Kennedy-Kassebomb
BARNES, FRED
Kennedy-Kassebomb by Fred Barnes For once, Senate majority leader Bob Dole s strategy of running his presidential campaign from the Senate floor may produce a political benefit rather than an...
...A diluted MSA provision, says a Dole associate, "wouldn't be a hollow victory...
...Kennedy-Kassebomb by Fred Barnes For once, Senate majority leader Bob Dole s strategy of running his presidential campaign from the Senate floor may produce a political benefit rather than an embarrassment...
...For Democratic leaders, opposing them has become a matter of theology: Since Dole and Republicans want them so badly, MSAs must be awful...
...The bill then passed the Senate 100-0...
...But again, success depends on Dole's fortitude...
...But the mandate generated considerable backing-Tipper Gore published an op-ed in the Washington Post endorsing it-and Dole may have to allow a scaled-back version of it...
...MSAs let patients use tax-deductible savings or employer contributions for routine medical expenses, and catastrophic health insurance to cover major illnesses...
...Republican senator Don Nickles of Oklahoma, a Dole prot?g?, has talked to Kassebaum about a deal in which MSAs might be authorized for only a few years...
...Despite his reputation as a compromiser, Dole appears strongly committed to MSAs, which allow patients more choice in health care...
...Before Republicans appropriated MSAs as their issue, however, Democrats thought they had an important place...
...Should they go along with MSAs, they'll escape blame, but then the bill will have a distinct Republican cast and Clinton won't get much credit for enacting it...
...Dole believes Democrats are bluffing...
...The senator sought to add MSAs to the reform bill, but five Republicans defected, including the bill's co-sponsor, Sen...
...There the issue stands, with Democrats declining to name conferees...
...The answer is the same people who thought that the best way to reform the health care system was to hand it over to the federal government to impose more mandates and government controls...
...If he caves, Dole and Republicans, not Clinton and Democrats, will face a political dilemma...
...The bill will have Clinton's stamp...
...Dole's core principle is that we're going to have meaningful MSAs, not a watered-down version...
...The mental health mandate prompted loud protests from business groups, which said it would increase health insurance costs up to $15 billion annually...
...Kennedy is eager to confer with Dole and get him to settle for a small demonstration project for MSAs...
...It passed, 68-30, to the surprise of its sponsor, GOP senator Pete Domenici of New Mexico...
...Dole asked...
...Kennedy counters that Democrats won't agree to an arrangement insuring approval of MSAs...
...For now, the narrow issue is which senators will be appointed to the conference...
...His allies point to the case of Democratic representative James Moran of Virginia, who railed against MSAs on the House floor, then voted for a health care bill that included them...
...In the end, Dole believes Clinton will never veto health care reform, MSAs or not...
...It would be a defeat...
...Dole was furious at Kassebaum...
...Worse, they may be blamed for killing health care reform altogether this year...
...Dole figures Democrats want to knock out MSAs at this stage to avoid having to filibuster the health insurance reform to death or force Clinton to veto it...
...Indeed, it will be exactly what he asked for in his State of the Union address in January...
...Chairman Bill Archer of the House Ways and Means Committee said he won't sign a bill from the House-Senate conference that doesn't have MSAs...
...Dole isn't buying...
...Unused savings could be rolled over for later use or pocketed as income (though without a tax break), thus giving patients an incentive to be cost-conscious...
...If they block MSAs- they've talked about a veto or a filibuster-they'll get no bill at all and lose the reforms they want, portability of health insurance and its availability to folks with pre-existing medical conditions...
...Dole says Republicans must have three more than Democrats because Kasse-baum will side with Democrats against MSAs...
...And Dole can't afford another...
...Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, had pleaded for a clean bill with no amendments...
...Its success depends chiefly on his willingness to stay firmly behind MSAs, which are popular with conservatives, the business community, and consumers...
...MSAs are likely to affect insurance premiums far less than mental health, but they've generated more controversy...
...If these are their options, Democrats and Clinton are in an "impossible position," says a GOP aide...
...MSAs were included, however, in the House version, and Dole said he would insist on including them in the final measure to be fashioned by a Senate-House conference...
...Not only are MSAs "a multi-billion dollar tax break for the wealthy and the healthy," they're part of a Republican plot to destroy Medicare, Kennedy fumed on May 1. "This proposal is a foot in the door for the right-wing's anti-Medicare agenda-and it has no place in genuine insurance reform...
...Senate minority leader Tom Daschle and House minority leader Dick Gephardt both endorsed MSAs, for the understandable reason that middle-class Americans like them, especially the first-dollar coverage of visits to doctors...
...Purely out of pique, Dole, Senate majority whip Trent Lott, and other Republicans also delivered a payback by voting for a provision mandating that insurance policies pay for care of mental illness as readily as for treatment of physical sickness...
...Dole's maneuver hasn't worked yet...
...If GOP members bottle up legislation because it lacks MSAs, they'll be pilloried for blocking health care reform...
...He signaled this by denying her the right to select GOP senators for the conference...
...Democratic criticism has made Republicans all the more adamant about MSAs...
...Kassebaum and her Democratic co-sponsor, Sen...
...Who could argue against providing additional options and flexibility...
...By insisting on medical savings accounts as part of health care reform, Dole has put President Clinton and congressional Democrats in a political bind...
...Dole conceded it was too expensive and said he hoped to scuttle it in the final Senate-House bill...
...Nancy Kassebaum of Kansas, and the MSA amendment lost 52-46...
...But if they approve an MSA-less bill, they're not much better off...
...We're playing more hardball on this than I've ever seen," says a Dole aide...
Vol. 1 • May 1996 • No. 34
