Aug. 3 Daily News editorial

The Obama administration’s push for health-care reform gained a new burst of momentum on the eve of Congress’ summer break. Lawmakers reached agreement on a House bill late Thursday night that would extend health coverage to just about all of the 50 million uninsured Americans. The legislation includes a public insurance option and subsidies to help middle-income families purchase private insurance. The bill would cost an estimated $1.5 trillion over the next decade.

This is unexpected progress on legislation that looked to be a no-go just a little more than a week ago. But it will surprise us if this proposal survives in the Senate, where there is much stronger opposition to the public option and greater concern about adding to the deficit. In short, the administration still is far from achieving what it has made its top domestic priority.

On the other hand, President Obama does not have to look far for a plan that could unite Democrats and Republicans and accomplished the goal of extending health coverage to virtually all Americans. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Robert Bennett, R-Utah, have been pushing such a plan for at least a couple of years. Rep. Brian Baird, D-Wash., is promoting the proposal in the House.

At the end of the day, we think the Wyden-Bennett-Baird proposal will emerge as the favored health-care plan. Why? Cost. This plan would provide nearly universal health coverage without a big investment of tax dollars. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office and Joint Committee on Taxation evaluated the plan last year and found that it would become revenue neutral two years after it became fully operational and eventually generate budget surpluses.

The proposal would require employers to cash out of existing health plans and give the money they spend on those plans to workers through increased wages. Workers would have to use the additional wages to purchase health insurance from a large pool of private insurers. After two years, employers would no longer have to pay the additional wages. They instead would pay into an insurance pool. The amount paid into the pool would be based on annual revenues and the number of full-time employees.

A review of this plan by a Virginia-based health-care consulting firm, The Lewin Group, found that the legislation could reduce the current health-care costs of private employers by nearly three-quarters. The Lewin Group also calculated that the plan would save about $1.4 trillion in total national health-care spending over the next 10 years.

The Wyden-Bennett bill in the Senate and Baird’s proposal in the House would seem to have everything going for them — except the backing of the Obama White House and congressional leaders. Sen. Bennett recently speculated on NPR’s “All things Considered” that he and Wyden just weren’t senior enough for their bill to get the look it would appear to deserve. “I’ve discovered that hell hath no fury like a committee chairman whose jurisdiction is being challenged,” Bennett said. “They weren’t interested in a couple of guys out in the all.”

We predict their interest will pick up once the $1.4-trillion package agreed upon Thursday runs aground on the deficit.