Health Insurance News

A health reform bill that includes some variation of a public insurance option is likely to land on President Obama’s desk late this year or early in 2010, according to two lobbyists who represent industry trade group America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP).  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) late on Oct. 22 conceded that she likely would not have the 218 votes needed to include a “robust” public option — which would pay providers 5% more than Medicare — in the final House bill.

A weaker version, which would require the public insurer to negotiate with providers, or a “trigger” mechanism that would create a public option if health insurers fail to expand coverage and lower costs, is now seen as more likely. A final House bill could be completed before the end of October. During an Oct. 22 session at AHIP’s annual State Issues Conference in Washington, D.C., Steve Champlin, vice president at lobbying firm The Duberstein Group, told attendees that Democrats in the House and Senate will likely pass a health reform bill because they “do not want to be responsible for the failure of [President] Obama’s principal initiative.” The bill, he added, will likely pass by a narrow margin and without any support from Republicans. Any Republican who supports a Democrat-led reform proposal, he asserted, would be “giving comfort to the enemy who is down.” In the session that followed, however, AHIP President and CEO Karen Ignagni touted AHIP’s  strong support for bipartisan health reform.
While the reform bill approved this summer by the Senate Health, Education Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee includes a robust public health insurance option, Dan Meyer, another Duberstein Group lobbyist, suggested that the final Senate bill would more closely resemble the Senate Finance Committee’s more moderate version. Meyer served in the George W. Bush White House as deputy assistant to the president for legislative affairs. However, both Meyer and Champlin predicted the final bill would have some type of public insurance option.  Champlin suggested that the White House and Democratic lawmakers have misinterpreted Americans’ dissatisfaction with the status quo as a call for substantial change to the existing health insurance model. To help ensure Americans accept such change, Champlin asserted that the White House decided to vilify the insurance industry to create an enemy. “When they attack insurance companies, what they’re saying is substantial change is coming.”

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