POLITICAL UPDATE |
EVENTS THIS WEEK |
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This past week, the White House hosted a bipartisan healthcare reform summit and released an overview of a legislative proposal that mainly follows the already passed Senate legislation but offers some compromises between the House and Senate bills. Lawmakers from each party joined President Obama for a day long discussion on healthcare reform, where the President pushed Republicans to make suggested changes for the current bills so that they could support reform, and Republicans pushed back asking the White House to scrap the legislation and begin again with a less costly and controversial bill.
But neither the White House nor Congressional Democratic Leaders have signaled that they will start over. To the contrary, parts of Obama's recent proposal could be used as an outline for an amendments package to pass through reconciliation in the Senate. This simple majority procedure has been a lightening rod for controversy, with Republicans arguing that it is a way to block them out of the debate. If the Senate were to pass the amendments package, the House could take up the amendments package with the Senate bill and pass both simultaneously. | |
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What’s Driving Reform?
During the 111th Congress, the United States is poised to reform its healthcare system. Millions of people across the country live without healthcare insurance coverage or with the financial stress that comes with not having adequate health coverage to meet their health care needs. The cost to the federal government is no less significant as healthcare costs have doubled from 1996 to 2006 and are projected to rise to 25% of GDP by 2025 and 49% in 2082, according to testimony by the Congressional Budget Office on January 31, 2008 before the US Senate Budget Committee.
In addition, it is widely recognized that the proportion of spending attributable to Medicare and Medicaid in the health system is expected to continue to rise dramatically in the near future making it the principle driving force behind rising federal spending for decades to come. The federal government and the public at large have come to recognize that major change is needed to maintain access to affordable healthcare for alll Americans.
Despite Congressional efforts in recent years to address the national shortfall in health insurance coverage, about 44 million people under the age of 65 will be uninsured at any given point in time in 2008 (CBO’s Health Insurance Simulation Model: A Technical Description, October 2007). Without action by Congress, by 2017 that number is projected to be nearly 50 million due to changes in national demographics and increases in health insurance premiums. |
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PPSV Healthcare Leaders
Powers Pyles Sutter & Verville encompasses the full range of government relations services from direct lobbying to legislative development to securing appropriations to regulatory affairs to extensive legal services. Our strength lies in our success with solving policy problems and securing funding opportunities for clients. With our extensive experience within the federal government and a practice with uniquely knowledgeable legal experts, we are one of the foremost leaders in healthcare reform in Washington, DC.
Our team succeeds in the public policy and government relations arena by engaging in a comprehensive advocacy process that includes monitoring legislative, regulatory and judicial issues on the federal and state level; identifying emerging issues and the potential impact on clients; developing policy positions and strategic communications; providing coalition building for intense short-term, single-focus issues; and advocating before Congress, the federal Agencies and state legislatures.
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