WASHINGTON — As the last of five congressional committees completed work Tuesday on a health care-reform package, lawmakers braced for a debate before the full House and Senate about whether Americans are ready to extend coverage to millions.
With the backing of a lone Republican, the Senate Finance Committee voted 14-9 for legislation that would, for the first time, require every American to have health insurance. The package would spend $829 billion over the next decade to finance the biggest expansion of Medicaid in 40 years and provide federal subsidies to 18 million people who otherwise would be unable to afford coverage. It would raise taxes on high-cost health plans, impose new penalties on employers and slash future spending on Medicare.
President Barack Obama said that while the Finance Committee package is “not perfect,” its passage marks a critical milestone.
“We are now closer than ever before to passing health reform,” he said. “But we’re not there yet. . . . Now’s the time to dig in and work even harder to get this done.”
That work is likely to be grueling. Groups from across the political spectrum opened fire Tuesday on the panel’s measure, mindful that it is likely to form the backbone of compromise legislation to be crafted in the coming weeks. Labor unions complained that it lacks a government-run insurance plan. Insurance companies said new regulations could cause premiums to rise. And major business groups joined with labor in decrying a proposed tax on high-cost insurance policies.
“Although it was the best effort to date, the Senate Finance Committee missed an opportunity to create a truly bipartisan bill to reform our nation’s health care system,” said R. Bruce Josten, chief lobbyist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Gerald McEntee, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, added: “They call it reform legislation, but we don’t think it is. It’s deeply flawed.”
GOP’s Snowe on board
The reaction from Republican lawmakers was equally strong. Only Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine voted to support Obama’s top domestic initiative.
Snowe’s vote lent the imprimatur of bipartisanship to the finance panel’s measure, according to a senior Democratic aide, making it easier for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to rally support among Democratic moderates who have been reluctant to back a health care bill without political cover from the GOP.
But the politics of the Senate are complex. For some Democrats, immediate electoral concerns are paramount.
Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., a moderate and a top GOP target in next year’s midterm elections, sought a provision aimed at limiting insurance executives’ incomes. But minutes after she voted “aye” Tuesday, the National Republican Senatorial Committee denounced her for supporting a bill that would “ultimately shift costs to voters in Arkansas who are still struggling to make ends meet.”
Polls show that Reid may be vulnerable next year, and he has tended to home-state interests by securing Medicaid funding for Nevada to offset the cost of expanding the program. Republicans also are targeting Sen. Christopher Dodd, who faces a tough re-election fight.
Dodd’s Connecticut colleague, Independent Sen. Joe Lieberman, said Tuesday that he could not support the bill, citing insurers’ concerns that the fees and taxes it would impose on their industry would drive up premiums.
MoveOn TV ad critical
Liberal groups also rebelled. A new cable-television ad from features a former insurance-company executive calling the finance panel’s bill a dream come true for insurance companies. Meanwhile, 27 major unions will sponsor full- page newspaper ads that criticize the measure for not containing a public option or mandate on employers to offer health insurance.
Snowe said Tuesday that she remains concerned the package will do too little to make coverage affordable for Americans required to buy it. But after considering the “astronomical increases in health care costs” of recent years, she said, she concluded the consequences of inaction would be far more damaging than the potential pitfalls of the legislation.
Still, she said, she could withdraw her support if the measure changes substantially.
Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said he is working with colleagues to craft a compromise that would let states decide whether to create their own government plan, team up with neighboring states or opt into a national plan.
Finance Committee chief Max Baucus said the challenge now is to “put on the floor a bill that is perceived as solid, balanced, common-sense and not slanted too far in one direction or the other. . . . But it still comes down to what gets 60 votes.”
