Obama ponders Sen. Tom Coburn's suggestions

Mar 3, 2010 — The Daily Oklahoman

Chris Casteel

Mar. 3, 2010 (McClatchy-Tribune Regional News delivered by Newstex) -- WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama said Tuesday he was open to adding suggestions by Sen. Tom Coburn to his health care reform proposal, but Coburn said that wouldn't make a flawed bill palatable to him or the American people.

In a letter to congressional leaders, Obama said Coburn's suggestions for using undercover investigators to root out waste and fraud and for malpractice reform were among the Republican proposals that he was considering. He also said he was open to a GOP suggestion to increase payments to doctors who treat Medicaid patients and another to expanding high-deductible Health Savings Accounts.

Coburn, R-Muskogee, made his suggestions at Obama's health care summit last week.

The president said he also had dropped some of the controversial provisions that resulted from deal-making to get votes for the bill last year in the Senate. Nebraska would no longer get its extra Medicaid costs totally paid for by the federal government and Medicare Advantage customers in Florida and other states wouldn't get special consideration, the president said.

Obama is expected to make a statement today about how he wants Congress to proceed on an issue that has been effectively stalled since Republican Scott Brown won a U.S. Senate seat in Massachusetts in January, depriving Democrats an edge necessary to break GOP filibusters.

In his letter, Obama acknowledged that Republicans and Democrats don't agree on some key issues, including regulation of the insurance industry and the strategic approach to health care reform.

Obama said "piecemeal reform is not the best way to effectively reduce premiums, end the exclusion of people with pre-existing conditions or offer Americans the security of knowing that they will never lose coverage, even if they lose or change jobs."

Republicans have called for a fresh start on health care reform, but Obama has rejected that idea.

Coburn sent a letter to Obama saying he appreciated the support for reducing waste and fraud and for malpractice reform but urged him to back off a plan to push through legislation similar to what was approved by the Senate in December. The legislation still doesn't address the key issue, which is the cost of health care and how much is spent on things that don't treat or prevent disease, Coburn said.

"The ideas the president highlighted (Tuesday) are a path forward," Coburn said in a prepared statement. "However, merely incorporating these ideas into the deeply flawed House and Senate bills will not bring us any closer to real reform."

Coburn said the public had already rendered judgment -- through polls, elections and town hall meetings -- on the House and Senate reform bills.

"By an overwhelming margin, the American people want Congress to abandon the Senate and House bills that will bankrupt our country, fund abortion and ration care and instead start over," Coburn said.

House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio also said the president should start over.

"There is no reason to lump sensible proposals into a fundamentally-flawed 2,000-page bill with taxpayer funding for abortion and more than 150 new federal programs, boards, and commissions that put bureaucrats between patients and their doctors," Boehner said.

Obama's proposal, like both the House and Senate bills, would require people to purchase health insurance and provide subsidies for low-income people to purchase policies. It would also greatly expand Medicaid to cover more of the uninsured. Like the Senate bill, it does not include a government-run insurance plan that would compete with private plans.

Newstex ID: KRTB-0148-42506901