Last month I
wrote about how a handful of Republicans were confidently
touting the possibilities for bipartisan health care reform, but
in the past few weeks, the gulf between the two parties has begun
to widen. Take the cases of Chuck Grassley, Orrin Hatch, and Mike
Enzi -- Republicans that would have to be onboard if the White
House has any hopes of making this a bipartisan effort.
In May, Grassley
met with President Obama in the White House and came away
satisfied -- even floating the idea that health care legislation
could get 80 votes in the Senate. Yet this past weekend, Grassley
lashed
out at Obama's handling of health care in a series of angry
Twitter posts.
When I heard Hatch speak at the Kaiser Family Foundation last
month, he said that "meaningful
reform" through bipartisan compromise was achievable this
year. Yet this week he has become more outspoken in his
opposition to the creation of a new government-run plan, and
along with other Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee
(including Grassley and Enzi),
raised alarms over the idea in a letter to President Obama.
And when I expressed skepticism to Enzi last month about the
intentions of Democrats after he gave a speech at the Heritage
Foundation, he
told me, "I wish you could be in some of the meetings I've
been in that are far more encouraging than what you're reading in
the paper..."
But after Democrats on the on the Senate Health, Education, Labor
and Pensions (HELP) Committee, chaired by Ted Kennedy,
released their own proposal yesterday, Enzi (the ranking
Republican on the committee) was blistering in his criticism.
“For health care reform to work and have broad support, it needs
to be bipartisan,” Enzi said in a statement.
“Unfortunately, the draft bill that Democrats released today is a
partisan wish-list that will put us on the road to
government-rationed health care." Today, he followed up by
warning that the Democrats' proposal to expand Medicaid
eligibility "would lock 50 million Americans into a second-tier
health care program" and drive up the cost of care on everybody
else because providers would be forced to jack up rates to recoup
the lower reimbursements charged to government programs. To be
sure, Enzi said that he still intends to work hard to achieve
bipartisan reform, but clearly his statements are less effusive
than they were just last month.
UPDATE: I just got off the phone with Craig Orfield, Enzi's
communications director, who told me that Enzi was "very
disappointed" with the release of the Kennedy bill, and said the
senator feels that all the time Republicans spent talking to
Democrats may have been in vain since the majority wasn't
listening to them. Orfield said the HELP Committee did not have
as open a process as the Finance Committee. Last month, Enzi was
skeptical about the idea of a GOP alternative, but may be warming
up -- Orfield said that when the Senate Republican "working
group" on health care meets this afternoon, they'll likely be
discussing whether to present an alternative.
