Published: November 09, 2009 12:11 am      

State delegation split on health care

Mollohan: Bill gives citizens access to affordable care

WASHINGTON — West Virginia’s congressional delegation split along party lines when the Democratic-controlled House narrowly passed landmark health care legislation late Saturday night.

The 220-215 vote cleared the way for the Senate to begin a long-delayed debate on the issue that has come to overshadow all others in Congress. Republican opposition was nearly unanimous.

Democrats Alan Mollohan (1st District) and Nick Rahall (3rd District) voted for the bill, while Republican Shelley Moore Capito (2nd District) voted against it.

Though Mollohan came under fire at a town hall meeting in Wheeling among other places about health care legislation during the past few months, he joined the majority by casting his vote in favor of the bill because it is good for West Virginia.

“This legislation would give all of our citizens access to affordable health care, contain escalating health care costs that threaten our economic recovery, and improve Medicare prescription drug benefits for our seniors,” Mollohan said in a statement released shortly after the bill’s passage.

The bill drew the votes of 219 Democrats and Rep. Joseph Cao, a first-term Republican who holds an overwhelmingly Democratic seat in New Orleans. Opposed were 176 Republicans and 39 Democrats.

“I have long-said that West Virginians deserve meaningful health care reform, but this bill is not the bipartisan consensus-building legislation that my constituents have asked for,” Capito said in a statement released Sunday.

Rahall said he voted for the legislation because it will control health insurance costs and provide coverage to almost all Americans.

“The stark reality is that many of us already have or will face a time in our lives when our health needs will outpace our means of insurance,” his statement said. “No American should live in fear that an illness could send them and their family into financial ruin, nor should they be in fear that they will have to make a choice between putting food on the table or getting their prescriptions filled. I believe no American should live with the knowledge that they simply can’t afford the follow-up care that could save their lives. I voted to bring an end to the moment when a diagnosis becomes a death sentence for those without health insurance.”

Minority Republicans cataloged their objections across hours of debate on the 1,990-page, $1.2 trillion legislation.

Capito said this legislation will cost taxpayers too much and raise taxes on small businesses.

“Legislation that touches every single American and would reform nearly one-sixth of our economy demands transparency and consensus,” she said. “Unfortunately, the Speaker (Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.) and our friends on the other side of the aisle chose to openly reject any semblance of bipartisanship in favor of a bill that will cost well over a trillion dollars, raise taxes on job-creating small businesses and cut nearly $400 billion from Medicare and Medicaid.”

Mollohan said small business owners would also benefit from the legislation.

“Their health care costs have grown a whopping 129 percent since 2000, and they are in desperate need of relief,” Mollohan’s statement said. “The national insurance marketplace set up by this legislation will allow them to comparison shop and get the best coverage at the cheapest price for their employees. Additionally, it will provide a tax credit to help them provide insurance for their employees.”

The legislation would require most Americans to carry insurance and provide federal subsidies to those who otherwise could not afford it. Large companies would have to offer coverage to their employees. Both consumers and companies would be slapped with penalties if they defied the government’s mandates.

Insurance industry practices such as denying coverage because of pre-existing medical conditions would be banned, and insurers would no longer be able to charge higher premiums on the basis of gender or medical history. In a further slap, the industry would lose its exemption from federal antitrust restrictions on price fixing and market allocation.

At its core, the measure would create a federally regulated marketplace where consumers could shop for coverage. In the bill’s most controversial provision, the government would sell insurance, although the Congressional Budget Office forecasts that premiums for it would be more expensive than for policies sold by private firms.

The bill is projected to expand coverage to 36 million uninsured, resulting in 96 percent of the nation’s eligible population having insurance.

To pay for the expansion of coverage, the bill cuts Medicare’s projected spending by more than $400 billion over a decade. It also imposes a tax surcharge of 5.4 percent on income over $500,000 in the case of individuals and $1 million for families.

The bill was estimated to reduce federal deficits by about $104 billion over a decade, although it lacked two of the key cost-cutting provisions under consideration in the Senate, and its longer-term impact on government red ink was far from clear.