Health Care Reform Coming Out of Senate Finance?

We’ve been getting lots of news these past few days leading to optimism that a bipartisan health care bill will soon emerge from discussions between the “Coalition of the Willing.” That term refers to the three Republicans and three Democrats trying to find common ground in the Senate Finance Committee.

First, let me be clear that I have the greatest respect for Senators Baucus and Grassley and their four colleagues. Theirs is the kind of bipartisan approach that all of Washington, DC should be following on any number of issues.

And, as I have posted here before, I am concerned that in their efforts to find compromise they are headed for a health care bill that is based on a formula of cost containment “lite,” minor paring of Medicare and Medicaid provider payments, and at least $500 billion in new taxes. I don’t see much changing fiscally if that is the final result in a health care system that is already unsustainable and on the way to spending upwards of $35 trillion to $40 trillion over the next ten years as it goes to 22% of GDP by 2018.

From what we have heard, their bill would hardly "bend" any curves.

Yes, we could well cover tens of millions more people and that alone would be a noble accomplishment. But just loading all of these people onto a system that we can’t now afford seems to me to be ultimately a fool’s errand. The number of uninsured we have in this country isn’t the fundamental problem—it is the most aggravating symptom of our real problem, which is unsustainable cost.

Being good guys and bipartisan doesn’t necessarily lead to the best policy!

But I would also caution people watching this process not to be so certain that when the final Senate Finance product is unveiled—if it is ever reached—that we are on the fast track to legislation.

We’ve literally had these Senators holed up in secret for a number of weeks engaged in a very complex group dynamic trading one policy and revenue concept for another that may be leading to a compromise that makes sense to them. But each trade-off they made, or are making, is something really important to someone outside their little group and maybe not something any one, or a group of, the other 529 members of Congress is willing to go along with.

What we do know is that every time a new idea for controlling costs, getting a good CBO score, or raising money has hit the media it has about always come in for lots of criticism from one side or the other—or even both at times.

For more than a year I have been telling readers of this blog that health care reform was going to be very, very difficult to do. That we really didn’t have the consensus in this country over just what the problems are and what we need to do about them, or the political will to make the tough calls we need to make. Many people have disagreed with that assessment. I may still turn out to be wrong about it being different this time—but not so far.

I’d wait to see just what the “Coalition of the Willing” is able to put on the table before we go declaring any victories. If for no other reason, any product is going to have to lay on the table for all of August and that won’t be pretty.

I will remind you that the last group to go off on their own and hatch a health care plan in secret didn’t do so well when it hit the light of day.

Made sense to them at the time.