Health Care Reform Round up

Eminence · Mar 7, 2010

Obama to Dems: Health bill results will be seen by midterm elections

President Barack Obama on Saturday continued his final push to pass a healthcare bill this year as he attempted to assuage Democratic concerns that pieces of the massive measure wouldn’t take effect this year, in time to show voters tangible results.

“And while it will take a few years to fully implement these reforms, there are numerous protections and benefits that would start to take effect this year,” Obama said in his weekly radio address. “This year, small-business owners will receive tax credits to purchase health insurance.

“This year, thousands of uninsured Americans with pre-existing conditions will finally be able to purchase coverage. Insurance companies will no longer be allowed to deny coverage to children with pre-existing conditions. And they will no longer be allowed to drop your coverage when you get sick.”

Democrats, like former chairman of the Democratic National Committee Howard Dean, have recently raised worries that because it will take several years to begin seeing many of the results of the healthcare measure, it will leave them vulnerable to Republican attacks with no concrete evidence to aid in their defense this November.

“The plan, as it comes from the Senate, hangs out every Democrat who's running for office to dry -- including the president, in 2012, because it makes him defend a plan that isn't in effect essentially yet,” Dean said during an appearance on the liberal Bill Press Radio Show earlier this week.
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Republicans have warned Democrats they will lose control of Congress if they push healthcare reform through with the use of reconciliation rules because voters won’t approve.

In the House, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) faces a considerable challenge in getting the 216 votes needed to pass both measures. She will have to count on more lawmakers adopting the attitude that backing the Senate bill and the reconciliation package isn’t a flip-flop decision, like Rep. John Tanner (D-Tenn.) recently did.

Tanner, who is retiring at the end of the year, voted against the House version of healthcare reform last year, but he recently has shifted his position to undecided on the current bills, according to his spokesman, who added that the new measures are different in substance than the one passed last year.
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Reconciliation is not an option for health-care reform (Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND), Washington Post, 3/6/2010)

A lot of misinformation has been spread recently about the budget reconciliation process. As chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, I have the primary responsibility for budget-related matters in the Senate. So let me set the record straight.

Reconciliation is not being considered for passing comprehensive health-care reform. Major health-care reform legislation passed the Senate without reconciliation on Christmas Eve. If the House now passes that legislation, it can go immediately to President Obama's desk to be signed into law. What the president and others have suggested is that, after the House acts, reconciliation could then be used to pass a much smaller "fixer" bill to allow for modifications to the comprehensive bill that will have passed under regular order.

While some have described reconciliation -- a process that requires only a majority vote in the Senate to pass legislation that reduces the deficit -- as an obscure, rarely used procedure, the truth is that it has been used 22 times since 1980, with 16 of those times occurring when Republicans controlled the Senate. Republican efforts to block its use now for a "fixer" bill represent little more than a politically expedient attempt to kill health-care legislation.

Since health-care reform re-emerged on the national agenda more than a year ago, I have consistently said that comprehensive health reform cannot be achieved through reconciliation. The reconciliation process was never intended for comprehensive policy changes. The Senate parliamentarian concluded that if legislation such as health-care reform were to go through the reconciliation process, it would come out looking like "Swiss cheese." Some of the most significant portions of the legislation, such as insurance market reforms and delivery system reforms, might have to be dropped.

Even if implemented only as a "fixer" bill, reconciliation could still be used only for changes that are truly budget-related -- meaning they affect revenue or spending. Changes to improve the affordability of health care or adjust the amount of federal aid going to states for Medicaid could be good candidates for a reconciliation bill. But changes involving strictly policy matters, which do not have a budgetary impact, would likely have to be addressed some other way.

This "fixer" reconciliation bill would also still have to meet the requirement that reconciliation be used only for deficit reduction. In fact, the bill would have to include at least $2 billion in deficit reduction over the first five years and would have to be at least deficit-neutral in every year beyond that.

Some question how the then-Republican majority used reconciliation to pass a $1.3 trillion tax cut in 2001 and another $350 billion tax cut in 2003, all entirely unpaid for. These were clear abuses of the process. The authors of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, which established reconciliation, never envisioned it would be used to worsen the deficit. After Democrats took control of the Senate in 2007, we restored fiscal discipline and added an explicit rule requiring reconciliation be used only for deficit reduction. So it is particularly ironic to hear many Republicans criticize Democrats' use of reconciliation today, when it is being used properly, while they vehemently defended their use of the process when it was being abused.

The truth is, the Senate has already passed a responsible health-care reform bill with 60 votes that will expand coverage, lower premiums, improve quality and control costs. And most important, the Congressional Budget Office estimates it will reduce the deficit by $130 billion over the first 10 years and by as much as $1.3 trillion over the second 10 years. This represents a significant step in the right direction. If the Senate bill can be further improved with changes made through a small "fixer" reconciliation package, we should do so. Those who argue against its use in this context seek only to protect the status quo on health care.
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Complete column at link.....
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Advice to House: Don't Take Any Obama Wooden Nickels

The Senate may trick the House into passing its bill.

Nancy Pelosi is trying to shoo House Democrats into voting for the Senate health care bill, but members are more worried than ever that the Senate won't then implement the necessary changes through the reconciliation process to make the final bill acceptable. They have good reason for concern.

Now they're hearing from Senate colleagues that the GOP can be expected to make Senate reconciliation as difficult and drawn-out as possible through delaying tactics. President Obama may wind up just signing the Senate bill into law no changes whatsoever -- preserving some of the most egregious elements that made the Senate bill such a public lightning rod.

These include not just the "Cornhusker Kickback," "Louisiana Purchase" and other special-interest deals rolled into the Senate bill last December to buy wavering Democratic votes. Democrats also would have to explain all over again why 800,000 seniors in Florida will be spared Medicare Advantage cuts, while those elsewhere won't.

Senator Lamar Alexander, a Tennessee Republican, says Mr. Obama is asking House Democrats "to hold hands, drop off a cliff and hope [Senate Majority Leader] Harry Reid catches them. And Harry Reid will have no incentive to catch them because by the time he gets to the reconciliation bill, the president will have already signed the health care bill into law."

Meanwhile, President Obama met with 20 undecided House Democrats yesterday in private. He urged them to put aside their political concerns and vote for the Senate bill in the interests of duty and country. "It's always a bad sign when a chief executive tells members of Congress of his own party to ignore the politics," says presidential historian Al Felzenberg. "It usually means he's got a bad product."
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Complete editorial at link....
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Party-Line Vote Will Produce Political Firestorm

If the Democrats pass health care reform on a partisan vote, they will do so in the face of public opinion.

“The issue trumps the process.” That’s what Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., told The New York Times about health care reform. And that’s what Democrats have got to believe. There is no question that the process has been costly thus far. In January, an uninsured 18-year-old waitress in New Hampshire explained her opposition this way to a Times reporter: “If you have to bribe people to vote for it, it can’t be good.”

The process could get costlier as Democrats try to pass the bill on a partisan majority vote. In his response to President Obama’s weekly radio address, Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., charged that congressional Democrats “want to use procedural tricks and backroom deals to ram through a new bill that combines the worst aspects of the bills the Senate and House passed last year.”

Coburn was referring to the reconciliation process, whereby a health care bill could pass the Senate with 51 votes without being subject to a filibuster, which can be ended only by a 60-vote supermajority. [snip]
That’s why the health care bill is such an unusual experience for the United States. Democrats are trying to behave like a parliamentary majority. Coburn and other critics are calling it legislative trickery. What seems extraordinary in the United States — the reconciliation process — is just normal politics anywhere else.

It will not be easy for the Democrats to muster even a simple majority, particularly in the House. The health care bill passed in that chamber last November on a 220-215 vote. The lone Republican who voted for it has indicated he will oppose the bill this year. Since November, three Democratic “aye” votes have disappeared (two resignations, one death). That puts the tally at 216-216.
As we get closer to the midterm election, more yes votes seem to be switching to no than no votes to yes. Although health care reform is still a popular cause, the Senate and House bills are not. In a CNN poll in February, only 25 percent of Americans thought that Congress should pass a bill similar to those approved by the House and Senate. The same number felt that Congress should stop working on health care. The prevailing view, held by 48 percent, was that Congress should start working on an entirely new bill.
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If the Democrats pass health care reform on a partisan vote, a political firestorm will likely ensue. Congress would be defying public opinion.President Obama said at last week’s health care summit, “I think we’ve got to go ahead and make some decisions, and then that’s what elections are for.” That’s also what makes Democrats in Congress very nervous.

If they pass the bill, Democrats have to hope that the firestorm passes and people discover they are better off. But expanded health insurance coverage will take years to kick in. At the same time, higher taxes are also likely to be some years down the road. The battle over health care reform could go all the way to the polls in November, with politicians still arguing over principles rather than experiences.
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Captain J · Mar 7, 2010

The health bill can be summed up thusly.

Obama to House and Senate Dems - pass my bill, I don't give a fuck if it costs you you your job/steat.

Obama to the American people - I don't give a fuck if you want my health care bill, i'm going to ram it down your throats anyway.

Obama to future generations - Fuck you, you won't have a country because my health care bill and other deficit spending will ruin the US forever.

Simple, accurate and to the point.

Eminence · Mar 7, 2010

Captain J said: ↑

The health bill can be summed up thusly.

Obama to House and Senate Dems - pass my bill, I don't give a fuck if it costs you you your job/steat.

Obama to the American people - I don't give a fuck if you want my health care bill, i'm going to ram it down your throats anyway.

Obama to future generations - Fuck you, you won't have a country because my health care bill and other deficit spending will ruin the US forever.

Simple, accurate and to the point.
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Yep, absolutely. Doesn't hurt to bring some extra ammo though.

AFAIC, this shouldn't even be called Health Care Reform anymore. Health Care Takeover is more appropriate, because that is what it is. And all at the expense of making sure Obama can just cross off something on his "list."

Even Warren Buffet, one of Obama's most prominent economic backers, is saying Obama should start over on the Health Care bill.

Tuttle · Mar 7, 2010

nm

tired of topic

be well

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