The Courant’s Arielle Levin Becker reports:<\/p>\n
When Massachusetts voters elected Scott Brown to the U.S. Senate in January, cutting the Democratic majority to 59, conventional wisdom pegged the health reform effort as doomed.<\/p>\n
But U.S. Sen. Christopher Dodd says that may have actually helped get reform passed.<\/p>\n
“I always thought the number 60 was a problematic number,” Dodd said Tuesday during a conference call with reporters, shortly after President Obama signed the health reform bill into law.<\/p>\n
Having 60 Democrats in the Senate, Dodd explained, meant that every Republican would vote no and every Democrat had to vote yes. Losing a Democratic seat meant those pushing health reform had to work differently, Dodd said, and it reinvigorated Democrats to get the job done.<\/p>\n
As for Republicans, who did not support the bill, Dodd said he believes the health reform experience might lead some of his colleagues across the aisle to reconsider their approach. A number of Republican colleagues were not happy with their party’s strategy of “just saying no to everything,” he said.<\/p>\n
“They want to be part of the solutions,” he said. “They didn’t run for the United States Senate to say no to everything.”<\/p>\n
Dodd touted the new health reform law and the benefits he said it would bring to Connecticut residents. Provisions that take effect immediately will begin to close the Medicare “doughnut hole,” eliminate coverage limits, and allow young adults to stay on their parents’ health insurance policies until age 26.<\/p>\n
Another piece of the reform package, a $100 million hospital grant, could help Connecticut fund a renovation and construction project at the UConn Health Center in Farmington. Dodd, who got the grant inserted in the health reform bill, noted that at least 12 or 13 other states could qualify for the money. The grant can be used to fund hospital construction, but requires the state that receives it to come up with another $150 million or more for the project, which Dodd said could limit the amount of interest in other states.<\/p>\n
One of the most controversial aspects of health reform, the pubic option, did not make it into the final bill, something Dodd said he regretted. He suggested that a public option could one day re-emerge, particularly if the health insurance exchange that the health reform legislation established is well received.<\/p>\n
Dodd said he worries that the passage of health reform is discussed in language he likened conversations about March Madness, with focus on which side won or lost.<\/p>\n
“The team that won doesn’t serve in Congress,” he said. The winners, he said, are families who hope for a time when getting sick won’t mean going bankrupt. <\/p>\n
“This is a real victory in my view for generations to come in America,” he said.<\/p>\n
And the insurance industry?<\/p>\n
“They’re a highly flexible, creative industry,” Dodd said, predicting that insurers would do well.<\/p>\n
He singled out Aetna Chairman and CEO Ronald Williams for praise.<\/p>\n
“They’re a smart company,” he said. “They’ll figure out ways to compete, to be involved in this marketplace, so I have no concerns about them going out of business as a result of this health care bill.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Courant’s Arielle Levin Becker reports: When Massachusetts voters elected Scott Brown to the U.S. Senate in January, cutting the Democratic majority to 59, conventional wisdom pegged the health reform effort as doomed. But U.S. Sen. Christopher Dodd says that may have actually helped get reform passed. “I always thought the number 60 was a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4001,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-464498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4001"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=464498"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464498\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=464498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=464498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=464498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}