Summary
President Obama and Democratic Congressional Leaders met at the White House on Wednesday, May 12, promising the creation and passage of comprehensive national healthcare reform legislation by the end of the year. To do that both Houses are shooting to vote on bills before their month long August recess. If both chambers meet their timetable, the goal would then be to hammer out the differences in their respectively passed bills to give the President a bill to sign before the end of 2009.
Analysis
The major sticking point will probably be the fight, especially by Republicans in the Senate, on whether to include a public health plan to compete with private health plans. Virtually all Senate Republicans are dead set against this, as is the private insurance lobby which supports many of these legislators' political campaigns.
Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is trying to forge a middle ground compromise here. He is putting forth that any public health plan must adhere to the same rules and regulations as private plans so that they would compete on a fair, level playing field.
However, even these concessions may not be enough to gain much, if any, support from Republicans in the Senate. If all Senate Republicans join together, they could still fillibuster any Senate Bill (at least until the Democrats are able to seat their 60th Senator, Al Franken, whose "victory" is still the subject of litigation in front of the Minnesota Supreme Court).
Nevertheless, if, for some reason, the Democrats can't seat Al Franken and a fillibuster continues until October 15, at that time, the Democrats have the ace up their sleeves of passing healthcare reform legislation through the budget reconciliation process (requiring just a simple majority of 51 Senators to pass it as provided in recently passed budget legislation). That would permit the Senate to pass this legislation even if all Republicans and up to eight fiscally conservative, "Blue Dog" Senate Democrats joined the Republicans as opponents to the passage of the legislation.
Going that route is definitely not what either the President, nor the Congressional Democratic Leadership, would prefer. However, that's how President Bush got both his tax cuts and Medicare reform legislation passed. So, doing that even with such important legislation as national healthcare reform is not out of the question.
Assuming that there is a public plan option in the final legislation that the President signs later this year, then companies most affected would be:
1. United Health Group;
2. WellPoint;
3. Aetna;
4. Cigna; and
5. Health Net
