Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's death could change the dynamic of the national health care reform debate.
A few months ago, Kennedy and Utah Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch agreed to hammer out bipartisan reform legislation together.
Now, without Kennedy, "there is no one on (the Democrats') side that can bring together their base as Ted could," Hatch said. "There's not another Democratic senator who had that kind of sway."
Kennedy's death could galvanize Democrats to stand behind a bill and push it forward, Hatch said. But he doubts it. "We'll just have to see," he said.
Hatch, who spoke to an audience Wednesday at The Sutherland Institute, a conservative public policy think tank, blasted President Barack Obama's plans for health reform.
He argued a proposed public insurance option would dismantle the private insurance market. It is a slippery slope to a single-payer system, and ultimately socialized medicine, he said.
"The administration, they wrote a totally partisan bill that has an awful lot of bad stuff in it," he said.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates some 10 million Americans would leave the private insurance market if offered a public plan, Hatch said. The Lewin Group, a health and human services consulting firm, thinks the number could reach 119 million, he added.
Either way, "it's going to be a lot of people," Hatch said. "Sooner or later they're going to do away with the private insurance market, which would be a catastrophe."
Even proposed health care co-ops, he said, are "a Trojan horse for a public plan anyway."
Also Wednesday, Sen. Bob Bennett said there is no room for compromise as long as the Democratic plan includes a public plan.
"If it has a public option in it, even one that is described as a co-op, the answer is: 'No,'" Bennett said in a meeting with The Salt Lake Tribune editorial board. "That is, in fact, the door through which ... a single-payer government-run system like the [United Kingdom] and Canada can happen."
No Republican would support that, Bennett said, and several Democrats would not.
Korey Capozza, senior health policy analyst for Voices for Utah Children, argues the proposed reforms would not decimate the private insurance market.
"I think it's unfortunate that the messaging around health reform has really shifted to the social medicine argument, when really what we're talking about is a vast expansion of the private market," she said.
Hatch's assumptions about how a public option would work are inaccurate, Capozza said, and a "distraction from all of the other pieces of reform that stand to reform the market in many ways."
Bennett is sponsoring his own legislation -- the Healthy Americans Act --- which he said aims to blow up the arrangement where workers rely on their employers for their insurance, and enables employees to buy their own private coverage.
By contrast, Obama's "play or pay" provision would require employers to either offer insurance to their workers or pay a penalty. Such a requirement would be a deal breaker, Hatch said, predicting employers would be forced to cut workers' wages or send their jobs overseas.
"We can ruin this country with what they (the Democrats) want to do," Hatch said.
Instead, he said, the key to successful health reform is to let the 50 states each do it their own way. "I prefer a system that utilizes 50 state laboratories," he said.
Utah, he said, has a national reputation for having high quality, low-cost health care. He lauded the state Legislature's reform efforts, which include the creation of the new Utah Health Exchange. It helps businesses that provide a lump sum to workers, who then shop for plans at the Web "portal."
It opened for business Aug. 19 and has so far enrolled more than 50 companies.
State Rep. Brad Daw, R-Orem, underscored Hatch's pitch for market-based health reform.
Health Savings Accounts -- tax-free accounts that can be used to cover health care expenses, combined with a high-deductible insurance plan -- is one way to achieve that, he said.
Some 30 percent of consumers with HSAs were formerly uninsured, he said. HSA holders also tend to be more engaged in shopping for their health care.
"I believe we have seen a lot of success by engaging the consumer on the HSAs front," he said. "What we need to do now is engage the consumer now in pricing their insurance -- and give them the option to purchase HSAs."
