Chief of Staff, Office of Rep. Pete Stark, R-Calif.


The

Debbie Curtis

question that must be asked in the health care debate, Debbie Curtis, chief of staff for Rep. Pete Stark, D-Calif., said, is, "Is health care a right or is health care a marketplace?"

"We think it is a right," Curtis said.

That attitude, Curtis said, is why Medicare is Stark's top issue, and why he is committed to expanding health coverage.

With the Democratic takeover of the House, Stark, in January, will become the chairman of the Health Subcommittee of the Ways and Means Committee. While this will put him in a stronger position to pursue health care legislation, Curtis acknowledged that, "In the next two years, there probably will be no heavy lifting." She noted, though, that the Ways and Means Committee is likely to be "more collaborative" with the departure of the sometimes divisive Bill Thomas, R-Calif., from the chairman's seat, which could make smaller scale reforms possible.

This, according to Curtis, could mean improvements in health information technology - which, she said, is only likely to happen "if you pay providers to do it" - revisions to the Medicare drug benefit - a Republican-backed measure she said "was less about providing prescription drug coverage and more about dismantling the Medicare system" - and, possibly, an expansion of Medicare that would allow 55 to 64-year-olds to buy into the program, a pet project of Stark's for several years.