Senators worry government health plan could hasten end of employer coverage — MedCity Morning Read, June 25, 2009

Senate Finance Committee leaders Max Baucus (D-Montana), left, and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa)

WASHINGTON D.C. — So the latest struggle of Senate leaders trying to craft health care reform is whether subsidizing millions of people to join a proposed government-sponsored health plan would speed the erosion of insurance provided by employers — which the senators want to preserve — according to the New York Times.

Senator Max Baucus, the Montana Democrat who chairs the Senate Finance Committee, told the Times that this concern dominated his committee’s discussion on Wednesday. The committee is among leaders in the nation’s health care reform effort.

On Wednesday evening, President Obama participated in a town hall-style meeting on health reform broadcast by ABC News from the White House. On the Nightline edition of the health care forum, host Charlie Gibson read part of a June 8 letter written by Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee to the president:

“At a time when major government programs like Medicare and Medicaid are already on a path to fiscal insolvency, creating a brand new government program will not only worsen our long-term financial outlook but also negatively impact American families who enjoy the private coverage of their choice. The end result would be a federal government takeover of our health care system, taking the decisions out of the hands of doctors and patients and placing them in the hands of Washington bureaucracy.”

“They’re wrong,” Obama told Gibson. Under his proposed Health Insurance Exchange, the public option would be “one option among multiple options,” Obama said.

The concern, Gibson prompted, is that the public plan sponsored by the government would be at a competitive advantage to the plans of private insurers.

The president rebuffed the suggestion, saying “we can set up a public option where they’re collecting premiums just like an private insurer and doctors can collect rates.” But because the government plan would have lower administrative costs, “we can keep [private insurance companies] honest,” he told ABC News.

More stories worth a read:

• Former executive: Insurers ‘confuse their customers,’ ‘dump the sick’ (Wall Street Journal Health blog)
• Lilly capsulizes its value to state: Drug maker ready to take the offensive as health-care debate starts to heat up (Indianapolis Star)
• Apple’s silence on Steve Jobs’ health may have broken federal securities rules (Los Angeles Times)
• Watson Pharmaceuticals gets FDA approval for generic Plan B emergency contraceptive (Associated Press/Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune)
• FDA won’t OK Glaxo’s experimental nausea drug (Reuters)
• Report: Pennsylvania hospitals in financial slide (Philadelphia Inquirer)
• Intrexon ingests $10 million Series C funding (VentureDeal)
• New cancer treatment shows ‘great promise’ (Financial Times)
• Two-thirds of insurers used flawed database that overcharged patients, says senator (Associated Press/Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune)
• Recent reporting relied on incomplete releases (Covering Health blog)
• Medicare fraud strike force operations lead to charges against 53 doctors, health care executives and beneficiaries for more than $50 million alleged false billing in Detroit (BusinessWire)
• Advocates want state to spare coverage for uninsured Ohioans (Columbus Dispatch)
• University Hospital part of nationwide study for traumatic brain injury(University of Cincinnati health news)
• Cleveland Clinic’s chief information officer added to HIT summit (HealthData Management)
• 2009 Medical Innovation Summit at Cleveland Clinic to highlight the latest developments in cancer care (PRNewswire)
• Pharmacy chain shuts down drugstore in North Akron (Akron Beacon Journal)