Lawmakers still sparring over healthcare for uninsured
Romney warns funds in jeopardy
An agreement on a landmark bill to provide healthcare to the state's uninsured appears to be as far away as ever, with House and Senate leaders openly expressing frustration with each other and Governor Mitt Romney chiding the Legislature for its lack of progress.
House and Senate negotiators have been trying to reach a deal since the fall, but their discussions began with the two chambers far apart and are still hung up on the most elemental questions: how the state can bring health coverage to the 500,000 to 600,000 uninsured, how much it would cost, and how to pay for it.
The debate has reached the highest levels of the Legislature -- House Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi and Senate President Robert E. Travaglini are now directly negotiating the major points.
But even those talks, it seems, aren't going well.
In an interview with the Globe yesterday, DiMasi lashed out at Travaglini and the Senate for what he said was a lack of responsiveness to a series of House compromises he has put on the table. DiMasi said he has offered five or six counterproposals and has been met with indifference.
''They either say 'no,' or there's no response, and they have never responded with any kind of alternative solution to us."
DiMasi added, ''There's frustration on our part in the House. The Senate has delayed this thing from the very beginning."
DiMasi's rebuke comes a week after he expressed optimism that a deal was close. Since then, he said, his frustration has grown as the Senate has essentially ignored his latest compromise on one of the most contentious aspects of the House plan: an assessment on employers who don't provide health coverage for their workers.
Senate leaders offer a vastly different version of the negotiations, saying DiMasi's myopic insistence on assessing employers -- which Travaglini and Romney both oppose -- is what's holding things up. State Senator Therese Murray, chairwoman of the Senate Ways and Means Committee, noted yesterday that the Senate came out with its healthcare plan last year, long before the House did.
''The Senate put out our plan six months before. If you want to talk about not responding in a timely fashion, six months it was on the table," she said.
Murray said she hoped the next few weeks would be more productive.
''I think we can get there, and I am hoping that we'll be able to have better progress in the next two weeks," she said.
The disagreements over healthcare between DiMasi and Travaglini, who have said they have a good relationship and talk regularly, have spawned warring memos in recent days.
To the House leadership, Travaglini's response to DiMasi's latest compromise was lackluster: a 14-page PowerPoint presentation long on broad philosophies but short on specifics. ''While your statement of principles is of interest, your materials do not contain the specifics necessary to produce comprehensive legislation," reads a memo DiMasi sent to Travaglini Friday.
Travaglini then responded with his own memo Friday, saying the 14-page document ''provides a comprehensive outline for healthcare reform. . . . We are already later in these discussions, and I fear that we may be squandering an opportunity to reach consensus."
Travaglini was vacationing yesterday and unavailable for comment.
Romney, meanwhile, is expressing growing dissatisfaction, reiterating to reporters yesterday that the state is in serious jeopardy of losing $385 million in annual federal Medicaid money.
''There's no question I'm very concerned about the time it is taking the Legislature to reach a conclusion on healthcare," he said. ''I submitted my bill almost a year ago. I was told by leadership in a very public way that they would have a bill on my desk by Nov. 15, then they said by the end of the year, then by Jan. 15. Now we're [at] Feb. 21, and I still don't have a bill."
Romney criticized DiMasi's plan as the leading impediment to a deal; DiMasi later countered by accusing Romney of simply wanting to attach his name to a healthcare bill he can tout as he mounts a possible run for president in 2008.
Scott Helman can be reached at shelman@globe.com. 