WASHINGTON BUREAU — A good health reform bill should focus on cost containment and on preserving the current role of agents, brokers and consultants, according to the National Association of Health Underwriters.
NAHU, Arlington, Va., has responded to the election of Scott Brown, a Republican, to fill the Senate seat once held by the late Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., by describing what its members would like to see in a health bill.
Democrats in the Senate now have lost the 60-vote supermajority they need to keep Republicans from "filibustering," or using endless rounds of debate to stall legislation.
The results of the Massachusetts special election should cause Congress and the White House to open negotiations on bipartisan health care delivery reform legislation that focuses on reducing costs, improving quality, and improving choice and access, says NAHU Chief Executive Janet Trautwein.
Health reform is "far too important an issue to be done in any way other than a bipartisan fashion," Trautwein says.
For NAHU members, "one of the most important elements of reform must focus on containing the long-term growth in medical care, which is what drives insurance prices," Trautwein says. "Unless and until we have the resolve to make reforms that reduce the underlying growing costs of health care delivery–whether or not insurance is involved–proposals to expand access to insurance will just redistribute costs and continue to fall short."
Trautwein says NAHU members also would like to see more of an effort to reform the individual and small group markets; more use of tools such as tax credits, subsidies and expansion of Medicaid to add people to the health insurance rolls; and better measures to encourage individuals to take greater personal responsibility for health decisions.
Trautwein says NAHU would like to see lawmakers eliminate proposed cuts in Medicare Advantage funding, a proposed employer health coverage mandate, and a long term care insurance entitlement program section.
The bill should be paid for through "responsible financing that encourages good health, not financing reform on the backs of those who already have private coverage," Trautwein says.
President Obama himself has said that Brown's election shows there may be a need to scale back the scope of health bill efforts.
Members of the Senate have been trying to reconcile their version of the health bill, H.R. 3950, with the House version, H.R. 3962.
"I would advise that we try to move quickly to coalesce around those elements of the package that people agree on," Obama said Wednesday. "We know that we need insurance reform, that the health insurance companies are taking advantage of people."
The country also needs to have some form of cost containment, "because, if we don't, then our budgets are going to blow up," Obama said. "And we know that small businesses are going to need help so that they can provide health insurance to their families."
Brown's victory has increased the need for Democrats to persuade moderate Republican senators, including Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine, to help them get bills to the floor.
Like Obama, Collins says the key to winning enough Republican support to get a health bill through the Senate is to focus on areas that have broad support.
There is broad support, for example, for prohibiting insurers from rescinding consumers' policies when the consumers get sick, Collins says.
© Arc, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to TMSalesOperations@arc-network.com. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.