Nov. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Insurers such as WellPoint Inc. and Blue Cross Blue Shield and drugmakers are redoubling their efforts to fight proposals to overhaul the U.S health-care system, adding another obstacle as legislative hurdles mount.
The insurers oppose competition from a new government-run program that’s included in both the House and Senate plans. The trade group representing drugmakers such as Pfizer Inc. says a House provision to allow the government to negotiate drug prices for Medicare would cost tens of thousands of jobs.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi won passage of her version of the legislation on Nov. 7 only after forcing her party’s liberal wing to make concessions and can’t count on those votes for a final version. In the Senate, time is running out to get a bill passed this year, leaving the effort vulnerable to a loss of momentum and a new backlash from Republicans in 2010.
[...] “Because of the degree of difficulty, it wouldn’t surprise me to see it roll over into the first quarter of 2010,” said William Frenzel, a Brookings Institution scholar in Washington who was a Republican member of Congress for 20 years.
SOURCE: Bloomberg
