Nine Senate Democrats press Reid to expand public health insurance choice

Nine Democratic senators from across the party’s ideological spectrum are pushing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to make the government-run health insurance option available to workers with employer-based coverage.

But Reid is facing conflicting pressure from labor unions that strongly oppose the idea.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) is the lead sponsor of the proposal to let workers with employer-based coverage sign up for a public option or other health plans that would be made available on insurance exchanges. These exchanges are designed to serve as clearinghouses for various health plans, but only Americans who do not receive health benefits from their employers would be eligible.

“We are concerned that under current proposals too many Americans will not be able to purchase insurance in the exchanges,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter dated Oct. 30.

“To ensure that health reform promotes real competition among insurers, we support a version of Sen. Wyden’s free choice proposal to expand consumer choice by opening up the exchanges.”

The lawmakers cited an estimate by Congressional Budget Office (CBO) Director Doug Elmendorf that less than 10 percent of the nation’s population could choose from plans on the exchanges, thus “limiting the opportunity that the exchanges and their innovative new products will have to succeed.”

A mixed group of liberal and centrist Democrats signed the statement: Sens. Mary Landrieu (La.), Evan Bayh (Ind.), Bill Nelson (Fla.), Barbara Boxer (Calif.), Maria Cantwell (Wash.), Ted Kaufman (Del.), Jean Shaheen (N.H.), Roland Burris (Ill.) and Wyden.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.), an Independent who caucuses with Democrats, also signed it.

But these lawmakers face a powerful opponent in the AFL-CIO, which has taken a strong stance against the proposal.

The federation of unions argues that allowing people to leave employer-provided healthcare plans would increase premiums for workers who stayed.

“Our issue is that under the proposal in its current form, younger and healthier workers would leave employer-based systems to go into the exchange, leaving employer systems with older and less healthy employees,” said Amaya Tune, a spokeswoman for the AFL-CIO.

The AFL-CIO argues that Wyden’s proposal would lead to premium increases for workers left behind in the employer-based system.

Tune said the point of keeping younger, healthy workers in the employer-provided plans is to “share the risk around” and make them more affordable.

Tune said that President Barack Obama and other stakeholders agreed to build on the employer-based system, not dismantle it.

“The consensus is to build on what we have already — that was Obama’s plan,” she said.

But proponents of Wyden’s plan have also invoked Obama’s name to bolster their argument.

“We support President Obama’s assertion that under health reform, people should be able to keep the coverage they have,” the lawmakers wrote. “Earlier this year, President Obama rightly took that statement to its next logical step when he told the American Medical Association that ‘If you don’t like your health coverage or don’t have any insurance, you will have a chance to take part in what we’re calling a Health Insurance Exchange.'

“We couldn’t agree more that people who do not like the coverage they currently have should be able to choose something better,” they wrote.