TimesCall.com: Polis: Health Reform Still Possible

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TimesCall.com: Polis: Health Reform Still Possible

Passage of major health care reform legislation is still likely in this year's congressional session, U.S. Rep. Jared Polis said Thursday.

That could occur through a "reconciliation" process in which the Senate's majority-party Democrats could avoid a filibuster by incorporating some health insurance and health care provisions into a budget bill, Boulder Democrat Polis told members of the Times-Call's editorial board.

Using that approach would permit a bill containing some of the reform proposals to pass with the support of 51 of the Senate's 100 members, rather than the 60-vote supermajority that would be required for approving a rewritten bill that deals solely with health care issues.

The scenario would also allow lawmakers to delete provisions of an earlier version of health care reform that drew bipartisan criticism.

But as for health care legislation getting anything resembling a bipartisan approach this year, "it takes two to tango," Polis said.

Congressional Democrats "have made many overtures" to Republicans while crafting health care bills, but GOP lawmakers "have refused to engage," Polis said.

Earlier this month, Polis and more than 100 of his U.S. House colleagues urged in a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., to use the reconciliation process to pass a health care bill that includes a public health insurance option.

Polis said in that Feb. 3 letter that a public option, with the federal government offering a coverage plan that would compete with private insurance companies' insurance policies, would "save taxpayers anywhere from $25 billion to $110 billion."

A public option would also "save billions more when private insurers compete to bring down premium costs," Polis wrote.

This week, Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., also called for the Senate to use budget reconciliation rules to pass health insurance reform that includes a public health insurance option.

Polis said Thursday that he'd like any health care reform measure to also have the impact of reducing the federal budget deficit.

Last year's congressional debates over health care reform proposals produced large crowds at some lawmakers' fall-recess town meetings, including several held by Polis.

One good thing about those debates, Polis said Thursday, was that they "created a lot of civic activism."

Polis said he'd tried to impress upon the critics showing up at his 2nd Congressional District meetings that they had a right to oppose the proposed reforms, but that their objections shouldn't be based on rumors they'd heard about what the bill might do.

If you oppose a health reform bill, "oppose what's actually in it," Polis said he'd told his constituents.

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