Business Group Presses Finance Panel To Succeed
Originally Posted At Congress Daily
By Kasie Hunt, with Anna Edney and George E. Condon Jr. contributing
August 6, 2009
A leading business group today backed Senate Finance Committee efforts to draft a bipartisan healthcare bill and urged senators to continue negotiating -- because it sees bills passed by other committees as much worse.
"The Finance Committee is closer to getting it right than any of the other bills that exist right now," said John Castellani, president of the Business Roundtable. "The House bill, the tricommittee bill, presents us with some serious problems."
"We do firmly believe that all [Senate Finance] parties must remain at the table to get reform right the first time around," he said.
Business groups met with Finance Committee staff in recent weeks and were asked to increase public support for the negotiations because the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee bill and the House versions were worse alternatives, sources said.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce wrote a letter last week urging the committee to quickly find a bipartisan solution. "The Chamber applauds your commitment to develop a comprehensive plan that garners bipartisan support in the United States Senate ... [and] encourages the Senate Finance Committee to focus on consensus areas that can accomplish the goal of comprehensive, bipartisan health care reform," the letter said.
"We don't know what's in the Finance bill, but we certainly think the Finance bill will be better than everything else we've seen," said Randel Johnson, vice president for labor, immigration and employee benefits at the Chamber.
But once the Finance panel releases its bill, it has to be combined with Senate HELP language. It then has to pass muster with negotiators from the House, where more than 50 liberal members have already objected to a leadership agreement with Blue Dog Coalition members to change the public plan option.
How strongly President Obama, a vocal supporter of the public option, will back the Finance product is an issue for business groups.
"If [Finance members] are successful, will the president support their version of reform?" asked Castellani.
While details of the Finance plan remain scarce, the "Gang of Six" negotiators -- Finance Chairman Max Baucus, Finance ranking member Charles Grassley, and Sens. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., and Michael Enzi, R-Wyo. -- have outlined some basic ideas to include in the plan.
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The lawmakers met with Obama at the White House today. The president's simple message was to "keep working," said White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs. Obama did not offer a new timetable for wrapping up the bill.
Afterwards, Baucus said they spoke with Obama for an hour and at one point sent out all staff. He added they spoke about policy, substance and politics. They will evaluate where discussions are when they return and decide where to go from there, he said.
One of the biggest hurdles is paying for the legislation. Castellani said the "Cadillac tax" on elaborate healthcare plans that the Finance panel is considering using to help pay for the bill could hold more promise than measures such as a surtax on the rich, which is included in the House bill. The Finance plan would tax insurance plans over a certain dollar value.
"The details of the so-called Cadillac plan still have yet to be completely fleshed out. The good news is they're looking within the system," Castellani said. "The question will be ... does it motivate the right behavior?"
The Chamber is more cautious. "One person's Chevy is another person's Cadillac, and so what does that mean?" Johnson said. "A tax on healthcare insurance plans at a certain level is going to drive employers to providing benefits below that level. That's just simple logic."
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