The latest on the health-care front to hit the news this weekend was that President Obama might abandon the bipartisan approach to health care reform.
Former Sen. Tom Daschle said in an interview on Friday that President Obama is losing patience with the negotiations between the "Gang of 6." The Gang of 6 is the three Republican and three Democratic senators who comprise the Senate Finance Committee, which is chaired by Sen. Max Baucus. The day before Mr. Daschle revealed a potential change in strategy, Sen. Baucus reported the senators "remained committed" to working towards a bipartisan bill.
Of course it was just last week when the Obama administration appeared to be making an effort to compromise with the Republicans. This came with the announcement by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius that the government-run public option to private health insurance was "not the essential element" of the administration's health care overhaul. Sebelius suggested the administration was considering nonprofit insurance cooperatives (co-ops) in lieu of a government-run public option. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, not generally one to shy away from public debate, thereafter warned "There is no way I can pass a bill in the House of Representatives without a public option."
At this rate, it is difficult to predict what kind of a bill will make it through when Congress reconvenes Sept. 8.
However, the latest news indicates that Obama is going to forgo the attempts at bipartisanship and put it solely in the hands of the Democratic Congress as was done with the stimulus bill. This could prove to be a big mistake because the Democratic Congress might not grasp (or care) that the American people care most about health care costs and less about universal coverage.
According to a July poll conducted by YouGov, which is the pollster used by The Economist, most Americans think the biggest problem with the health-care system is high costs. Almost 60 percent of those polled believed Obama's efforts are more focused on the number of uninsured while 20 percent believed his efforts were focused at reducing costs.
Obama has been trying to make the case that his health-care reform will decrease the costs of health care because there will be an increase in the amount of people who are insured. While this sounds logical, the two are not mutually exclusive. The State of Massachusetts is a good example.
In 2006, the Massachusetts Legislature reformed health care by mandating that non-poor adults purchase private (unsubsidized) health-insurance policies or pay a fine.
Also, employers with 11 or more employees are required to obtain a health-care plan and make reasonable contributions or pay a fine. Today, more than half of the previously uninsured have some type of insurance policy. However, the reform has not reduced health costs.
In fact, the rate of increase of health-care costs in Massachusetts has increased substantially more than the national average. Moreover, the health reform increased administrative costs and waste while failing to reduce the number of high-technology health care such as surgeries. These are the things that are large contributors to high health-care costs in the United States.
While Obama's health-care plan is not entirely like the Massachusetts plan, there are enough similarities to pause and question whether it is going to work at reducing costs. If the Democratic Congress forges full speed ahead with the notion that getting people on a government insurance plan is going to lower health care costs, we may wind up scratching our heads a year or two from now while also watching the national debt continue to climb to an insurmountable amount.
The Gang of 6 could prove to be successful in weeding out the bad and inefficient ideas from either side of the aisle. Obama should not give up on them just yet because the best fix for health care is not going to be found in Massachusetts.
It will come from whomever can figure out the best way to reduce costs, which can be anybody at this point.[[In-content Ad]]
