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Democrats Hope To Seal The Deal On Health Care This Week
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)
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Democrats will have to make significant progress this week toward reaching an agreement on the shape of House-Senate health care legislation if they hope to hand President Obama a bill to sign before his State of the Union speech, tentatively scheduled for early February.
And that means they'll have to reach a number of compromises on everything from the implementation date of major reforms, to the structure of insurance markets, to, most crucially, how to pay for near-universal health care.
The question of how to generate new revenue has split House and Senate Democrats and has driven a wedge between Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the administration, which supports the Senate's plan: an excise tax on high-cost health care plans. For months, the White House's chief focus in the health care reform fight has been making sure the 60 members of the Senate Democratic caucus stay united behind the plan--and that means they're not giving Pelosi, who has greater margin for error and more control over her own caucus, much leeway to secure her priorities.
SEIU President Andy Stern told The Hill last week he expects to lose the fight over the excise tax. President Obama will be meeting with labor leaders at the White House today to sell them on the tax plan.
The goal is to quell a revolt among House Democrats, who overwhelmingly oppose the tax, and are frustrated by having to consistently yield to the Senate on major legislation.
Both President Obama and former President Clinton will huddle with House Democrats later this week at their issues conference, to impress upon them the importance of passing the legislation--whatever its final shape. How Pelosi whips up the votes for the package--and who ultimately votes for it--will be a major point of interest in the days and weeks ahead.
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jah627
January 11, 2010 9:43 AM
The Blue Dogs are dragging the Democratic Party into an electoral debacle, but hey this is America, where everything is broken and nobody cares...stuff the bonus money into Swiss banks and tax those pesky unions!
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Dr Foulkes
January 12, 2010 4:14 PM in reply to jah627
This bill is a fraud written on the senate side by the insurance industry and really needs to be scraped. It is a huge subsidized tax give away to the insurance companies. It will not work! Look at Massachusetts which is now the most expensive health care system in the world and the most profitable for the insurance industry. We need to start over with a medicare for most approach. The net effect of this is to capitalize the insurance industry, eliminate their exposure with a costly and expensive pool and to mandate that everyone get in line to be mistreated by the very people that have brought us to the brink. This is a fraud and cannot work. I am disgusted that Baccus could allow a former Wellpoint insurance executive VP, Elizabeth Fowler to author the Senate bill. Then again he has received over 2 million in funding from her industry. The political process is beyond fixing if such a blatant grab for power by an industry is not pushed back but somehow legitimized by a bill being signed in the guise of reform. We are clearly looking at a 500 billion dollar give away to the insurance industry. There is no public option no expansion of medicare to those 55 or older, a mandatory insurance requirement that will be a windfall for insurance companies, and if they don't want to take care of you the taxpayer pays them a bonus to cover you under the pool. Give me a break! You call this reform?? I think the house should say no way and let this die. This isn't even one step forward it is 5 steps back and virtually eliminates the possibility of health care models that have been shown to work in every western country for a fraction of the cost for better care! We should not be misled into this bill. It should be killed and let the system we now have implode forcing real reform that we can afford and that will allow us to prove that we can do better than a middleman controlled system run by insurance companies.
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shooter242
January 11, 2010 9:56 AM
Unions are the new rich. Particularly civil service. It's time raise their taxes. Heh.
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jah627
January 11, 2010 10:23 AM in reply to shooter242
That's right -- the cops and firefighters are taking all our money, reaping huge annual bonuses and putting them into secret Swiss bank accounts to avoid paying income taxes...lol
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NobleCommentDecider
January 11, 2010 11:47 AM in reply to jah627
Shooter is right, Geithner and Treasury have said it is impossible to tax the huge paychecks and stock options of police, firemen, or civil service.
They will just find a way around it to get those hefty year end bonuses, and the cops and firemen will pass the tax onto their local citizens through usury and extortion anyway.
...oh, ah... maybe Geithner was talking about big banks and wealthy Wall Street financiers, not cops and firemen.
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Moose49
January 11, 2010 10:05 AM
Both Ezra Klein in yesterday's Post and E.J. Dionne in today's have laid out pretty good, albeit very slightly different, frameworks for working out a deal. If the final bill resembles what they've proposed, it would be pretty decent, IMO. They better do it quick, though, in case the Mass. Senate race goes down the tubes.
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Silence
January 11, 2010 10:16 AM
All benefits should be taxed as straight income.
Equalize the misery.
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Silence
January 11, 2010 10:46 AM
Obama will cut a deal with the unions. He'll tell them to pay the tax. In return, he'll push EFCA to the forefront. The tax slams the unions workers, but secures more power and money for union leaders. The union leaders will convince their workers that it's in their best interest to pay the tax. Then, they'll promise to secure more money in wages by shaking down every business in the country. The business sector, already in a fragile state, will begin it's collapse. The unions will take partial ownership of the companies, as they did with GM. The govt will take the rest.
As the unions fail to properly run these businesses, shortages, massive corruption and inflation become the norm. Soon, the whole country looks like Detroit.
Eventually, the parasites will run out of hosts and a brutal dictator will rise.
There. That should make everyone "feel" better about the tax.
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lousgirl84
January 11, 2010 10:48 AM in reply to Silence
That's some crystal ball you have there!!!
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Silence
January 11, 2010 10:50 AM in reply to lousgirl84
That is the plan, is it not?
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Spiffarino
January 11, 2010 11:20 AM in reply to Silence
No, that's not the plan. That's your extremely vivid imagination speaking again. Germany, Sweden and many other countries that are highly unionized are kicking our asses economically. They profitably manufacture high-technology instruments, medical devices, automobiles and a host of other things and have a far higher standard of living than the average American.
When corporate executives are taxed responsibly they will stop making 400 times what the average employee makes.
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Silence
January 11, 2010 1:33 PM in reply to Spiffarino
Germany: Unemployment set to climb in 2010
By Dietmar Henning
11 January 2010
The unemployment rate in Germany is expected to rise steeply in 2010, even as the business elite and the government prepare large-scale cuts in social spending and other attacks on the working class.
As the Federal Employment Agency (BA) reported in Nuremberg last Tuesday, the number of unemployed in Germany rose slightly to 3.3 million people in December of 2009. But the federal government and labour market experts foresee a climb to 4.1 million this year as the government’s extension of its short-time work allowance scheme, which has enabled firms to avoid sacking workers, expires.
.........
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/jan2010/germ-j11.shtml
*It didn't work very well.*
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dtOZONE
January 11, 2010 1:38 PM in reply to Spiffarino
hmm, haven't been to Sweden recently, have you?
Western European powers like France, Spain and Italy are kicking our ass economically, but Northern Europe, like England, Scandanavia and Germany, are not.
A lot of that has nothing to do with unions, but there you have it.
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Silence
January 11, 2010 1:55 PM in reply to dtOZONE
Sweden: Over half a million face unemployment
By Jordan Shilton
14 April 2009
In a dramatic worsening of his economic forecast, Sweden’s Finance Minister Anders Borg presented his predictions for economic performance this month. The economy will contract by 4.2 percent in 2009, according to Borg. This figure represents a substantial revision from previous government statistics, which in January claimed that the economy would shrink by only 0.8 percent this year. Most observers consider that the latest estimates fall short of the actual contraction to come.
Borg conceded that the situation facing Sweden was very serious. He suggested that unemployment would increase to nearly 9 percent this year, rising to 11 percent in 2010 and to nearly 12 percent in 2011. Just days later, a report from the national employment agency said that over half a million Swedes will find themselves out of work next year. It noted that the increase in unemployment would be felt across the labour market, but that young people and the manufacturing industry would be particularly hard hit.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/apr2009/swed-a14.shtml
* Not looking very good in Sweden either. As you were saying?*
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Silence
January 11, 2010 4:39 PM in reply to dtOZONE
Employment Outlook 2009 – How does France compare?
Unemployment is expected to continue rising well into 2010 in France, while further hikes in unemployment will be more modest in those countries where labour market conditions have already dramatically deteriorated, such as the United States, Spain and Ireland. Most recent indicators suggest that the recovery may be in sight; but OECD countries are still facing many headwinds and the recovery is likely to be modest for several months to come. Moreover, past experiences show that it takes time for the output recovery to translate into job creation. In this context, the OECD Employment Outlook indicates that the French unemployment rate is likely to increase further and could even approach 11% by the end of 2010 if the recovery fails to gain momentum.
France has experienced a sharp increase in unemployment, although the hike has been less steep than in a number of other OECD countries. Since the end of 2007, the unemployment rate has risen by 2 percentage points to reach 9.8% in July 2009 and more than 600 thousands individuals have joined the ranks of the unemployed. By comparison, the OECD average unemployment rate has risen by 2.8 percentage points over the same period, reaching a post-war high of 8.5% in July.
Youth are most affected by the jobs crisis.
http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/61/52/43707170.pdf
*Oops. Not looking too good in France either*
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blkblt
January 11, 2010 11:31 AM in reply to Silence
And then all the captains of industry will move to their secret location in the mountains and form a Utopian society. While the rest of us sit on our porch swings and starve to death, not smart enough to work unless some rich guy tells us what to do.
Who is John Galt?
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Silence
January 11, 2010 2:00 PM in reply to blkblt
Could be. Closed doors and secret meetings feed the conspiracy theorist in all of us, and with good cause.
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Indie Pro
January 11, 2010 10:55 AM
Despicable tax on the middle class. Any Union Leader who goes along with this needs to lose their position.
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Indie Pro
January 11, 2010 11:27 AM in reply to Indie Pro
this labor leader gets it:
“It is no question it will impact our political ability internally to move our members,” said Harold Schaitberger, general president of the International Association of Fire Fighters.
“This is just so absolutely contrary to what we campaigned on for President Obama and the majority this last election cycle,” Schaitberger said.
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Indie Pro
January 11, 2010 1:00 PM in reply to Indie Pro
a good op ed on tax:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/17/AR2009121704344_pf.html
The problem is that they define "Cadillac" not by the benefits a plan delivers but by how much a plan costs. But as any insurance maven will tell you, costs depend more on the people being covered (old, sick, or both?) and location (high-cost New York or low-cost Montana?) than on the level of benefits. "High-cost plans aren't necessarily generous plans," says Beth Umland, director of research for health and benefits for the Mercer consulting firm.
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jana47
January 11, 2010 10:58 AM
The fact that Thousands of Americans are dying because they don't have access to Health Care seems to be lost in the most and the richest country in the world, the question is why?
How can any party sit back and let fellow Americans die but support the war of choice, give the Rich and wealthist Americans a 5 Trillion Tax Cut that went directly to the deficity, don't include the expenses for the war of choice in the Deficit, drive the country into the ditch all because of greed have no recommendation or ideas for fixing this mess yet want power at all cost by just sitting back and saying NO on our DIME and we continue to pay their paychecks that support their families livelyhood and we just watch?
Are we a third world country because that's how Health Care is being handled in this country. Why does any American have to die because of GREED?
How can these Evangelicans/Republicans Be AGAINST healthcare and call themselves such?
When Republicans had the chance they chose GREED over the American People and now they want to run down those who are trying to fix their mess and save lives
Our Media should be ashamed they refuse to talk about the "Harvard Report" and its research that confirms the number of deaths in the U.S. because those Americans don't have access to health care.
Media wants ratings, they no longer exist to bring us the news
Pretyy sad situation
Dems need to pass healthcare ASAP and not one Americans or our children will be denied access, just think we saw a baby denied health insurance because he was too fat! A baby!
We should all be ashamed of this system and should stand boldly and fight fixt it and make sure we as a country vote out those who choose GREED over the lives and livelyhood of the American People
Republicans voted 7 or 8 times to dany the American people a Minimum wage increase but they voted to give themselves one every year they denied the poorest Americans a raise
Democrats passed the legislation when they got into office
Republicans have done absolutely nothing for the Americans people only for Big Business and themselves
So their answer as Chris Matthews so richly put it, "Republicans want us to vote for them for just saying No, they have nothing to show for wanting that vote!
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Silence
January 11, 2010 11:18 AM in reply to jana47
Ask them.
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jimbomoron
January 11, 2010 11:35 AM
The excise tax is going to stay simply because of the revenue it raises over the very long term, and it does so in an equitable manner. Those who say they support the millionaire tax over the excise tax say in large part claim they oppose any increase in taxes on the middle class. But millionaire income simply doesn't grow as fast as health care costs, so in effect all the millionaire tax does is install a ticking time bomb of when you have to raise taxes on the middle-class.
As for the equitabilty argument, the excise tax is certainly more progressive than other broad-based taxes -- income tax, payroll tax, sales tax, for example -- simply because those who aren't lucky enough to get their health insurance through their employer -- who won't be subject to the tax -- generally have lower incomes than those are lucky enough to get their health insurance through their employer.
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marlow
January 11, 2010 12:09 PM
Regarding the post above about collapse and brutal dictators...the blog formerly known as the last whiskey bar came to the same conclusion about five years ago...Krugman writing in the NYTimes has more or less sent up flares along the same lines...historically the pattern fits...that does not guarantee it will happen...it just indicates that it might...I happen to believe that it will...
I await with trepidation the passing of the latest round of ballot initiatives in California...in particular the one calling for a Constitutional convention...it will almost certainly come to pass unless the proverbial powers that be spend some of their "walking around money" and stop it...
But if it does happen...
it will crack open the the union...
California will once again start a nation-wide trend...of Constitutional Conventions leading to a call for a national one...
manipulated by faux-populist opportunists like Bill O'Riely and and freakish populists like Glen Beck...fascist-aristos like Limbaugh and assorted others falling under the rubric of a "loose affiliation of millionaires and billionaires" the panoply of America's ills will come home to roost...
in inelegant unsightly paradoxical and violent political miasma...
I recall watching the "Governor" of California back when he was popular and his coup had succeeding against Gray Davis...
He was strutting through an airport hanger on his way to an event...he was dressed in mufti...his costume replete with the magic fetish symbols of a perfect fascist clown...military style Ike jacket...baggy paratrooper pants...and the badges all looked para-military...he stopped, leaned back and gave a jaunty can-do thumbs up for the cameras...
were it some other third world country; some banana republic other than this one we could have expected high-toned sarcasm from say Louis Lapham or the now collaborationist Christopher Hitchens, etc...but there was mostly silence...
let the video of that moment play again at the up-coming convention...let it play after the convention pits the new demographic reality against the reactionary aristocratic forces behind prop 13...
"Let is bleed..."
Perhaps Obama will be able to continue to compromise his soul and sell his integrity in order to keep the peace...perhaps he wont...perhaps it wont matter...
The proverbial warning signs are everywhere...the system is shooting sparks and dropping bolts at an alarming rate...
Perhaps there will be genuine progress without violence...which would make America unique in world history...
right...
"...We could have such a damn good time together...
yeah, isn't it pretty to think so..."
So it goes...
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ShewDog
January 11, 2010 2:07 PM
Let's spend a moment to reality check the Cadillac plan tax. I agree that workers who negotiated better health benefits in lieu of pay should not take a hit. But as I understand it, the tax wouldn't take effect until 2013, by which time nearly all of these labor agreements will have expired. Workers will have an opportunity to renegotiate accordingly.
I'll also use my employer as an example... a privately held company with about 500 employees. The most expensive family coverage offered totals about $15K in annual premiums. If the proposed tax is indexed to 3% inflation, and medical inflation continues at about 8%, the tax won't kick in until 2018. If the tax achieves one of it's stated objectives of slowing premium inflation (to say, 4%), then the tax wouldn't take effect until 2046.
Oh, by the way my employer tells me I would have to pay about $13K of that $15K premiums myself, so I guess I will NEVER have to worry about the tax! Although I wish I did...
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Silence
January 11, 2010 4:55 PM in reply to ShewDog
They negotiated better health care benefits to avoid income tax. How honorable is that? Again, equal protection means that all benefits must be taxed as straight income.
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JorgeOrwell
January 11, 2010 2:37 PM
Don't believe these "halfaloafers". What they fail to mention in their tired analogy, is that the half they expect YOU to accept is laced with arsenic.
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