Senate aide signals action on healthcare

Appearing to put to rest speculation that the Senate would delay action on healthcare changes, a spokeswoman for Senate President Robert E. Travaglini said yesterday that the Senate will debate the highly watched issue in the next three weeks.

''It's the president's intention to have a healthcare debate in the Senate before the Thanksgiving break," said Travaglini's spokeswoman, Ann DuFresne.

The House passed its version of the complex bill late Thursday night. Earlier in the week, Travaglini was urging prudence on the healthcare debate, saying that such a comprehensive bill should not be rushed through the legislative process. But the comments by his spokeswoman yesterday signal that Senate leaders are willing to act swiftly on one of the hot-button topics on Beacon Hill.

House Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi said through a spokeswoman last night that he is ''pleased that the Senate shares the House's view that healthcare reform must be acted on by the end of this year." He added that the legislation the House passed Thursday night had been six months in the making and incorporates a number of priorities included in the Senate plan.

The House has been criticized for waiting until this week, two weeks before this year's legislative session ends, to unveil its healthcare bill, given that Governor Mitt Romney and the Senate came out with theirs months ago.

But Romney has been warning that the state must pass something this year or risk losing up to $385 million in annual Medicaid payments from the federal government. To continue getting the money, administration officials say, Massachusetts must demonstrate by mid-January that it has a plan in place to lower the number of uninsured residents in the state; current estimates put that figure at between 500,000 and 600,000.

Not everyone agrees that the deadline compels the Legislature to pass a bill in the next several weeks.

State Senator Richard T. Moore, one of the chamber's leading specialists on healthcare, believes that the state could take until February or March to pass a bill without risking the loss of the federal money. What the Senate should do instead of quickly passing something, Moore said, is take the time to get it right.

''Just as they had about eight or nine months to look at our bill, we'd like at least a few weeks to look at their bill and make sure it all adds up," Moore, an Uxbridge Democrat, said of the House. ''I think it would be better to do it when we think it's done, and when we think it's ready."

Moore said the Senate already has a full agenda next week, pointing out that the chamber still has to work out differences with the House in an economic development bill and needs to take up a measure on fuel assistance and energy conservation.

''The general consensus among members is that we would prefer not to have this one added to our plate," he said.

Meanwhile, Secretary of State William F. Galvin, a potential Democratic candidate for governor next year, criticized the House package yesterday, calling it short-sighted and saying it catered to insurance companies. Galvin said a more thorough overhaul would have committed a long-term investment of public funds and probed more deeply into the HMOs that he said had too much influence in the bill's assembly.

''I'm not happy with it," said Galvin, who has not indicated whether he will run for governor. ''I think it's more an insurance bill than a healthcare bill. . . . It really does nothing to address the parallel problem, which is that of people who do have coverage and watch their premiums increase while their coverage is shrinking."

Romney's plan and the House plan call for a vehicle to connect consumers with insurance plans, a mechanism with which Galvin took issue. ''In essence, the state's being turned into an agent to sell insurance policies," he said.

But Democratic gubernatorial candidate Deval Patrick endorsed the House bill, arguing in favor of its requirement that employers provide healthcare or pay an assessment.

Calling the bill ''a huge opportunity," Patrick cited his work as a corporate lawyer at Texaco and Coca-Cola and said that health insurance costs are ''one of the single most serious concerns that business people face."

''I think the Legislature has shown and will show as the measure passes through the Senate that they are quite capable of sorting out the right way to achieve the goal of expanded quality access," Patrick said.

Material from State House News Service was used in this report. Scott Helman can be reached at shelman@globe.com.