Obama to Appeal to Public On Health Care as Senate Struggles
Obama invited the ABC television network to broadcast from the White House on June 24 and will take health-care questions from the public in the East Room. Three House panels will hold hearings during the week, and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus is rushing to finish draft legislation before Congress starts a weeklong recess on June 29.
The president is raising his profile on the issue after Baucus last week warned he may not be able to get a committee vote until next month, and government cost estimates sparked concern among lawmakers in both parties. Unresolved legislative issues are trumping public support for the revamping of a system that makes up 17 percent of the worlds largest economy.
“Clearly, the optimism of health-care proponents was off the mark,” said Julian Zelizer, a history and public affairs professor at Princeton University in New Jersey. Zelizer said Obama faces many of the issues that killed a similar effort in 1993 by President Bill Clinton. “Does it mean defeat? Not at all. But the next few months remain a huge challenge.”
Obama is pressing Congress to send him a final bill by October that would expand coverage to the approximately 46 million uninsured and reduce soaring costs.
All-Out Effort
Former Republican Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole warned that the overhaul has to get done this year before the 2010 congressional elections stall work on Capitol Hill. He said Obama must step up his presence instead of relying on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat.
“It has to be an all-out effort,” Dole told reporters on June 17 after unveiling his own bipartisan proposal with Democrat Tom Daschle, another former Senate majority leader.
“You cant just turn it over to Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi and Boehner and McConnell,” Dole said, referring to Republican leaders John Boehner of Ohio in the House and Mitch McConnell of Kentucky in the Senate.
Obama in Primetime
The ABC coverage will bring Obamas efforts to primetime after a speech to the American Medical Association on June 15 and a town hall-style meeting in Green Bay, Wisconsin, on June 11. During both, he said the U.S. needs more efficient care.
“We have the most expensive health-care system in the world,” Obama said on June 11. “Were not any healthier for it.”
Baucus spent months, with the participation of the Obama administration, negotiating the arrangement to aid seniors in Medicares prescription-drug program. The companies will discount brand-name medicines as much as 50 percent, according to PhRMA, the Washington-based industry trade group that represents such drugmakers as New York-based Pfizer Inc.
There are still plenty of thorny issues left. Lawmakers are wrestling with whether to create a new public insurance program or use nonprofit cooperatives to compete against private insurers such as UnitedHealth Group Inc. The possibility of mandates on employers also is drawing fire from Republicans.
CBO Estimate
And the Congressional Budget Office may have thrown off the schedule for the legislative effort when it estimated that options under consideration by the Senate Finance Committee would cost $1.6 trillion. Baucus, a Montana Democrat who wants to bring the expense below $1 trillion, said his committee probably wouldnt vote until after the July 4 recess.
Arizona Senator Jon Kyl, the No. 2 Senate Republican, said the delay meant the Senate probably wouldnt pass a plan before a monthlong recess in August.
Pelosi was open about her frustration.
“The CBO will always give you the worst-case scenario on one initiative and never a best case,” she told reporters on June 18, referring to the nonpartisan budget committee, whose cost projections may make or break the legislation.