Washington — The message was clear: Don’t bite the hand that feeds your constituents.
Members of Business Roundtable, a consortium of high-profile corporate heavy hitters, held a teleconference Wednesday to denounce the public option and excoriate Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid for his decision to include the provision in the health care bill.
“All of us are payers into the system that we have today,” said Verizon Chairman Ivan Seidenberg, speaking for himself and his associates. “We all believe that the current system is in need of some reform … [but] this public option will take this entire debate in a direction that would not be acceptable.”
Seidenberg warned against the negative effects of the public, or government-run, option on current health care plans and their beneficiaries.
“We don’t want to take the 175 million people that are getting insurance through their employers and throw them out the window,” Seidenberg said.
Business Roundtable, which includes CEOs from many of America’s largest companies, is one of the most influential chief executive lobbying groups on Capitol Hill. Its members employ roughly 12 million people and provide health insurance for “more than 35 million,” according to the group’s estimates.
Seidenberg was joined on the call by Business Roundtable President John Castellani and Eastman Kodak Chairman Antonio Perez.
“The public plan has, in our view, many problems,” Castellani said. “It will likely simply shift, rather than reduce, costs and will stifle the innovation that we need to continue improving our health care system.”
Castellani said the public option will transfer health care coverage costs to private payers and “will likely reimburse providers at a sub-market rate, forcing private plans to compensate by paying higher rates.”
“The government does not have a good record on managing costs,” said Antonio Perez, who stressed that those representing corporate interests weren’t ready to throw in the towel in the fight to block the public option.
“This is not a time to quit and go home,” Perez said. “The stakes are too high.”