GOP attacks health-care plan

Sen. Orrin Hatch and fellow Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee drew a major battle line Monday with President Barack Obama over health-care reform.

The Republicans sent a letter opposing including any government-run health-care-insurance plan in reform packages, saying the government's ability to use tax subsidies would likely, over time, kill off private insurance.

Last week, Obama had sent letters to key committee chairmen, saying he seeks such a government-run plan because he believes it will make health care more competitive and provide a better range of choices.

The Republicans wrote Monday, "Forcing free market plans to compete with these government-run programs would create an un-level playing field and inevitably doom true competition."

They added that federal "programs undermine market-based competition through their ability to impose price controls and shift costs to other purchasers."

They said, "The end result would be a federal government takeover of our health-care system, taking decisions out of the hands of doctors and patients and placing them in the hands of a Washington bureaucracy."

The Republicans said the federal government does not have a good track record when it comes to running health-care plans.

"At a time when major government programs like Medicare and Medicaid are already on a path to fiscal insolvency, creating a brand-new government program will not only worsen our long-term financial outlook but also negatively impact American families who enjoy the private coverage of their choice," the Republicans wrote.

Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, a main co-sponsor of a bipartisan health-care-reform proposal with Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., made similar complaints last week in a Senate speech shortly after Obama sent his letters pushing for a government-run health-insurance option.

Bennett has been pushing instead to do such things as make insurance portable from job to job, give tax benefits for insurance and create incentives for healthy behavior.

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