With Senate Vote, Overhaul Critics Dig In

By Scott Hensley

There's nothing quite like a landmark Senate vote to focus the minds of folks worried about how changes to the nation's health system could hurt their livelihoods.

Karen Ignagni, president of America's Health Insurance Plans, says current plans for health overhaul would raise insurance premiums. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP)

Leaders of the attack pack: insurance companies. And the administration, which this summer cast overhaul largely as insurance reform, has been fighting back pretty hard. The Washington Post says, "What was a tenuous truce has turned quickly into an all-out battle, with both sides ratcheting up the hostilities."

We're not against any overhaul--just this overhaul, the insurers say. Karen Ignagni, president of the trade group America's Health Insurance Plans, stopped by NPR's All Things Considered Tuesday to defend a controversial report commissioned by the industry that said premiums for just about everyone will go up, if final legislation looks like the version just passed by the Senate Finance Committee.

Defenders of the administration's plans poked holes in the AHIP report, with MIT health economist Jon Gruber finding it deeply flawed.

OK, so insurers don't like the current plan. Is leaving the health system unchanged an option, NPR's Robert Siegel asked Ignagni. "I don't see that happening at all," she replied.

The makers of medical devices are another bunch that's not happy with the bill that got voted out of the Senate finance panel either. Taxes on the order of $4 billion a year are the problem for them. They're making noise about having the fees reduced and have mobilized friendly senators to help. Yesterday, Massachusetts Democrat John Kerry complained about the fees in the lead-up to the vote. Sen. Baucus didn't give up any ground, defending the "compromises" that were made to fund the overhaul.

Now the arm-twisting goes behind closed doors, as the Senate leadership seeks to reconcile the finance bill with one from the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

The Wall Street Journal takes a look at the key figures in the Senate, as health care moves along, the key balancing act is "satisfying centrists wary of a government-run public insurance option without losing liberals who insist on one."