WASHINGTON -- As a Louisiana state senator, Bill Cassidy authored legislation with several health reform provisions included in President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act that Cassidy and other Republicans are seeking to repeal. In 2007, Cassidy, now a Baton Rouge congressman, offered up a bill that would establish a state-run exchange where individuals without health coverage through their employer,...
WASHINGTON -- As a Louisiana state senator, Bill Cassidy authored legislation with several health reform provisions included in President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act that Cassidy and other Republicans are seeking to repeal.
In 2007, Cassidy, now a Baton Rouge congressman, offered up a bill that would establish a state-run exchange where individuals without health coverage through their employer, Medicare or Medicaid could purchase insurance. That's similar to the exchanges established under the president's law, known as ObamaCare.
Cassidy's 2007 legislation, first reported by the NOLA Defender, had the goal of health care insurance reform, defined, in the bill, as the "study, research, evaluation, and implementation of a variety or combination of experienced based entitlements, subsidies, and health insurance innovations public or private, or both, designed to provide health insurance coverage to each citizen of this state."
Providing coverage to the uninsured is the main goal of the Affordable Care Act.
Cassidy also introduced a 2008 bill in the Louisiana Senate that would require businesses with fewer than 50 employees to offer coverage for the treatment of mental illness, alcoholism and drug abuse. The legislation called for tax credits to help small businesses afford the expanded coverage requirements.
Similar coverage requirements are included in the Affordable Care Act, which also provides tax credits to help small businesses assume added financial burdens of health coverage.
Neither of Cassidy's bills was enacted by the Louisiana Legislature.
Cassidy, a physician, is running for the Senate against Democrat incumbent Mary Landrieu. One of the major reasons he cites for denying her a 4th term is her 2010 vote for the Affordable Care Act, which passed without a single Republican vote.
The Cassidy campaign responded to questions about his State Senate bills with a hit at Landrieu.
"Mary Landrieu must own her final deciding vote for ObamaCare whether she likes it or not -- and let's not forget that she just recently lectured Louisianans of her embarrassment of U.S. health care when she travels to Europe," Cassidy campaign manager Joel DiGrado said. "Dr. Cassidy has and will continue to advocate for step by step market based reforms to address specific problems -- not thousands of pages of new rules and regulations that damage the doctor patient relationship, destroy jobs and increase health care costs."
Cassidy recently signed a letter with 79 House GOP colleagues urging House GOP letters to insist that any funding bills defund ObamaCare, though he has said he doesn't support a government shutdown if that means loss of funding for military members and their families.
Mitt Romney, the GOP presidential candidate in 2012, also based a good portion of his campaign on a promise to repeal the Affordable Care Act. His arguments against ObamaCare were hindered because, as governor of Massachusetts, he implemented a state health reform law very similar to the Affordable Care Act.
During the campaign, Romney said he was proud of the state legislation, but believed that health care legislation ought to developed by the states, saying what's right for Massachusetts might not be best for other states.