As Lawmakers Craft Health Care Reform, Concerns Rise Over Costs

JIM LEHRER:

And finally tonight, the Washington struggle to craft a health reform plan. NewsHour correspondent Betty Ann Bowser reports for our Health Unit, which is a partnership with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

BETTY ANN BOWSER:

Work on health care reform legislation began in earnest on Capitol Hill today, but concern over how to pay for it loomed large.

SEN. JUDD GREGG, R-N.H.:

How do you mark up a bill that you don't know how much it costs when you're trying to amend the bill and you're concerned about the cost?

BETTY ANN BOWSER:

On the Senate side, the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee began to mark up its bill, a process in which Democrats and Republicans try to reach consensus on what the final bill should contain. The bill is one of two being hammered out in the Senate.

SEN. CHRIS DODD, D-Conn.:

This bill affects everybody; 100 percent of our fellow citizens will be affected by what we do in the area of health care, every consumer, every business, every provider, as well. And so this is truly historic, the journey that we're beginning this morning in this committee to deal with this issue. It may be that none of us will ever work on another issue as significant as the one that we're charged to respond to.

BETTY ANN BOWSER:

Connecticut Democrat Christopher Dodd is leading the committee in the absence of chair and sponsor of the bill, Sen. Edward Kennedy, who's being treated for brain cancer.

SEN. CHRIS DODD:

He'll be missed during this markup, but he wanted to warn all of us that he's watching on C-SPAN.