Senate debates stripped-down health care reform package
February 28th, 2006 by RespiteMatch.com STEVE LeBLANC
Associated Press Writer
The Massachusetts Senate prepared to launch debate Tuesday on a stripped-down version of a health care reform package that would make insurance plans available to about half of the state’s uninsured.
Senate President Robert Travaglini unveiled the bill Monday after House and Senate negotiators failed to come up with a compromise version of two more ambitious health care reform bills.
The stripped-down bill, designed in part to discourage the state’s poorest and uninsured residents from relying on emergency rooms for everyday health care, is needed to avoid the loss of $385 million in federal funds, Travaglini said.
Travaglini defended the decision to move quickly on the bill despite criticism from House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi.
Late Monday, DiMasi issued a written statement criticizing the Senate and calling Travaglini’s bill “the first detailed counter proposal that the Senate has presented” despite months of negotiations.
“That’s an observation that I don’t share,” Travaglini, D-Boston, told reporters Tuesday. “There is a difference of opinion and he feels very strongly, the House feels very strongly, about their position and the Senate feels very strongly about ours. We will reach consensus.”
DiMasi, D-Boston, also said he doesn’t feel the same urgency to rush through Travaglini’s bill.
The new health care plan must by up and running by July 1 and federal overseers say they need about 120 days to review the proposal which would push the deadline back to the beginning of March.
DiMasi said the review time for a bare bones bill would be much shorter. He said the House “does not believe that March 1st is a real deadline.”
Travaglini tried to downplay friction between the two chambers.
“We’re going to take the action we deem appropriate and they have the luxury and responsibility of taking actions they deem appropriate,” he said.
Debate on the measure was set to begin just hours before a scheduled fundraiser for Travaglini at a restaurant in the North End neighborhood of Boston, part of his district.
Travaglini’s move is the first major public acknowledgment of what has become increasingly clear on Beacon Hill - the inability of House and Senate negotiators to reach common ground on the two very different, and ambitious, health care reform bills approved last year.
Gone from Travaglini’s bill are many of the highlights of those two earlier bills, including provisions mandating all individuals have health insurance and requiring employers provide insurance or face a payroll tax.
Travaglini’s bill also avoids any expansion of Medicaid and drops other initiatives in the original Senate bill, including $25 million for screening programs, a health care quality assessment program, and a statewide infection control program.
The bill tries to do the minimum needed to satisfy federal overseers by letting individuals buy private health insurance plans on a pretax basis and creating a program to offer subsidies to help low-income people get insurance.
Overall, the plan will help about 300,000 of the state’s estimated more than half a million uninsured individuals afford insurance, according to Travaglini.
Health care advocates said the 300,000 figure is optimistic because the bill lacks the provision requiring individuals have health insurance plans, much the way state requires car owners have insurance.
Another provision would allow private insurers to offer health plans with deductibles as high as $5,400 for families or $2,700 for individuals, said John McDonough of Health Care for All.
