Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, May 19, 1994 TAG: 9405190158
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
They came armed with 91 amendments, many of which would strike key mechanisms of the proposal.
"We can and must do this together," Kennedy told his Labor and Human Resources Committee, the first Senate panel to begin debating a health bill. The committee has 10 Democrats and seven Republicans.
In the House, the Ways and Means Committee, which began considering a health bill approved by a subcommittee in March, also got off to a partisan start. Rep. Pete Stark, D-Calif., blamed Republicans for standing in the way of health reform.
Stark said universal coverage "has been frustrated by the Republican Party for the previous 12 years. ... Finally, it had a chance to grow and flourish under the leadership of President Clinton."
As the two committees got down to work, Vice President Al Gore urged organized labor to keep up the pressure on Congress.
"We are going to pass health reform this year," Gore told the legislative conference of the Service Employees International Union. Nearly half the union's 1 million members are health care workers.
Kennedy wrote his bill in close consultation with Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell and the White House but also incorporated many points advocated by Republican members.
Despite Kennedy's efforts to win over Republicans, "Right now the bipartisan consensus is just a bit thin," said Sen. James Jeffords, R-Vt., who has endorsed the Democratic approach.
Most Republicans insist Kennedy's plan is too much like Clinton's and both are too bureaucratic.
Sen. Nancy Landon Kassebaum of Kansas, the committee's ranking Republican, likened Kennedy's bill to "a casserole that's made with the previous night's meal."
It builds on Clinton's bill but drops the requirement that consumers buy health insurance from big "mandatory alliances." It includes greater benefits in areas such as women's health, mental illness and drug abuse. It also exempts businesses with fewer than six employees from paying for workers' health insurance.
Even if the alliances are voluntary, they still exist, Kassebaum said, and states still have to pick up a host of regulatory duties in overseeing them.
Her first amendment would eliminate the alliances, state responsibilities toward them and many other key parts of the bill's structure - nearly 30 pages worth.
Kennedy on Wednesday stripped from his bill a special council that Clinton had proposed to monitor drug prices. Drug companies saw it as unfair price regulation. Instead of the council, Kennedy would have the Department of Health and Human Services study drug costs and treatment methods.
by CNB