Could US bipartisan summit be last chance to pass Obamacare?
Saturday, 13 February 2010
Matthew Rusling
With U.S. President Barack Obama's health care reform on shaky ground, experts are mixed on the meaning of his upcoming bipartisan health care summit and whether it marks a make-or-break effort to pass the controversial legislation.
"I don't think there's any question about the fact that there's desperation on the part of the Obama administration," said Robert E. Moffit, director of the Center for Health Policy Studies at the conservative Heritage Foundation, a think tank.
Obama announced Monday that he expects to hold a bipartisan summit on Feb. 25 to allow both parties to air their ideas on how to reform the United States' health care system, although the White House has not provided details on whether Republicans will participate in drafting a bill.
The Jan. 19th election of Republican Scott Brown, who won a Massachusetts Senate seat held by Democrats for decades, could pose a dilemma to Democrats, who now lack the 60 votes needed to block a Republican "filibuster" -- an obstructionist tactic used in Congress to derail legislation.
Republicans were shut out of Democrats' closed-door sessions on the health care bill and many observers contend that Republicans were invited to the upcoming summit only in the face of Democrats' mid term election jitters.
Indeed, recent polls indicate voters are unhappy with Congress' leadership and the Brown election could be a harbinger of more GOP victories, some analysts said.
David Kendall, senior fellow for health policy at the liberal think tank Third Way, said the public wants the health care reform process to be more open, more bipartisan and more productive.
"I don't think the public is saying 'stop health care,'" he said, contending that bipartisanship is a response to the Brown victory. "I think they are saying 'make this process more mature.' "
Moffit said there's no question that the public is overwhelmingly opposed to the House and Senate bills and that it strongly disapproves of the president's handling of health care.
"The reason why (Congress) is getting blowback is because the American people do not like what they are reading," he said of the Senate and House bills that voters can read on the Internet.
And while former President Bill Clinton failed to reform health care and perhaps Obama will too, the issue is unlikely to fade.
Kendall said: "The United States seems to have a hang up over health care reform, but the problems are not going away," he said.
Costs are projected to rise to 20 percent of gross domestic product, or 4.4 trillion dollars, by 2018 from around 18 percent this year, according to government figures.
"The budget is going to demand this. And it will be a lot harder to solve if we don't act now," Kendall said, adding that health care costs could contribute substantially to long term deficit problems if action isn't taken.
"Failure to solve the health care problem is as bad as failure to win a war," he said.
Moffit said the argument that health care reform will never be touched again is fatuous, noting that the United States has been enacting major health care bills since World War II, including Medicare, Medicaid, the Medicare Prescription Drug Bill, the Medicare Catastrophic coverage Act of 1988 and the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, which contained health care reforms.
"The argument that if we don't agree on these bills, we will never get healthcare reform again is an absurdity," he said.
If the president has any doubts about passing a final bill, he is not showing them, although that sentiment seems overly optimistic in the face of Brown's election, some analysts said.
Republicans, who say Americans have rejected the Senate and House bills as legislation that will kill jobs and raise taxes, are calling on Obama to scrap the bills and make incremental improvements that will lower health care costs and increase access.
In a recent interview with CBS News, the president said he wants to use the summit as a forum to publically compare the two parties' health care ideas.
"How do you guys want to lower costs? How do you guys intend to reform the insurance market so people with preexisting conditions, for example, can get health care?" he said.
"How do you want to make sure that the 30 million people who don't have health insurance can get it? What are your ideas, specifically?"
Democrats said their plans will lower costs and extend coverage to more people who can not afford it, as well as require insurance firms to cover those with pre-existing conditions. ---Xinhua
With U.S. President Barack Obama's health care reform on shaky ground, experts are mixed on the meaning of his upcoming bipartisan health care summit and whether it marks a make-or-break effort to pass the controversial legislation.
"I don't think there's any question about the fact that there's desperation on the part of the Obama administration," said Robert E. Moffit, director of the Center for Health Policy Studies at the conservative Heritage Foundation, a think tank.
Obama announced Monday that he expects to hold a bipartisan summit on Feb. 25 to allow both parties to air their ideas on how to reform the United States' health care system, although the White House has not provided details on whether Republicans will participate in drafting a bill.
The Jan. 19th election of Republican Scott Brown, who won a Massachusetts Senate seat held by Democrats for decades, could pose a dilemma to Democrats, who now lack the 60 votes needed to block a Republican "filibuster" -- an obstructionist tactic used in Congress to derail legislation.
Republicans were shut out of Democrats' closed-door sessions on the health care bill and many observers contend that Republicans were invited to the upcoming summit only in the face of Democrats' mid term election jitters.
Indeed, recent polls indicate voters are unhappy with Congress' leadership and the Brown election could be a harbinger of more GOP victories, some analysts said.
David Kendall, senior fellow for health policy at the liberal think tank Third Way, said the public wants the health care reform process to be more open, more bipartisan and more productive.
"I don't think the public is saying 'stop health care,'" he said, contending that bipartisanship is a response to the Brown victory. "I think they are saying 'make this process more mature.' "
Moffit said there's no question that the public is overwhelmingly opposed to the House and Senate bills and that it strongly disapproves of the president's handling of health care.
"The reason why (Congress) is getting blowback is because the American people do not like what they are reading," he said of the Senate and House bills that voters can read on the Internet.
And while former President Bill Clinton failed to reform health care and perhaps Obama will too, the issue is unlikely to fade.
Kendall said: "The United States seems to have a hang up over health care reform, but the problems are not going away," he said.
Costs are projected to rise to 20 percent of gross domestic product, or 4.4 trillion dollars, by 2018 from around 18 percent this year, according to government figures.
"The budget is going to demand this. And it will be a lot harder to solve if we don't act now," Kendall said, adding that health care costs could contribute substantially to long term deficit problems if action isn't taken.
"Failure to solve the health care problem is as bad as failure to win a war," he said.
Moffit said the argument that health care reform will never be touched again is fatuous, noting that the United States has been enacting major health care bills since World War II, including Medicare, Medicaid, the Medicare Prescription Drug Bill, the Medicare Catastrophic coverage Act of 1988 and the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, which contained health care reforms.
"The argument that if we don't agree on these bills, we will never get healthcare reform again is an absurdity," he said.
If the president has any doubts about passing a final bill, he is not showing them, although that sentiment seems overly optimistic in the face of Brown's election, some analysts said.
Republicans, who say Americans have rejected the Senate and House bills as legislation that will kill jobs and raise taxes, are calling on Obama to scrap the bills and make incremental improvements that will lower health care costs and increase access.
In a recent interview with CBS News, the president said he wants to use the summit as a forum to publically compare the two parties' health care ideas.
"How do you guys want to lower costs? How do you guys intend to reform the insurance market so people with preexisting conditions, for example, can get health care?" he said.
"How do you want to make sure that the 30 million people who don't have health insurance can get it? What are your ideas, specifically?"
Democrats said their plans will lower costs and extend coverage to more people who can not afford it, as well as require insurance firms to cover those with pre-existing conditions. ---Xinhua