Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chair Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and a "core group" of five other committee members "will intensify their efforts in coming weeks to ready universal health care legislation for early summer," CongressDaily reports. Kennedy's drafting group includes Senate HELP Committee ranking member Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) and committee members Sens. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.), Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) and one of three other senators -- Sens. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) or Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), who previously were named to working groups focusing on insurance coverage, prevention and quality improvements, respectively.

Kennedy's staff has been holding stakeholder meetings, which include 20 interest groups, and members and aides from the Senate HELP Committee and the Senate Finance Committee have been holding joint and separate meetings to discuss reform. However, "nothing [from those meetings] has been made available for public consumption," according to CongressDaily. Kennedy's drafting group is scheduled to meet up to three times weekly over the next two-and-a-half months and hopes to have legislation ready for mark up by early summer, according to a source familiar with the talks.

Kennedy and Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus (D-Mont.), who also wants to bring health reform legislation to the floor before the August recess, have said they would work together on a health care overhaul, but the lawmakers "are keeping their committees on largely parallel tracks based on their jurisdictions and are not crossing over to work on a single bill," CongressDaily reports. Eventually, the lawmakers would like a single bipartisan bill for full Senate consideration (Edney, CongressDaily, 3/17).

Republicans Concerned About Industry Relationships
In related news, The Hill on Monday examined how health care industry and other business group efforts to align with Democratic lawmakers on health care reform are "causing unease among their traditional Republican allies on Capitol Hill." According to The Hill, President Obama and congressional Democrats have yet to produce health care legislation "that will force these factions to take a stand, but the conciliatory approach of health care and business groups so far stands in stark contrast to the broad skepticism that has greeted Democratic health reform ideas among congressional Republicans."

According to The Hill, "If Obama and the Democrats are able to hold together this loose coalition of interests, Republicans could find themselves standing in opposition to a Democratic health reform bill without the support of health care and business groups that have been the beneficiaries of GOP policies." Republicans believe that "business risks losing in the long run if its strategy results in their being co-opted by Democrats seeking to significantly increase the role of the federal government in the health care system," The Hill reports.

Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America President and CEO Billy Tauzin said, "The good thing for Republicans is that the business community is now engaged in the conversation," adding, "My strong advice to them is, as you build your own plans, as you think through your own solutions, recognize there are a lot of your own constituencies, traditional constituencies, who really want to see this thing worked out and don't want to see battle lines drawn and minefields set up." Christian Shalgian, director of advocacy and public policy for the American College of Surgeons, said, "There's a reality that a lot of people are facing that if we don't give a little bit, it's going to be a whole lot worse," adding, "Groups are balancing their self-interest with the political realities" (Young, The Hill, 3/16).

Medical Malpractice
Democratic lawmakers and administration officials are considering changes to the medical malpractice system as part of health reform efforts, the AP/Kansas City Star reports. Last week, Obama said, "The cost issue is the thing that we actually think is the big driver in this whole debate," adding that research, prevention and "medical liability issues -- I think all those things have to be on the table."

At a recent meeting of the American Medical Association, Obama health adviser Ezekiel Emanuel, an oncologist, said he has "been thinking long and hard about" tort reform, adding, "It hasn't gone unnoticed. So stay tuned." AMA President Nancy Nielsen said, "We're encouraged to see that lawmakers from both sides of the aisle and a growing number of key stakeholders recognize the need for liability reform." However, Linda Lipsen, senior vice president of public affairs at the American Association for Justice, said, "Changing the legal system will not make anyone healthier or save one life."

According to the AP/Star, "key lawmakers are looking for a solution that both sides could live with," which is "unlikely to include capping punitive and pain and suffering payments" as proposed by former President George W. Bush. Baucus has proposed providing states with block grants to develop alternate litigation models, such as encouraging disclosure and compensation in the case of error, or establishing a "health court" where judges are knowledgeable about health care (Werner, AP/Kansas City Star, 3/17).

Wal-Mart a Player in Reform
Wal-Mart officials have been meeting with congressional leaders since last summer to discuss the in-house efforts they have made to improve health care, as a way to ensure the company's voice is heard when crafting health care reform legislation, Politico reports. Linda Dillman, Wal-Mart's executive vice president of benefits, said, "We're willing to take a stand independently and not just do it through our associations." According to Politico, "Long a target of complaints from labor, environmental and health care activists, Wal-Mart has been trying to rehabilitate its reputation in recent years" in part by offering employees a broader range of low-cost health insurance plans. The company also is pushing for greater use of electronic health records as part of its health care reform campaign (Frates, Politico, 3/17).

Opinion Pieces

• Matthew Continetti, Weekly Standard: During the presidential election, Obama and his campaign "attacked" Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) for being open to taxing employer-provided health benefits to help offset the costs of health care reform, but "[n]ow that the election is over ... a modified version of the McCain proposal seems reasonable to Obama," Weekly Standard columnist Continetti writes. He continues, "McCain never adequately responded to, nor recovered from, the attack that his health care policy equaled 'the largest middle-class tax increase in history.'" However, "The interesting thing is that this is not the first health care reversal the Obama administration is open to," Continetti writes. He continues, "There's a lot of talk that, while he campaigned against Hillary Clinton's policy of a universal insurance mandate, the Obama health care plan may end up mandating coverage anyway." Continetti adds, "So, as of now, the president's health reform will probably wind up doing two things that the president explicitly campaigned against" (Continetti, Weekly Standard, 3/16).
  
  
• Eugene Robinson, Washington Post: One of the central questions to the health care debate "is whether the most expensive high-tech tests and procedures will somehow have to be rationed if health care costs are to be brought down," Post columnist Robinson writes. Robinson writes, "The way we ration health care now -- according to the individual's ability to pay -- is immoral, and if higher taxes are needed to ensure that no one has to choose between health and bankruptcy, I'll pay." Robinson concludes that he also would be "willing to pay" for the ability to make his own decisions about where and how to be treated (Robinson, Washington Post, 3/17).
  
  
• Stephen Soumerai/Sumit Majumdar, Washington Post: Although Obama and Congress have supported and recently provided funding for health care information technology and EHRs, "there is little evidence that currently available computerized systems will improve care," Soumerai, a professor of ambulatory care and prevention at Harvard Medical School, and Majumdar, an associate professor at the University of Alberta's Department of Medicine, write in a Post opinion piece. They continue, "For many chronically ill and vulnerable patients, it does not matter much whether their health records are digital or their prescriptions typed," adding, "Without patient access to clinicians and adequate health insurance that includes affordable drug coverage, a $50 billion investment in health information technology won't do much for many Americans. These funds are needed elsewhere" (Soumerai/Majumdar, Washington Post, 3/17).