15 Jan 2010 What Health Negotiators Are Arguing Over Now

No happiness in the House

Writing for the Hill, Jared Allen and Jeffrey Young are reporting on a growing problem in the health care negotiations:

Some House Democrats believe their states would get shortchanged in the overhaul of the nation’s healthcare system and the funding issue is fast becoming a major hurdle to getting a bill signed into law.

How much of a burden states would have to shoulder for a proposed Medicaid expansion is the latest friction point between the House and the Senate, and is threatening to blow a hole in the measure’s price tag.

“There’s a lot of angst right now from members from states like New York and California over this,” a senior Democratic aide said. “And there’s a growing concern that these states are getting the short end of the stick. And that’s particularly frustrating because it was members from these states that carried this bill to the point we’re at now.”

Lawmakers from these states and others are disgruntled because states that already offer more generous Medicaid coverage would be offered less additional assistance than states with relatively smaller programs…

…Democrats are working feverously to reach agreements on the parameters of the bill’s insurance expansion structure so they can send language – along with the tax portion – to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) as early as Saturday for analysis.

It was unclear, though, whether CBO would be able to provide a thorough enough of an assessment of the bill’s cost, and its impact on the deficit and healthcare spending, without a number of critical components that are still the subject of intense negotiations.

I left out most of the article for copyright reasons, but the entire article is available here.

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Labels: Congress, Government Health Care, Health Care