A group of Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate issued an alternative health-care proposal that would scrap the tax exclusion for employer-provided health benefits on Wednesday at the same time a group of moderate House Republicans outlined their own approach on health care.
At the same time, a number of Senate Republicans are participating in talks in the Senate Finance Committee to write bipartisan health-care legislation.
At least for now, Republican lawmakers appear universally suspicious about Democrats’ health-care plans, but not ready to coalesce behind a single proposal of their own.
“We’re going to have many ideas coming from Republicans,” said Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., who supports the House-Senate plan that would eliminate the tax exclusion for employer-based insurance and create tax rebates for individual and families to buy their own health insurance.
That plan also enjoys the support of Sens. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., Richard Burr, R-N.C., and Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., as well as Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif. The plan would create a $2,300 tax rebate for individuals and a $5,700 tax credit for families. The proposal is similar to that of John McCain’s during the 2008 presidential campaign.
Other elements of the plan would create state-based health insurance exchanges in which people could purchase health coverage and “auto-enrollment” policies that would allow easy sign-up for the plans. But the proposal wouldn’t require that people purchase insurance coverage and doesn’t create a public health insurance option to compete alongside private insurers.
Coburn shrugged off a question about how time-consuming it would be to make the broad changes in the U.S. health-care sector envisioned by the group.
“Setting up a government plan and then showing how incompetent it will be takes time too,” Coburn said.
The plan pushed a group of moderate House Republicans - led by Rep. Mark Steven Kirk, R-Ill., and Charlie Dent, R-Pa. - takes a different tack. It would prohibit the federal government from regulating the hiring of doctors and make it easier for patients to circumvent Medicare and pay for their own health treatments.
That approach taps into a key Republican strategy on health care - building popular appeal for maintaining “the doctor-patient relationship,” which the GOP contends is endangered by Democratic proposals.
A third proposal is also in the works, this one from Rep. Dave Camp, R-Mich., the top Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee. A Camp spokesman said Wednesday that the lawmaker “is working on a bill” but didn’t say when it would be introduced.
Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, is still engaged in negotiations to write bipartisan health legislation with that panel’s chairman, Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont.
A group of House Republicans organized by Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Mo. - with the blessing of House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio - is working to keep Republicans on the same track on health legislation. But the task may not be an easy one. Blunt has held meetings of a “health-care solutions group” in the House that has laid down broad Republican principles, such as holding down costs for small businesses.
Blunt spokesman Nick Simpson said the group is comprised of lawmakers on the committees that will handle health legislation, “so that everyone is working at the same page and not on cross-purposes.”
Camp, for example, is a member of the group.
“Those are obviously people who fit on the group for obvious reasons, and they also have the ability to shape legislation as it moves forward,” Simpson said.
Simpson said Republicans “are united on the broad framework” and “pretty united in opposition to a $1.5 trillion plan that’s going to force Americans off the health insurance they have now,” a reference to a Democratic proposal that would create a public health insurance option.
All House Republicans will travel home for a one-week break next week with a “recess package” containing details of Republican health-care proposals, according to Simpson.
Unlike Democrats, House Republicans aren’t seeking a fixed timeframe for passing health legislation, which gives them time to work out the kinks. Congressional Democrats and President Barack Obama have said that they intend to pass health-care legislation by the end of the year.
“We don’t think we necessarily need arbitrary deadlines for when this is going to pass,” Blunt said.
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