Days after President Barack Obama released his own health care reform proposal, he presided over a health care reform summit on Thursday that both Democrats and Republicans attended. The summit was supposed to help the parties find common ground on the issue of health care reform and allow them to discuss their views. Although the summit identified some areas of agreement, it mostly highlighted the significant gap between the two parties’ views.
Audio Conference: Health Care Reform Is Here: Impact and Answers for Employers offered April 22, May 6 and May 20
Areas of Disagreement
The main area of disagreement between Republicans and Democrats is where health care reform should go from this point. Republicans urged Democrats to scrap the current bills and start over from scratch. The Democrats were adamant in their defense of the current legislation and gave no indication that they would consider starting over.
Among other things, the parties also disagreed about whether:
- current health care reform legislation would cause premium costs to go up or down;
- the government can afford an extensive expansion of insurance coverage to the uninsured right now; and
- the government should mandate that individuals buy insurance.
Areas of Agreement (Sort of)
Even when the two parties agreed on issues, they usually disagreed on the details of how such issues should be addressed. The Democrats and Republicans agreed that the country’s health care system needs to be fixed, but their views on how to fix it are vastly different.
Both parties agreed that insurers need more regulation, but they disagreed on how involved the federal government should be in the regulation. Democrats believe the federal government should regulate insurers, while the Republicans believe states should be the primary regulators.
The two parties also agreed that individuals and small businesses should be able to pool their resources to buy insurance and should be able to buy insurance across state lines. However, Democrats want the federal government to set minimum standards for insurance, and Republicans are opposed to that idea.
Where Reform May Go from Here
After more than six hours of discussions at the summit, it appears that the two parties remain divided over the issue. Obama ended the summit by suggesting that the Democrats may go ahead and try to pass legislation on their own. He noted, “The question that I’m going to ask myself and I ask of all of you is, is there enough serious effort that in a month’s time or a few weeks’ time or six weeks’ time we could actually resolve something?” The President then concluded, “And if we can’t, then I think we’ve got to go ahead and make some decisions, and then that’s what elections are for.”
Based on the Democrats’ statements at the summit and afterward to the media, it appears that Senate Democrats may try to pass a health care reform bill through the reconciliation process. If the Senate uses that method, they would need only 51 votes to pass a measure but would only be able to enact parts of the bill by attaching them to a budget measure.
Also, you can keep up with the latest legal changes affecting employer benefits and trends in employee benefits with the Benefits Complete Compliance
Health care is a service not a right. As such any interference by the Federal government will only be detrimental to the market served, i.e., the people who are users of the system. Obama is proposing more governmental control and ultimately price controls (those have never worked and always harm the end user of a product). Neither party is doing a good job here, but moving slower and actually doing research would be far more productive than foisting a politically crafted (think unions and lobbyists here) bill onto the American people. We should all write our elected representatives and tell them “no” on this horrific piece of legislation.
There was a time when electric power was a service, not a right… Then came TVA, etc. Price controls work in that area, and the companies still make money. There was a time when telephone service was not considered a ‘right’, and legislation has since changed that.
I might remind Frances that only a few generations ago, voting was not a right for many Americans. Access to a decent education was not a right for many Americans. Legal counsel was not a right for many Americans. A major part of “progress” is identifying those services that our society has the means, will and need to convert to rights.
Many of the features Republicans object to most in the current legislation are the very features they demanded in 1996. Let’s call a spade a spade… Rep. Weiner is right – the Republican Party is a wholly owned subsidiary of the health insurance industry. The pity is, they’ve tricked so many well-meaning people into doing their heavy lifting.