• JANUARY 21, 2010

Insurers Now Focus of Democrats' Health Talks

By JANET ADAMY And NAFTALI BENDAVID

Congressional Democrats said they were focusing on toughening regulations on the health-insurance industry in a bid to assemble a scaled-down, more populist health-care bill after the party's defeat in Massachusetts.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she didn't have the votes to pass the health-care overhaul approved by the Senate, but left open the idea of working from the Senate version while excluding provisions in it that many House members opposed.

Ms. Pelosi said Congress must prevent insurers from denying policies to people with pre-existing health conditions or dropping people's coverage once they become sick. She also called for a repeal of the industry's antitrust exemption and for the imposition of new caps on insurers that limit their profits. Those provisions are part of health bills already passed by the House and Senate.

Ms. Pelosi, a California Democrat, acknowledged it would be difficult to take these alone. Insurers have said they would need to raise rates sharply if they were forced to accept unhealthy customers without other mandates that would bring healthier people into the mix.

"I don't think anybody disagrees with the popular part of the bill," Ms. Pelosi said, referring to new restrictions on insurers. "But some of that popular part of the bill is the engine that" carries the unpopular parts, she said. The mandate that everyone have health insurance is one of those planks.

Republicans said Congress needed to start from scratch. "The American people right now want this health-care bill defeated," said Eric Cantor, the No. 2 House Republican. "They want health-care reform, but not in the way that has been constructed under either one of these bills."

Several Democrats said they weren't in a rush to push ahead and needed time to absorb the new political dynamic after the Tuesday Republican victory in Massachusetts, which deprived Democrats of the 60 votes needed in the Senate to overcome filibusters.

"I don't think there is any one dominant opinion yet on how to go forward," said Rep. Gerry Connolly (D., Va.). "People are airing their views, and those views range from 'Let's start all over again and build a new house because this one got washed away in the flood' to 'Wait a minute, there's plenty to be salvaged.' "

Others House Democrats said a more populist tone was needed to sell the health-care overhaul.

Ms. Pelosi said she didn't have the 218 votes she would need to pass the Senate bill in the House without modifications. Some Democrats had proposed that idea, along with a less-assured mechanism for modifying the bill, as a way to wrap up the legislation quickly, but it fell out of favor shortly after the Massachusetts vote.

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