Gregg Opposes Public Option Plan But Thinks it will be in Final Health Care Bill
HEALTH CARE
New Hampshire Union Leader
Daisy Hsiang-Ching Tseng
Boston University Washington News Service
Sept. 30, 2009
WASHINGTON—The Senate Finance Committee may have rejected a government-run health insurance plan, but Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., said Wednesday he thinks the plan, the so-called public option, will be in the final bill that emerges from Congress.
The committee, as it worked its way toward sending a bill to the Senate floor later this month, rejected two amendments Tuesday to add a public option to the bill that would be available as an alternative to private insurance plans.
In addition to the Finance Committee’s version, the public option is already part of three health care reform bills that have cleared House committees as well as a bill the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee has approved.
Although Gregg opposes the separate public option proposals Sens. John D. Rockefeller IV, D-W. Va., and Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y, offered on Tuesday, he said in an interview Wednesday that ultimately something similar will become law because the idea is supported by a majority of the House and by the White House.
“Because public option is in the Kennedy-Dodd {Senate Health Committee] bill,” Gregg said, “it’s in all three of the House bills, and the administration says they want a public option, I think we can assume that the government option will be in the final product.”
“I assume there will be something like a public option or something that will lead fairly quickly to a public option,” Gregg said. “It won’t be called a government option, and it will be dressed up to look like something else.”
Gregg opposes the public option because he thinks “that will mean you’ll have a government bureaucrat between you and your doctor, and you’ll have set up a situation where basically the government moves toward taking over health care.
If you have a government option, you’re essentially moving down the road toward a single payer plan such as Canada and England have,” Gregg said.
Gregg said he believes the result could be health care rationing, price setting and the stifling of innovation “so that new drugs and new procedures will probably not be able to come on line because no one will want to pay for them”.
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., a supporter of a public health care insurance option, said Wednesday in a statement she thinks it would encourage, not stifle competition in health care.
“For health care reform to work better for middle-class families and small businesses, we need more competition in the health insurance market. I believe the public option is the best way to do this, but it is not the only way. Between now and when a final bill comes to the floor of the Senate, I will work with my colleagues to find ways to add the competition we need so that costs are stabilized and the system works more efficiently.”
If the public option does not become part of the final legislation, Shaheen said she hopes Congress will act to require more competition among private insurance companies.
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