After last week’s much-anticipated Health Care Summit, we’ve all been waiting for President Obama to announce how he plans to move forward with health reform.
So in response, the president recently sent a letter to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Republican Leader John Boehner summarizing what he believes should be changed about the current bills.
In the letter, President Obama says that the Republicans and Democrats have many similar ideas about health reform. The president also indicated that there were four main Republican ideas that should be adopted into the current health reform bills.
They include:
- Undercover investigations of care providers who receive federal reimbursements for programs such as Medicaid and Medicare to fight fraud.
- Federal funding for state-sponsored demonstrations of alternative health reform proposals.
- Increasing Medicaid reimbursements for doctors.
- Ensuring consumer-directed high-deductible health insurance plans compatible with Health Savings Accounts are included in a future insurance exchange.
President Obama said that these ideas have been brought to him not only at the summit last Thursday but over the course of the past year.
In addition to these Republican ideas, the president also indicated he wants to remove highly controversial parts of the bill such as the Cornhusker Deal for Nebraska and Medicare Advantage payment reductions.
The president was also explicit when describing the biggest disagreement between the Democrats and Republicans. He wrote that fundamental disagreements will remain on what role the health insurance industry should play in the reform effort.
That’s probably why there’s talk about using the process of reconciliation to pass a health care bill. But naturally, Republicans and conservative Democrats are steadfast against that approach. Still, it could be the ultimate trump card for the Democrats and the president.
The president’s letter is a good short read with a list of things we can all agree on: “[P]iecemeal reform is not the best way to effectively reduce premiums, end the exclusion of people with pre-existing conditions or offer Americans the security of knowing that they will never lose coverage, even if they lose or change jobs. ”