The Senate’s healthcare reform legislation published by Democratic leaders last night included a big surprise for anyone saving up to enhance or undo what God gave them — a new 5 percent tax on elective cosmetic procedures.

The tax would take effect beginning in January and is being proposed as part of the sweeping healthcare overhaul to partly pay the cost of helping millions of uninsured people obtain medical coverage.

It would raise nearly $6 billion over 10 years, and who knows, perhaps even a few lawmakers might be enhancing the Federal Treasury if the tax ends up in a final bill signed by President Barack Obama.

The tax proposal came as a bit of a surprise to investors, and shares of Allergan, which markets popular wrinkle fighting Botox and Natrelle breast implants, fell in early trading along with the share prices of other makers of products for cosmetic procedures.

It is possible that the proposed new tax will be cut from the bill during the upcoming Senate debate.

And if it survives the Senate, there is still the question of whether House Democrats, led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, will nip and tuck the proposal right out of the bill.

Do you think elective cosmetic surgery should be taxed?

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Photo credits: Reuters/Jim Young (Senator Reid looks at Senator Max Baucus as he speaks about meeting with president in August), Reuters/Luke MacGregor (woman holds breast implant at plastic surgeons conference)

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told students at Harvard University on Friday that she had indeed done her reading.

Taking questions during the 90-minute event, Pelosi assured one skeptical undergraduate that she, and many other House members, had read “every page” of the roughly 1,900-page healthcare bill passed by the House. 

She expounded on leadership qualities, healthcare reform, the impact of more women in Congress, troops to Afghanistan — oh, and healthcare reform.

Participating in the healthcare debate, so long a signature issue of the late Massachusetts political titan Ted Kennedy, was “humbling,” she said.

Pelosi said she would have had a hard time cobbling together enough votes for a healthcare bill without a public option to balance the influence of insurance companies.

And she sympathized with women’s groups fearful of the Stupak-Pitts anti-abortion amendment contained in the House bill.

But of all the heavy legislative lifting in Congress this year, passing supplemental funding for the war in Afghanistan was the hardest, Pelosi said.

Looking forward, she said, “it would be very hard to get many Democratic votes to support a big increase of troops to Afghanistan.”

The first female speaker of the House — who said having more women in Congress had a big impact on pushing healthcare legislation forward — added that compromise and an ability to negotiate were critical tools.

“You have to be passionate about what you believe in, but dispassionate when you’re at the table … we all have our theology of what we believe in, but you have to be agnostic when you go to the table.”

Pelosi’s biggest applause line came in her unabashed support of her liberal positions.

“I take it as a compliment” to uphold so-called “San Francisco values,” she said. “Tolerance is a condescending word. It’s about respect, it’s about taking pride in the beautiful diversity of our community.”

CORRECTS: Healthcare bill is about 1,900 pages.

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Photo credit: Reuters/Joshua Roberts (Pelosi unveils healthcare plan on Capitol Hill)

It’s the day before the all-important employment report for October. (Expectation is for a 175,000 drop in payrolls and an uptick in the unemployment rate to 9.9 percent, which would be a 26-year high).

It’s the day after the New York Yankees won the World Series. (Condolences Phillies fans).

It’s the day before the House of Representatives might send healthcare overhaul legislation to the floor for debate with the goal of a Saturday vote. (Have learned never to bet on the timing of legislation on the Hill).

It’s the day after President Barack Obama didn’t comment on the previous night’s elections. (We’re still on POTUS election comment watch).

It’s the day before FRIDAY!!!! (Although some of us are working on the weekend).

It’s the day after both parties spun Tuesday’s election results every which way to suit them. (Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says it was a win, Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele says it was the sign of a ‘Republican Renaissance’).

As for today, Obama hosts a White House Tribal Nations Conference, meets with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, meets with President Ian Khama of Botswana, meets with representatives of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, and meets with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (probably to get a fill on her recent trip to Pakistan and the Middle East).

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Photo credit: Reuters/Ray Stubblebine (New York Yankees players after winning World Series)

Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives are gearing up for an epic battle against the sweeping healthcare reform that Democratic leaders hope to bring to the House floor for debate later this week.

“Our goal is to make this as difficult as possible to vote for it,” said House Republican Leader John Boehner. “We think this bill is the wrong prescription for what ails our healthcare system in America.”

Representative Mike Pence, who heads the House Republican Conference, said the campaign against the bill unveiled last week by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi began over the weekend with Republican members delivering copies of the huge 1,990-page bill to public libraries. Also, Republican women are speaking against the bill this week on the House floor.

“It is a fact that 85 percent of healthcare decisions in this country are made by American women,” Pence said.

On Thursday, House Republicans plan a special Internet town hall meeting. Pence said the discussion with participants will last at least 12 hours.

“Our members are going to stand on principle against Speaker Pelosi’s trillion dollar government takeover of our healthcare system,” Boehner said.

Republicans plan to offer a far less sweeping alternative to the Democratic bill. Boehner said it will focus on reducing the cost of health insurance.

The proposal will allow individuals and businesses to purchase insurance across state lines and to form pools to buy insurance. It will also seek to limit malpractice lawsuits, which Republicans say lead to higher healthcare costs.

The Republican bill will also encourage states to look over their own insurance laws and mandates to find ways to lower costs.

“Many states don’t realize that mandates in their own laws actually drive up the cost of health insurance,” Boehner said.

The Republican bill will not include the sweeping insurance market reforms contained in the Democratic bill, which would bar insurers from excluding people from coverage or charging more because of medical history.

Instead, the Republican bill would provide some federal money to help states create high risk insurance pools where those people could obtain coverage, Boehner said.

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Photo credit: Reuters/Jonathan Ernst (House Republican Leader John Boehner plays golf with Tiger Woods.)

This is one of those Washington days that seems to defy a theme. Consider:

Iran is the topic at the Senate Banking Committee, where officials from the State and Treasury departments are set to testify on economic sanctions against Tehran.

Afghanistan is expected to be front and center when President Barack Obama briefs congressional leaders about his Afghan strategy.

Pakistan’s foreign minister has a meeting with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

The Dalai Lama is in town, too, meeting with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and getting a human rights award.

In the background is the steady drumbeat of the healthcare debate, the fight over climate change legislation and defense spending.

Serious subjects, all of them. And what was the top story on the morning network newscasts? Ten points if you guessed the natural choice: David Letterman’s sex life.

What does this say about Washington? The U.S. media? The public appetite for scandal? Let us know what you think.

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Photo credits:  REUTERS/Christinne Muschi (exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, Montreal, Canada, October 3, 2009)

REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque (U.S. President Barack Obama and David Letterman at a taping of the comedian’s show, New York, September 21, 2009)

In the never-ending Democratic struggle to win bipartisan support for healthcare reform, Representative Alan Grayson is probably not the guy to send to the House floor to woo Republicans.

Democrats, he said in a floor speech a couple days ago, want to fix the U.S. healthcare system by expanding insurance coverage to the 47 million people who do not have it.

“The Republican plan,” he said, is basically: “Don’t get sick, and if you do get sick, die quickly.”
 
He brought along big posterboard signs to underscore the idea in the event somebody found his point too subtle.
 
Republicans were not happy with this characterization of their ideas for healthcare and suggested an apology was in order.
 
A much-chastened Grayson returned to the House floor Wednesday to make amends.

“Several Republicans asked me to apologize. Well, I would like to apologize. I would like to apologize to the dead,” he said.
 
He cited a study saying 44,789 Americans die every year because they have no health insurance.
 
“That’s more than 10 times the number of Americans who have died in the war in Iraq. It’s more than 10 times the number of Americans who died in 9/11.”
 
“I apologize to the dead and their families that we haven’t voted sooner to end this Holocaust in America.”
 
Grayson expanded upon his remarks later on CNN after being asked exactly what he meant by saying the Republicans want people to get sick and die quickly. 

“What I mean is they’ve got no plan. It’s been 24 hours since I said that. Where is the Republican plan? We’re all waiting to see something — to take care of people with pre-existing conditions, to take care of the 47 million people in this country who have no coverage at all. There is no plan, and that’s what I meant when I said the Republican plan really is: Don’t get sick. And if you do get sick, die quickly.”
 
Representative Joe Wilson, who shouted “You lie” at Obama during a joint session of Congress and quickly said he was sorry, declined to get into the apology issue in an interview with Fox News.
 
But he said Grayson was wrong about Republican healthcare ideas.
 
“The Republican plan is really one that it provides for affordability, accessibility,” he said. “It provides for helping with pre-existing conditions. It is a very positive, targeted health insurance reform.”
 
Representative Barney Frank, a Democrat, told the Lou Dobbs radio program Grayson’s performance “wasn’t civil at all” but added he saw “a little bit of excessive indignation and sound and fury” in the outraged Republican response.
 
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tried to avoid the issue when asked about it at her weekly press conference. Pressed on whether Grayson should apologize, she said, “If anybody is going to apologize, everybody should apologize. You know?”
 
Asked what the president thought of the remarks, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs fled to the high ground.
 
“We ought to be able,” he said, “to have an honest, calm debate about healthcare, the need for healthcare reform, without disparaging each other.”
 
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Remember Tom DeLay? Well, “The Hammer” has pounded too hard this time.

The former House Majority leader, who earned his nickname for keeping lawmakers in line on Capitol Hill, injured his foot while practicing for his “Dancing With the Stars” debut.

DeLay, a Republican who resigned from Congress in 2006 after he was charged in Texas with trying to violate campaign finance laws, announced his injury via Twitter.

“Old age is catching up to me, may have a stress fracture in my foot. no worries, it’ll take more than that to keep me off the dance floor,” DeLay wrote on Tuesday.

Just a couple of hours later, DeLay eased the concerns of his 2,142 Twitter followers: ”No stress fracture! It is a pre-stress fracture. I live for another day.”

DeLay seems to be taking this “Star” stuff seriously.

He has set his website up as a “fan site”  – “Dancing with DeLay” – where people can sign up for show updates. He has also posted links to photos of rehearsals on his Twitter page.

After his participation in the show was announced, DeLay mused about his possible partner. “Hoping its not Nancy Pelosi :),” he wrote last month.

Let’s see if DeLay’s dancing feet will be ready for  the show on Monday.

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Photo credit: REUTERS/Evan Sisley (DeLay in Canon Office Building on Capitol Hill on June 9, 2006, on his last day in Congress), REUTERS/Marcos Brindicci (couple competes in dance competition in Argentina)

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has put the insurance industry on notice that if congressional Democrats are forced to compromise on a government-run health insurance plan and accept a “trigger” proposed by Republican Senator Olympia Snowe, get ready for some major fire power.

Snowe has proposed a compromise that would “trigger” the creation of a new public plan should insurance market reforms fail to meet affordability and quality benchmarks.

At a news conference in San Francisco, Pelosi was asked about the “trigger” idea that has gained new strength in recent days as the White House looks for a potential compromise that would help get President Barack Obama’s proposed healthcare overhaul through Congress.

Pelosi warned insurance companies that they should accept the Senate health committee proposal that would create a public plan because “if they want no public option but a trigger, you can be sure that the trigger will bring on a very robust public option.”

The Senate health committee version would put the public option on a more even competitive playing field with private insurers than the original House proposal. The House bill moved closer to the Senate version in a compromise with conservative Democrats worried that the public option would undermine private insurers.

One thing is for certain, the healthcare fight is far from over.

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Photo credit: Reuters/Robert Galbraith (Pelosi talks to reporters after San Francisco speech)

The training wheels are off for the Obama administration, which has passed the six-month mark in office. But officials are just now learning the Washington sport of backpedaling.

It started over the weekend when President Barack Obama and Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius appeared to soften the stance that a public insurance option would be required in any healthcare reform plan.

That led to an outcry from liberal Democrats, most notably House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who said the public option was the best option.

Now the White House says it never changed its tune. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs says reports of the administration backing away from the public option were an “overreaction” to Sebelius comments and that the administration’s message has been “boringly consistent.”

How fast can one backpedal on the backpedal?

That is the danger of floating a trial balloon to gauge response — if it bursts then you have to adopt a slightly surprised demeanor and act like everyone got the wrong idea.

The healthcare debate is far from over, and there won’t be a signal of where it is headed until some time after Congress returns from summer break, if then.

But the Obama administration is going to have to decide who it is willing to anger: liberals friendly to their cause or Republicans who will require moving mountains to vote for healthcare overhaul.

Politico’s Roger Simon poses the question that Hillary Clinton raised on the campaign trail when she was running for president: Does Obama have the guts?

What do you think?

Photo credit: Reuters/Mike Blake (Bicyclist in San Diego); Reuters/stringer (Hot air balloons at festival in Mexico)

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi hit back at protesters vocally disrupting healthcare reform meetings around the country, calling them “un-American” - and with that word ignited the ire of opposition Republicans.

Pelosi and Democratic Majority Leader Steny Hoyer wrote in USA Today that there was an “ugly campaign” to misrepresent the healthcare overhaul legislation being written in Congress and stop public debate, which they said is “at the heart of our democracy.”

Opponents have shouted down lawmakers at town meetings held to explain the healthcare ideas, calling the proposed government-run insurance program to compete with private insurers “socialism” - a fighting word in American politics.  “Drowning out opposing views is simply un-American,” the Democrats wrote.

The other side was quick to lob equally barbed words back. “Each public forum should give every participant the opportunity to express their views, but to label Americans who are expressing vocal opposition to the Democrats’ plan ‘un-American’ is outrageous and reprehensible,” said House Republican Leader John Boehner.

Congress is on break for the month of August, during which time Democrats were to try to sell healthcare reform ideas to the public.

In the first week of the summer recess, headlines have focused more on the raucous public meetings than on the healthcare legislation itself.

Has the Democratic strategy to win public support for healthcare reform backfired?

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