The rubber is beginning to really hit the road when it comes to health care in Congress; recess is over and the Baucus Caucus finally came out with a bill to mark up. It appears the rest of the Finance Committee--including our own Senator Wyden--either want to mark it with a bunch of changes (Democrats) or with a big red F (Republicans, even Olympia Snowe).
Both of our Senators have elucidated serious issues with the Finance bill, not quite as directly as Senator Rockefeller from West Virginia--who essentially declared it a dead letter and ripped the "co-op" compromise to shreds in a letter to the Gang of Six--but by attacking what the Baucus Suckus plan lacks. And for each Senator the complaint is different.
Jeff Merkley, for his part, continues to be one of the more repetitively vocal members of the chamber when it comes to support for a robust public option. His insistence has not wavered throughout a long summer of angst-ridden tea-leaf reading over whether the PO would survive the deliberative process. His refusal to sit quietly on the back bench and let the seasoned pros handle things is enormously welcome, and a big poke in the ribs to doubters (like me) who thought the key word for Merkley's first term would be "languid" rather than "loud and liberal."
Yesterday he took his advocacy to the airwaves, hitting not only The Ed Show, but also CNBC. Here's the latter clip, first:
And now, chatting with Ed Schulz:
If you like, you may consider my relegation of Senator Wyden's media efforts below the fold as some kind of "punishment" or commentary on his behavior on the health care issue. That doesn't mean it would be true (but it doesn't mean it would be false, either). What it definitely means in part, at least, is that with two vid clips, the top of the fold is already pretty big....
For his part, Wyden is not hammering the Baucus disaster for its lack of a public option, but he does criticize it, almost as if it DID have one. This morning's New York Times carried an op-ed from Wyden, elucidating on his belief that what he calls the "Free Choice Amendment" could go a long way towards fixing what ails the draft of the bill.
I'll leave aside whether that's necessarily true, or whether it puts the cart in front of the horse by arguing that not enough people would be eligible to enroll in a plan that doesn't exist in the first place. I think Wyden is suggesting that, public option or not; all Americans should have the right to seek health care through the proposed insurance exchange, and that's a fair argument even if one wants to argue with the strength of the exchange itself.
Wyden's basic point is that even the bills already advanced in Congress that do feature a PO, restrict it to just those folks without insurance, the self-employed and those working for fairly small businesses. That's true, certainly; however it doesn't address the fact that in most cases the eligibility rules would expand after a short time, and that the authority to expand it further would rest with HHS. Remember that the President's criticism of Wyden's Healthy Americans Act is that it's too drastic a change too quickly, and I interpret the limited eligibility at first as a way to slowly build the exchange and give it time to develop. So here's some of Wyden's pitch, including an answer to Obama:
I understand the president's fear of overreaching. Past reform efforts have failed in part because of the public's distaste for government-imposed change. But walling off most of the health care system from choice and competition could create greater problems - enough to doom health care reform.
I believe there is a way to work with the present employer-based system to guarantee that all Americans have choices, and I am proposing it in an amendment to the latest Senate health care bill. My amendment, called Free Choice, would let everyone choose his health insurance plan.
It would impose only one requirement on employers - that they offer their employees a choice of at least two insurance plans, one of them a low-cost, high-value plan. Employers could meet this requirement by offering their own choices. Or they could let their employees choose either the company plan or a voucher that could be used to buy a plan on the exchange. They could also simply insure all of their employees though the exchange, at a discounted rate.
All payments that employers would make, whether in the form of premiums or vouchers, would remain tax-deductible as a business expense. Reinsurance and risk adjustment mechanisms already in the bill would balance the costs of employers who end up with disproportionately sick pools of workers, and this would avoid any disruption to existing employer coverage. Any employers that did not offer either their own choices or insurance through the exchange would be required to pay a "fair share" fee to help support the system.
My plan would actually strengthen the employer-based system by making it possible for even more employers to afford coverage than can today. Employers who offer high-quality health insurance to attract first-rate employees could continue to do so. And employees who like the coverage they have could keep it. Those who don't, however, would be able to shop elsewhere.
What do YOU think of Wyden's proposal in a vacuum? That is, do you feel it's a smart idea to allow most every American to be eligible for purchasing insurance on the exchange? Does it have much relevance at the moment, in the context of a discussion whereby that exchange currently would offer little in terms of competitive rates and do nothing to bring down costs--or is it something to put off until the nature of the exchange is established? (And thus, does one's position on Free Choice have much to do with one's position on the full breadth of reform?) Tell us in the comments...
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