Congress, naturally, would not allow a frontal assault on the insurance industry. So Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) pitched the Healthy Americans Act, which had several Republican sponsors and significant support on both sides of the aisle.
It was a simple plan: Instead of supplying insurance to employees, companies would give that money to workers to shop for policies on their own, allowing them to pocket any savings. With so many shoppers flooding the marketplace, insurers would be forced to truly compete.
But Obama caved at the opening bell. His first big mistake was delegating the plan’s creation to a cabal of senators and health-care lobbyists — some still employed by the industry, some recent additions to the senators’ staffs. They met behind closed doors, hashing out the details and squeezing other legislators out of the process.
Leading the effort was Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Montana), who from 1999 to 2005 accepted more special-interest money than any other senator. He delegated the real lifting to his chief health aide, Liz Fowler. Baucus described Fowler as overseeing “the 87-page document which became the basis, the foundation, and the blueprint from which all health-care measures in all bills on both sides of the aisle came.”