Sen. Shaheen Supports Public Option in Health Care Reform
Reform
New Hampshire Union Leader
Joe Markman
Boston University Washington News Service
09/10/09
WASHINGTON— Headed to a meeting yesterday with President Obama to discuss health care reform, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen said the so-called public option is the best choice for providing secure and reliable health insurance to all Americans.
“I support the public option. It’s one of the ideas that makes sense,” Shaheen said.
She and 15 other moderate Democratic senators met with Obama at the White House yesterday afternoon.
Many of the proposals Obama outlined in his speech to Congress Wednesday night, such as outlawing coverage denial because of pre-existing medical conditions, are contained in each of the various bills before Congress and have received bipartisan support. But how to cover the uninsured while lowering health care costs remains a thorny issue, even among Democrats.
“How do we get the votes we need to get health care reform done in a way that’s going to help so many families in New Hampshire and across the country who are worried about the rising cost of their health insurance, their deductible and their co-pays?” Shaheen said.
In the past, Shaheen has said she would not rule out the possibility of voting for a bill without a public option. After Obama’s speech, she said that a public option is the best alternative.
Republicans, including Sen. Judd Gregg, have said that the public option is not the right choice for reform and that it would limit free-market competition while driving up the federal budget deficit.
“You’d be creating a massive new entitlement program,” Gregg said. “That is not affordable for us as a nation.”
Nina Owcharenko, deputy director of The Heritage Foundations Center for Health Policy Studies, said despite the President’s promise that no one would be required to change his or her insurance, a public option could force people to switch coverage.
Owcharenko cited a report Heritage commissioned from the Lewin Group, a nonpartisan health care policy and management consulting firm. The report estimated a so-called public option would cause nearly half of privately insured Americans to choose that option, resulting in increased costs for the government.
Shaheen said Republican criticism of the public option misses the point of fixing a broken system. Instead of focusing on particulars, Shaheen said, her colleagues should focus on accomplishing long-overdue reform.
Gregg said that Obama’s speech lacked specifics; he added that “the devil is in the details”. Still, Gregg said, despite the Democrats overwhelming majority in the Senate, there is a strong working coalition that may reach a compromise.
New Hampshire House Democrats said the President successfully bridged the partisan divide and clearly stated his framework for reform Wednesday night.
Rep. Paul Hodes said that details are always being worked out, but that the response from his constituents has been extraordinarily positive.
“I think the President clarified his fundamental positions in his approach to health care reform in a very effective way,” Hodes said.
Rep. Carol Shea-Porter agreed, saying that unless people would have liked to stay up 12 hours listening to policy details, Obama did as best he could with the complex issue of health care.
###
