Sen. Gordon Smith sees eventual health care change
WASHINGTON, D.C. (PAI) —
The aging of the “Baby Boomers” will
force Congress to confront the twin
crises in the U.S. health care system
— declining availability and rising
cost of health insurance — say two
senators who are crafting legislation
on the issue.
But since the Baby Boomers are
now only starting to retire, the two said
on Sept. 21, nothing much may hap-
pen before 2008, if then.
“The health care issue is ripening,
but it’s not ripe,” said Senate Aging
Gephardt visits Operators’ conference
Mark Holliday (right), business manager of Operating Engineers Local 701,
poses for photo with Dick Gephardt, former Missouri congressman and
Democratic Leader of the U.S. House of Representatives, during an
unscheduled appearance at the annual Western Conference of Operating
Engineers held the week of Sept. 11 at the Benson Hotel in Portland. The
keynote speaker at the conference, which attracted nearly 150 operators from
13 states, was Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski. General President of the
Operating Engineers Vincent Giblin opened the gathering with a moment of
silence to honor the 47 stationary engineers who lost their lives at the World
Trade Center on 9/11. In honor of the dead, local firefighters marched through
the assembly to the tune of “Amazing Grace” played by a local bagpiper. The
tragedy pre-empted the Western Conference in Seattle exactly five years ago,
just as that meeting began, and participants gathered in the hotel lobby to
watch incoming television news reports about the terrorist bombings.
Q
Quest
Investment
Management, Inc.
Committee Chairman Gordon Smith
(R-Ore.) in an interview after the ses-
sion. “It’ll be ripe when the public de-
mands we come up with a different
formula to solve it,” he said.
That demand will start with the
2008 election, he predicted “when the
Baby Boomers start really showing up
on the rolls” of Medicare and Medic-
aid. “All governments will get
squeezed. The changes will be driven
by demographics,” Smith said.
The session, hosted by the New
America Foundation, discussed the fu-
ture role of private business in the
health care system. Smith and Sen.
Blanche Lambert Lincoln (D-Ark.)
both made the point that the vast ma-
jority of people in the U.S. get their
health care coverage through private
businesses — and both said they’re
leery of switching.
But they also noted health care
costs are rising, that businesses are
eliminating health insurance or forcing
workers to shoulder more of its bur-
dens and that a record number of peo-
ple, almost 47 million, are uninsured.
Further, said Smith, many busi-
nesses would give up health care cov-
erage if they could. His family frozen
foods business, which employs 400
unionized Teamsters year-round and
600-800 seasonal workers during
times of high harvests and production,
has found that health care is the Num-
ber One topic at the bargaining table.
“I’d gladly give up the money we
paid for health care, and give them a
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for Medicaid recipients. Smith, then a
state senator, supported it while then-
state Senator John Kitzhaber (D), an
M.D., drafted it.
Oregon’s system covers a higher
percentage of Medicaid recipients than
any other states, Smith said, but lines
up health procedures in order of prior-
ity — the top 300 — and limits spend-
ing on each set of procedures. He said
it could be a model for the country, but
that it needs more flexibility in decid-
ing which procedures to pay for or not.
Lincoln noted individuals “can’t
negotiate for themselves” with health
insurers. While Smith is working on
catastrophic care legislation, Lincoln is
crafting a bill to let people and small
businesses join the federal workers’
health care pool.
There, “for 40 years,” the Office
of Personnel Management has used
the weight of numbers to negotiate
lowest prices for procedures and
drugs, she said. “It’s got 25 to 30 op-
tions” for health insurance coverage,
Lincoln said of OPM’s menu of plans,
which is also available to lawmakers
and their families. “It allows you the
opportunity to provide everything at a
lower price.”
10 percent raise, and say ‘Thank you
for taking it off my hands,’ ” he said.
Most businesses would gladly do the
same, he stated.
The Teamsters — like other unions
in talks nationwide — refuses, for
good reason. “They want certainty and
they’re willing to leave wages flat as
long as they get pensions and health
care preserved,” Smith said of his fam-
ily business’ bargaining with the
union.
And he disagreed with Service Em-
ployees International Union President
Andrew Stern, who said the system is
broken and needs replacement. Stern’s
union is the largest health care workers
union. Smith, by contrast, says the em-
ployer-based system “can be sal-
vaged.”
Lincoln pointed out that many
workers do not want to give up the
present system, despite its holes and
hazards.
“They’re fearful of being left to a
marketplace that won’t provide them
with a quality product at a price they
can afford,” Lincoln said of a revised
system. And they’re not sure a govern-
ment-run system would not lead to ra-
tioning, Smith said.
The catch is, there is rationing in
the present system already, by price,
the senators said. And the present
health care system also isn’t entirely
rational, Lincoln noted.
By contrast, a decade ago, Oregon
instituted its own Oregon Health Care
system as a federally-approved plan
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