Congress is going to have quite the summer in 2009.
Not only do they have to help deal with the struggling economy, corporate bankruptcy, and a lasting credit crisis, they have two major issues to deal with: health reform legislation and the confirmation hearings of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court.
The catch is President Obama wants both of these Congressional behemoths to be wrapped up at the end of August. Quite the tall task.
On the health care and health insurance reform front, there’s a bright light. Many reports say real reform is more than likely to happen, but there’s still much to work out.
Right now, the two biggest players doing just that in the Senate are U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy and Senator Max Baucus.
The only problem is that they’re constructing two very different pieces of legislation.
A major provision of Senator Kennedy’s bill, who might unveil a reform bill this week, will be a public-private health insurance option that will be injected into the market to compete with other plans. The plan would most resemble Medicare.
“Americans want the choice of enrolling in a health insurance program backed by the government for the public good, not private profit. So that option will be available, ” said Senator Kennedy.
President Obama echoed the sentiment, saying that a public-private plan would “keep the private sector honest, ” wrote The New York Times.
On the other hand, Senator Baucus’ version of health reform would not rely on a public-private insurance option. Instead, the private insurance industry would have to make sweeping reforms (not yet specified) to provide affordable health insurance for all.
But Senator Baucus indicated he might be in favor of a fallback plan if private reforms, for some reason, did not work. The plan would be that in several years, if no inroads were made in insuring more Americans and reforming the system, then a public-private plan could be created.
The bottom line is that full bills for health reform are almost done, but the deadline is closing in fast.
We’ll leave Judge Sotomayor for the political blogs.