The Daschle Healthcare Plan: No Public Option, Taxes On Health Benefits, Private Insurance Mandate [View All]

-This is one healthcare plan the insurance industry can celebrate!-


Former Senate leaders offer compromise on healthcare
by Lisa Wangsness, Political Reporter
The Boston Globe
June 17, 2009


WASHINGTON -- Three former Senate majority leaders presented a bipartisan healthcare plan today, mapping out a potential path to a compromise as animosity over policy differences intensified on Capitol Hill.

Republicans Howard Baker and Bob Dole and joined Democrat Tom Daschle in a grand meeting room in Union Station today to unveil a plan that tackled, at least in broad terms, the biggest sticking points: whether to have a national public insurance plan (no, but states could create their own); how much it should cost (around $1.2 trillion over 10 years); whether to pay for it by taxing the health benefits people get through work (yes, but only minimally).

Former Democratic Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell of Maine, who is serving as President Obama's envoy to the Middle East and was not present today, also helped develop the plan.

One of the most important compromises to emerge: The former majority leaders backed taxing a portion of the most expensive employer-sponsored health benefits to help pay for their proposal. This may give new momentum to that idea, which President Obama has repeatedly discouraged and many liberal Democrats on Capitol Hill oppose.

Senator Max Baucus and other centrists have argued that taxing a portion of the most generous employer sponsored benefits for the highest income workers is one of the fairest and easiest ways to help pay for health care. But many liberal Democrats are afraid of levying new taxes during a recession and think it would hurt union workers who have given up salary increases to preserve generous benefits.

They found a middle ground by deciding to let a more heavily regulated private market try to work first, and by letting states choose to establish their own public insurance plans. The federal government would be allowed to step in if, over time, affordable insurance options did not emerge in every state.

"It's time to find consensus here," Daschle said. "We've come too far and gained too much momentum for our efforts to fail on disagreement on one single issue."

The leaders also agreed that individuals should be required to purchase insurance.

"I had a lot of trouble with mandates, just as Tom had trouble with the public plan," Dole said. "But if we can't compromise... how are we ever going to get a bill passed?"

Please read the complete article at:

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/politicalintelligence/2009/06/washington_thre.html

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Daschle Folds on Federal Public Health Care
ABC News' Elizabeth Gorman reports
June 17, 2009

In an attempt at bipartisanship, three former majority leaders of the U.S. Senate, Tom Daschle, Howard Baker, and Bob Dole, offered their solution today to the biggest obstacle to achieving health care reform -- a public option.

"While I feel very strongly that consumers should have the choice of a national, Medicare-like plan, my colleagues do not. . . But we were concerned that the ongoing health reform debate is beginning to show signs of fracture on the public plan issue, so in order to advance the process of developing bipartisan legislation and to move it forward, it's time to find consensus here," Daschle said.

In a blow to President Obama and many of his Democratic allies in the health care fight, the plan recommends that there be no federal public option, but rather state or regional public-sponsored networks that would compete with private health plans, according to the summary released today by the Bipartisan Policy Center.

The White House praised the Bipartisan Policy Center’s approach in a statement that continues to touch on only the broadest of goals.

"This group of extraordinarily experienced legislators agree with the President that health reform must be enacted this year because the status quo -- skyrocketing health care costs, rising premiums, swelling deficits – is unsustainable," said White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs. "With this report, they have demonstrated what can be achieved with bipartisan effort. The Bipartisan Policy Center has produced a significant report, and the White House applauds their efforts," added Gibbs.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/2009/06/daschle-folds-on-federal-public-health-care-plan.html


THE OLD WHITE GUYS BI-PARTISAN GANG OF FOUR