Senate Leaders Hold Closed-Door Meeting To Discuss Health Care Overhaul Legislation

Main Category: Health Insurance / Medical Insurance
Article Date: 21 Nov 2008 - 11:00 PDT

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Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chair Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus (D-Mont.) in a Wednesday meeting that included other Senate leaders discussed plans for health care overhaul legislation to be proposed next year, CongressDaily reports (CongressDaily, 11/19). Baucus after the meeting said, "All are dedicated toward getting meaningful health care reform enacted in this next year" (Herszenhorn, "The Caucus," New York Times, 11/19).

Baucus said, "We all agreed that there has not been a better time in modern American health care to" overhaul the nation's health system. He added, "I think we have to move very quickly to seize the opportunity and build momentum because it's difficult to anticipate what else is going to come up next year that will involve the Congress." Baucus last week announced details of his universal health care proposal. Kennedy, who announced plans this week for drafting health care legislation, did not speak with reporters. Also present at the meeting were Senate Banking Committee Chair and second-ranking Democrat on the HELP Committee Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), HELP Committee ranking member Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.), Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), Sen. John Rockefeller (D-W.Va.); and Finance Committee ranking member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa).

Pay-Go
Kennedy and Baucus both have said that a health care overhaul bill likely would not include offsets for its full cost. Grassley on Wednesday said, "I think that for a lot of us, [pay-go] is a big issue," referring to rules that all measures passed include funding offsets. Baucus said, "You have to invest in order to reap long-term savings," adding, "That's understood by senators; that's understood by outside groups. I talked to [Congressional Budget Office Director] Peter Orszag ... [and] that's understood clearly by him" (Armstrong, CQ Today, 11/19).

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) on Tuesday said that while a health care system overhaul could increase the national deficit in the short-term, in the long-term it would stop adding to the deficit, according to The Hill. "Hoyer's comments are notable because he is considered the chief advocate of the [Blue Dog Coalition] and the pay-go policy in the House Democratic leadership," The Hill reports. Hoyer said, "Our objective is going to be (to) have a pay-go compliant policy over the longer term," but that "may not be possible in the short term, given where we are." He noted that addressing health care problems and inefficiencies could reduce costs and limit the impact of an overhaul on the deficit. In addition, Hoyer said, "When it comes to health care, we can no longer think of entitlement reform and expanded access as two separate issues" (Soraghan, The Hill, 11/18).

At a Finance Committee hearing on Wednesday, Baucus said a health care system overhaul "must be part of any successful economic recovery plan." He said, "Health care costs and the economy are linked: The key challenges of our health care system are high costs, low quality and insufficient access," factors that affect family budgets, competitiveness of U.S. businesses abroad and government spending (Carey, CQ CQ HealthBeat, 11/19).

Dingell, Waxman
House Democrats on Thursday voted 137 to 122 name House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chair Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) as chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, over current Chair John Dingell (D-Mich.), New York Times reports (Broder [1], New York Times, 11/20). After the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee on Wednesday voted 25 to 22 to nominate Waxman as chair of the committee, the final vote went to the full Democratic Caucus (Bendavid, Wall Street Journal, 11/20). According to the Times, Waxman "has a long record of leadership on health care issues" (Broder [1], New York Times, 11/20).

Waxman in a statement said he was "running for the chairmanship ... because we have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to advance health care, achieve energy independence and tackle climate change" (Broder [2], New York Times, 11/20).

Opinion Piece, Letter to the Editor
The Washington Post on Wednesday published an opinion piece and on Thursday published a responding letter to the editor focusing on the race for House Energy and Commerce Committee chair. Summaries appear below.

• Harold Meyerson: The two reasons Waxman "would be the better" Energy and Commerce chair are that "he is probably the House's most accomplished legislator in three issues that are high on the agendas of the nation and President-elect Obama: universal health care, global warming and enhanced consumer protections," and he "is a legislative genius," columnist Meyerson writes in the Post. He continues that Waxman "steer[ed] to passage the bills that gave rise to the generic drug industry, required uniform nutrition labels on food, heightened standards of care at nursing homes, created screening programs for breast and cervical cancer, provided health care for people with HIV/AIDS" and "expanded Medicaid coverage to the poor." In addition, Meyerson writes, "In the midst of the Reagan era's cutbacks, Waxman expanded the number of working poor eligible for Medicaid a stunning 24 times" and "consistently won key Republican backing for these regulatory and programmatic expansions." He concludes, "Obama needs an ally on the Hill who can craft bills and obtain votes for the change he's pledged to deliver. He needs a master legislator. He needs Henry Waxman (Meyerson, Washington Post, 11/19).
  
  
• Rep. Baron Hill (D-Ind.): "I feel obligated to clear up a few things" regarding the Meyerson piece, which "was riddled with falsehoods -- chiefly the assertion that Rep. John Dingell has not been an effective legislator" during his time as chair of the energy and commerce panel, Hill writes in a Post letter to the editor. He adds that Dingell's "proposals reflect what voters have demanded: more jobs, better health care and a green future." According to Hill, "Dingell is committed to achieving these goals while promoting economic recovery and protecting our Democratic majority -- which is essential for seeing quick results." With "Dingell's leadership, we can ... achieve the consensus necessary to implement sound policy solutions and signal to Americans that we heard their call for change." The letter continues, "Meyerson was correct, however, that Barack Obama 'needs an ally on the Hill who can craft bills and obtain votes for the change he's pledged to deliver,'" and Obama "has this in Chairman Dingell" (Hill, Washington Post, 11/20).

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