WASHINGTON—As Congress prepares to tackle health care reform, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, staked his ground at an early morning briefing with reporters Thursday. Reform needs to be all encompassing, but if it includes a new federal health benefit, Grassley said, that could be a deal-breaker.
As the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, which has jurisdiction over Medicare and Medicaid, Grassley--who has previously worked with HME stakeholders on issues including competitive bidding--will be a key player in shaping the nation’s health reform effort. That effort is now on the fast track, with legislators from both sides of the aisle working to get a bill to the floor by June.
“I think if it doesn’t get done this year, it won’t be done for the next four years,” Grassley said of health reform, citing the timing of the country’s political cycle. “If it doesn’t get done this year, why won’t it get done? One word: elections.”
What’s more, Grassley said the overhaul must be comprehensive. “If we do something incremental this year we’re never going to get comprehensive health reform,” he said during the briefing, hosted by the Kaiser Family Foundation, Families USA and the National Federation of Independent Businesses.
While “everything’s on the table” as far as negotiating wide-ranging reform, Grassley said, he pointed to one big stumbling block: differences over a government insurance plan, which some call a “public plan option,” that would be open to most Americans. “This is a deal-breaker for Republicans if it’s in and it’s a deal-breaker for Democrats if it’s not,” Grassley said.
Some Democrats believe such a benefit would improve quality of care and decrease costs. But Grassley and other Republicans oppose creating a public plan because, he said, it would be “a step toward single-payer, government-run health care for everyone.” He added that a study by the Lewin Group estimated such a system and could prompt as many as 118 million people to leave private health plans for government-sponsored health care.
In the end, he said, “The major difference is the extent to which we will have a market-based insurance system or a government-based insurance system.”
While he did not touch on HME issues in the briefing, Grassley did say health reform legislation should be budget-neutral, with any new spending offset by cuts or new revenue. The HME industry is already on edge about further cuts to oxygen and the renewed threat of Medicare competitive bidding. Earlier this year, however, Grassley introduced the Medicare Rural Health Access improvement Act of 2009, which would exempt rural areas from competitive bidding, although it would not eliminate the program entirely.
Last week, Grassley appeared in a YouTube video asking for people's thoughts on health reform. "It only makes sense to seek input on an issue like health care reform where so many Americans have a stake. I look forward to taking common sense input from YouTube users to the national debate on health care reform," he said.
Grassley's video will be featured through tomorrow on YouTube's Senate Hub, where anyone can add comments. In a second video today, he will respond to some of the comments posted to the original video.