SPRINGDALE — Local health care professionals and observers took a wait and see approach Thursday to the Christmas Eve passage of a landmark health care bill, noting the Senate and House versions still must be reconciled.
Larry Shackelford, chief executive officer for the MANA Physician and Clinic Group, said the group awaits the final law. The MANA Group includes 70 physicians in 14 locations.
“We’ve been hunkered down,” Shackelford said. “We’ve not been buying any expensive new equipment or trying to grow our business. This is a step closer, but there are still some big differences between the Senate and House bills.”
Dr. Hershey Garner, a Fayetteville radiologis, described the Senate bill as flawed, but said it is a step in the right direction.
“I don’t think it’s the bill we need, but I’m glad it passed,” Garner said. Hopefully, the final bill developed after it goes to conference with the House and Senate will be better, he said.
The Senate’s bill must still be merged with legislation passed by the House before President Barack Obama can sign a final bill in the new year. There are significant differences between the two measures, but Democrats say they’ve come too far now to fail.
Both bills would extend health insurance to more than 30 million more Americans. Obama said the legislation “includes the toughest measures ever taken to hold the insurance industry accountable.”
For the first time, the government would require nearly every American to carry insurance, and subsidies would be provided to help low-income people. Employers would be induced to cover employees through a combination of tax credits and penalties. The legislation costs nearly $1 trillion over 10 years and is paid for by a combination of taxes, fees and cuts to Medicare.
The possibility of differences between payments from the Medicaid and Medicare programs and those insured under a possible new public option concerns him, Shackelford said. Differences could impact the health care industry, he said.
The new legislation would ban the insurance industry from denying benefits or charging higher premiums on the basis of pre-existing medical conditions. The Congressional Budget Office predicts the bill will reduce deficits by $130 billion over the next 10 years, an estimate that assumes lawmakers carry through on hundreds of billions of dollars in planned cuts to insurance companies and doctors, hospitals and others who treat Medicare patients.
Garner said the bills’ requirement that Americans obtain health insurance makes sense.
“I think there should still be a public option,” he said.
Garner said he doesn’t believe the influx of more insured Americans will hurt the health care system. If they start seeing more preventative care, it may cut down on people waiting to get help when a problem emerges.
Negotiations between the House and Senate to reconcile differences between the two bills are expected to begin as soon as next week. The House bill has stricter limits on abortion than the Senate, and unlike the House, the Senate measure omits a government-run insurance option, which liberals favored to apply pressure on private insurers but Democratic moderates opposed as an unwarranted federal intrusion. Obama has signaled he will sign a bill even if it lacks that provision.
The law is a start said Rob Leflar, a professor at the University of Arkansas School of Law and the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.
“After melding the two bills, Congress will have made progress toward solving one of our three serious health care problems — namely, too many Americans can’t get health insurance. Two, difficult problem areas remain — costs are rising too quickly, and quality varies from great to poor.”
Northwest Arkansas Newspaper’s Brett Bennett and the Associated Press contributed to this report