HMO-PHOBIA
REES, MATTHEW
HMO-PHOBIA By Matthew Rees Members of Congress don't come much more conservative than John Shadegg, an Arizona Republican first elected to the House in 1994. But last year, Shadegg cosponsored a...
...Other task-force members noted Norwood was more guilty than anyone of talking to the press—he regularly distributed press releases during the task force's work—and the avuncular Hastert quickly intervened to douse the tensions...
...This view is backed up by an array of public-opinion polls revealing widespread contentment with health care...
...While Gallup found in January 1994 that 31 percent of respondents cited it as the most important problem facing the country, just 6 percent do so today...
...When Rep...
...Forcing Republicans to think about health-care reform has been Rep...
...Richard Gephardt, the House Democratic leader, while conceding that he hadn't seen the details of the Republican proposal, still labeled it "counterfeit"—a "fig leaf" and a "toothless subterfuge...
...This will make life difficult for Gingrich, who is disinclined to act...
...Marathon meetings were held right up to June 24, the day the report was released, and when Norwood spoke at the standing-room-only press conference, he praised the final product and claimed to have gotten 75 percent of what he'd wanted...
...The task force still hasn't drawn up legislative language, and it's hard to see how Congress could pass a sweeping bill in the few days remaining in this legislative year...
...No one knew what Gingrich meant, but reopening negotiations exacerbated tensions between Norwood and the rest of the group...
...It's still unlikely any legislation will pass this year— Senate Republicans are less interested in action, and congressional Democrats don't want to hand the GOP an election-year accomplishment...
...First, Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle released a letter to the press in which Senate Democrats called on Republicans to give floor time to a health-care bill introduced by Ted Kennedy...
...Even so, the task force won't win plaudits from freemarket groups...
...An hour after the GOP task-force report was released, Daschle dismissed it as "recycled rhetoric that will do one thing: give [Republicans] political cover...
...John Linder, who heads the House GOP campaign committee, acknowledges that health care is "an easy issue to demagogue" and that "Democrats are very good at that...
...Shadegg is hardly alone...
...Daschle predicts there will be "huge political repercussions" if the GOP fails to act on health-care reform this year, but he recently assured reporters that it's "far more important" to pass some sort of reform than to exploit health care in the campaign...
...But there's no longer the wholesale opposition to health-care reform that killed the Clinton plan four years ago...
...But the speaker told Hastert to come up with "bolder" and more "visionary" recommendations, more in tune with "21st-century thinking...
...An August 1997 ABC News poll found 92 percent satisfaction with traditional fee-forservice care and 88 percent satisfaction with HMOs...
...The task force met on Thursday mornings in Hastert's office...
...The breadth of support for Norwood signaled to House speaker Newt Gingrich that if he didn't come up with a competing proposal, he could be forced into holding a vote on the regulation-heavy bill and might Matthew Rees is a staff writer for The Weekly Standard...
...even see it pass...
...Hastert's biggest achievement may have been to convince Norwood to sign on to the task-force report...
...So will there really be the "huge political repercussions" Daschle predicts if Republicans don't act on health-care reform this year...
...So will Republicans, in the face of Democratic mudslinging, have the backbone to stand firm...
...But last year, Shadegg cosponsored a bill many conservatives derided as "ClintonCare II...
...Charlie Norwood, a Georgia conservative who gave up his dental practice to run for the House in 1994...
...Its recommendations would increase federal regulation of the health-care industry...
...At the press conference where Daschle, Kennedy, and Gephardt decried the GOP task-force report, Alexis Herman, the secretary of labor, was more subdued, saying the Clinton administration was "pleased the Republican leadership has recognized the need for action...
...So in late January, Gingrich announced the creation of a health-care task force and named as chairman the most popular member of the elected GOP leadership, Denny Hastert of Illinois...
...Before long, interest-group ads excoriating Shadegg were running on the radio in his Phoenix district...
...This is disingenuous...
...If his bill isn't put on the Senate calendar in July, Kennedy says he'll attach it to every piece of legislation that comes to the floor...
...That's generous: His proposal to increase regulation of health-provider networks was scrapped, as was his proposal to impose legal liability on employer-provided health plans...
...But GOP officials say the ad never gained any traction, and they felt no need to respond...
...Many congressional conservatives are criticizing HMOs, a traditional Republican ally, and last week a House Republican health-care task force issued a long-awaited report recommending an array of reforms that managed-care groups oppose...
...But with the task force's recommendations defining their position, and with no apparent public demand for sweeping reform, Republicans may decide that sticking with what they've got is as good as it gets...
...The recent special election to fill a House seat in New Mexico is instructive...
...A preview of the Democratic line of attack came June 23-24...
...The discussions ranged from emergency-room care to medical savings accounts...
...Other polls show skepticism concerning the government's ability to improve the delivery of health care...
...But whatever effect it has won't be immediate...
...After spending just two years in the conservative trenches, Norwood surprised people by introducing a sweeping anti-HMO bill last year...
...Even more surprising was that his bill quickly attracted the support of a majority of the House...
...Shadegg is now so confident of his position he's planning to campaign this fall on his support for reforming the liability provisions of federal health-care law, something fiercely opposed by the HMO lobby...
...Tell Heather Wilson," intoned the ad, "to stop putting insurance companies ahead of our families...
...While the group was dominated by earnest, accommodating types like Jim Talent and Porter Goss, much of its time and energy was devoted to controlling the prickly Norwood, who occasionally threatened to resign from the task force if he didn't get his way...
...Congressional Democrats, meanwhile, will raise the bar high so as to keep the issue alive...
...Norwood will make a big push for passing some sort of legislation...
...Hastert thought he was close to having a finished product in May and took his recommendations to Gingrich...
...Yet the issue "is not real high" on his list of worries...
...Nor is health care the pressing issue it once was...
...Similarly, Kennedy charged Republicans with producing an "insurance-industry protection act...
...And while more Democrats than Republicans signed up as cosponsors, conservative criticism was offset by the bill's endorsement from not just Shadegg, but also other fire-breathers like Helen Chenoweth, Tom Coburn, Lind-sey Graham, Steve Largent, and Joe Scarborough...
...There's little to suggest voters will punish the GOP for killing the tax-heavy tobacco bill, and the House is likely to remain mired in the intricacies of campaign-finance reform for the next few months...
...This might tempt Republicans to look for a compromise...
...Many House Republicans are nonetheless happy to have a health-care policy they can be for, as opposed to merely responding to Democratic proposals...
...An April Pew poll found voters trust Democrats more than Republicans on health-care issues by 53 percent to 25 percent, and GOP pollster Frank Luntz has been advising Republicans not to be too closely aligned with the managed-care lobby...
...She also expressed hope there could be a "bipartisan bill...
...The wild card is the White House, which sounds more interested in a deal...
...Bill Thomas, a Gingrich ally on the task force, was quoted in published reports calling Norwood's health-care proposal "asinine," Norwood publicly demanded Thomas's dismissal...
...So when he agreed to appear on a conservative-oriented talk-radio show a few months back, he expected a flood of criticism...
...That leaves health care as the only issue where Republicans feel vulnerable in the midterm campaign...
...Karlyn Bowman, a polling expert at the American Enterprise Institute, predicts "it will be difficult to make health care a winning political issue in November...
...When Kennedy employed this tactic in 1996, he not only tied up the Senate for months, he also secured passage of his bill to increase the minimum wage...
...This year, he's upping the ante by trying to recruit the actress Helen Hunt, whose diatribe in As Good As It Gets is credited with stirring anti-HMO sentiment, to campaign for his favored reforms...
...Instead, one caller after another recounted horror stories of dealing with HMOs and congratulated the congressman for supporting managed-care reform...
...The Democratic party repeatedly aired a television ad criticizing the Republican candidate, Heather Wilson, for opposing a mandate that insurance companies cover at least 48 hours in the hospital for new mothers...
...And the task-force report is all the more welcome in that health care is about the only issue Democrats have to use against Republicans in this fall's congressional elections...
Vol. 3 • July 1998 • No. 42
