What he has done is outline five principles he wants to pursue, including “universal coverage,” which he defines as making health insurance affordable for all Americans.
Yet Baucus, a Democrat, says he is not talking about the government guaranteeing or providing a basic level of health care, as it does in many industrial nations.
“We will have insurance companies in America,” Baucus said. “We'll have uniquely American solutions.
“Those (other) countries have a different history of the public sector providing health insurance. That's their history, that's their culture. We Americans are a younger country, and we're founded on a principle of independence, on free markets.”
Baucus opened hearings last week before the Senate Finance Committee on possible health care reforms.
He outlined his principles earlier this year, which include universal coverage, controlling costs, increased emphasis on disease prevention and “shared responsibility,” meaning that government, individuals, employers and others should help pay for reforms.
He also said he wants to investigate how to create larger health insurance “pools” that people can buy into, and to create a new, independent entity that will research the effectiveness of medical therapies, drugs and treatment, to help control costs.
Baucus said while the Finance Committee is holding hearings now on health care reform ideas, the real work won't happen until 2009, under a new president and Congress.
“Now is the time to seriously address health care reform,” he said. “It's been kind of simmering around the edges for a while, but it's close to reaching a boil right now.
“We really don't have a health care ‘system' in America. It's a conglomeration of different groups. Everybody is out trying to do their own thing, trying to make a buck, and a lot of people are falling through the cracks.”
Families USA, one of the leading health care national consumer groups, believes Baucus is taking a “pragmatic approach” that can appeal to both Republicans and Democrats, says its deputy executive director, Kathleen Stoll.
Stoll says the broad-based insurance pools of consumers could offer health insurance that would be affordable for people who are older or sicker.
Government subsidies likely would help poor people buy insurance, health insurers might face tighter regulations on price, and some form of controlling costs would be introduced, she said.
“He's been very strong on that principle of sharing risk,” Stoll said of Baucus. “I think he is in sync with where (we) want to go.
“The devil's in the details and we're not there yet, but he is providing important core principles for health care reform. He's lowering the ideological divide a bit, and I think that's extremely valuable.”
Yet Bob Moffit, director of the Center for Health Policy Studies at the conservative Heritage Foundation, said it's hard to judge the Baucus approach because the senator hasn't provided any real details of what he wants or is proposing.
“None of these things are spelled out,” Moffit said Friday. “The language doesn't tell me anything about what the policy actually is. It's a good sound bite, but it doesn't say anything.”
The Heritage Foundation supports reforming health-insurance markets, to give individuals more power to form their own groups and shop for insurance nationwide.
Moffit said it's easy and popular to say that everyone should have affordable coverage, but the trick is how that goal is achieved, and whose freedoms are preserved and whose aren't.
“There is an Orwellian use of language in health care reform, where people say ‘contribute,' which really means taxes, and ‘responsibility,' which really means mandates,” Moffit said.
Baucus said Friday he is considering whether individuals should be mandated to buy health insurance, but that he hasn't decided on the issue.
He also said “nothing is off the table” - except, apparently, a government-financed system that guarantees a level of health care for all.
Baucus said he has invited former Washington Post reporter T.R. Reid to a June health care summit in Washington, where Reid will show a version of a recent television piece he did for the Public Broadcasting System on health care systems in other countries.
Reid examined health care in Germany, Taiwan, Switzerland, Japan and Great Britain. Each of the countries guarantees health care for all, either through a government-run system or a tightly regulated system that includes private insurance.
All of the countries developed their systems in the past 50 years, and Switzerland and Taiwan in the past two decades.
Baucus said it's a “tragedy” that 47 million Americans are without health insurance in one of the world's wealthiest nations, and that his goal is to find a way to achieve universal health coverage.
“I want the Finance Committee to be ready, to be ahead of the curve,” he said. “That's why I've begun hearings, getting the facts out, pushing the edge of the envelope.”
Monday: Ideas on health care reform from Baucus' potential Republican opponents.
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