President Obama addressed the issue of health care reform at a press conference on Tuesday, recognizing it as “a complicated issue” and adding that as Congress debates various reform proposals he is “very optimistic about the progress that they’re making.”

The president said it was important that “the reform we pass brings down the crushing cost of healthcare,” and that health care reform is “not a luxury, it’s a necessity.”

“Unless we act, one out of every five dollars that we earn will be spent on health care within a decade, and the amount our government spends on Medicare and Medicaid will eventually grow larger than what our government spends on everything else today,” Mr. Obama stated.

Besides the importance of regulating health care costs, Mr. Obama said any new reform legislation would not add to the federal deficit over the next decade, and that lawmakers would “find the money through savings and efficiencies within the [present] health care system.”

At a separate press conference presented by Republican leaders, Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour gave a state’s view of certain challenges presented by both the president’s ideas and those detailed in the Democrats’ 852-page reform proposal.

The governor said that “states are worried about the idea of a great expansion of Medicaid” that would occur when providing national public health care coverage, adding that Medicaid was an expensive program to administer; “for many states, up to 20 percent of their state budget.”

The governor said that under the proposed Democratic plan being debated in Congress, 300,000 more people would be added to Medicaid rolls in his state—a 50 percent increase that would cost the state a proposed $350 million.

“Well, we haven’t got 350 million dollars,” Governor Barbour said. “We also don’t have any idea how you are going to make the savings that would reduce the cost of the program where we could add 300,000 people, and it not cost anything.

“There needs to be a lot of information to the American people, information to state governments. 852 pages [is] pretty hard to swallow in a very short period of time,“ the governor concluded.

Medicaid is a federally-funded program that provides health services to low-income, needy families and individuals, administered differently by each individual state.
Minority Leader Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) also urged patience in debating health care reform legislation. “Congress shouldn’t rush through healthcare like we did with the stimulus plan several months ago,” he said. “A Washington takeover of healthcare, I think, will limit the flexibility of our states, and hurt working families around our country.”

‘Bad Habits’

President Obama stressed the need for fundamental reform now, saying that “the notion that somehow we can just keep on doing what we’re doing, and that’s ok – that’s just not true.”

“We simply can’t have a system where we throw good money after bad habits.”

Obama further outlined his reform ideas, including having public health care co-exist with free market private plans, giving Americans a choice in their coverage.
But there is some concern that private health care providers could not compete with a government-subsidized plan, and business owners would default to the public plan rather than paying for private providers, which would then drive private health care out of business.

America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) and the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association released a letter sent to U.S. Senators, which expressed their concerns over proposed reform legislation.

“A government-run plan no matter how it is initially structured would dismantle employer-based coverage, significantly increase costs for those who remain in private coverage, and add additional liabilities to the federal budget,” the letter, sent by AHIP president Karen Ignagni and Blue Cross head Scott Serota.

Mr. Obama acknowledged the concerns. “I think that there is a legitimate concern if the public plan was simply ‘eating off the taxpayer trough’ that it would be hard for private insurers to compete.”

Private ‘Marketplace’

Obama’s plan allows for private providers to compete for business in a “marketplace”—regulated by the federal government with specific rules and regulations.

“One of them being, that you can’t preclude people from getting health insurance because of a pre-existing condition,” Mr. Obama said, adding that insurers would not be able to “cherry pick and just take the healthiest people.”

Rep. Boehner’s take is that such regulation is best left to each state, who “need the flexibility to deal with the constituents in their states.”

“Healthcare varies from person to person, and it also varies from state to state,” he said.

Governor Barbour put it differently. “My experience with the federal government is if the government runs something, it usually costs me more and gives me less.”

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