Health bill changes may sway Perriello
After pushing party leadership for changes to a proposed health care reform bill, U.S. Rep. Tom Perriello, D-Ivy, is debating whether he will support the measure when it comes to a vote.
Perriello on Friday said the bill, expected to go to a vote next week in the House of Representatives, now comes closer to meeting his requirements for support.
“We’re definitely heading in the right direction but I’m not dedicated to a yes vote yet,” Perriello said. “I’m proud of the fact that we were able to take our time, slow down the process and work on it. I think we got a much better result out of it.”
Perriello’s announcement that he would consider voting yes met with criticism from conservative community organizers of Tea Party groups in his district. They said Perriello indicated to them that he would vote against the plan if it included coverage of abortion and because the plan would cost too much.
“I’m not surprised that Perriello is wavering on what he’s going to do on the health care bill, by saying one thing one day and something the next, depending on his audience,” said Bill Hay, of the Charlottesville-based Jefferson Area Tea Party.
Perriello and nine other freshmen Democrats pushed party leaders to reconsider various portions of the bill, calling for modifications to existing antitrust protections for insurance companies and possible limits on medical malpractice lawsuits. The Democrats also wanted to find ways to decrease the costs of the bill’s programs.
“We touched the third rail of Democratic politics by looking at medical malpractice issues in the bill and we wanted the bill to include wellness and prevention,” he said. “We wanted a health bill, not just a health care bill.”
Included in the bill are changes that Perriello said would help rural areas retain doctors and shore up local hospitals. Among those changes are studies of Medicare reimbursements rates by geographic area and revising payment rates from the federal program based on those studies.
The bill would also provide incentive payments for primary care doctors who practice in rural areas.
“I’ve been a headache to [Democratic] leadership, but I think they’ve understood,” Perriello said. “The [other] freshmen felt very strongly about deficit neutrality of the bill and fiscal responsibility. We’ve cut the cost of the bill so it reduces spending over time and it wasn’t just a game you play where you shove all of the fuzzy math into the next decade to make it look like you’re cutting expenses.”
The House bill contains a public insurance option plan allowing those who cannot afford insurance to purchase it through the federal government. The House bill would cover only American citizens and legal aliens and not undocumented or “illegal” aliens.
Perriello said getting more people covered by insurance would help decrease medical costs and insurance premiums.
“One of the highest drivers of premium increases now is the system shifting the cost of uninsured patients to insured patients,” Perriello said. “[Providers] have to make up the costs somewhere and it leads to higher costs and premiums. If we can more people covered, costs and premiums will go down.”
The House health care bill would provide coverage to about 96 percent of Americans under age 65, compared with 83 percent now, according to the Associated Press. About a third of the remaining 18 million people left uninsured would be illegal immigrants.
The expected cost of the bill for the next 10 years is $1.055 trillion with a net cost of $894 billion, factoring in penalties by individuals and employers who don’t comply with new requirements, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
That figure, however, excludes additional costs from added prescription drug coverage for seniors under Medicare and other changes, according to the AP. No official estimate of the legislation’s total cost has been made.
A variety of income methods are planned to offset costs of the programs over the next decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office and the AP. Those include $460 billion from new income taxes on single people making more than $500,000 a year and couples making $1 million; $400 billion in cuts to Medicare and Medicaid; $20 billion in fees levied on medical device makers; $13 billion from limitations on flexible spending account contributions; sizable penalties paid by individuals and employers who don’t obtain coverage; and a mix of other corporate taxes and fees.
A similar bill hammered out in the Senate has not been made public.
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Reader Reactions
whether you think the original bills were good or bad, Tom has used what influence he has up there to push to make the bill better. I really appreciated the letter that he and other freshmen house members sent to the house leadership.
An incremental approach that addresses real concerns, forged by cooperation rather than cram down, would have been a good first step. This is more like a walk off the plank, at the point of a sabre, blindfolded. Sharks below.
I’ve yet to meet a family doc that supports the house bill, though I don’t doubt that there are a few primary docs who do.
To me, this is a sellout on Tom’s part, the result of political pressure from Nancy Pelosi, who has mismanaged this process from start to finish—it’s a bad bill made worse by pitting the American people against themselves. For my two cents, that’s not leadership, it is cowardice.
First Obama, now Periello, who’s next to falter?
I’m glad we’ve got Tom up there fighting for a better bill. Like me, Tom comes from a large family of primary care doctors. He has a very good understanding of the health care system and it’s problems. Whatever bill finally emerges will have lots of problems, but looks like it will be a big first step in the right direction.
I find this latest set of comments from Tom Periello disappointing. The house version of the healthcare legislation is less worthy of his support than ever before, in my opinion, and what this demonstrates is that to get a bad bill passed, rather than rewriting it, you need only tack on something that serves a politician’s specific interest—in this case, Tom’s (rightful) concerns of rural care providers. However, the reality is that the over all legislation—though its purpose is noble—is unworkable, unsustainable, unfair, and therefore undesirable. Much like a drug with so many bad side effects, that its worse than the disease.
Unworkable because it enables the formation of several more layers of bueaucratic oversight and decision-making, with arguable benefits, and largely unknown consequences. Experience is legend with past over-reaches of the government into the delivery of goods and services.
Unsustainable beacuse the subsidies and costs are real, and verifiable, the so-called ‘savings’ unmeasurable, illusory, and unlikely. The largest components of waste—fraud and overutilization—are NOT addressed.
Unfair—where does one begin? The taxes and surcharges and penalties are certain to lift the regulatory costs AS WELL AS the consumer end costs of evverything from routine tests and visits to surgeries to health care coverage premiums, and the most disadvantaged will be those who can least afford yet another assault on their disposable income.
Accessability and affordability are worthy goals. But this bill, and the one in the Senate, are losers.
I didn’t realize that Periello could be bought so cheaply. (sigh)
Ken, Your site has already been shown to have many lies and inaccuracies. Your kneejerk reactions and falsehoods have been noted by other conservative bloggers like Not Andy Sere http://notandysere.blogspot.com/2009/10/reasonable-response.html
Perriello is a Pelosi puppet. This bill is a disaster. The so-called tort reform provisions are a lie. Check it out http://reasonableresponse.blog.com
Whose on America’s side?
All these so-called public servants took an oath of office, to protect Americans from Domestic and foreign enemies. But with Senators such as Harry Reid, Chuck Schumer, Sen.Durbin, House speaker Nancy Pelosi and Janet Napolitano running Homeland Security, we already have the domestic enemies. They spend more time undermining immigration enforcement, than protecting citizens and legal residents from the 20 to 30 million illegal aliens. I joined NUMBERSUSA, JUDICIAL WATCH to learn more about corruption and sleaze in the Washington’s inner sanctum. These lawmakers will not even—Enforce federal law—in SANCTUARY CITIES like San Francisco and Los Angeles where the number of illegal alien families, sponge from the government financial reservoir.
Cities in Nevada are also overwhelmed by the illegal foreign nationals. Both states have a massive budget meltdown, caused by pandering to the illegal immigrants. These people we voted into office don’t seem to care about the American worker or legal population, when they didn’t insert any language in the Stimulus packages, Unemployment extensions or the public option in health care omitting illegal immigrants. Still we can place Reid and others who have committed themselves to pandering to corporate welfare in a garbage pile, by not voting for them again? Check out Sen. Reids’ and all the other assassins of the US Rule of Law” and their immigration enforcement grading at NUMBERSUSA.
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