S.D. senators still in opposite corners of health-care debate

South Dakota’s U.S. senators remain entrenched in opposite corners of the health-care reform fight.

Each conducted his own conference call Wednesday with reporters. Tim Johnson, a Democrat, said he supports the pending legislation and considers this to be one of the most important moments in his two-plus decades of congressional service. Defeat of the health-care bill, he said, would be tantamount to a defeat of Social Security in the 1930s or Medicare in the 1960s.

“I don’t want to be on the wrong side of history, and those who oppose it are on the wrong side of history, as far as I’m concerned,” Johnson said.

John Thune, a Republican, called the health-care legislation a “really bad bill.”

“I think a lot of polls are showing that people want reform, and so do we,” Thune said, referring to his Republican congressional colleagues. “What we’re saying is, ‘Not this.’ ”

An Associated Press-GfK Poll released Tuesday confirmed a widespread hunger for improvements to the health-care system, but also found that Americans don’t like the way the debate is playing out in Washington.

About four in five Americans say it’s important that any health-care plan have support from both parties. And more than three in five say the president and congressional Democrats should keep trying to cut a deal with Republicans rather than pass a bill with no GOP support.

The legislation that is currently being debated was passed by the Senate in December and awaits action by the House. Johnson voted for it and Thune voted against it.

At the time of its Senate passage, it was reported that the bill would establish insurance exchanges from which consumers could shop for private coverage sold under federal guidelines; require most Americans to purchase insurance or face penalties, with subsidies available to those who meet income guidelines; and ban insurance companies from denying benefits or charging higher fees based on pre-existing conditions.

Johnson predicted Wednesday that the legislation, if passed into law, would expand insurance coverage, improve health-care quality and control costs. He said the legislation would reduce the federal government’s budget deficit by $130 billion after its first 10 years in law, and by as much as $1.3 trillion over its second 10 years.

“This represents a significant step in the right direction,” Johnson said.

Thune said the bill would increase health-care costs, and he said the true cost to the government is being understated because Democrats have placed much of the bill’s revenue at the front-end of its life while postponing some of the costs until its later years. The full cost to implement the bill over time, he said, is $2.5 trillion.

“You’re creating a massive new entitlement program at a time when the existing entitlement programs are destined to be bankrupt,” Thune said, referring to existing programs such as Social Security.

Though the senators cited different numbers and used the numbers to support their own divergent opinions, they each said they got their numbers from the Congressional Budget Office. A Tuesday report from The Associated Press said leaders in the House and Senate are awaiting a final cost analysis from the CBO in the next day or so.

The Senate legislation also includes some widely criticized special deals for lawmakers from various states. Democratic leaders are now saying that if the House passes the Senate legislation, they will later use a procedural maneuver known as “reconciliation” to address those state-specific deals and other concerns.

Thune thinks the reconciliation promise from Democrats is an empty one. Once the Senate legislation is passed by the House and signed by the president, he said, there will be little to no motivation for Democrats to go back and fix the bill, because they’ll already have what they want.

“There is no certainty associated with doing this through reconciliation,” Thune said. “The only thing that it does do is, I think, it angers the American people who perceive this as a process that’s being rigged to pass something that they’re very opposed to.”

Johnson defended the use of reconciliation. He said it was used numerous times in the past and has resulted in legislative successes such as COBRA, a program that allows qualifying workers to extend their health-insurance coverage after losing their job.

“Some say reconciliation is a backroom tactic to pass controversial measures and is a change in Senate procedure,” Johnson said. “Nothing could be further from the truth.”

At the conclusion of their separate conference-call remarks, the senators proposed very different ways of moving forward with health-care reform.

Thune said he wants to go back to the drawing board with Democrats to find common ground and proceed later with new legislation.

Johnson called for immediate action on the pending bill.

“After years of inaction on this,” Johnson said, “it is time to get something done.”

—The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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