Can Obama keep Democrats in line on healthcare to the end?
So President Barack Obama goes to Capitol Hill over the weekend and late Tuesday Senate Democrats reach a healthcare compromise on a public insurance option (Republicans oppose the legislation so every Democrat vote is needed to move it along).
Lots of day-after grumbling from both sides of the political spectrum: The Chamber of Commerce still opposes it and liberal activist group MoveOn.org said senators had “bargained away the heart of healthcare reform.”
Well, for critics it’s not likely to get any better on the public option front.
If the bill makes it to the final stages before becoming law, the Senate version would need to be melded with the House version. And a true compromise would require the Senate to take on a stronger public option and the House to weaken its hand.
One lesson from covering Capitol Hill is that nothing is a done deal until the final vote is in.
So that leaves plenty of room for lobbyists to meddle — because on the Hill the finished version of major legislation is rarely anything like what the bill looked like at the start.
As a common paraphrase of the John Godfrey Saxe quote goes — laws and sausages are two things you don’t want to see made.
Senate healthcare bill: Opt-out is in, Snowe is not
The opt-out is in.
The Senate healthcare reform legislation will include a form of public option that would allow states to opt out of participating in a government-run insurance plan if they choose.
And Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says his Democrats will support it.
“While the public option is not a silver bullet, I believe it’s an important way to ensure competition and to level the playing field for patients with the insurance industry,” Reid said.
But by including the opt-out, the Democrats lost the lone Republican senator to vote for healthcare legislation — Senator Olympia Snowe from Maine — who opted out because of the opt-out.
Snowe, who favored a trigger (those of you following the debate know what that means), says she’s “deeply disappointed” with Reid’s decision.
And the responses are rolling in:
I watched in dismay for months as inlaws and friends suffered and eventually died while waitin for tests and treatments that would have begun in days in America. Public option is NOT the answer. Government cannot run this system. The pay scake abd such DOES lead to rationing of care. This is not from the “greed of the government” as often cited. It is from the lack of doctors. With pay limited to government levels, the best and the brightest do not have a desire to be doctors. We had about 40 doctors in our city. Population was slightly over 100,000.
Poll finds a majority for ‘public option’
Americans are still sharply divided over President Barack Obama’s vision of healthcare overhaul, but they’re starting to come around — again – on the so-called public option, so says a new Washington Post/ABC News poll published on Monday.
Fifty-seven percent of all Americans now favor a government-run insurance plan that would compete with private insurers while 40 percent are opposed, according to the poll.
That’s up from 52 percent support in mid-August, but still down from 62 percent in June.
What’s happened since the congressional summer recess when anger over the prospect of a public option heated town hall meetings across the country?
The public option (a government-run insurance plan to compete with private insurers) is still favored by Obama and liberal Democrats as a way to increase competition and cut rising costs.
There’s still plenty of opposition from Republicans and other critics who argue that a public option would be a government takeover and could drive private insurance companies out of business.
Sam, you are wasting your time trying to get TC to see the light. He is incapable of honest debate, as I have shown over and over again. The rest of us know what the truth is.
Did health insurance industry report backfire?
Support for a “strong public option” appears to be growing in the House of Representatives.
One of the reasons is that a health insurance industry report predicting higher premiums if Congress fails to enact a healthcare overhaul without a strong mandate for individuals to purchase coverage appears to have backfired.
Democratic aides say support for a strong public health plan to compete with insurers is gaining strength in the House which is weighing three versions of the public option.
The White House and congressional leaders blasted the report, written for America’s Health Insurance Plans, calling it misleading and flawed.
The report’s author, PricewaterhouseCoopers, acknowledged that it only took into account certain aspects of the bill passed by the Senate Finance Committee and omitted analyses of provisions, including government subsidies, that would lower premium costs.
Democratic leaders in the Senate are working to blend the Finance Committee bill, which has no public option, with a measure with a public option passed by the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.
They appear more determined than ever to stop insurers from raising premiums.
Mandating that private citizens puchase insurance or they will be fined/taxed/penalized only guarantees those profits in perpetuity. Let’s see what 67 year old diabetic Mitch McConnell’s or 40 year old chain smoker John Boehner’s premiums would be. Somewhere in the neighborhood of $400 per month
Boehner: public option stinks
So, does anybody out there in the real world support a government-run “public” health insurance option?
House of Representatives Republican leader John Boehner doesn’t think so.
He told reporters on Thursday: “I’m still trying to find the first American to talk to who is in favor of the public option other than a member of Congress or the administration.”
Democrats suggested the Ohio congressman is not getting out enough, but Boehner thought otherwise. “I get to a lot of places,” he said.
A recent Quinnipiac University poll found 57 percent of people in his native Ohio supported giving people the option of a government-run insurance plan, but Boehner said the idea was “about as unpopular as a garlic milkshake.”
Pressed by a reporter, Boehner admitted he had never tried a garlic milkshake — drawing the ire of California garlic growers.
The San Francisco Chronicle said Brian Bowe, executive director of the Gilroy Garlic Festival and the go-to guy for all things garlic, invited Boehner to next year’s event.
I support the public option and so does my boyfriend, his parents, his sister and brother-in-law, my parents, my grandmother, my brothers, and my brother’s wives. So that’s 14 people I can name off the top of my head. And all of us have decent private insurance with no intention of taking direct advantage of the public option. We all support the public option because it is the best way reign in the for-profit insurance companies and decrease the high costs that result from treating the uninsured in the emergency room for ailments that could have been treated in a much more cost effective manner at an earlier time had they had insurance to seek treatment. Not to mention the moral concern that our current system allows people to die of treatable illnesses because they can’t afford care. PLEASE GIVE US A PUBLIC OPTION!!
Healthcare public option on life support, will it be revived?
The healthcare “public option” was dealt a blow by the Senate Finance Committee yesterday, so now the question is whether it can be resuscitated when the legislation hits the Senate floor.
The Senate Finance Committee was always going to be the hardest sell.
The government insurance option will get another shot when the healthcare overhaul bill goes to the Senate floor, and let’s not forget the House of Representatives which is likely to pass a public option in its version of the legislation.
A Thomson Reuters poll found that 63 percent of Americans surveyed were willing to pay for healthcare reform. But only 35 percent of them said President Barack Obama’s reform agenda and the debate in Congress would lead to better health service.
In other healthcare news, Obama announced a plan to spend $5 billion for medical and scientific research, including jobs and supplies. It will come out of the $787 billion economic stimulus.
And tomorrow, doctors plan to descend on Washington for the MillionMedMarch to have their say in the healthcare debate.
Do you think Obama should push for the public option, or abandon it as the price for getting healthcare reform through Congress?
Who was this family that lost their home? What was their name? What was the name of their doctor?
If you want to supply anecdotes, provide details.
Live blog of the Obama healthcare speech
President Barack Obama is making a speech to Congress on healthcare at 8 p.m. tonight and we will live blog it here.
Despite hefty Democratic majorities in both the House and the Senate, centrists in Obama’s party have balked at the president’s proposal to create a public health care plan to compete with private insurers.
Pistol Packin’ Pelosi? finger on healthcare trigger
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.
I can not believe what has happened to my country. Who are the idiots who sent this elitist, treasonous, sociopath, Palosi to Washington anyway? Read history people. We are moving quickly down a path that has never turned out well anywhere in the world. Ever! You left wing nuts may just get what you think you want but you will be sorry.
Healthcare watch: Will summer debate yield fall harvest?
The healthcare debate that turned so temperamental during the summer when critics let loose during town hall meetings around the country is about to get a cool splash of reality.
The summer of running around, blowing off steam and releasing hot air is coming to a close. And soon it will be what every student dreads — a time for tests.
The White House has signaled that it is going to go to the drawing table and come up with specific areas where compromise can be had, and President Barack Obama will lay it all out in a major speech in the next week or two.
The speech will be a telltale about who Obama has decided to disappoint in order to try to reach broader agreement.
If it is truly the start of a negotiation, chances are no one’s going to be fully happy. But taking a not-so-wild guess, it’s Obama’s liberal base that will be the most upset, especially if it looks like he’s waffling on the government insurance option.
In the meantime the war drums keep beating. MoveOn.org and other liberal groups are holding vigils tonight, including a “virtual vigil” for those who can’t physically attend, to demonstrate the “urgent need” for healthcare reform.
Republicans are working to keep their people in line in opposition to healthcare overhaul and are unlikely to support Obama on his signature issue, even if he takes a step their way.
President OBAMA: Stop trying to “demonstrate” the “urgent need” for healthcare reform…
There are bigger things needing RE-FORM in America:
Please spend my money to work on the repair of the US infrastructure… If INTERSTATES, SEWERS, POWER, BRIDGES, DRINKING WATER, and other basic services are not available, paying for healthcare just will not matter. These are things people see and really need everyday. Take the $2.5M and get America moving again.
Put my money toward these real reforms and it will put people to work, put people to work and they can afford healthcare. Put people to work and they will not have time to sit behind the TV getting fatter, lazier, and dumber. Put people to work and they will value what they earn… Give people stuff and they will just want for more.
The First Draft: storms rolling in
Lots of storms swirling today.
Tropical Storm Claudette hit the Florida coast in the wee hours of the morning, whipping morning television into the obligatory frenzy of reporting from rain-soaked correspondents demonstrating the weather.
The healthcare storm is far from over.
The Obama administration putting out the word that the public option feature of its health plan is not a dealbreaker. Our expert tells us that public option basically means it would be a government-run plan like Medicare. Too early to tell whether the shift in strategy will help win votes in Congress.
President Barack Obama switches issues today from healthcare to the war in Afghanistan when he speaks to the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Phoenix, the last stop of his long weekend out West.
Elections in Afghanistan this week seen as a test of Obama’s strategy to increase American troops in an effort to push back Taliban gains.
Special mention: Former Pentagon spokesman Ken Bacon died over the weekend. The affable, bow-tie wearing, former journalist who was most recently president of Refugees International wrote about his battle with melanoma last month in the context of the healthcare debate.
The tide is turning against the Obama government socialist health scheme. But are the Obama surrogates hoping he can reverse the downward spiral? There was a king in england who had similar supporters to Obama and they thought that the king had the power to turn back the tides.So they put him on a chair and sat him in the sea with the waves lapping around his ankles,unfortunately he got soaked!as the tide surged in. Could we see a similar outcome if the leftist fringe of his party insist that Obama presses ahead with this unpopular bill?
Five days since you wrote this. It may look bleak for the democrats but even bleaker for the country is it is saddled with the debt, cost this will create. Interesting how the goal become passage not the content.