President Barack Obama said Thursday that “special interests” and “industry lobbying” had blocked improvements in the U.S. health care system for decades, but he vowed to end the stalemate this year and ensure that all Americans have access to affordable health care.
“Those who seek to block any reform at any cost will not prevail this time around,” Obama said in opening a White House conference, where he promised to reduce health costs and expand coverage.
The conference is drawing more than 150 participants, including members of Congress and leaders of labor unions, business groups, doctors’ associations, hospitals, insurance companies and consumer organizations.
In his opening remarks, Obama provided no details of how he would extend coverage to the 46 million Americans who have no health insurance. Instead, he expressed his hope that a “transparent and inclusive” process would produce a bipartisan consensus, overcoming the objections of those who had a financial stake in the status quo.
In keeping with the upbeat, optimistic tone of the White House conference, Obama affirmed his desire to “find a cure for cancer in our time.”
The government estimates that the United States will spend $2.5 trillion on health care this year, or an average of $8,160 a person. Without any of the changes contemplated by the White House, the government estimates, health care will account for more than 20 percent of the nation’s entire economic output in 2018, up from 17.6 percent in 2009, and public programs will account for more than half of all health spending.
Liberals said Thursday that they were ready for a fight with the health care industry and would not be outmaneuvered as they were in 1993-94, when President Bill Clinton’s effort to guarantee insurance for every American collapsed.
“In 1993, interest groups sounded supportive and made nice at the outset, but then turned and used all their resources to oppose reform,” said Judith Feder, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress. “They pretended to favor reform and undercut it at every step. This time we are not going to let them get away with it.”
MoveOn.org, the liberal advocacy group, joined the National Education Association and Health Care for America Now, a grass-roots coalition, in mobilizing support Thursday for Obama’s efforts to remake the health care system.
In a letter to the president, five Republican senators said they were eager to work with him. But they rejected one of Obama’s campaign proposals, which called for the creation of “a new public insurance program” to compete with private insurers.
“Forcing free market plans to compete with these government-run programs would create an un-level playing field and inevitably doom true competition,” the letter said. “Ultimately, we would be left with a single government-run program controlling all of the market.”
The letter was signed by the Republican Senate leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, and Senators Michael Enzi of Wyoming, Charles Grassley of Iowa, Judd Gregg of New Hampshire and Orrin Hatch of Utah.
By contrast, Richard Kirsch, the national campaign manager of Health Care for America Now, said that a public plan option, similar to Medicare, was “an essential component of health care reform.” He added, “We are going to fight for it through the end.”
In his remarks Thursday, Obama acknowledged that he faced daunting odds. “Since Teddy Roosevelt first called for reform nearly a century ago, we have talked and tinkered,” he said. “We have tried and fallen short, stalled time and again by failures of will or Washington politics or industry lobbying.”
Obama said that “this time is different” because “the call for reform is coming from the bottom up, from all across the spectrum - from doctors, nurses and patients, unions and businesses, hospitals, health care providers and community groups,” as well as state and local officials. “This time,” he added, “there is no debate about whether all Americans should have quality, affordable health care. The only question is, how?”
In a 2004 book, David Cutler, a health economist at Harvard, said, “The history of health reform in the United States is not encouraging,” in part because “providing insurance to everyone requires transferring resources from those on a higher rung to those in the middle and bottom of the income distribution.”
Obama bypassed such difficult questions Thursday, focusing instead on areas of potential agreement and trying to reassure Americans. “If we want to cover all Americans,” he said, “we cannot make the mistake of trying to fix what isn’t broken. So if you have insurance you like, you’ll be able to keep that insurance. If you have a doctor you like, you can keep that doctor. You’ll just pay less for the care that you receive.”
Moreover, Obama said that taming health costs was essential to pulling the country out of its economic rut and putting federal finances on a sustainable course.
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