Democrats try to regain health care momentum

WASHINGTON — Trying to regain momentum on a core issue of Barack Obama's presidency, House Democrats on Friday unveiled legislation they said would cover virtually all the nearly 50 million uninsured Americans.

Major provisions of the draft bill would impose new responsibilities on individuals and employers to get coverage, end insurance company practices that deny coverage to the sick and create a new government-sponsored plan to compete with private companies.

But it remained far from clear how the Democrats intend to pay for their plan, even as they vowed to take the legislation to the House floor by the end of July. Lawmakers got sticker shock this week after budget analysts estimated costs of $1 trillion-plus on just partial plans.

"If there is one thing that is off the table, it is saying 'no' to health care reform," said Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, one of three panels involved in writing the legislation.

The House leaders' news conference capped a week in which the health care overhaul effort seemed to stumble at the starting line.

Cost estimates forced lawmakers to revise their draft proposals. Democrats and Republicans dug in for partisan trench warfare. Tense divisions emerged among Democrats. And delays seemed inevitable.

The whole enterprise is "basically a gridlock," Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said Friday.

"This is not reform," added McCain, Obama's opponent in last year's presidential election. "This is why we should start over."

But Democrats had another description for the scene playing out across the Capitol: They called it the legislative process.

"This is just tedious hard work," said Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D. "It's just slogging through options."

Amid the heightened anxiety, the shape of the debate got a lot clearer.

On one side is the House Democrats' sweeping health care bill. It would require all individuals to obtain health insurance and force employers to offer health care to their workers, with exemptions for small businesses. A new public health insurance plan, strongly opposed by Republicans, would compete with private companies within a new health care purchasing "exchange" where Americans could shop for coverage.

Government subsidies would help the poor buy care, and seniors in the Medicare program would pay less for their prescription drugs.

The House Democratic bill, released by the chairmen of the three committees with jurisdiction — Ways and Means; Energy and Commerce; and Education and Labor — left out key details of how it would be paid for.

Democrats are considering everything from taxing soda, to raising income taxes on upper income people earning more than $200,000, to a federal sales tax.