Insurance Technologies

Officials of the White House have met with Democratic leaders of the Senate to determine whether it is feasible to include into the health care reform package a government-funded public health insurance option, in addition to a provision that would allow individual states choose to not be a part of it. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is said to be in favor of what is being referred to as the public option with this state provision for opting out as a part of the Senate health care bill scheduled to be presented to the full chamber soon. This has been presented to President Obama without any decision being arrived at. There are still money Republicans and even some moderate Democrats who are completely opposed to the inclusion of a public option in any health care reform bill, thus threatening the possibilities for any bill that might include that provision to achieve the 60 votes necessary to get by a possible Senate filibuster. It is believed that the use of the state opt-out provision will make it possible to get the support of moderate Democrats for a bill with a public option. Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska however, a key moderate, has expressed that he opposes the idea of a national public option even if it does include an opt-out for the states. Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine, the one Republican so far siding with the Democrats on the health care reform bill is said to also oppose this option. It is the argument of President Obama and other Democratic leaders that such a nonprofit public option will act to create competition with the health insurance industry thus lowering costs to individuals and also expanding access for those Americans currently lacking coverage to health care benefits. On the other hand, those Republican that are against the public option are saying that it would drive private insurers from the market leading to an eventual government takeover of the health care system all together. Of the five health care bills that have already found approval in House and Senate committees, four of them include the public option. Instead of a public option, the other Senate Finance Committee bill includes nonprofit cooperatives. This is the proposal that is being supported by Senator Snowe. Administrative officials are saying that an option might be for a Senate health care bill to include a type of mechanism that has been proposed by Senator Snowe, one that would take affect if in the future coverage has not reached the desired numbers of people or costs have not been sufficiently lowered. President Obama is said to support such an inclusion because he feels that it would receive support for both Republicans and Democrats. This is seen by Senator Snowe’s support for the idea. The White House definitely wants to achieve support from both political parties in any future health care legislation. At this point there are 36 moderate House Democrats who are threatening to vote against the current health care bill as it is being presented because they believe that it will not sufficiently reduce long-term health care costs. The fiscally conservative Democrats have written a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democrat from California, and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, Democrat from Maryland, in which they site recent testimony by Director Doug Elmendorf of the Congressional Budget Office indicating that health care costs under the House legislation could rise after 10 years.