If you’re an insurance company, that is:
Late in the afternoon [on Wednesday], Sen. Chuck Grassley (Iowa), the top Republican on the committee, requested consideration of the “Grassley F-1 Modified Amendment.” Its goal: eliminate $7 billion a year in fees that the government would charge private health insurance companies, and make up the shortfall by reducing benefits to poor people and legal immigrants.
It was dangerously close to a parody: Republicans demanding that fees be reduced on a profitable industry and shifted to low-income Americans. But Grassley pressed on, unafraid. The fees on the corporations, he said, are a “bad idea” and would undoubtedly result in higher insurance premiums. “I urge my colleagues to vote for my amendment, to strike the fees,” he exhorted.
Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) recognized the fat target that Grassley had just set up. “I think it’s a ‘message amendment,’ ” he said, suggesting Grassley was sending a symbolic signal to the conservative base. “It certainly takes on legal immigrants and Medicaid in a very sharp way.”
Grassley looked hurt. “You don’t really believe that this is a message amendment, do you?”
Why so cynical, Senator Rockefeller? I take Senator Grassley at his word. He would rather reduce health care coverage for poor people and immigrants (during a recession!) than force a profitable industry to pay higher fees.
I encourage Bob Krause and Tom Fiegen to add this Washington Post story to their Senate campaign websites.
In case anyone is wondering, I still have no idea who the mystery Grassley challenger might be.
UPDATE: Grassley also failed on Wednesday to get the committee to adopt “that would have required beneficiaries of Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program to show a photo ID in order to enroll.” However, the committee unanimously adopted Grassley’s amendment “that would require members of Congress to get their health insurance through a proposed federal exchange.”
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And, what am I missing here, anything?
Article in today’s Register, 10/1:
http://www.desmoinesregister.c…
Grassley: Iowans’ input led to my amendment
By THOMAS BEAUMONT • tbeaumont@dmreg.com • October 1, 2009
Comments by Iowans during Sen. Charles Grassley’s crowded town hall meetings in August spurred him to introduce an amendment that would require members of Congress to get their health insurance through a proposed federal exchange, he said Wednesday.
Grassley said the amendment to federal health insurance legislation to require lawmakers and staff to get coverage from the exchange was in keeping with his view that members of Congress will better understand the impact of their work if they experience its effects.
“This is kind of carrying on to what I heard at my town meetings: Is Congress going to be covered by the same laws we expect everyone else to when it comes to health care?” Grassley told reporters. “And I think I’ve delivered on that promise.”
The amendment was adopted Tuesday by unanimous consent in the Senate Finance Committee, where Grassley serves as the ranking Republican.
Congress and staff currently participate in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program.
The exchange proposed in the legislation is modeled after this system and aims to give participants the same types of choices members of Congress have.
Americans who do not have health insurance would be allowed to participate in the program.
Grassley’s amendment would require members of Congress and their staffs to receive coverage from programs participating in the exchange.
Iowans attending the roughly 80 public events held by Iowa’s members of Congress during the August recess, including Grassley’s 17 town meetings, regularly argued that Congress ought to be required to use whatever program it creates.
“Very definitely that came out of those meetings,” Grassley said. “But also, don’t forget that – and I said this at my town meetings – that I wasn’t saying yes, that we ought to be covered, to pander to my audience at that specific town meeting.”
In 1995, Grassley won approval of the Congressional Accountability Act, which applied civil rights, labor and workplace safety laws to Congress and its associated agencies, which once had been exempted.
the-skipper Thu 1 Oct 10:10 AM