They are an odd couple politically: a liberal Democratic Senator from the
Pacific Northwest, and a conservative Democratic Congressman from the South.
But Oregon’s Ron Wyden and Tennessee’s Jim Cooper are convinced they have
the answer to the nation’s health-care crisis – if only they could get the
key players on Capitol Hill to give their radical plan a hearing. “There’s a real opportunity for a philosophical truce here that you didn’t have in 1993,” the last time Washington attempted to overhaul the health-care system, says Wyden. “Republicans, who didn’t accept the idea of coverage for
everybody in 1993, have moved. Democrats have also moved. There’s much more
acceptance of giving a wide berth to the private sector.”
Maybe so, but the question that Wyden’s and Cooper’s plan begs is whether either side is really willing to completely scrap the current system, under which most people get their health coverage from their employers. That arrangement is more a historical accident than an efficient design, a legacy of World
War II-era wage and price controls, when companies began offering health
insurance as a way of attracting skilled workers. Over the years, however,
much has changed. Few workers spend their entire careers working for one
company any more, and businesses are staggering under the burden of health-care costs, which have been rising at twice the rate of inflation.
Wyden and Cooper are pushing a drastically different new arrangement under
which employers would turn over the money they spend on those benefits to
workers, so that employees could purchase coverage themselves, from a
selection of plans. The idea has a lot of appeal. It would give most people
far greater choice than they have now, and they could take their benefits
with them when they change jobs. It also provides generous subsidies for
those who cannot afford to purchase health care on their own, and yet, the
Congressional Budget Office has said that the proposal would be “revenue
neutral,” which means it wouldn’t add to the deficit. It would include a minimum defined benefits package, with no exclusions for pre-existing conditions; that would address two problems people now encounter on the individual insurance market, where it is difficult for many to find the coverage they need at a price they can afford. What’s more, their bill can boast something no other plan has at this point: bipartisan
support. In the Senate, Wyden’s Republican co-sponsors include Utah’s Bob
Bennett, Idaho’s Mike Crapo, South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham and Lamar
Alexander of Tennessee, a member of the GOP Senate leadership.
Wyden’s and Cooper’s approach also has a big following among health-care wonks, among them, noted bioethicist Ezekiel Emanuel — brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel — who has been tapped to play a big role in health-care reform in the Obama Administration’s Office of Management and Budget. Emanuel and Wyden teamed
up in December to write an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal on the
limits of employer-based health coverage. And though during the election campaign Obama criticized John McCain for proposing a plan that, like Wyden’s, would make employer-provided health benefits taxable, the Administration has suggested in recent weeks that it is open to such an approach.
Still, Wyden and Cooper’s plan is considered a long shot. The political wisdom in Washington
suggests that for any proposal to actually stand a chance, it would have to
build on the existing employer-based system. For much the same reason, few believe that
“single payer” health care — a government-financed system similar to
Medicare — will be given any serious consideration. As one Administration official
put it in describing the Wyden plan: “A lot of people think this is where
the system should be 20 years from now, but no one sees how it can be there
two years from now.”
Despite those doubts, Wyden and Cooper continue to lobby the committee
chairmen and ranking members of the five panels that have jurisdiction over
the issue on Capitol Hill. “We want to be team players,” Wyden says.
But they also note that time is quickly running out if lawmakers are to meet
their self-imposed deadline of having a bill passed out of both chambers
before the August recess. So they are watching the informal negotiations
that are underway on both sides of the Capitol carefully. All they need,
they say, is the right opening. Or at least a seat at the table.
See more TIME stories on health care.
