By: Health Insurance
Submitted: 2009-10-19 23:10:44 | Word Count: 691
Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley plans to oppose health care legislation in the Senate Finance Committee today, arguing that the bill hits consumers and small businesses too hard while not guarding against politically sensitive side effects.
Grassley, the committee's ranking Republican, said he has no regrets about working with majority Democrats on the committee, only to oppose the bill. Given more time, he might have struck a deal, he said.
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Meanwhile, some Iowa Republicans said Grassley's opposition to the bill would be greeted with relief from some in the party.Grassley said he objects most to provisions in the bill that would require Americans to obtain health insurance. But Grassley also said the bill does too little to block federal money being spent to provide abortions and provide coverage for illegal immigrants.
"Those aren't the only things, but I think they are the most controversial or the most difficult to deal with," Grassley told The Des Moines Register.
Grassley had proposed amendments to remove the individual mandate and a tax on insurance companies that offer high-end insurance plans. The bill does not include provisions for abortion services or covering illegal immigrants, but Grassley wanted stricter prohibitions.
"I'm disappointed because I think another couple weeks of negotiation we might have had an agreement," Grassley said.
The bill does not include a public health insurance option for Americans to buy, a component of other House and Senate bills that Grassley has long said would be a deal-breaker for him and other Republicans.
The bill also is projected by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office to cost about $829 billion and reduce the deficit by $81 billion over 10 years. Both meet President Barack Obama's goals of costing less than $900 billion and shrinking the deficit.
But the combination of financial penalties outlined in the bill for individuals who do not obtain insurance and small businesses that do not enroll their employees in approved plans and of the tax on insurance companies that provide high-cost plans adds up to a sock to the middle class, Grassley said.
Grassley had spoken favorably about an individual mandate this year, but he came to see it as an ill-advised government intrusion.
Chris Bonfig, spokesman for a labor-union-backed health care advocacy group, said Grassley was abandoning his pledge of making health care more affordable.
"He has said time and time again that he supports reforming our broken health care system, but now he is standing in the way of progress," said Bonfig, of Change That Works.
Grassley had met at least weekly with Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat, since January and since June with a politically mixed committee panel of six in search of a deal that could win support from both parties.
But no Republicans, except perhaps moderate Olympia Snowe of Maine, are expected to support the bill. All Democrats expected to support it.
"I don't at all regret spending that time, even if it wasn't fruitful," Grassley said.
A slim majority of Iowans in the Register's September Iowa Poll said it is better for Grassley to compromise with Senate Democrats than to drop out of the talks. Only about a third of those who identify themselves as Republicans agreed with that statement.
Webster City Republican activist Drew Ivers said Grassley's vote against the bill will be a comfort to members of the GOP base.
"I think he'll gain support from his base," said Ivers, who was a vocal critic of Grassley's bipartisan posture. "I think it's a good move for him politically."
