Lawmakers Address Potential for Health Care Overhaul Legislation This Year

Several lawmakers on Thursday at a conference sponsored by Families USA discussed prospects for overhauling the U.S. health care system in 2009, The Hill reports. House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) said Democrats will advance major reform legislation this year. He said, "We need to get this job accomplished this year and get the bill to the president" (Young, The Hill, 1/29). According to Waxman, "The economic times which are so difficult is another reason why we need to do it right away." He added, "The health of our economy depends on a great extent on our dealing with the health of our health care system" (Lengell, Washington Times, 1/30).

Waxman said, "If we are going to succeed, we've got to find common ground. We have to recognize that any successful approach has to reject the false dichotomy of everyone in a government plan, or everyone left to the mercies of a market-based approach. I believe that we must have a significant role for private insurance. But I believe that it's critically important that we have a public program alternative." The insurance exchange proposed by Obama "gives people a place to go to get good, accessible, affordable and regulated coverage through private plans or, if they prefer, they can go into a public alternative," Waxman said (Reichard, CQ HealthBeat, 1/29). He also said that he could support a requirement that all U.S. residents obtain health coverage as long as health insurance was affordable (Wangsness, "Political Intelligence," Boston Globe, 1/29).

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) at the same conference on Thursday said that he is committed to "bring comprehensive reform to the floor of the 111th Congress," which concludes in January 2011 (Washington Times, 1/30). He said that overhauling Medicare and Social Security also must be part of comprehensive health reform efforts.

Senate Finance Committee ranking member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said that the economic recession could slow efforts to overhaul the health care system. "If the recession goes on ... it wouldn't necessarily prevent or discourage massive health care reform ... but it might require a phasing or something of that nature." However, Hoyer said, "Economic conditions do not mean we can't be bold," adding, "In fact, they make our work more urgent." He cited research that suggested that health care reform could act as an economic stimulus, CQ Today reports. "I would argue vigorously against those who use the economy to argue to put this off," Hoyer said (CQ Today, 1/29).

Opinion Pieces

• Paul Krugman, New York Times: Nearly all economic forecasts have said that the U.S. is "in for a prolonged period of very high unemployment," which "means a sharp rise in the number of Americans without health insurance," Times columnist Krugman writes. Krugman continues, "Which raises a question: Why has the Obama administration been silent ... about one of President Obama's key promises during last year's campaign -- the promise of guaranteed health care for all Americans?" He continues, "First, some people are arguing that a major expansion of health care access would just be too expensive right now, given the vast sums we're about to spend trying to rescue the economy." While "[i]t's true that the cost of universal health care will be a continuing expense ... that has always been true, and Mr. Obama has always claimed that his health care plan was affordable," so the "temporary expenses of his stimulus plan shouldn't change that calculation," the piece states. Krugman continues, "Second, some people in Mr. Obama's circle may be arguing that health care reform isn't a priority right now, in the face of economic crisis." However, "helping families purchase health insurance as part of a universal coverage plan would be at least as effective a way of boosting the economy as the tax breaks that make up roughly a third of the stimulus -- and it would have the added benefit of directly helping families get through the crisis." He adds, "Finally -- and this is, I suspect, the real reason for the administration's health care silence -- there's the political argument that this is a bad time to be pushing fundamental health care reform, because the nation's attention is focused on the economic crisis." However, according to Krugman, "this argument is precisely wrong." The piece concludes, "The bottom line, then, is that this is no time to let campaign promises of guaranteed health care be quietly forgotten. It is, instead, a time to put the push for universal care front and center. Health care now!" (Krugman, New York Times, 1/30).
  
  
• Sally Pipes, Washington Times: The two recent reports released by the Congressional Budget Office "make painfully clear" that "the federal government can't sustain its current health care commitments, let alone additional ones," Pacific Research Institute CEO and President Pipes writes in a Times opinion piece. "Fortunately, the man behind these prophetic reports" -- former CBO Director and current Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag -- "has the ear of our new president," Pipes writes, adding, "The question is whether Mr. Orszag will stick to his findings -- and whether Mr. Obama will listen" (Pipes, Washington Times, 1/30).