Despite The Polls, Health Care Reform Will Happen

This involves outlandish acting out by House Democrats, refusal to participate in meaningful talks by House Republicans, followed by the drafting of more responsible bipartisan legislation, legislation that will form the backbone, as well as most of the substance, of the final work product.

In other words, the real bill has not been written yet, and likely won’t be written until Sept. 15 at the earliest.

The only difference between the behavior of the House in 2007-2008 and this year is that the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee has also drafted healthcare reform legislation that contains provisions that have no realistic chance of becoming law.

But the only reason that occurred is that a gravely-ill chairman was allowed to dictate way-out provisions from his sickbed because no one had the heart to caution him that his fantasies were not politically viable.

The reason healthcare legislation will ultimately be enacted is that it is being driven by industry–the insurers, the pharmaceutical companies, big business and, yes, Wall Street. That is because the present system is unsustainable. Everyone wants the best healthcare, but few want to pay for it.

Opponents of reform know the deal here. They understand that Medicare is not profitable for a lot of providers, and Medicare is growing at a rapid rate as the baby boomers retire. So as a person switches from a commercial insurer to Medicare, the profitability plunges for the payers and the providers.

Health insurers, hospitals, and yes, agents–albeit on their terms–want something done because they want more paying folks in the commercial system so they can get paid more and reduce the pressure on profitability from Medicare patients.

The true state of affairs was revealed in comments before the recess by Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., a moderate.

Specifically, he said the opposition of Senate Republicans is aimed at the legislation drafted by House Democrats and in the HELP Committee, not with the legislation currently being negotiated by senior members, both Republican and Democrat, of the Finance Committee.

“We respect them and their work, so I think we owe it to them to let them
finish their work,” he said of the three Republican members negotiating the bipartisan proposal.

The core area of agreement, members of both parties agree, is mandating that the insurance industry increase incentives for the uninsured to have coverage. And the consensus, according to analysts, is that the bipartisan plan will seek to raise the revenue to pay for providing access through levies on private insurance companies that offer so-called “Cadillac” plans.

Republicans didn’t raise such a fuss about costs when they pushed through a prescription drug program through Medicare with a cost of more than $700 billion over 10 years in 2003–a program that was not funded whatsoever.

But, when you are out of power, you have the luxury of getting something done and not paying any political cost for it.