White House (CNSNews.com) – Even while some Democratic senators are reportedly getting cold feet, Vice President Joe Biden affirmed that a health care overhaul is “on track” for passage by the end of next month.
 
“Folks, reform is coming. It is on track. It is coming,” Biden said from the White House on Wednesday, flanked by hospital industry officials, who agreed to $155 billion in savings over 10 years. “We have tried for decades--for decades--to fix a broken system, and we have never, in my entire tenure in public life, been this close. We have never been as close as we are today, and things remain on track.”
 
Representatives from the Hospital Corporation of American, Community Health Systems, Catholic Hospitals of the United States, and the American Hospital Association agreed with the Obama Administration and the Senate Finance Committee to give up $155 billion in Medicare and Medicaid payments. They are to achieve this, according to the White House, through improving efficiencies and reducing unnecessary procedures.
 
“We must enact this reform this year,” Biden said. “We must--and we will--enact reform by the end of August, and we can't wait.”
 
The pharmaceutical industry and the nation’s largest retailer Wal-Mart are also supporting the Obama plan that would include establishing a government-run “public option” to compete with private insurance, mandating employers provide insurance and establishing a comparative-effectiveness council to determine the most cost-effective treatments for patients.
 
But industry groups are facing intense pressure to go along with Democratic demands, said Rep. Charles W. Boustany (R-La.), a cardiovascular surgeon and member of the Ways and Means Committee that is drafting health care legislation in the House of Representatives.
 
“I know these different groups, the hospital associations, the AMA, are trying to stay at the table. They’re still talking in generalities,” Boustany told CNSNews.com. “There is no question they’re being heavily pressured by the White House and by Democratic leadership in both the House and the Senate.
 
“As a physician in Congress who has a working relationship with these groups, they’ve confided to me that they are being pressured,” said Boustany. “Their positions are such that they are trying to remain at the table with the administration and the Democratic leadership. So they’re speaking in general terms. Until you start getting into specifics, it’s very difficult.”
 
Biden, speaking for the plan while President Obama is in Europe, said savings would go a long way to reaching the president’s “firm goal of enacting health care reform that is deficit-neutral.”
 
The big discussion on Capitol Hill, though, is whether the Senate proposal that has a price tag of $1 trillion, according to the Congressional Budget Office, will be paid for by taxing health care benefits. That is something Obama pledged not to do during the presidential campaign, but White House officials have been more open to the idea in recent weeks.
 
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) favors taxing benefits, while other Democrats such as Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) have said such a tax might not have the full support of the Democratic caucus.
 
“The hospital industry knows, and the people with me here today know, and the president knows, that the status quo is simply unacceptable,” Biden said. “Let me say that again – the status quo is simply unacceptable. Rising costs are crushing us. They're crushing families, crushing businesses, crushing state budgets – and they are crushing the health care industry itself.”
 
The reform will mean “coverage for all, paid for by all. We will do our part. So should everyone else,” said Rich Umbdenstock, chief executive officer of the American Hospital Association, speaking after Biden.
 
Sister Carol Keehan, president of the Catholic Health Association, said the public “deserves health security without sacrificing other goals such as college, family vacations and wage increases.”