Democrats Press House to Expand Health Care Bill

After a rare bipartisan agreement in the Senate to expand insurance coverage for low-income children, House Democrats have drafted an even broader plan that also calls for major changes in Medicare and promises to intensify the battle with the White House over health care.

President Bush has threatened to veto what he sees as a huge expansion of the children’s health care program, which he describes as a step “down the path to government-run health care for every American.” The House measure calls for changes that the administration will probably find even more distasteful, including cuts in Medicare payments to private health plans.

Like the bill approved last week 17 to 4 in the Senate Finance Committee, the House bill would increase tobacco taxes to help finance expansion of the Children’s Health Insurance Program.

House Democrats hope to portray the issue as a fight pitting the interests of children and older Americans against tobacco and insurance companies. The White House says the Democratic proposals would distort the original intent of the children’s program, cause a big increase in federal spending and adversely affect older Americans who are happy with the extra benefits they receive from private health plans.

Representative Charles B. Rangel, the New York Democrat who is chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, said the House bill would “reverse the Republican drive to privatize Medicare,” by reducing payments to private health plans that care for 8 million of the 43 million Medicare beneficiaries.

But the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said the government paid the private plans, on average, 12 percent more than it would have cost to care for the same people in traditional Medicare. Moreover, it said, payments to the fastest-growing type of plan, known as private fee-for-service plans, are 19 percent higher than the cost of traditional Medicare. AARP, which represents nearly 39 million older Americans, and the American Medical Association said they would begin running television advertisements on Monday to secure passage of the House bill.Cigarette makers are fighting the proposed increase in tobacco taxes, while insurers are lobbying against cuts in their Medicare payments.

“Cuts of this size would mean the end of a lifeline for many seniors,” said Karen M. Ignagni, president of America’s Health Insurance Plans, a trade association. source: New York Times