The federal government would create a public health-insurance provider under a health-care reform plan agreed to Thursday by a group of key Senate Democrats, including Sen. Kay Hagan- D-N.C.
"We have crafted a plan that will stabilize health-care costs and includes a Community Health Insurance Option, which I support," Hagan wrote in an e-mail. "It is a backstop option for people without access to affordable coverage."
Health-care reform is the shorthand for a sweeping package of changes that backers say will help control the rising cost of medical services and ensure that all U.S. residents have access to health care.
In the Senate, two committees have worked on that legislation: the Finance Committee and the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.
Hagan is a member of the health committee and attracted national attention because she expressed reservations about creating a public-option provider.
Such a government-run health plan would insure those who aren't covered by their employers, can't afford to buy insurance on their own and don't qualify for other government-run programs such as Medicaid and Medicare.
Hagan worried openly about the potential cost, and that the plan would disrupt the private insurance market by prompting employers to drop their private coverage. Her concerns were seen as delaying the legislation on the closely divided health-care committee, particularly because Kennedy has been too ill to attend many of its sessions.
But Hagan staff members said that the plan floated Thursday deals with the senator's concerns. Gatekeepers will ensure that those with adequate private coverage will not enroll in the publicly run plans, they said. And businesses with more than 25 employees that don't provide health insurance for their workers will pay a $750 fee per full-time employee toward the national program. Those two features will help make sure that private health insurance is the norm, while creating an environment in which they say that 97 percent of Americans would have health coverage.
"This public option is the kind of compromise plan that could get through the Senate," said Stephanie Allen, Hagan's communications director.
When Hagan became the Democratic nominee for Senate in 2008, Democrats unified behind her as a way to oust Republican Elizabeth Dole. Chris Kromm, the executive director of the Institute for Southern Studies, a progressive think tank and publishing operation, said that many liberals might not have realized that Hagan had been a business-friendly Democrat in the state Senate.
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