Healthcare

It is indeed a small world, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and MSNBC's Mike Barnicle found out today.

Ryan appeared on Morning Joe to plug Republicans' healthcare reform package, when Barnicle decided to grill him on the details of the legislation. Soon enough, the conversation revealed that Ryan's uncle is Barnicle's cardiologist.

BARNICLE: Congressman, take me through this now in real-time -- what you said -- not -- not legislative time.

RYAN: Sure.

BARNICLE: Let's pretend that your bill is enacted, passed and signed into law, and it's a year from now. And I'm going for a stress test at the Massachusetts General Hospital.

So, A, do I get to choose my own doctor? Tell me how much it's going to cost for this stress test in terms of a percentage basis, compared to now. And how much is it going to take out of my wallet to pay for your health care plan?

RYAN: Well, if you go to Mass General, I hope you pick my uncle, because he's a cardiologist there at Mass General.

BARNICLE: Who is he?

RYAN: Adolph Hutter. So I hope you pick him.

BARNICLE: He's mine!

RYAN: Oh, he is?

BARNICLE: Yea!

RYAN: Wow, what a small world. That's pretty...

(CROSSTALK)

BARNICLE: He's from Wisconsin. Yea!

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White House senior adviser David Axelrod told The Hill on his way into a luncheon with Democrats on health care reform that the Obama administration believes a July date for health care reform is realistic in the Senate.

"We think so," Axelrod said. "We appreciate the commitment of the speaker and we want to make that happen."

Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) was more cautious, however, declining to guarantee that the legislation can be passed by that month since the plan has multiple components that must go through multiple committees.

"I don't know. I can't tell you," he said. "We do have some challenges here... Senator Baucus and the Finance Committee are working overtime, and they want to have their part of the work product finished - I don't want to give a date, but soon. They really are working hard on it, and so we have to get the other complimentary parts through the HELP committee and other places to make this a total package. If they can do it by July 31 in the House, that'll be a great starting point."

- J. Taylor Rushing

President Obama hosted a meeting with corporate and union bigwigs on healthcare for the second consecutive day Tuesday, this time to talk with large employers about programs they've put in place to encourage employees to use preventive medicine.

"One element of cost is that where companies are able to take initiatives to make their employees healthier, to give them incentives and mechanisms to improve their wellness and to prevent disease, companies see their bottom lines improve," Obama said after the meeting.

The president singled out companies like Safeway, Microsoft and Johnson & Johnson for programs they've used to, for example, get workers to cut smoking, lose weight and exercise.

"If we can do that in individual companies, there's no reason why we can't do that for a country as a whole," Obama said. "All this designed to save taxpayers money, save businesses money and ultimately make the American people healthier and happier and make sure that we're getting a better bang for our healthcare dollar."

On Monday, Obama made a big splash by meeting with corporate, union and trade association executives to discuss their pledge to reduce national healthcare spending by $2 trillion over 10 years.

- Jeffrey Young

Don't know whether they're trying to piggyback on President Obama's big announcement on healthcare or whether they're trying to hide it, but the Senate Finance Committee issued a report Monday outlining the options of the table to expand healthcare coverage to the uninsured.

There's an awful lot in the 63-page document: Ideas for expanding Medicaid, offering tax credits to individuals and small businesses for private coverage and enacting health insurance market reforms, to name a few. But the biggie has got to be the outline of several different ways to create a new public plan people could choose instead of private insurance.

Basically, the Finance Committee -- which is set to mark up a comprehensive healthcare reform bill in about a month -- is looking at creating up a government-run program that looks like Medicare, creating regional plans administered by private insurers or having the public plan run by the states.

Though Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and ranking member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) jointly issued the report, they're on opposite sides about whether to create a public plan option at all. The committee held a public roundtable discussion last week to debate coverage options.

Baucus and Grassley released a similar report last month detailing the committee's set of proposals on reforming the healthcare delivery system. On Tuesday, the panel will convene for the last of three "roundtables," during which they will discuss how to finance the $1 trillion-plus the healthcare bill is expected to cost.

- Jeffrey Young

In advance of a White House meeting with President Obama Monday, the heads of six major interest groups penned a letter vowing to work together to reduce healthcare spending by $2 trillion dollars over the next 10 years.

Obama will formally announce the initiative following the meeting but the White House previewed the proposals Sunday. "These groups are voluntarily coming together to make an unprecedented commitment," Obama will say, according to excerpts of remarks he will deliver Monday.

"To achieve all of these goals, we have joined together in an unprecedented effort, as private sector stakeholders -- physicians, hospitals, other health care workers, payors, suppliers, manufacturers, and organized labor -- to offer concrete initiatives that will transform the health care system," says the letter, which is available here.

The chief executives of the Advanced Medical Technology Association (AdvaMed), America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), the American Hospital Association (AHA), the American Medical Association (AMA), the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) and the Service Employees International Union's healthcare division (SEIU Healthcare) signed the letter. Read more...

Freshman Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) has landed himself a front-row seat for the debate on health reform, something he's staked out as one of his big priorities.

The Senate Democratic leadership has assigned Whitehouse to the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which, along with the Finance Committee, has the lead role with drafting legislation to reform the U.S. healthcare system, The Providence Journal reports.

"I'm honored that [Senate Majority] Leader [Harry] Reid [D-Nev.] gave me this opportunity to serve temporarily on the HELP Committee. Our health care system is in disrepair -- its failures touch millions of American families, every day -- and fixing it is among our biggest and most urgent challenges. I'm ready to roll up my sleeves and do all I can to help Chairman Kennedy and my colleagues to move this vital effort forward," Whitehouse said in a statement to the Journal.

Whitehouse already had his toe in the health reform waters from his perch on the Budget Committee.

- Jeffrey Young

The significance of Sen. Arlen Specter's (Pa.) decision to abandon the Republican Party and become a Democrat has been "overblown," Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) said Wednesday.

During a conference call with reporters, Brown was asked whether Specter's party shift enhances Democrats' chances of passing a major healthcare reform bill this year.

"I don't think it has that much impact. I think the Specter party switch is probably overblown by all of us," Brown said, who also said he always expected Specter would collaborate on health legislation this year.

Echoing Specter's comment Tuesday that he won't be an automatic vote on all Democratic bills -- or to break a GOP filibuster -- Brown said that one senator flipping to the majority isn't the same thing as if Democrats increased their margin by several members.

- Jeffrey Young

Two major labor unions are speaking out against efforts by Senate Republicans to delay a vote on the confirmation of Kathleen Sebelius to be secretary of Health and Human Services.

In separate statements issued Thursday, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney and Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Secretary-Treasurer Anna Burger slammed the GOP for holding up Senate confirmation of Sebelius, the Democratic governor of Kansas, to President Obama's Cabinet.

"Senate Republicans are obstructing the confirmation of Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and ignoring the American voters' mandate for new leadership and an end to the status quo, especially when it comes to our nation's broken health care system," Sweeney said.

"Working families have been waiting a long time for the Federal Government to address our healthcare crisis," Burger said. "Now that we're so close, this delay in approving Governor Sebelius for HHS is unconscionable."

Organized labor has been pushing hard for health reform modeled after the proposal President Obama touted on the campaign trail. The Obama administration's efforts on healthcare have at least been symbolically hampered by the ongoing vacancy atop the federal health department. Obama's original nominee, former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), withdrew in February after revealing he'd paid more than $140,000 in back taxes while under consideration for the Cabinet. Read more...

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) says the lower chamber is moving ahead apace on legislation to overhaul the U.S. healthcare system.

After meeting Wednesday with House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.), House Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller (D-Calif.) and other key Democrats, Hoyer said everything's looking hunky dory on the health reform front.

"We may have three committees with jurisdiction over healthcare in the House of Representatives, but we speak with one voice," Hoyer said in a statement.

Hoyer is acting as the House Democratic leadership's liaison to the health reform bill's authors and will broker any disputes that crop up between Waxman, Rangel, Miller et al. over policy or committee jurisdiction as the House marches toward its self-imposed deadline to pass its health reform bill before Congress exits for its August recess.

Squabbles between the chairmen of those same committees during President Clinton's first term significantly contributed to explosion of the Democrats' last attempt to remake the healthcare system.

In a letter to President Obama Monday, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chairman Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) reaffirmed their plan to mark up legislation in June and send a single bill to the Senate floor in time to meet the same August deadline. Like in the House, infighting among Senate Democrats in the 1990s helped scuttle Clinton's health reform effort.

- Jeffrey Young

Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) suggested on Tuesday that the lack of Republican support for Kathleen Sebelius' nomination to be Health and Human Services secretary is an early indication that the GOP may not be willing to work with Democrats on healthcare reform.

Schumer also hinted that such a lack of cooperation may force Democrats to pursue a budget reconciliation process on healthcare legislation. That would allow Democrats to circumvent having to get a 60 vote filibuster proof majority to pass reforms.

The Senate Finance Committee recommended Sebelius for the post on Tuesday in a nearly party line vote; two Republicans joined the Democrats.

After the vote, Schumer's office released the following tersely worded statement from the senator:

"I was surprised by the fact that so few Republicans supported a moderate, qualified candidate like Governor Sebelius," he said. "It's an ominous signal of the level of cooperation we can expect from the Republicans on health care. Maybe the Republicans are telling us they want us to pass healthcare reform through the budget reconciliation process."

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