When Congress returns from recess next week, the big debate will focus on how to create an alternative health care option that can attract at least a handful of Republicans without alienating centrist Democrats needed to pass a bill.
Democratic leaders have announced that they are seriously weighing a proposal that would create health insurance cooperatives, a move that may help them reach that bipartisan goal.
But an agreement may be harder to reach than initially believed.
While both sides of the aisle have been willing to look at a cooperatives as an alternative to the public health care option that most in the GOP abhor, there are already big disagreements over how the nonprofit insurance companies would be set up.
Democrats in the Senate, who mostly prefer a state-run insurance option, have been willing to entertain the idea of a cooperative, but only if it is national and established with government money and a government-appointed board.
Republicans say cooperatives should be set up in a regional manner and without much government control.
A half-dozen states have health insurance cooperatives, and outside groups give them a mixed grade when it comes to controlling costs and providing coverage.
“The worry about that kind of a program is it sounds a lot like the way Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac got started,” House Republican Conference Chairman Mike Pence, R-Ind., told The Examiner on C-SPAN’s “Newsmakers,” referring to the failed mortgage giants. “The last thing we would want to do is create insurance reform that is some kind of hybrid and would probably end up the same way that Fannie and Freddie have ended up.”
Senate Democratic Caucus Chairman Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. said the party was “going the extra mile” by putting aside the public option in favor of a cooperative. But that is where the bipartisanship ends.
“I think many of us would be open to it,” Schumer said of the cooperative. “But this has to be a robust, strong alternative to the insurance industry, not a handful of co-ops in certain parts of the country.”
But the regionalized approach is about as far as Republicans will go, including Sen. Charles Grassley, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee. Grassley has been working hard to hammer out a compromise, but won’t accept a cooperative that is a stalking horse for a federal plan.
“It doesn’t have to be national, and it shouldn’t be national because it’s going to run into the same political problems as the concept of a government-run health insurance company,” Grassley said.
While the House can pass health care reform without the help of Republicans, the majority in the Senate is much thinner and some moderate Democrats may oppose the bill.
“We need Republican help to get this done,” said Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill.
