of principles on health reform that emphasizes strengthening the private insurance market for employees of large and small businesses and for individuals.
Likewise, Sen. Ben Nelson (Neb.), the most conservative Democrat in the upper chamber, gave a speech on the Senate floor laying out his position on the overhaul the U.S. healthcare system.
Both the New Democrats, a caucus of more than 50 House members, and Nelson offer support for a variety of policy proposals, such as funding comparative effectiveness research on medical treatments, beefing up America’s health information technology infrastructure, speeding the availability of generic drugs and enacting significant reforms to the health insurance market.
“I believe that two of the highest priorities should be reducing the cost of healthcare and improving efficiency in our delivery system, “ Nelson said on the Senate floor Thursday. “Despite state-of-the-art treatment, some studies still show that Americans receive appropriate care just 55 percent of the time.”
The emphasis, said Rep. Ron Kind (D-Wis.), is on enacting reforms that reduce the costs of healthcare. Only by addressing the reasons why healthcare spending is so high can produce the “savings that can make the coverage issue doable and sustainable in the long term,” said Kind, a vice-chairman of the New Democrats.
Rep. Jason Altmire (D-Pa.) said that the foremost tenet of the New Democrats is to preserve the employer-based health insurance system that provides coverage to the majority of middle-class voters. “Individuals and families that are happy with their current coverage [must be] able to keep it,” said Altmire, a co-chairman of the New Democrats.
The policies espoused by the New Democrats and Nelson align closely to those favored by President Obama and lawmakers such as Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.).
The prospects for health reform might well hinge, however, on whether Democrats can arrive at a consensus on what is proving to be the most controversial element of Obama’s healthcare plan: creating a public plan option that would compete with private insurers to provider health benefits.
The New Democrats are silent on the issue, whereas Nelson showed significantly less flexibility on the public plan issue and previously had indicated that he would have difficulty supporting any healthcare bill that included it.
“Some have called for establishing a public plan, but I think it would undermine healthcare services for millions of Americans and squander this unique opportunity for substantial reform,” Nelson said on the Senate floor Thursday.
“I’m keeping my mind open on the public plan option,” Kind said, adding he perceives a wide array of views on this issue among New Democrats. “A lot of people have their minds open on it.”
The declarations of caution, if not downright opposition, from centrist lawmakers regarding the public plan serve as counterpoints to the increasingly insistent pleas from liberal Democrats that the public plan be included in health reform.
More than 100 House Democrats from the Progressive, Black, Hispanic and Asian-Pacific Islander caucuses and more than 20 Senate Democrats have issued letters to the authors of health reform legislation and to congressional Democratic leaders demanding a public plan.
Decisions on the public plan and on whether to implement mandates on individuals to buy insurance and/or on employers to offer it will have to wait until the end of the process, Altmire said.
“That’s going to be the last sticking point[s],” he said. “We’re not quite there yet but we’re getting pretty close,” Kind said.
The New Democrats do not have a position on the mandates issue. Nelson took no definitive stand: “While I have an aversion to mandates, I recognize that we all have a responsibility to obtain health care coverage because we all pay higher premiums when providers are forced to write off expensive, uncompensated care,” he said.
On the public plan, Altmire suggested there might be a way to create the program without exploding the private market. “You have to do it in a way that’s not predatory to private insurance,” he said. “The way you set your rates is key to that.”
Kind offered praise to a proposal offered by Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) under which the public plan would be subject to the same rules as private insurers. “Chuck Schumer advanced the ball a bit,” Kind said.
Moreover, Kind said that Congress could activate a public plan issue if insurance market reforms do not adequately expand coverage to the uninsured. “There’s always the potential for dropping in the public plan at a later date,” he said.