Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, August 10, 1994 TAG: 9408100070
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
``Health care reform is a matter of simple justice,'' Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, D-Maine, said in remarks that inaugurated election-year deliberations on one of the most far-reaching measures to come before Congress in many years. ``The difference between secure coverage and an unaffordable policy can be as heartbreaking as one sick child.''
Republicans said Mitchell's bill - designed to expand coverage to 95 percent of all Americans by 2000 - relies too heavily on higher taxes and gives government too much say over health care.
``Without any doubt, there are people in great need in America, and we're trying to figure out ... how to assist those people without damaging the best health care systems in the world,'' Senate Minority Leader Robert Dole, R-Kan., said shortly after Mitchell spoke.
In a report that illustrated the scope of health reform, the Congressional Budget Office said in a preliminary estimate that the subsidies Mitchell proposed to expand coverage would cost $420 billion through 2000 and $1.1 trillion through 2004.
Savings from Medicaid, the government program for the poor, would total $788 billion through 2004, and savings from Medicare would total almost $200 billion. Taxes would rise $262 billion through 2004.
The report also said the subsidies and other steps would achieve 95 percent coverage, leaving 14 million Americans still uninsured. Even so, it would mean that a controversial provision that could require businesses to help pay for workers' insurance would never be put into effect.
There was no timetable for a final vote in the Senate, and Dole indicated debate may be long. ``We're not going to be rushed,'' he said. ``The issue is too important, and they've got a terrible product.''
In the House, Democratic leaders pushed for a vote next week on a more ambitious measure designed to achieve universal coverage by 1999. It would expand Medicare for millions of the unemployed and workers in small firms, financed largely by taxes and a requirement that businesses pay 80 percent of the cost of insurance for workers and their families.
In talks blessed by the Republican leadership, a small group from both parties was negotiating over an alternative measure that fell far short of universal coverage.
Dole has united 40 of the Senate's 44 Republicans behind a less sweeping alternative that contains neither tax increases nor the mandatory business contributions.
Mitchell's bill would rely on federal subsidies and widely supported changes in insurance laws to spread coverage to about two-thirds of the estimated 40 million who lack it.
If national coverage falls short of 95 percent in 2000, a complicated series of steps would be set in place that could require employers and workers to split the cost of insurance 50-50. Firms with 25 or fewer employees would be exempt, as would those in states with 95 percent coverage.
Senate allies and administration officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they believed the majority leader was close to having the votes to prevail, with eight or 10 senators undecided.
Sen. Dave Durenberger, R-Minn., said the measure would wind up raising the cost of insurance for the middle class as a result of spending cuts called for in Medicare and Medicaid.
by CNB