Ten Snowe Amendments Added to Health Care Bill
AMENDMENTS
Bangor Daily News
Kase Wickman
Boston University Washington News Service
Sept. 22, 2009
WASHINGTON—Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) Tuesday called the current markup of the health care reform bill before the Senate Finance Committee “a solid starting point.”
To help the measure reach the finish line, Snowe offered 24 amendments before the deadline last Friday. They were but a small part of the 564 amendments committee members submitted.
The bill, authored by committee chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.), is in the markup stage, when committee members can debate and rewrite it before voting on whether to send it to the Senate floor for a full vote. Baucus made public his modified version of the bill Tuesday, incorporating many of the suggested amendments, including 10 of Snowe’s 24.
All 23 of the committee’s members offered opening statements at Tuesday morning’s markup session. Snowe’s statement lasted about five minutes and took issue with complaints that health care legislation was taking too long to come to a vote, calling the committee’s work so far “an extensive, meticulous process that places thoughtful deliberation ahead of arbitrary deadlines.”
“Let us recall, it took a year and a half to pass Medicare to cover 20 million seniors, so we simply cannot address one-sixth of our economy, and a matter of such personal and financial significance to every American, on a legislative fast track,” Snowe said.
“Virtually every person I’ve encountered, throughout Maine and America, understands unequivocally, even if they have health insurance, that the current system is broken, and that this is not a solution in search of a problem,” she said.
Several of Snowe’s 10 accepted amendments would increase small-business eligibility for proposed government-sponsored health insurance exchanges. Her amendments would broaden the standards for inclusion in the exchanges. Snowe is the senior Republican on the Senate’s Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee.
Another Snowe amendment would establish a three-year, $75 million Medicaid Emergency Psychiatric Care Demonstration Project. It would allow nongovernment psychiatric hospitals to be eligible for Medicaid funds thus providing timelier care and broader available treatment for psychiatric conditions.
One of Snowe’s other accepted amendments would be aimed at low-income people who are willing to take on the risk of minimal coverage while still obeying the proposed requirement that all Americans have health insurance; they could sidestep the penalty imposed on the uninsured and pay only a minimal premium. The insurance they could buy, which is essentially catastrophic coverage, is referred to in the bill as the “young invincible” plan.
The fines for uninsured families whose income is more than 300 percent of the poverty level—a family of four that makes $66,150 annually—would be lowered to $1,900 from $3,800 in Baucus’ modified markup, as a result of amendments Snowe and Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) submitted.
One highly publicized pet amendment of Snowe’s that Baucus did not accept: the quasi-public option “trigger” safety net plan. Snowe’s amendment specified that if affordable coverage was not available to 95 percent or more of a state’s residents, a public option would go into effect in that state only. It would work this way:
If a plan’s cost is not more than 3 percent of a lower-income person’s adjusted gross income (defining lower-income as 133 percent of the federal poverty level) or 13 percent of a higher-income person’s income (earning at least 300 percent of the poverty level), it would be deemed affordable.
The committee’s markup will continue at least through Friday. Snowe is widely considered to be the sole Republican who may be swayed to vote in favor of Baucus’ plan.
In his opening statement, Baucus said that a study conducted by Harvard recently found that 45,000 people die every year because they are uninsured, and that uninsured people have a 40 percent higher risk of death than those covered by private insurance.
“Last week, I put out my proposal, but I don’t pretend that it’s the last word,” Baucus said. “I’m eager to work with the other senators to make this an even better bill.”
He called his revised bill “a balanced, commonsense plan that takes the best ideas from both sides” and “a uniquely American solution.”
“Americans have a tradition of balance. We don’t buy into government-only solutions. But we do believe in rules of the road. We have a tradition of mixed solutions. We have a tradition of compromise. We have a tradition of balance. This is a balanced package,” Baucus said.
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