Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 3, 1990 TAG: 9003032660
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
The U.S. Bipartisan Commission on Comprehensive Health Care voted to send Congress proposals to provide universal health insurance, phased in over five years, and a proposal to ensure long-term health care.
The panel voted 8 to 7 on the plan to achieve universal access. Its vote was 11 to 4 on a plan for long-term care.
"We can't offer easy answers, but we can offer a challenge to this country," said Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., chairman of the panel known as the Pepper Commission for its first chairman, the late Rep. Claude Pepper, D-Fla.
The plan relies on increased federal spending for health care coverage, including a federal takeover of the Medicaid system now shared with the states.
In addition to its estimated $66.2 billion cost to taxpayers, another $20 billion would be borne by businesses through increased contributions to employee health plans.
Some commission members in both parties took sharp issue with the recommendations.
"We abdicated our responsibility, it seems to me, as to how to pay for it," said Rep. Fortney "Pete" Stark, D-Calif. "Without a way to pay for it, it is a non-starter. It is legislatively dead."
Sen. David Durenberger, R-Minn., said the plan also failed to provide any restraints on health care costs. "It's going to skyrocket our costs," he said.
The recommendation would provide public and private insurance over five years to cover nearly all the more than 31 million Americans who have no health insurance, and an estimated 20 million with less than adequate insurance.
In its first year, the plan would extend health care coverage to all children and pregnant women.
It would require all businesses with more than 100 employees to provide private health insurance for their workers or to contribute to a public plan for employees and non-working dependents.
After five years, all Americans would have health insurance through their employers or the public plan.
It would offer all Americans coverage for long-term care in their homes and for the first three months in a nursing home. Federal benefits for additional time in a nursing home would be improved.
The commission was created in 1988, when Congress voted to expand Medicare catastrophic care coverage. It was directed to recommend ways to assure health care and how to pay for it.
The recommendations include provisions for changing health insurance industry practices. Insurance companies could not deny or exclude coverage for pre-existing conditions, would have to guarantee acceptance of all groups, and would have to assess premiums on the same terms to all groups in a community.
A federal program replacing Medicaid for the poor would expand access to health care for unemployed people and provide incentives and subsidies for small businesses to pay for health insurance.
by CNB