by Christopher St. John | January 26th, 2010
To quote our friends at the Center for Public Policy Priorities in Texas, “ On Monday of this week, Congress was poised to enact major health care reform legislation. On Tuesday, after a single special election in Massachusetts for the US Senate, Congress is discombobulated. But an election in Massachusetts is not the bellwether for what the country needs or wants when it comes to health care…”
We agree that Congress needs to continue to build on the extraordinarily painstaking work in three House committees and two in the Senate that led to the health care reform bills already passed and ready to combined into one. We cannot agree with the Portland Press Herald that all of that work should be thrown out to “start from scratch.”
The House and Senate bills had much in common:
For private health insurance no denial of coverage, no pre-existing condition exclusions, no annual or lifetime caps, no gender price variation, and limited age variation. For others, the formation of a health insurance exchange to make comparison shopping easier for individuals seeking coverage ; expansion of Medicaid to cover adults; premium assistance up to 400% of the federal poverty level ($88,200 for a family of four); out of pocket cost subsidies, individual mandates to purchase coverage with exemptions for financial hardship; some requirements for employer contributions with exemptions and some subsidies for small businesses.
There were important differences in how affordable the plans were and how they were paid for under the two bills. No doubt ironing out such differences could involve different considerations now that the composition in the Senate has changed a crucial vote, but it should not be forgotten that Senator Olympia Snowe voted a bill out of the Senate Finance Committee that also included many of these same elements. Another possible route forward is that urged by economist Paul Krugman in his New York Times column last week.
What is not acceptable is that Congress abandon the whole effort because of one election.
Can we drop the silly catchphrases? “Big Government Takeover of Health Care” is a little tired. Not to mention it provides ZERO information about the bill, one way or another. It may have held some sway when the public option was included (it isn’t now, soooo…), but even then the soundbite contained ambiguities that cater to inaccuracy. Republicans better know how to convince the “Average Joe” (read: politically infantile) onto their side of the line. The Dems do it to, but I dare say their constituency demands more substantial content than does the opposition. Start over? So they can obstruct THIS bill for 9 months and claim the congress (funny, they are part of it)is do-nothing? That’s classic carrot on a stick. The whole debate has been how to fund the senate bill, not the provisions it ACTUALLY provides. Jeez. 6 years ago we would have passed it unfunded and the public wouldn’t know squat.