Health Care Groups Criticize Obama’s Reform Efforts

April 1, 2009 – In a letter addressed to four U.S. senators charged by President Barack Obama with overseeing Capitol Hill’s health care reform efforts, representatives of two health care industry trade groups cautioned against a proposed federal health insurance program critical to the President’s health care reform policy.

Representatives of health insurer the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association and health insurance lobbyist group America’s Health Insurance Plans said the President’s plan would prevent meaningful reform while putting the federal government in the ethically challenged position of competing against private health insurers. Allowing the government to compete with private health insurance providers would “exacerbate the cost-shift from public programs to consumers and employers in the private market, and destabilize the employer-based system,” their letter contends.

The letter was addressed to Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Montana), U.S. Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), Senate health committee Chairman Edward Kennedy (D-Massachusetts) and U.S. Senator Michael Enzi (R-Wyoming).

The criticism came as the U.S. Senate this week began its confirmation hearings on Obama’s choice for U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, former Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius.

Obama said he chose Sebelius due to her experience as a governor who faced the dual pressures of dealing with rising health care costs and while attempting to expand Medicaid program coverage in Kansas. Sebelius also is familiar with the health insurance industry, lobbyists for whom will play a key role in potential health care reform, particularly if Congressional leaders break from recent tradition and allow debate on an important spending measure.

“Gov. Sebelius is the right person to move the president’s health care agenda forward,” said Robert Zirkelbach, a spokesman for America’s Health Insurance Plan, a lobbyist group representing health insurers. “She has a wealth of experience of health care issues and has a legislative history of working with both sides of the aisle.”

Before becoming governor, she served as Kansas Insurance Commissioner and was president of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, which helps states streamline insurance laws and regulatory oversight. Sebelius does lack the extensive Capitol Hill connections of Obama’s initial pick, former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, who withdrew from consideration amid a tax scandal.

Daschle would have served as Obama’s Health and Human Services secretary as well as in a top White House post directing the President’s health care reform effort. The latter position will be filled by someone other than Sebelius, according to administration officials.

Abortion foes strongly oppose Sebelius due to her close association Dr. George Tiller, a late-term abortion doctor from Wichita. Tiller is scheduled to go to trial March 16 to face 19 misdemeanor charges of violating state restrictions on late-term abortions.

The Kansas governor was an early Obama supporter and among finalists for Obama’s vice presidential slot. She was being considered for several cabinet positions but removed herself from consideration amid Kansas budget problems needing her attention.

Sebelius is the daughter of former Ohio Governor John Gilligan, making them the only father-daughter governors in United States history.