Earlier today, President Obama welcomed a motley crew of health reform stakeholders to the White House for a summit of sorts. On hand were representatives of a number of health care industry lobbies–including America’s Health Insurance Plans, the American Medical Association, PhRMA, and the American Hospital Association–and, on the other side of things, representatives of the Service Employees International Union.
The groups are pledging to support cost-reducing measures that, at least in theory, dovetail with an Obama-backed health care plan and which would incur saving that could potentially be construed as part of the up-front investment comprehensive reform will require.
Paul Krugman is pleased by this development. So is health wonk Jonathan Cohn, and The Atlantic‘s Marc Ambinder. Ezra Klein is somewhat less enthused. For their part, the administration is playing portraying today’s development as something just shy of a watershed moment. But is there reason to be skeptical of the Kumbaya chorus?
Richard Kirsch of the group Health Care for America Now cautions that “the groups did not agree to anything specific whatsoever.”
What they did was send a letter to the president saying they’d support as-yet-unnamed reforms, and the president responded by reaffirming his commitment to cost-saving options–such as reductions to Medicare overpayments to private insurance companies, and measures to reduce prescription drug costs–that interest groups by and large oppose.
That’s to say nothing of the greater reform options on the table, the most controversial of which–a public insurance option–Republicans and health insurers still oppose, and many Democrats will only support if in a largely unsubsidized form (i.e. it would have to be paid for by consumer premiums). One of those Democrats is Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA)–model of consistency–who was been warm to the idea of health reform in the past, but then switched parties and said he opposed a public option, and now says he would be open to a compromise along the lines of what I’ve outlined here.
Those who stand against reform, meanwhile, will have an ally in millionaire (and disgraced former hospital executive) Rick Scott, whose group Conservatives for Patients’ Rights has launched a campaign (organized by the Swift Boat masterminds at CRC Public Relations) warning that the government is about to ruin the health care system.
Which isn’t to say that the administration didn’t move the ball forward today. Just that the overall picture remains somewhat less tractable than much of today’s coverage suggests.
