WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – U.S. President Barack Obama yesterday praised a Senate compromise on a public insurance option, and Senate Democrats said the proposals moved them one step closer to passage of a sweeping healthcare overhaul.
Democratic senators said they still had plenty of questions about the tentative agreement, reached late on Tuesday, and many withheld support until they could evaluate cost estimates of the plans and learn the full details.
After four days of private talks, Senate negotiators agreed to replace a government-run public insurance option with a non-profit approach run by private insurers, potentially resolving the bill’s biggest stumbling block.
“The Senate made critical progress last night with a creative new framework that I believe will help pave the way for final passage and an historic achievement,” Obama said at an event attended by congressional leaders. The healthcare overhaul is his top domestic priority.
“I support this effort, especially since it’s aimed at increasing choice and competition and lowering cost.”
The deal could make it easier for the Senate’s Democratic leaders to meet their self-imposed end-of-the-year deadline to pass a bill, which would then have to be reconciled with a version approved by the House of Representatives on Nov. 7.
The House bill includes a large government-run public insurance option, creating a potentially difficult negotiation when the two chambers try to merge their bills.
Shares of health insurers rose initially on expectations the Senate would jettison a government-run insurance plan seen as damaging to the industry, but later lost those gains as the market focused on proposed new insurance rules that could crimp profits.
Under the tentative Senate deal, the federal Office of Personnel Management would negotiate with private insurers to offer national non-profit health plans similar to those offered to federal employees.
Liberals praised a provision to allow people aged 55 to 64 to “buy in” to the Medicare health plan for the elderly, which now begins at age 65. Other senators questioned the impact on the program’s already shaky fiscal future.
