Grassley: Health care debate to focus on GOP alternatives

By Jason Hancock 11/25/09 12:37 PM

When the Senate returns from Thanksgiving break to debate health care reform legislation, the Republicans will push numerous small amendments instead of a singular, comprehensive proposal of their own , U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said Wednesday.

U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley (Photo: Lauren Victoria Burke/WDCPIX.com)

“Well, I think the topics of debate will probably be centered on Republican alternatives,” Grassley said on a conference call with reporters. “And we probably won’t have one comprehensive alternative. We’ll probably have a lot of different subsection amendments.”

Those amendments will likely range from adding some sort of medical malpractice reform to improving small business’ ability to pool their resources to get better insurance rates. But the GOP effort will also focus on killing provisions they feel are inappropriate, such as individual mandates, Grassley said.

“Then we will want to do away with the — the first time in the history of our country we’ve ever said — the federal government said you had to buy something,” he said. “So today you got to buy health insurance under this bill. If you don’t buy health insurance, you’re going to pay more money to the federal government — the IRS, $1,500 per family. And we think that that’s philosophically wrong, and we think that there’s a better way of doing it through a re-insurance program.”

Debate on the $848 billion health care plan is expected to begin next week, after Democrats united on a procedural vote allowing the bill to go to the full Senate over Republican opposition.

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egc52556

"We’ll probably have a lot of different subsection amendments.”

That's because the strategy the GOP has adopted is to delay, delay, delay, hoping to wear down the Democrats. More amendments, more delay.

jrship

Grassley opposes the public option, which is estimated to actually reduce the deficit due to efficiency and cost savings. He opposes universal coverage through a mandate, which helps control costs through risk pooling. Another measure that has been recently debated is removing the anti-trust exemption for insurance companies, an exemption which allows them to monopolize markets and fix prices. Does Grassley support at least this measure to increase competition in private insurance? I'm on the phone with his office trying to find out. They forwarded me to a dead end and I've been on hold for 5 mins now after calling back. What cost saving measures DOES Grassley support?

jrship

Hmmmm. They forwarded me to a dead end. I called back: 10 mins on hold. Redialed: no answer. Grassley's office is generally pretty good about finding some one with an answer when I've called with a specific question. Not this time though. Maybe others can find out if Grassley supports the minimal cost saving measure of removing the anti-trust exemption.

Grassley: Health care debate to focus on GOP alternatives

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