WASHINGTON – As the health care debate cranked up on Capitol Hill last week, Sen. Patty Murray talked about 10-year-old Marcelas Owens, whose mother lost her job, lost her health insurance, became sick and died.

Murray told the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee that the story of the Seattle boy’s mom was a tragic example of why health care reform was urgently needed.

The Washington Democrat has been here before, in 1994, with the failed Clinton health care plan. But back then, as a very junior senator, she didn’t have a seat at the table. This time, Murray and Washington state’s other senator, Democrat Maria Cantwell, have seats near the head of the table.

The No. 4 Democrat in the Senate Democratic leadership, Murray is helping develop strategy for passing what she hopes will be a landmark health care reform bill. Murray is one of five members of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee tabbed by its chairman, Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., to help draft one of the bills that could eventually emerge for floor consideration.

The other bill will come from the Senate Finance Committee, whose membership includes Cantwell. Cantwell has been lobbying committee chairman Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., to include in his bill several provisions, including revamping the Medicare reimbursement formula, which are of special interest to Washington state.

Murray and Cantwell have been to the White House repeatedly to meet with President Barack Obama and his aides. Over the past few weeks, they have been in countless hearings and meetings as their committees draft their bills.

“The climate in this country has changed dramatically since 1994,” Murray said. “Things have gotten worse in the past 15 years.”

‘OUR SYSTEM IS TERRIBLY BROKEN’

Over the past decade, health insurance premiums have nearly doubled while wages have been stagnant. By some estimates, unless changes are made health care coverage for an average family will cost $24,000 a year by 2016, an 84 percent increase in current levels. Meanwhile, the number of uninsured continues to grow. Today an estimated 47 million people don’t have health insurance, including almost 830,000 in Washington state.

“Doing nothing isn’t the prescription to our health care crisis,” said Murray, who met Marcelas Owens at a health care rally in Seattle several weeks ago.

Owens’ mother, Tiffany, died two years ago of pulmonary hypertension, according to Murray’s office. She was fired from her job after she got sick and missed a lot of work. When she lost her job, she lost her medical benefits.

Murray places the blame for Tiffany Owens’ death squarely on the health care system.

“Marcelas lost his mom because our system is terribly broken,” she said.

While Murray and Cantwell believe providing health insurance to those who don’t have it is a top priority, it is not their only priority.

“We are not going to build a new health care system on an old rickety one,” said Cantwell.

Cantwell said the key to reforming health care is trimming costs while providing quality care. She cites a story in the June 1 edition of The New Yorker on health care costs in McAllen, Texas, which are among the highest in the nation because doctors there are quick to order additional tests and procedures to increase their billing. The article has become required reading in the White House.

WASHINGTON STATE AS A MODEL

Using a coordinated, integrated, high efficiency health care delivery system like that in Washington state could save Medicare more than $55 billion a year and be a model if a government sponsored plan is included in a reform bill, Cantwell said.

Both Cantwell and Murray said any bill has to overhaul the Medicare reimbursement formula for doctors, which they say punishes states such as Washington that have efficient health care systems. Average annual Medicare spending on beneficiaries in Washington state is about $5,280, compared with a state like New Jersey where beneficiary spending is $7,834, a difference of $2,500.

Neither Murray nor Cantwell support the so-called single payer approach in which private health insurance companies would be replaced by a health care system run by the government. But both senators believe say a reform bill should include a “government-option” that could compete with private health insurance.

“All Americans should have access to health care. That could include a public option,” Murray said.

Cantwell suggested one possible government option could be a cooperative nonprofit like Group Health Cooperative in the Northwest.

“The system in the Northwest isn’t perfect,” Cantwell said. “It has its problems. But it has worked.”

Republicans staunchly oppose any government option, saying it would put private insurers out of business and result in a government run health care system.

Most of the attention on health care reform has, so far, focused on the Senate where a bill is expected to be harder to pass. The Senate health committee started marking up its bill last week, but there are more than 300 amendments. In addition, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said the health committee’s bill could cost more than $1 trillion dollars and reduce the ranks of the uninsured by only 16 million people.