House Dems unveil full coverage health care plan

June 19, 2009

By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR and ERICA WERNER

WASHINGTON, Jun. 19, 2009 (AP Online delivered by Newstex) -- House Democrats say virtually all of the nation's 50 million uninsured people will be able to get coverage through their health plan.

Democrats introduced their plan Friday, saying they will move quickly to get it through committee and to the House floor. But the final cost was still undetermined and lawmakers were scrambling to find ways to pay for it.

The plan would require individuals to get coverage and employers to contribute. It would also expand the Medicaid program to cover more low-income people.

It would create new insurance purchasing pools that would offer the choice of private coverage as well as a public program.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama's ambitious effort to remake the U.S. health care system was always going to be a marathon. Now the runners seem to have stumbled at the starting line.

Shock over cost estimates. Irreconcilable differences between Democrats and Republicans. Tense divisions among Democrats. Creeping delays.

The whole enterprise is "basically a gridlock," Sen. John McCain, a Republican, said Friday.

"This is not reform," added McCain, Obama's opponent in last year's presidential election. "This is why we should start over."

But Democrats have another description for the chaotic scene playing out in Congress: They call it the legislative process.

"This is just tedious hard work," said Sen. Kent Conrad, a Democrat. "It's just slogging through options."

Obama campaigned on a promise of offering affordable health care to all Americans. But the recession and a deepening budget deficit have made it difficult to win support for costly new programs. Obama has said that overhauling health care is vital to the United States' long term economic recovery.

Amid the heightened anxiety, the shape of the debate is getting a lot clearer.

On one side is the House Democrats' sweeping health care bill, which will be unveiled Friday.

It would require all individuals to obtain health insurance and force employers to offer health care to their workers, with exemptions for small businesses. A new public health insurance plan, strongly opposed by Republicans, would compete with private companies within a new health care purchasing "exchange" where Americans could shop for coverage. Government subsidies would help the poor buy care, according to an outline obtained by The Associated Press.

On the other side is the House Republican plan, which would focus on trying to help small businesses and self-employed individuals find private coverage.

Searching for the elusive middle ground are a small group of senators on the Senate Finance Committee, which had to scale back its initial plan when cost estimates topped $1.6 trillion.

The end result may be a bill that is more affordable but covers fewer of the nearly 50 million Americans uninsured. It is too early to tell what will emerge.

The United States is the only developed nation that does not have a comprehensive health care plan for all its citizens.

The House Democratic bill, being released at a news conference of the chairmen of the three committees with jurisdiction -- Ways and Means; Energy and Commerce; and Education and Labor -- was expected to leave out key details of how it would be paid for.

Democrats are considering everything from taxing soda, to raising income taxes on upper income people earning more than $200,000, to a federal sales tax.

On the other side of the Capitol building , two Senate committees were going in separate directions on their health care bills. The Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee resumed work Friday on an expansive bill reflecting Democratic priorities, while members of the Finance Committee were laboring to produce legislation that could attract Republican support.

To that end, Finance Committee senators were looking at leaving a new public insurance plan out of their bill, instead creating nonprofit co-ops to offer insurance in competition with private companies, according to an outline obtained by the AP. The co-ops could accept federal loans for start-up operations but would have to repay the money.

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AP Special Correspondent David Espo contributed to this report.