INSIGHTS INTO US LEGISLATION

The probability of a health care reform bill drops significantly if there is no agreement in principle by the July 4 recess, White House Office of Legislative Affairs director Patrick Griffin told a recent Lehman Brothers health care conference in Washington DC. Agreement in principle can mean many things, such as the outlines of a bipartisan deal in the Senate Finance Committee.

And it was probably with this in mind that agreement was reached by this Committee over the weekend ahead of July 4 (see facing page). What is interesting is that although several of the Committee members expressed varying degrees of dissatisfaction with the bill's proposals, most voted for it because that was the only way to get it to the floor of the Senate.

Also speaking at the Lehman conference was Hillary Rodham Clinton, who rejected market forces as a sufficient means of continuing the reduction in health care inflation should reform efforts cease, and vigorously criticized possible soft or hard "trigger" prohibition in legislation, and other compromises.