Obama Readies a Fallback Health-Care ProposalScaled-Down Plan Would Expand Insurance to About Half as Many People as Pending Bill Envisions
By LAURA MECKLER
FEBRUARY 24, 2010
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President Barack Obama will use a bipartisan summit Thursday to push for sweeping health-care legislation, but if that fails to generate enough support the White House has prepared the outlines of a more modest plan. His leading alternate approach would provide health insurance to perhaps 15 million Americans, about half what the comprehensive bill would cover, according to two people familiar with the planning.
It would do that by requiring insurance companies to allow people up to 26 years old to stay on their parents' health plans, and by modestly expanding two federal-state health programs, Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program, one person said. The cost to the federal government would be about one-fourth the price tag for the broader effort, which the White House has said would cost about $950 billion over 10 years.
Officials cautioned that no final decisions had been made but said the smaller plan's outlines are in place in case the larger plan fails.
Such a move would disappoint many Democrats, including Mr. Obama. They have worked for more than a year to pass comprehensive legislation like the plan the president unveiled Monday, which would cover the bulk of the 46 million uninsured people in the U.S., set new rules for health insurers and try to control spiraling health-care costs. Liberal Democrats in particular would be dismayed by any ratcheting back of ambitions. But more-conservative Democrats nervous about the fall elections could be more comfortable with a scaled-back measure.
The ideas in the White House's fallback plan are in tune with earlier incremental Democratic efforts. In the 1980s, Democrats expanded eligibility for Medicaid, the joint federal-state health program for the poor. In 1997, after failing to pass President Bill Clinton's comprehensive package, Congress created the Children's Health Insurance Program, for children in working poor families. Last year, Mr. Obama signed into law a bill expanding that program to encompass four million more kids.
The larger Obama health plan has been in jeopardy since last month, when Democrats lost a Senate seat from Massachusetts and with it their filibuster-proof majority in the chamber. With many congressional Democrats spooked, the White House considered more-modest measures that would be easier to pass.
As he was weighing his choices, Mr. Obama asked his staff to show him what a more modest policy might look like, and the plan to cover about 15 million people was the most promising, a senior White House official said. "He wanted people to look at what effect you could have on the overall problem if you have to go smaller," the official said.
White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel didn't devise the smaller policy, the official said. But Mr. Emanuel argued that it wasn't feasible to pass a comprehensive bill and counseled a lesser version, according to several people familiar with the conversations. Others argued that Democrats were going to take a political hit by voting for a health-care bill no matter what, and they should opt for a sweeping measure whose benefits would be easier to highlight.
Another argument made by those pushing for major change: Why run for office if not to address big problems such as health care?
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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703510204575085970815851804.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_LEFTTopStories:banghead::banghead::banghead:
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