Personal Injury Law

11th Hour Health Care Reform

By Jane Akre

President Obama and Bo, the family dog

Obama and Critics From All Sides

In recent weeks, President Obama has said that he still supports a "public option" that would offer government supported health insurance as a key to health care reform, but he has waivered on calling it essential element of health care reform.

For 70,000 of his supporters that isn't good enough. Staffers, volunteers, and donors have added their name to a petition calling for real change.

"President Obama, please demand a strong public health insurance option in your speech to Congress. Letting the insurance companies win would not be change we can believe in."

The petition is circulated by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee.

The petitioners say abandoning the public option is not an option.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said she will pass a bill that includes a public option. But late this afternoon, Sen. Max Baucus (D- Mont) said he does not believe there are enough votes to support the public option, Fox News reports.

Not a single Republican has endorsed any of the plans approved so far by four House and Senate committees, reports AP.

The Hill newspaper reports that at least 60 members of Congress have committed to supporting a health care bill with a public option, and will not support a plan without one. That may be enough to kill the legislation.

In sort of a "prebuttal" to President Obama's speech tonight, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) is warning Republicans against agreeing to a 'trigger" that will clear the way for a "government takeover" of health care, he says, reports Politico.

He is referring to an incremental approach that would allow for a gradual transition to a public plan, if private insurers don't meet certain benchmark goals.

McConnell is speaking to the 40 Republicans in the Senate to oppose change. Not among them is Maine's Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe said to support some form of a public option.

Sen. Baucus is negotiating with five other senators on a bipartisan compromise, said he would be moving ahead regardless of Republican support. Huffington Post reports that Max Baucus's office has suggested that the public option is nowhere to be found in the president's plan.

Fearing the plan would not pass the Senate, Baucus' plan includes sweeping insurance market changes involving non-profit cooperatives to compete with insurance companies. About $6 billion a year would help pay for the reforms, coming from a new tax on insurance companies.

Pre-Existing Conditions

Insurance for everyone who falls outside of private insurance coverage was considered the key to reform, among them offering coverage on a guaranteed basis regardless of pre-existing conditions. Lifetime limits would be prohibited, and health insurance companies would be prohibited from rescinding health coverage, according to the outline worked on by Sen. Baucus as the framework for comprehensive health reform.

The Baucus plan would limit out-of-pocket expenses for patients, reports Reuters, and bar insurers from placing caps on benefits.

Sen. Charles Grassley says they're still negotiating and "one of the rules of negotiating is that nothing's final until everything's final."

Public disapproval of President Barack Obama's handling of health care has leaped to 52 percent, according to Associated Press-GfK poll just released. Just 42 percent approve of the president's work on the high-profile health issue.

In July, 50 percent approved of his efforts to revise the nation's $2.5 trillion-a-year medical system. #

Full post as published by InjuryBoard on September 09, 2009 (boomark / email).