Dissecting the health care summit

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After long hours of spirited debate, President Obama and Congressional lawmakers failed to reach any substantive compromises on health care legislation. Republicans were clearly frustrated with the president’s proposals and repeatedly suggested scrapping the legislation and starting over again. Democrats insisted that was not an option because too much progress has already been made.

“This is such a complicated issue that it’s inevitably going to be contentious,” said President Obama at the summit. “But what I’m hoping to accomplish today, is for everybody to focus, not just on where we differ, but focus on where we agree. Because there actually is some significant agreement on a host of issues.”

But all that talk about bipartisanship resulted in very little compromise, at least publicly.

“Democrats kept saying we’re just so close, we agree on so much,” said “The Takeaway” Washington correspondent, Todd Zwillich. “The message there, the subtext is, ‘if you Republicans would just give a little bit, we could get a bill for the American people.’ The Republicans know what their message is: ‘this bill is unpopular, Mr. President, scrap it and start over.'”

“Every American cares deeply about the quality of their health care, and access of health care, and cost of healthcare,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. “They have followed this debate like no other. And they have rendered a judgement about what we have attempted to do so far. The solution to that is to put that on the shelf and to start over.”

Starting over isn’t an option where Democrats are concerned, says Zwillich. “The Democrats have made clear that they’re willing — at least they say they’re willing — to make some changes to the plan that they have, but that this is the plan they were going with.”

The summit wasn’t meant to be a negotiating session, Zwillich adds. But it allowed both sides to engage in the debate. “The president took away all the objections that he’s not willing to negotiate or compromise, or that this whole process has been closed; here was a process that was live on TV. At the same time the Republicans take away the accusations that they don’t have a plan. They did present a plan, they told the president here’s what we would like to do.”

But aside from all the political posturing, some substantial points were made around health care issues. One of those issues was whether the president’s proposal would lower premiums.

“There will be about a half trillion dollars of new taxes in it,” said Republican Senator Lamar Alexander. “It means for millions of Americans, premiums will go up when people pay those new taxes …”.

“Even without the subsidies, it’s estimated by the Congressional Budget Office that the plan we put forward would lower the costs in the individual market ,” President Obama countered. “For the average person who’s just trying to buy health insurance, and they’re not lucky enough to work for a big company, [the plan] would lower their costs by between 14 and 20 percent.”

Lori Robertson, the managing editor for FactCheck.org, says both men were being a bit misleading. “The Congressional Budget Office looked at the Senate bill, which is largely similar to the president’s plan, and found that really there would be no significant change in premiums for those who are in group policies — those who get their insurance through their employer. But for those in the individual market — those who buy coverage on their own — they would see an average premium hike of between 10 percent and 13 percent.”

But, Robertson adds, the reason behind the increase in costs for the individual market is due to the increase in benefits under the premiums. “Part of that is the mandate that plans have a certain level of benefits. And the other reason, the CBO said, is because a lot of people in that individual market are going to be subsidies.”

A bit misleading also describes what Republican Senator Tom Colburn said about spending: “The government now directs over 60 percent of the health care in this country.”

“It’s not really true,” said Robertson. “Really the figure is about 47 percent.”

At the end of the meeting, the president said he would give Congressional lawmakers six weeks to find compromise.

Read a summary of the summit at FactCheck.org.

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