Washington » Try as he might, Utah Sen. Bob Bennett has struggled to become a serious player in the health reform debate.

His attempts to push the Healthy Americans Act, a bill he created with Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, have been dwarfed by the highly partisan battle over the proposal championed by President Barack Obama. Yet a basic comparison of the two plans makes it hard to understand why.

The Wyden-Bennett bill is less expensive, covers just as many people and has actual bipartisan support. So far nine Democrats and five Republicans are sponsors, while no Republicans have backed the president's plan yet.

Bennett, a Republican, blames his difficulty on the way the Senate works. He doesn't sit on the committees that handle health issues and committee leaders are not usually open to bills offered by outsiders, he said.

But a bigger obstacle lives at the White House.

The president called their plan "radical" in a late July interview with newspaper reporters, suggesting it would face "significant political resistance." That is saying something when the president's own plan has come under fierce attack by conservatives.

By all accounts the Healthy Americans Act would be a far bigger change to the way people gain health insurance than what the president has suggested.

Under the Bennett-Wyden proposal, many people would no longer receive their insurance through their employers. Instead, they would pick a plan from a variety of options offered through a health-insurance exchange. Companies would give their employees a boost in salary equivalent to what they were paying for health insurance, but that cash would be taxed.

The bill creates new tax deductions that should allow most people to either break even or make a little money, though the wealthy would pay more taxes than they do now.

"Everybody in our country ought to be in a position to choose a policy that works for them," Wyden said on the Senate floor. "And when they make a good choice, when they shop wisely, the extra money should go into their own pockets."

Their proposal also wipes out Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Plan, replacing them with a new government agency that would help the poor select coverage through the exchange.

During an appearance on MSNBC earlier this month, the president's health care spokeswoman Linda Douglass, said Obama strongly objects to the tax changes.

"He does not want to start taxing health insurance benefits for American workers," she said. "You know, there are many, many good ideas in Senator Wyden and Senator Bennett's plans, but the president likes his own plan."

The president's proposal tries to build on the current employer-based system. Obama's mantra throughout the debate has been: "If you like your plan, you can keep it." His proposal also would create health insurance exchanges, but they would be used primarily by small businesses and uninsured people.

The cornerstone to the president's plan is either a government-run insurance option or a nonprofit health co-op that would compete against private insurance companies. Obama sees this as a way to keep costs low, but Republicans almost universally oppose it as a step toward government controlled health care.

The Wyden-Bennett plan has no so-called "public option," but it does allow states to create one.

The two plans have some similarities. They both require everyone to buy insurance, and they make it portable when people leave their jobs. Both plans encourage preventative care and eliminate loss of coverage for pre-existing conditions.

But Bennett criticized the Obama plan for not going far enough to curb the escalating costs in health care, which are growing much faster than inflation.

"It assumes as the template the present system and you are not going to get where you have to go with the present system," Bennett said. "Right now health care costs are the most serious challenge to the economic future to these United States."

The Congressional Budget Office, a nonpartisan arm of Congress, said the Healthy Americans Act won't add to the national debt once it is up and running and will actually make the government a little cash in the long run.

Obama has promised his plan will not add to the debt, though Democrats have yet to craft a bill that covers its costs.

Six negotiators -- three Democrats and three Republicans -- are still working on the details of a proposal in the Senate Finance Committee that Obama hopes will accomplish his goals.

Wyden and Bennett have made personal pitches to those negotiators trying to get them to accept all or part of the Healthy Americans Act. They haven't been shut down, but they haven't been embraced either.

Without a direct legislative route to push the bill, the duo continues to tout its plan in a series of interviews, public meetings and op-eds, which start with this line: "We refuse to let partisanship kill health reform -- and we are proof that it doesn't have to."

But Bennett said in an interview with The Tribune that many in Washington see little reason to support a bipartisan plan.

Republicans remember President Bill Clinton's health reform proposal of 1994 and how it's defeat hurt his presidency and helped topple the Democratic majority in Congress.

"There are those on the right who say ... if we kill Obamacare, we will neuter this administration," Bennett said. "And there are those on the left who say we won the election and we have a mandate."

But he does see a glimmer of hope .

As he put it, "the wheels are coming off" Obama's plan. Opinion polls show the public is wary of its scope and costs. The president's approval rating also continues to slide. If that plan crumbles, congressional leaders looking to salvage something may turn to Wyden and Bennett, since their plan is already crafted and reduces costs in the long run.

"We think we are getting a new look, getting a little new respect," Bennett said.

While the Healthy Americans Act may not be Obama's first choice, Bennett thinks the president would go along if this is the proposal Congress passes.

"I think he would sign it in a heartbeat," he said.

mcanham@sltrib.com