Excellent news!!!! House Retains Public Option In Compromise, But Delays Vote Until September By Brian Beutler - July 29, 2009, 1:12PM Ok, here's some late breaking detail on the nature of the compromise between House Blue Dogs and Democratic leaders. I'll fill in more blanks as I get more information, but here's my immediate read on the situation: Substantively, leadership seems to have given up very little, but, Blue Dogs succeeded at slow walking the bill, which won't get a vote until after the August recess. After a week or so of canceled hearings, the Energy and Commerce Committee will continue to mark up House health care legislation this afternoon, and pass a bill by the end of the week. On substance, the exemption from penalties for small businesses that do not provide health care to workers has been raised to include small businesses with payrolls of $500,000 per year or less. Originally the bill called for the exemption to apply only to businesses with payrolls half that size. The public option hasn't gone away, and remains in tact. Now, though, instead of being directly tied to Medicare, the rates will be negotiated by the Health and Human Services secretary--a provision which at a glance seems similar to the public option the Senate HELP Committee endorsed. States will be able to erect health care co-operatives if they choose, but that would be in addition to the public option. The Blue Dogs managed to pull $100 billion in savings from the bill by lowering by one percent the rate at which people living between 300 and 400 percent of the poverty level will be subsidized to buy health care in insurance exchanges--they had originally tried to eliminate that bracket entirely. Blue Dogs will likely herald this as a major victory, but compared to their original wishlist, this seems pretty minor. As before, it's hard to know what will happen to the politics of this over the August recess. But there will almost certainly be a bill ready for a vote when the House comes back into session in September. That bill will have been endorsed in preliminary votes by a significant number of Blue Dogs. And in the House, where there's no filibuster, that makes its prospects for ultimate passage look very solid.
This is bizarre. Two questions: (a) How does a 1% change in a small portion of the subsidies generate $100B in savings? (b) How is that only a minor victory?
Well the average yahoo can't understand that if they reduce their private insurance premiums by say $3,000 per year, but have their taxes raised $1,000 that they come out ahead. LIkewise we have had Bush-Perry save Texasns a couple hundred dollars per year in their taxes, while increasing their kids's tuition by a couple of thousand and then they think they have a deal. Now for country club Republicans like Bigtexx and TJ who go to private universities their attitude is "I've got mine Jack". +
Good try, whiteboy, or perhaps a Clarence Thomas clone. Minorities have less income and therefore less access to health insurance. You've got yours so you could give a ****.
The lack of independent thought, and the fact that they can't regurgitate stuff they hear on right wing radio without other people rolling their eyes in front of them.
Politico dishes the simmering gossip.... I can't believe they're going to let the compromise "sit" until after the August recess. Liberals gag over health deal House Speaker Nancy Pelosi spent half of Wednesday finalizing a deal with the Blue Dogs — and the other half quelling a brewing rebellion among progressives who think conservatives have hijacked health care reform. Liberals, Hispanics and African-American members — Pelosi’s most loyal base of support — are feeling betrayed after House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) reached an agreement with four of seven Blue Dogs on his committee who had been bottling up the bill over concerns about cost. The compromise, which still must be reconciled with competing House and Senate versions, would significantly weaken the public option favored by liberals by delinking reimbursement rates to Medicare. “Waxman made a deal that is unacceptable,” said Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), one of about 10 progressives who met repeatedly with Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) on Wednesday. “We signed a pledge to reject any plan that doesn’t include a robust public option, and this plan doesn’t have a robust public option,” he added. By sundown Wednesday, the outcry from the left had become so loud that Waxman was forced to scrap a scheduled markup of the compromise measure. He rescheduled the meeting for Thursday morning and convened a mass question-and-answer session for a deeply divided Democratic Caucus — a meeting that is expected to be extremely contentious. Two months ago, most of the 80-plus members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus signed a pledge that they would oppose any health care bill that didn’t contain a bona fide public option that would compete with private insurers. On Wednesday, they seemed willing to stick to their promise. CPC Chairwoman Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.) emerged from her meeting with Pelosi to tell reporters that the Blue Dog deal needed to be “much stronger to get our support.” House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) predicted that House liberals, who believe they have compromised away several core issues to further President Barack Obama’s agenda, might finally buck leadership if they are force-fed a weakened public option. “I don’t think it would pass the House — I wouldn’t vote for it,” Frank, a CPC member, told POLITICO. He answered “yes” emphatically when asked if progressives were willing to delay the entire process as the Blue Dogs have done. Frank said liberals are becoming increasingly leery of the clout wielded by Blue Dogs and are learning from the success they have had in leveraging their numbers — a fraction of the liberals’ — into real power. “If you allow one wing of the House to exercise all this influence, you have to do something or you lose all of your influence,” he said. Pelosi, recognizing the threat, huddled with 10 liberal members an hour after the Blue Dog deal was announced. The meeting, which included Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) — her emissary to progressives — became heated at times, according to an individual who was present. At one point, Carolyn Kilpatrick (D-Mich.), a former Congressional Black Caucus chairwoman, expressed outrage that conservatives would insist on significant cuts and a weakening of the public option, arguing that many of the Blue Dogs were letting down their black constituents, who make up 25 percent to 40 percent of their voters, in some instances. The group was scheduled to meet with the speaker again Thursday afternoon, followed by members-only meetings of the CPC, the CBC and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. The CPC has been circulating a strongly worded protest letter for members’ signatures, similar to one sent to Pelosi by the Black Caucus last week, according to Democratic aides. “In recent days, some within the Democratic Caucus have raised spurious claims that the cost of reforming health care in America is something our nation cannot afford,” CBC Chairwoman Barbara Lee wrote in her letter to Pelosi and Obama — a swipe that sources said was directed at the Blue Dogs. “I think there’s a lot of resentment at the role [Blue Dogs] have played — that’s where a lot of this anger is coming from,” one CBC member said on condition of anonymity. During her afternoon meeting with the liberals, Pelosi and her team downplayed the importance of the Blue Dog deal, a sharp contrast to how Democratic leaders were playing it in the media — as “a big breakthrough,” according to Pelosi lieutenant Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.). “Miller told them that the Energy and Commerce bill was only one of three health care bills passed by the House — and that it was the only one that has a public option plan we don’t like,” said a person who was at the meeting. “He said they would have plenty of opportunities to change it back,” said the source, who added that members left the meeting still agitated but “somewhat reassured.” CPC member Sam Farr (D-Calif.) emerged from the meeting a little confused and a tad annoyed but believing that his fellow liberals were not yet in open revolt. “The progressives are in the room now,” he said. “I think that’s important.”
The Democrats are in a real mess tonight. With the public plan all but neutered by the Blue Dogs' compromise, now the lunatic fringe libs are threatening to gather 50 votes to defeat the bill. It's a mutiny. Obama, the great uniter, can't even unite his own party. Forget about reaching across the aisle. We've seen this play out before -- the exteme left will end up bringing down the party... Their arrogance in handling this negotiation is evidence of that...
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Paul Ryan CRIPPLES the two libs he's arguing with here. This is just a total beatdown of their flawed, disingenuous arguments. What unbelievable lies the Democrats are telling on healthcare! We simply can not trust these people. <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Hdr49iGZOUw&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Hdr49iGZOUw&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>
The current 1000 page proposal is scary: it is too complex, too patchwork in nature, over-reaches, too much government control. A better idea is to address specific issues like the "drug hole" in Medicare, the pre-existing condition prohibition, transportable policies, etc and not be so systemic. Solve problems, not create more problems. I don't want the government in charge of whether I live or die. World history screams against any such arrangement.
Gee that sounds like a certain party I know of recently that starts with an R and ends with a EPUBLICAN.
