Friday
Dec112009
Senate Democrats Praise Public Option Replacement, Hold Out Hope For Favorable CBO Score
Friday, December 11, 2009 at 6:26PM
By Julianne LaJeunesse - University of New Mexico/Talk Radio News Service
In a conference call hosted by the nonprofit group Families USA on Friday, Senators Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.). praised recent Democratic proposals to expand Medicare benefits to more people, and touted a hypothetical "Health Care Bill of Rights," which would result from passage of the latest Senate bill. The two also divulged hopes within their party that the bill will receive a positive scoring from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
Both Democrats expressed confidence that, if nothing else, the Democratically-backed bill is conducive to reducing excess health costs.
“I think that under our oversight responsibilities, we need to carefully watch and make sure that these goals are achieved,” Whitehouse said of plans to cut medical costs in the United States. Whitehouse added that despite what the CBO scores reveal, the true impact of health industry reform, must be lived, not speculated.
“It’s hard to cost something that depends on executive initiative, which is an unknown factor,” he said. “We believe, I believe, essentially that all of the critical tools that are necessary to reform this health care system in a way that delivers better care, cheaper, are there to be used by the administration, and will be picked up by an administration, for whom, this is a critically high priority.”
The latest changes to the Senate plan, which were developed by a group of 10 Democratic senators, five moderate and five liberal, involve dropping the controversial "public option" insurance plan in favor of an expansion of Medicare and Medicaid; a proposal that has caused Republicans to raise doubts about its merit.
Said Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) earlier this week, expanding Medicare is like “putting people in a boat that’s already sinking.”
In a conference call hosted by the nonprofit group Families USA on Friday, Senators Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.). praised recent Democratic proposals to expand Medicare benefits to more people, and touted a hypothetical "Health Care Bill of Rights," which would result from passage of the latest Senate bill. The two also divulged hopes within their party that the bill will receive a positive scoring from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
Both Democrats expressed confidence that, if nothing else, the Democratically-backed bill is conducive to reducing excess health costs.
“I think that under our oversight responsibilities, we need to carefully watch and make sure that these goals are achieved,” Whitehouse said of plans to cut medical costs in the United States. Whitehouse added that despite what the CBO scores reveal, the true impact of health industry reform, must be lived, not speculated.
“It’s hard to cost something that depends on executive initiative, which is an unknown factor,” he said. “We believe, I believe, essentially that all of the critical tools that are necessary to reform this health care system in a way that delivers better care, cheaper, are there to be used by the administration, and will be picked up by an administration, for whom, this is a critically high priority.”
The latest changes to the Senate plan, which were developed by a group of 10 Democratic senators, five moderate and five liberal, involve dropping the controversial "public option" insurance plan in favor of an expansion of Medicare and Medicaid; a proposal that has caused Republicans to raise doubts about its merit.
Said Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) earlier this week, expanding Medicare is like “putting people in a boat that’s already sinking.”
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