Status Check: Health Care Reform in Congress
What’s the state of health care reform now that Congress has begun seriously grappling with the topic? Are we likely to see a comprehensive health care reform bill this year, as promised? Key developments in the past few weeks offer some encouraging signs.
There are five Congressional committees that will be involved in drafting health care reform legislation (three in the House, two in the Senate), and consensus among them will be vital for passage of any major bill. The House committees involved - Ways and Means, Education and Labor, and Energy and Commerce – have announced that they will propose a single bill, although probably not until mid-July (a leaked Energy and Commerce Committee PDF offers some hints as to what that bill might look like).
Things get more complicated on the Senate side. The two important Senate committees – Finance and Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) – have a shorter timeline, promising bills by the end of June. That deadline is likely to be met, but probably because the two committees are drafting legislation independent of one another. Senator Kennedy (chairman of the HELP Committee) and Senator Baucus (chairman of the Finance Committee) have released a joint letter stating their intention to create legislation that can be “quickly merged into one bill” (which will be necessary before the Senate can vote on it) but so far the two committees have their differences.
On the Finance side, Chairman Baucus and Senator Grassley (the highest-ranking Republican) are committed to bipartisan reform, and the committee’s recently-released report outlines proposals that may not be as aggressive as some advocates would prefer. The public plan option (guaranteeing a government-run plan as an affordable option for all Americans, at all times) is mentioned but not required in the outline, while many advocates are convinced such a plan is necessary to keep private insurance honest and efficient. And there’s not a lot of talk about protecting low-income consumers from big out-of-pocket costs like deductibles and premiums. On the other hand, Senator Kennedy’s plan will likely include stronger safety-net provisions and the requirement of a public plan, along with a requirement that all employers either offer their employees insurance or pay into funds that help cover the uninsured.
Furthermore, Senator Baucus has come out in opposition to passing reform through a procedure called budget reconciliation. Reconciliation would make the health care legislation filibuster-proof, allowing it to pass without any Republican votes at all. Many high-ranking Democrats favor using this procedure if necessary, while Senator Baucus wants to keep it bipartisan by coming to an agreement with at least some Republicans. The fact, though, that affirmations of support and good-faith effort have been made in writing by all committee chairmen, and the degree to which all stakeholders have been involved in the legislative process so far, are good signs. The legislation for health care reform will be drafted and proposed this year, perhaps by August. At that point it is up to us, advocates and consumers alike, to make sure it passes.
