Senate Compromise on Public Plan Begins to Emerge. Half-a-loaf?
Filed under: Private Insurance, Proposed Legislation, Public Plan, The Uninsured
The Associated Press reports that a possible compromise has emerged in the Senate with regard to the “public plan” for health insurance:
The compromise offered by Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., would create health care cooperatives owned by groups of residents and small businesses, similar to how electric or other cooperatives operate.
They’d be nonprofit, and without the government involvement that troubles Republicans and business groups about the public plan options.
This attempt at compromise seeks to address the purposeful omission of the issue of a public plan option from Senator Ted Kennedy’s 615 page health reform draft bill. The draft bill, by Kennedy and Democrats from his Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, was said by the LA Times to have faced “furious criticism from even moderate Republicans” when it was released on Tuesday. This despite the attempts to avoid such by the Democrats through the omission of the contentious public plan option.
Kaiser Health News describes the Kennedy Plan as follows:
The plan “would require all Americans to get medical insurance, establish complex new insurance exchanges to facilitate near-universal coverage, and dramatically step up government oversight of the insurance industry.” The plan skips over - for now - the two issues Republicans have most vocally opposed, a government-run insurance option and a mandate for businesses to insure employees. Nevertheless, the “Republican response was sharply negative” (Levey, 6/10).
The public plan compromise proffered by Senator Conrad, at least in principle (details have yet to surface) has garnered some tentative approval. AP reports that
The chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Sen. Max Baucus of Montana, said Wednesday the idea could be key to a bipartisan health bill. Baucus raised it in a meeting with President Barack Obama, saying later that Obama showed interest. Baucus’ Republican counterpart, Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, also said the concept had potential.
“It’s a way to bridge the gap,” Baucus told reporters.
AP reports the outline of the Conrad compromise as follows:
Profit-making insurance companies wouldn’t run the show, but there also wouldn’t be the federal government backing that Republicans fear would eliminate fair competition with private companies. The co-ops could get federal seed money, Conrad said, but that would be the end of federal involvement. The co-ops would negotiate directly with medical providers.
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