Jockeying for Position

The health care industry is doing a lot of last-minute jockeying as a Senate panel gets set to vote on a reform bill this week.

Insurers and hospitals are balking at moves to water down a provision requiring all Americans carry health insurance, the Wall Street Journal reports. Hospitals, in particular, are ticked because they pledged to absorb $155 billion in government payment cuts as part of a plan to expand health coverage to the tens of millions of uninsured Americans. The agreement was part of a deal the hospitals cut with the White House earlier this year. The pact was a preemptive strike by industry to avoid more onerous legislation.

By the hospitals' own estimates, a recent amendment to the Senate Finance Committee bill exempts 2 million Americans from a requirement to buy insurance. Uninsured patients cost hospitals because they have to write off the expense of care.

Some insurers worry that the penalties for not buying coverage are too low, the Journal says. The fine for not buying family coverage now tops out at $1,900 under the Senate panel's plan. Health insurers want to make sure more young, healthy people are paying into the system to spread the cost of the very sick. Mandating that everyone buys health coverage is the only way reform is going to be successful, insurers argue.

The Senate Finance Committee's bill is seen as the blueprint for President Obama's health reform—so it's critical for companies to weigh in now. Business groups are scurrying to protect their own interests as panel members prepare to send the bill to the full Senate sometime this week.

One group that's not complaining: the biotechnology companies. The Senate committee approved an amendment last week that would grant biotech companies with fewer than 250 employees tax credits for as much as half of their development costs until 2012, Politico reports.

Meanwhile, the medical-device industry continues to lobby lawmakers in an attempt to lower a $4-billion-a-year tax included in the Senate committee bill. A group of 20 House members from industry-heavy states sent a letter to Democratic leaders speaking out against the tax, Roll Call reports.