WASHINGTON — The Senate Finance Committee slogged through a third day of hearings on health-care legislation Thursday with tempers sometimes flaring as members continued debating amendments, including more than a dozen from Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln.
Several of Lincoln's priorities, particularly those affecting small businesses and senior citizens, were included in the proposal Chairman Max Baucus of Montana put before the committee.
But she focused Thursday on another measure, which had yet to come up for a vote, designed to limit the tax deductions available to insurance companies who stand to profit from a provision in the committee's proposal.
Under the Finance Committee's plan, all Americans would be required to buy health coverage - a mandate that Lincoln acknowledged would result in millions of new customers for insurance companies.
"My amendment evens the playing field so that consumers can be assured that health insurance company executives are not receiving a personal windfall from this new insurance coverage mandate," she told reporters on a conference call Thursday.
Lincoln's proposal would reduce the tax deduction available to health-insurance companies for executive compensation. Under current law, companies can deduct up to $1 million annually per executive, but she would cut that in half to $500,000.
The amendment would not dictate what a business could pay its executives, Lincoln said, but it would limit how much executive pay that insurance companies could write off in taxes. While it could raise tax revenue - it essentially amounts to a tax increase on insurance companies - she said the proposal was rooted in the need for "shared responsibility."
"This is a fair policy change aimed at lowering insurance costs to consumers and reassuring those consumers that insurance companies are not receiving excessive tax breaks while at the same time profiting from a government mandate," said Lincoln, who is up for re-election next year.
The Finance Committee is the last of five panels in the House and Senate to complete its health-care legislation, and it's the only one trying to come up with a bipartisan plan.
But partisan tensions boiled over Thursday when Baucus instructed Republican Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona to hurry up and finish a point he was trying to make. Kyl raised his voice in protest, and another senator appealed for calm.
The testy exchange came as senators continued the slow process of considering the $900 billion, 10-year proposal. With 564 amendments on the table, the hearings have run well into the night. It remains uncertain whether Baucus can meet his goal of completing work this week.
With Thursday's appointment of former Democratic National Committee Chairman Paul Kirk to temporarily fill the seat left vacant by the death of Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, the Democrats now potentially have the 60 votes needed to block filibusters.
But with many moderate Democrats - including both Lincoln and fellow Arkansas Sen. Mark Pryor - expressing concerns about the bill's cost, some Republican support may be needed for passage.
Lincoln missed Tuesday's opening of the long-awaited Finance Committee proceedings to attend the funeral of her husband's 111-year-old grandmother Ruth Lincoln, which was held earlier this week in Arkansas.
When she delivered her opening remarks Wednesday, the state's senior senator stopped short of endorsing the bill but said it met her goals of reducing the deficit and bringing down overall health-care costs.
Baucus included several of Lincoln's priorities in the Finance Committee proposal. Among them are key elements of the Small Business Health Options Program (SHOP) Act, introduced in May by Lincoln and fellow Finance Committee members Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Olympia Snowe, R-Maine.
Under those SHOP provisions, small businesses, the self-employed and other individuals would be able to purchase coverage through health-insurance exchanges.
The Finance Committee's version also includes Medicare provisions that Lincoln supports, such as allowing senior citizens a "release valve" to opt out of Medicare Advantage plans and return to standard Medicare.
Lincoln has a link to the text of the Finance Committee's proposed bill at her official Web site at lincoln.senate.gov. Just follow the link for the "health-care resources page" from the home page.
Information for this story was contributed by Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar of the Associated Press.
Front Section, Pages 10 on 09/25/2009