Transcripts

Health Care Reform Slips Back to Critical

SUSIE GHARIB: The health care reform effort appears to be losing support as it heads for a crucial vote in the Senate. Independent Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut says he will vote against the public option. Maine Republican Olympia Snowe, a supporter in a key committee vote, is now opposed. Several Democratic senators are also not in favor of the bill. The defections come as some analysts doubt the plan can deliver on its promise to both expand the number of insured Americans and drive down costs. Stephanie Dhue reports.

STEPHANIE DHUE, NIGHTLY BUSINES REPORT CORRESPONDENT: By some estimates, the nation's health care tab would increase just slightly more with reform legislation than if nothing is done. The reason? People who suddenly have health insurance will use it and that costs money. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell says that's one reason reform doesn't deliver.

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL, MINORITY LEADER: Now Americans thought reform was supposed to lower costs, not raise them, yet every day it seems we see further confirmation that the plans under discussion would lead to higher cost and more long-term spending and debt.

DHUE: Controlling health care costs is politically and technically difficult. One problem is that lawmakers are reluctant to make changes that would go against powerful industries or anger voters. Health policy expert Joe Antos says no one really knows how to make the system efficient.

JOSEPH ANTOS, HEALTH CARE ANALYST, AEI: Bluntly, if we knew how to deal with the cost problem, private insurers would have dealt with it. But for all sorts of reasons, technical, political and acceptance by the public, we just don't have the answer.

DHUE: The main cost controls in the proposals are a tax on high cost plans and a series of pilot projects that tie Medicare payments to quality treatment. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities' Robert Greenstein says these changes have better odds of controlling costs than doing nothing.

ROBERT GREENSTEIN, EXEC. DIR., CENTER ON BUDGET & POLICY PRIORITIES: To be clear, what they do are very important initial, I underscore initial steps. We will have to come back and do a lot more in subsequent years and decades. We can't do it all now, because we don't know all the answers.

DHUE: Whether the bill's cost containment efforts will work will only be known if the bill becomes law and we still don't know if it has the votes to pass. Stephanie Dhue, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT, Washington.