| MANKATO — Congressman Tim Walz of Mankato puts the odds at 90 percent that the House and Senate will find a compromise on health care reform that can pass both bodies, and the two-term Democrat expects to see that compromise in a little more than a week. Walz anticipates he will vote for the final version of the historic bill, but he doesn’t expect it to be the end of health care reform. “This is a pretty good piece of legislation,” he said. “Is it perfect? No, it’s a start.” The basic thrust of both the House and Senate bills are the same. Each body passed sweeping overhauls of the nation’s health care system that would require virtually all Americans have insurance, with subsidies for most who can’t afford the costs. Both bills also contain provisions that prohibit insurance companies from excluding people with pre-existing conditions. And both have mechanisms for driving down the skyrocketing cost of medical care by attempting to move the health care payment system away from one based on number of appointments and procedures and toward one that rewards healthier outcomes for patients. The two bills also have revenue sources that cover the cost of the expanded coverage and even reduce federal deficits, at least according to reports by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. All of those provisions — listed by Walz for months as must-have items — need to stay in the final bill to get his vote. House Democrats met on Thursday to spell out what the “lines in the sand” were for members to vote for a compromise bill. “It was a pretty lively discussion,” he said. That meeting came a day after House and Senate Democratic leaders met with President Obama to build a framework for a final bill. Under the plan, the House will work off the Senate’s version of the bill, amend it and send it back to the Senate for final passage, according to an Associated Press report on the leadership meeting. House Democrats are scheduled to meet again Tuesday night to hash through more issues related to the final compromise, Walz said. Early the following week, “We should see something,” he said. Despite the broad areas of agreement between the Democrats who control the House and the Senate and the Democratic Obama, there are major points of disagreement — including how to pay for the reform. The Senate prefers a tax on high-end health care plans, saying those Cadillac plans drive up medical costs. House members say that many of those plans were negotiated by unions that surrendered pay increases in return for better health coverage, and the House prefers an income-tax hike on individuals making more than $500,000 a year and couples earning more than $1 million. House Democrats also approved a government-run heath care plan — the so-called “public option” — that would be available as a competitor to private insurance, but that appears to be virtually dead. Walz didn’t make it a certain deal-breaker, but he said he’d be reluctant to support a final bill if it includes the additional Medicaid payments for Nebraska that were included in the Senate bill at the insistence of Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb. Although he grew up in the Cornhusker state, Walz said he’d have “a very difficult time” voting for the bill if Nelson’s “toxic pill” remains. “There’s going to be a few rotten pills in there,” he said. “Hopefully nothing as bad as that.” But Walz clearly wants to support the final bill, noting that he made health care reform a major goal of his second term in the House. “I think it’s absolutely necessary to do something with health care,” he said. “... If we don’t do it now, when are we going to do it?” Walz’s support for the bill is already a major point of criticism for the trio of Republicans actively campaigning for the chance to face him in the Nov. 2 general election. They say it’s too expensive, too intrusive and too ineffective. Candidate Allen Quist of St. Peter recently called on all Minnesotans to work toward killing the health care overhaul bill. “This is the most insidious, evil piece of legislation I have ever seen in my life,” Quist told a group of Republicans in southeastern Minnesota. Walz didn’t dispute that a majority of Americans are opposed to the bill or at least highly skeptical. But he said the opposition is based exclusively on falsehoods. “The day after we pass it, the sun will rise,” he said. The impact on many southern Minnesotans will be unnoticeable in the short term, Walz predicted, because so many are already insured. Over time, he predicts the bill will reduce the rate of inflation in medical costs, easing the siphoning of people’s take-home pay into payroll deductions for insurance. The bill will also drive job creation by restraining the rapid rise in health care premiums on employers, he said. |
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