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Pelosi Whipping House Health Care Plan--Including Robust Public Option
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)
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As I reported last night, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is making a concerted push to pass a health care bill with a robust public option. In previous weeks, Pelosi maintained that House health care principals were still hashing out whether the public option in the bill would pay providers Medicare-like reimbursement rates, or whether those rates would be negotiated by administrators.
But a favorable CBO report seems to have settled all that, and Pelosi's decided to go all in for a public option.
House Majority Whip James Clyburn's operation will be in full swing today, rounding up the last of the 218 votes needed for passage. Rural Democrats and some Blue Dogs are not likely pleased, and many will surely oppose the bill--we'll be keeping an eye on their actions today.
The House bill now chimes in well below $900 billion--President Obama's red line--and is deficit neutral over a 10 year window. Still unclear is whether, like the Senate Finance Committee plan, the plan reduces the deficit in the long term, but those details will hopefully be available soon. The Finance package includes an excise tax on so-called Cadillac health insurance policies, which does a good job at "bending the curve" of health care spending. But that financing plan is controversial with many Democrats and could be changed.
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Indie Pro
October 21, 2009 9:45 AM
President Obama's red line
What? I was under the impression that the President was drawing no lines in the sand, atleast according to some around here.
The Finance package includes an excise tax on so-called Cadillac health insurance policies, which does a good job at "bending the curve" of health care spending. But that financing plan is controversial with many Democrats and could be changed.
with good insurance being part of many middle class Americans compensation package, especially union workers, this is gonna be a hard sell as well. Many will see this as placing more burdens on the middle class, and that's about right too.
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hunter
October 21, 2009 10:53 AM in reply to Indie Pro
with good insurance being part of many middle class Americans compensation package, especially union workers, this is gonna be a hard sell as well. Many will see this as placing more burdens on the middle class, and that's about right too.
Well, "good insurance" maybe. But Kaiser says the Baucus excise would fall on about 10% of plans. I really doubt a great number of those are in the hands of "middle class Americans" by most definitions.
That's not to say there aren't problems with the idea. Regional differences in premiums are huge, which makes the burden of this uneven and to some degree unfair. And hitting the unions for making rational bargaining decisions based on the exemption is pretty dirty, not to mention politically dangerous. But the fact remains that these really expensive plans are horribly inefficient; we need to encourage people to move off of them. And of course...we need the money.
So, I guess I'd say this excise tax isn't really ideal...but I'm not sure it's worse on balance than no excise tax.
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Indie Pro
October 21, 2009 10:58 AM in reply to hunter
one union all ready thinks their members are in the percentile:
at least one union has now turned to the lower chamber to stop the proposed tax from becoming law. An e-mail accidentally sent to The Hill on Wednesday by a senior lobbyist of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades (IUPAT), an AFL-CIO member, encouraged congressional aides to have their lawmakers to sign on to a “Dear Colleague” letter from Rep. Joe Courtney (D-Conn.) to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), saying the proposal would be an unfair tax on its members.
http://thehill.com/homenews/house/61279-unions-no-tax-on-costly-health-insurance-plans
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AnswerFrog
October 21, 2009 10:10 AM
Go Nancy. Pelosi is a true progressive at heart. It shows at times like these. Wish we had more like her in the goddamn Senate .....
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readerOfTeaLeaves
October 21, 2009 10:20 AM
The public option - in combination with some form of Wyden's exchanges to open this option to everyone - would bend the cost curve almost instantly.
Some of this niggling over financial details seems to miss the bigger picture: it's pretty hard to spend more money than we're already handing over to monopolies. And getting a handle on medical fraud would only bend that cost curve down more rapidly.
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Indie Pro
October 21, 2009 10:34 AM in reply to readerOfTeaLeaves
well said
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willia451
October 21, 2009 10:34 AM
If Nancy can get the 218, just pass the damn thing and make the Senate look like shit.
Its like:
Nancy to Senate: "Tell the American People again WHY what you guys are proposing is better policy and helps the most Americans for the least $$$$?"
Senate to Nancy: "Because your bill hurts AHIP. And we LOVES us some AHIP over here. Screw the people."
Nancy: "Oh yeah. Right. Well, good luck in the elections next year. You're going to need it."
Senate: "Thanks."
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Indie Pro
October 21, 2009 10:35 AM in reply to willia451
hilarious and well done!!
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Eric Jaffa
October 21, 2009 10:40 AM
The Senate Finance bill will lower premiums by taking away good insurance from workers who have it.
Thereby increasing the number of Americans who are under-insured.
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AnswerFrog
October 21, 2009 11:56 AM in reply to Eric Jaffa
"The Senate Finance bill will lower premiums by taking away good insurance from workers who have it."
If by "good insurance" you mean excessive insurance. More than S20,000 a year for insurance is insane. If these workers were smart, they would ask for a bigger salary instead of pouring $20K down a hole.
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svjim
October 21, 2009 12:26 PM
It is really hard to read what is going on over in the Senate. Are Reid and Obama just playing low so a bill can get through the Senate and then patched up by the House or are they really the spineless jelly fishes that they appear to be in public.
It really is looking like if the Senate can get anything out, then in conference committee the House is going to have the upper hand. It is only going to take 50 votes in the Senate to pass the bill coming back from the conference committee. So all those Senators who favor the public option, but just can't bring themselves to vote for it because there 'aren't enough votes' will actually get to vote for it.
Once the bills get to conference committee we will know the true color of the Senate or for that matter Obama. Can he govern or will he tie himself up in bipartisanship efforts with an opposition that is only interested in his defeat.
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