Please put your seats in the upright position, because it looks as if healthcare reform is building momentum to take off in the early days of the Obama administration. This week’s announcement that former Sen. Tom Daschle (D - S.D.) has been tapped as the new Secretary of Health & Human Services was just the latest indicator that the president-elect--as well as Congress--is serious about major reform.
The Caucus blog on the New York Times reported that a bipartisan group of powerful senators gathered in Sen. Edward Kennedy’s (D - Mass.) office on Wednesday, Nov. 19, to plot a major push to reform health care in the next Congress. This meeting, “coupled with President-elect Obama’s selection of Mr. Daschle, sent the clearest signal yet that Democrats will press ahead on health care reform despite a bad economy,” said the blog post. Meanwhile, the web site for the Obama transition team identifies “Providing Health Care for All” as one of five items on the short-list agenda on its home page.
For those of you who might be thinking “here we go again,” there are other signs of change in the air. America’s Health Insurance Plans has said that if there were an individual mandate for health insurance coverage (i.e., required universal coverage), it would support a requirement that insurers guarantee coverage of people with pre-existing conditions. As noted in the Wall Street Journal (subscription required), this is a switch for a key interest group, reversing the insurance industry’s “long-time opposition to rules that bar the common practice of weeding out customers who are likely to rack up too many bills.” The article also notes that, for different reasons, business groups, labor unions, consumer groups, doctors, and hospitals could all benefit from universal (or even near universal) coverage.
If everyone gets on board, we may reach cruising altitude shortly.
