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Hagan on health care

U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan has been getting some attention because of her seat on the HELP (Health, Education, Labor and Pensions) committee, which is one of the two Senate committees writing that chamber’s health care reform plan. (The other is Finance.)

In part, attention as focused on Hagan because she has thus far not fully backed the “public option” provider idea that’s central to President Barack Obama’s plan.

When I was writing this story (click here) Friday, Hagan was unavailable to chat about her thoughts on health care.

We did have about seven minutes to talk by phone today, which didn’t allow me to get into a great deal of detail. But from our conversation:

• Hagan made clear that some sort of public option would be needed in order to capture people who either have no health insurance now or have inadequate insurance.

  “There will be some sort of backstop provision, a back-stop option,” she said. Some varieties have included a full-public option, which would be a government run health insurance program, to a co-op program favored by some.

  “It’s not so much what you call it but how it is composed,” Hagan said. She did not say what kind of public option plan she might favor.
   

• Hagan said that a key provision in the House version of the health care reform bill, which would tie the rates paid to health care providers to Medicare rates, was not going to work.

  “If you have a bill tied to Medicare rates, it’s not going to get enough votes to pass,” she said.

• Obviously she’s conscious of not being in her party’s manifold as far as not openly backing the President and a full-bore public option plan. But she did allow as how she thought a bill could get to Obama’s desk by October."

  “I want to strike a balance,” Hagan said. “I want to get things done and I want to make sure I’m one of those senators who can bridge the divide and get things done.”

From talking to Hagan and her staff again today, one point from Sunday’s story should be clarified. I wrote:

“Sen. Hagan is looking at all the public option proposals,” said spokesman David Hoffman. “She’s going to be working with her colleagues to ensure private health insurance isn’t going to be destabilized.”

Hoffman said Hagan was concerned that millions would drop their existing private health insurance and flock to a public option provider, leading to a collapse of the private health insurance market.

More so than lots of people dropping their employer coverage on their own, Hagan says that the concern is employers would decide that paying into a public plan would be cheaper than maintaining a health insurance plan for the business.

“If you’re happy with your coverage that you have you need to be able to keep that,” said Hagan spokesman Dave Hoffman. “It’s all about having a choice.”

More from this conversation coming in tomorrow's Washington Watch column.

Of interest: others talking about this column or related topics include Cone and BlueNC.

Accompanying Photos

Photo Caption: Kay Hagan