WASHINGTON — Sweeping health-care legislation cleared its first hurdles in the Senate Finance Committee on Wednesday as Democrats turned back a series of proposed changes by Republicans depicting the measure as a threat to Medicare.
Yet majority Democrats also tacitly conceded one point - that despite a pledge by President Barack Obama, some senior citizens who receive coverage from private insurers could lose some of the optional benefits they enjoy.
On Wednesday, Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine sometimes sided with fellow Republicans on the panel and occasionally voted with Democrats, who hope she ultimately will become the first GOP member of Congress to back legislation along the lines that Obama wants.
The early skirmishes in the panel also coincided with attempts by the Obama administration to reassure senior citizens about the legislation.
"Nobody is going to mess with your benefits. Nobody. All we do is make it better for people on Medicare," Vice President Joe Biden told about 150 people at the Leisure World retirement community in suburban Maryland.
The Finance Committee is the last of five congressional panels to debate healthcare legislation that is atop Obama's domestic agenda. While the bill omits several provisions backed by liberals, Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., the committee chairman, hopes to hold support from all Democrats on the panel, and perhaps pick up Snowe's vote as well.
At its core, the bill is designed to expand coverage to millions who lack it, employing a new system of federal subsidies for lower-income individuals and families and establishing an insurance exchange in which coverage would have federally guaranteed benefits. Insurance companies would be banned from refusing to sell insurance based on an individual's health history, and limits would be imposed on higher premiums based on age.
At the same time, Baucus, in keeping with Obama's wishes, drafted legislation that would reduce the skyrocketing rate of medical spending overall. The bill's price tag is less than $900 billion over a decade.
Republicans criticized several cost-cutting provisions, in particular an estimated $500 billion that would be cut from projected Medicare payments over a decade.
Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., said it was "disingenuous to say Congress can cut this much ... without having an adverse effect on seniors' access to care."
Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., said the bill is "paid for by cutting - maybe a better word is slashing - Medicare by $500 billion."
But some Democrats noted that other portions of the bill would increase benefits for all beneficiaries on Medicare, sweetening prescription-drug benefits, for example, and Baucus said the net result of the legislation would be added years of solvency for the program's troubled trust fund.
Baucus sidetracked amendments by Kyl and Roberts by noting they failed to replace the lost savings, but a proposal by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, was a different challenge.
Hatch sought to clarify that the legislation would not result in the loss of any Medicare benefits under a provision to cut subsidies to private plans by $123 billion over a decade. His attempt failed, 14-9, and Snowe sided with the Democrats.
In its place, Baucus won approval for an alternative that said no cut in legally guaranteed Medicare benefits could result, a tacit admission that additional benefits that go to senior citizens in some private plans could be reduced.
Baucus is under pressure from the Democratic leadership to complete work on the bill by week's end so the full Senate can begin its long-anticipated debate quickly. More than 500 amendments from committee members were stacked up awaiting votes.
"It's not impossible to speculate without being called radical that there is a substantial slow-walk taking place in this committee," Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., said in remarks aimed at Republicans.
The Finance Committee met as House leaders worked privately to prepare legislation for a vote next month. Officials said Speaker Nancy Pelosi hoped to have a proposal worked out by the end of next week for Congress to review.
The leadership has numerous contentious issues to resolve. Liberals strongly support a provision allowing the government to sell insurance in competition with private industry.
Many moderate Democrats oppose it. Republicans are expected to oppose the legislation without exception.
Information for this article was contributed by Erica Werner, Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Jessica Gresko of The Associated Press.
Front Section, Pages 5 on 09/24/2009