E-mail Story
Print Friendly
Send E-mail
Reprint story
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Bingaman Touts Health Consensus
By Michael Coleman
Journal Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON — Sen. Jeff Bingaman on Tuesday outlined four areas of consensus among health care experts and business leaders that he said could serve as a framework for U.S. health care reform.
The New Mexico Democrat sits on two committees with primary jurisdiction over health care. He joined several of his Democratic colleagues at a Capitol Hill news conference to tout consensus on the need for expanded coverage. But he conceded in an interview that it remains unclear how Congress will pay for the coverage or whether Senate Republicans will go along with proposals from the Democratic majority.
Bingaman said representatives from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Aetna insurance company, the American Medical Association, the National Federation of Independent Businesses and others agreed at a Senate hearing last week on four basic elements for reform.
The first is that insurance companies become more inclusive in their coverage.
"We've got to make it available to the (general) public and you can't have a lot of gotchas in these policies that don't cover things that people need insurance to cover," Bingaman said.
He also said experts agree that all Americans should be required to have coverage "either through a public program or some kind of private coverage."
The mandate could be enforced through some kind of individual tax penalty for noncompliance, he said. Corresponding with that requirement should be an obligation of the government to provide "some kind of credits or subsidies to help people (especially low-income people) obtain coverage."
And finally, he said experts agree that small businesses need help in providing coverage, probably through tax credits.
But Bingaman said the Senate Finance Committee, on which he sits, is still formulating a proposal to pay for the expanded coverage and tax incentives.
Republicans have warned of the costs of expanded coverage and the potential for undermining flexibility in obtaining medical care.
Jolted by cost estimates as high as $1.6 trillion, Senate Democrats agreed Tuesday to scale back planned subsidies for the uninsured and sought concessions totaling hundreds of billions of dollars from private industry to defray costs.
Key Democrats disagreed openly among themselves over the proposed tax on health insurance benefits to pay for expanding coverage to the uninsured.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
You also can send comments via our comment form
|
|
