by Jessica Waltman
NAHU Government Affairs Department
After spending much of January, February and March
on incremental health reform measures like the
Children’s Health Insurance Program
Reauthorization Act of 2009 and the health-related provisions in the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act of
2009, Congress and President Obama have returned their
focus to comprehensive health care reform.
To make the point clear that overall reform is his current policy goal, on March 5, President Obama hosted a
health care summit at the White House with approximately 100 members of Congress, administration leaders,
health care professionals and advocates. Although the
summit did not achieve any substantive policy agreements, it did set the timeline for reform. President Obama
made clear that his expectation is an overhaul of the nation’s health care system by the end of the year, calling it a
“fiscal imperative” vital to restoring the economy.
Further solidifying his commitment to comprehensive
reform this year is President Obama’s inclusion of a $634
billion health care “reserve fund” in his proposed fiscal
year 2010 budget. This fund, which is intended to cover a
10-year period, has been called by one high-ranking administration official “a down payment on President
Barack Obama's effort to reform health care.” The fund,
which has also been referred to as “fill in the blanks for
health care” has no specifics on reform attached to it.
Instead, the president and his advisors have repeatedly announced that, unlike the Clinton administration, the
Obama administration’s plan is to work out the details of
reform in conjunction with the Congress.
Congress is already hard at work on the details, particularly on the Senate side. Senators Baucus and Kennedy
and their staffs continue to meet with stakeholder groups,
including NAHU, on a weekly basis. It is expected that the
Senate Finance and Health, Education, Labor and Pension
Committees that they chair may release a series of additional health reform white papers this spring as a precursor to legislation to advance the policy discussion. Senator
Baucus has announced that he still feels confident that
the Finance Committee will be considering a comprehensive health reform measure by early summer 2009.
Furthermore, both committees have commenced series of
hearings on health reform topics. Senate Republicans are
working on this issue too, and holding their own internal
strategy meetings as well as looking for ways to cooperate
on a bipartisan basis.
Things are moving a little bit more slowly on the
House side, but the health reform pace has picked up
there too from earlier this year, when members from
both sides of the aisle were announcing that they would
not address health care reform until 2010. Now
Representative Waxman, who chairs the Energy and
Commerce Committee, is reporting that although his
committee will address climate control first, overall
health reform is next on their agenda. House Ways and
Means Heath Subcommittee Chairman Pete Stark has
predicted his committee will be debating a health reform
bill by Halloween. The Ways and Means Committee has
also launched a series of health reform hearings, as has
the Education and Labor Committee, which has jurisdic-
