Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, August 4, 1994 TAG: 9408040072
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: C-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
The House leadership bill calls on businesses to pay 80 percent of insurance costs for workers and families, with all firms covered in five years.
But after carefully counting votes in the Senate, Mitchell, D-Maine, produced a plan Monday that relies on federal subsidies and insurance reforms to move coverage toward 95 percent by the turn of the century. Mandatory business contributions would be held in reserve until 2002 - when they might or might not take effect - but would be less burdensome on businesses than the House requirement.
``It was my judgment that an immediate employer mandate would not have been enacted by the Senate,'' said Mitchell, who, like House leaders, firmly predicts that Congress will enact health care legislation this year.
But that leaves unanswered the question of whether Mitchell's distant, uncertain requirement can win approval, or whether it might undergo further softening by conservative Democrats.
And in the House, where mandatory business contributions are politically unpopular, this uncertainty is working against Majority Leader Richard Gephardt, D-Mo., and the others advocating the bill the leadership unveiled Friday.
The leadership's hope is to convince Democrats that its bill is preferable to any of the alternatives that fall short of universal coverage. In addition, individual Democrats are told that incremental health reform is worse than none at all, because it would cause insurance premium costs to rise for middle-class voters who now have coverage. They also are told that to enter compromise talks with the Senate, the House must pass a bill.
Rep. Jim Bacchus, D-Fla., a conservative Democrat who is retiring this year, announced his support for the measure during the day.
Even so, leadership aides said they remained well short of the votes needed for passage, and some lawmakers were struggling with their decisions.
``Politically, members are looking not for the high-water mark, but for the low-water mark,'' said Rep. Pat Williams, D-Mont. Mitchell has ``offered the bottom line he feels can pass. That makes it more difficult for us to come up with a bill with high standards of universal coverage and employer mandates.''
``There are a number of members who will want to wait and see what happens the in Senate,'' said Rep. Ed Pastor, D-Ariz.
In the House, Democrats recall casting a politically tough vote for a broad-based energy tax during last year's deficit reduction debate, only to have the Senate swiftly jettison it with White House approval.
With an election just a few months away and Republicans universally opposed to these mandatory requirements, the Democrats aren't eager for a repeat.
One leadership aide, speaking on condition of anonymity, said some rank-and-file Democrats want to be allowed to vote on a coverage plan that more closely resembles Mitchell's than the one Gephardt has produced. But that would mean opening the measure up to amendment, a step the leadership so far is unwilling to take.
Other Democrats hope the Senate will affirm Mitchell's plan before the House must vote, giving nervous House lawmakers the assurance that some form of mandatory employer contribution will survive.
Under Senate rules, Mitchell needs Republican agreement to schedule a vote. The GOP members could permit a vote in the Senate if they believed it would result in Mitchell's mandates being stripped from the bill. That would almost certainly cause support to unravel in the House for Gephardt's bill.
But if they can round up the votes to thwart Mitchell, Senate Republicans might still prefer to delay until after House Democrats have voted. The thinking goes that the GOP would reap a double harvest - one on the floor, and the other at the polls.
by CNB