U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman has a bipartisan group of senators ready to help pass health care reform — minus a government-run insurance plan.
During a New Haven stop to support overall reform, Connecticut’s independent fourth-term senator gave his strongest statement to date opposing Democrats’ and President Obama’s call for a “public option” health care plan.
“Public option” is shorthand for a Medicare-like government plan that would compete with private companies to cover many of the 47 million Americans who don’t get private health insurance through their employers or elsewhere.
“If we create a public option, the public is going to end up paying for it,” Lieberman said following an hour-long confab with public-health experts at the Ashmun Street community center of the Monterey Homes public housing complex. “That’s a cost we can’t take on.”
The “public option” proposal has proved the most controversial aspect of the sweeping health care reform bills currently being debated in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. Lieberman said Tuesday he considers it a stumbling block to passing a reform package to cover millions of uninsured Americans and lower health care costs — something he said he’s working hard to do along with a coalition of Republican and centrist Democratic senators.
The public option question comes to a head in coming weeks. House and Senate leaders hope to have health care reform bills come out of committee next week and pass their respective chambers by the August recess. They hope to produce a reconciled final version for Obama to sign in the fall.
The public option plan aims to cover 95 percent of the uninsured; require all Americans to have insurance; cut costs; and tax companies that don’t provide insurance to employees. The idea has met with public approval in opinion polling, but resistance from Republican lawmakers, some conservative Democrats, and insurance companies.
Connecticut’s other U.S. senator, Chris Dodd, supports the public option. So do all five U.S. representatives; click here to watch and read about Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro’s stand.
The Congressional Budget Office has pegged the cost of the overall health care package as originally proposed at $1 trillion over 10 years. But many people — including Lieberman during his New Haven visit Tuesday — contest the number because it doesn’t include cost savings from better preventive care and wellness programs.
President Obama publicly backs the public option, but his chief aide has signaled he may be willing to drop it as part of a compromise package.
That’s the kind of compromise Lieberman is looking to forge.
Bipartisan Maneuvering
Lieberman hopes to help do that through the work of an informal, but busy, bipartisan group he formed last year with Republican U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander.
The group meets every Tuesday out of the view of the press or staff members. It includes 15 – 20 centrist Democrats and moderate Republicans. They invite speakers on pressing issues to shmooze with them.
Since June the group has focused exclusively on finding common ground to pass health reform, Lieberman said Tuesday. It will continue to do so through July. Its invited guest next week is Sen. Dodd, who is overseeing Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearings on the bill to fill in for the ailing chairman, Ted Kennedy. The following week’s guest is Finance Chairman Max Baucus.
That common ground, in Lieberman’s view, has no room for the public option. (Click on the play arrow at the top of the story to watch him discuss the subject at length.)
Some “80 percent” of the evolving health care reform enjoys broad bipartisan support, he said. That includes changing the incentives in the current system to reimburse people for more “staying well,” through preventive check-ups and wellness programs.
“We’re not going to get the votes to pass the overall bill if [the public option] becomes a condition of it,” Lieberman claimed.
He said he also has philosophical objections to a public option. He said he doesn’t have an opinion on the most popular criticism, that insurance companies wouldn’t be able to compete with a public plan. Rather, he said he fears both the cost as well as the impact on doctors. A public plan could drive down reimbursements to the levels paid by Medicaid, he claimed, which pays doctors only “70 percent of their costs.”
Take-Aways
Lieberman made the comments following his session with health experts convened by the Partnership to Fight Chronic Disease. Eight panelists took turns of five minutes or so apiece to tell the senator what they’d like to see included in the health bill.
A passionate request came from Jeanette DeJesus (pictured) to make community-based organizations like hers more of a part of any reform effort in order to help black and Latino communities deal with top killers like heart disease and diabetes.
DeJesus runs Connecticut’s Hispanic Health Council. Among its programs, it sends outreach workers to counsel Latinos with diabetes on how to manage their disease. The people they’ve reached have had to go to the doctor less often as a result, while they exercised more, felt less depressed, and generally saw their health improve. That saves the system money, DeJesus pointed out.
Some 40 percent of Connecticut Latinos lack health insurance, she said. Latino children in the state are five times more likely than other children to be seen in emergency rooms.
More established health care institutions need grassroots help in reaching them, DeJesus said. But “community-based organizations are not being included enough in the debate.”
Lieberman said he agrees. Other suggestions the panel gave him to bring back to D.C. included making sure health insurance covers nutritional counseling; and planting wellness and health education programs in the schools.