Rahm’s Ideology At Work–Getting GOPers To Endorse Health Bill

You can see the fruits of Rahm Emanuel’s bipartisanship ideology at work, when the White House is working to get well-known Republicans such as Bloomberg, Schwarznegger, Frist, and others onboard in support of the emerging bill from the Senate. Here’s more from The New York Times on this courting of Republicans from the White House:

The effort by the White House to win high-visibility support away from Congress is similar to one that was undertaken during debate on the administration’s economic stimulus package. When Republican lawmakers overwhelmingly opposed that initiative, the White House reached out to Republican governors, many of whom voiced support.

“The president is trying to build the broadest coalition possible for his approach to reforming the health care system,” said Dan Pfeiffer, a White House spokesman. “We often find a very different, less partisan approach outside the hothouse of the Beltway.”

This is very similar to what happened with the stimulus package. After the White House failed to get Republican votes on the stimulus bill even after watering it down for the benefit of Snowe, Collins, and other so-called Senate “moderates,” they reached out to well-known Republican governors for support. The reason for this is because of the prevailing wisdom in Washington, D.C., which Rahm Emanuel and others at the White House share in, that bipartisanship is what voters want rather than good partisan policies.

However, that ideology is wrong because as recent polls have shown, Americans don’t want bipartisanship, what they want are good policies that will work for them. Watering down bills for bipartisan support, and failing to get Republican votes, is not the best way to get these policies to work for the American people. And people voted out the Republicans because their ideas failed, and voted in Democrats because they wanted the policies that they were espousing–especially the public option in health care reform, the closing down of Guantanamo, the pull-out of troops from the war in Iraq, sensible policies to be enacted on the environment, and the ban on torture and warrantless wiretaps.

So far, none of the so-called partisan policies that Americans voted for when they elected Barack Obama to be the President, have come true.

The White House Taking Major Role In Merging Of Health Bill

According to the Roll Call, the White House will be taking a major role in the merging of the bills from the Senate Finance Committee and from the Senate HELP Committee. And we know who’ll be there at the table from the White House:

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and Nancy Ann DeParle, Obama’s chief health care adviser, are expected to be at the table throughout the talks. White House Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag also is set to play a role, primarily on issues where health care and the federal budget intersect. Staff from the administration, leadership and the committees began joint preparations for the merger of the bills about a week ago.

As Brian Beutler over at TPM has said, Rahm Emanuel has advocated for a trigger on the public option along with Peter Orszag, who also said that co-ops and triggers would work as competitive alternatives to the public option. We now know that the White House is pushing for some “form” of the public option that won’t lose centrist votes.

The question becomes–what kind of a public option are they pushing for? At this point, we don’t know if they’re going to push for a national public option that’s run by the government, like the one envisioned by Schumer and by Rockefeller because the White House doesn’t want to lose the votes of Senate moderates:

But Obama and Reid are treading carefully, wary of including a provision that would scare off moderates such as Snowe, Nelson and Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., who have all indicated they would not support a national public plan.

And another Roll Call story has indicated that the Snowe trigger is still very much alive and on the table:

Because the Finance proposal to create nonprofit health insurance cooperatives has not gained much traction with centrists, leaders have instead focused on finding a way to create a public option that could satisfy both liberals’ and moderates’ concerns, while also bringing more competition to private insurers. Many, including White House officials, see the answer to that problem in Sen. Olympia Snowe’s (R-Maine) proposal to create a “trigger” for a public option in the event other health insurance reforms in the bill do not successfully drive down health insurance costs nor increase coverage. The bonus, they calculate, is that Snowe would sign on to such a bill and help the leaders shore up the votes of wavering centrists.

However, Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), a leader of the recently formed Moderate Dems Working Group, has proposed allowing states to create public plans or co-ops if they so choose. Last week, senior Democratic aides said the proposal had significant potential as a possible compromise.

From here, we can see that Rahm Emanuel and Peter Orszag will be heavily involved in the merging of the bills from the Senate Finance Committee and the Senate HELP Committee. The final shape of the public option will be due to their input from President Obama if he weighs in on this matter as the Senators want him to do so. And it’s also up to Senator Harry Reid, who will be hosting these talks with the WH staff, Chairman Baucus, Chairman Harkin, and Dodd on whether to include the public option in the final merged bill.

We’re not the only ones just looking to the Senate. The House is looking to final action from the Senate as well because they don’t want to take the political risk of voting for a more liberal bill than the one out of the Senate. I’ve included a link to the full article as well here.

Aides say the House’s deliberations slowed because many Members wanted to see what emerged from the Senate Finance Committee before making commitments. And some complain that the White House has refused to get its hands dirty after President Barack Obama came to Congress to deliver his health care address last month.

In the meantime, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has been loath to commit publicly to any specifics beyond saying that some form of a public insurance option will be in the House bill, as she faces a fractious Caucus that seemingly spawns a new subgroup every week demanding that something be either included or excluded from the bill.

And they’re also aware about the problems of having regulations, the mandate, and the exchange getting started in 2013, after two election cycles:

Other Democrats are increasingly nervous that the bill must do more to improve the insurance market before 2013, when a national insurance exchange for the uninsured is scheduled to begin.

“There is a giant problem with the fact that nothing happens until 2013 and there are two elections in the intervening years,” the aide said. Majority Whip James Clyburn’s (D-S.C.) proposal to include state pilot programs sooner has gained traction, although how that would be accomplished and funded has not been resolved.

The endgame is finally here, and we’ll see where the pieces and the players fall in on the public option in the final conference bill. It’s also why we can’t stop calling our progressives in Congress!

PHRMA Broadcasts Ad With President Obama

Looks like PhRMA is making good on its deal with the White House to support the mandated bailout of private insurers by airing this ad of President Obama.

Initially, the White House had denied reports of the deal with PhRMA as reported by the Huffington Post, but it’s clear that the deal was made and we know the concessions made their way into the Baucus Senate Finance Committee bill. If the Democrats don’t stand up to the PhRMA deal, then we’re left with this below from Matt Tiabbi:

What is consistently present throughout the policies favored by the White House is an effort to use tax money to subsidize the existing employer-based private system instead of doing the logical thing and taking the bite — for a bite had to be taken out of someone — out of the pharma and insurance industries.

As an added bonus for all of us, the “reform” will include individual mandates designed to significantly increase the insurance and pharma industry’s customer base. So in the end, what we’re looking at is a pair of handouts to corporate donors: tax subsidies to ease the cost of insurance for employers, and mandates to push more business to the health care industry.

Just fucking brilliant, guys.

Senator Snowe May Hold Trigger Amendment Until Floor Vote

Brian Beutler at TalkingPointsMemo just broke in with the story that Senator Snowe may hold off on her trigger amendment until the full Senate floor vote:

Senate sources suggest Snowe may withhold the amendment until health care legislation hits the floor next month. And a Snowe spokesperson confirms that, though the situation is very fluid right now, that is a possibility.

The exact reason for that is unclear, but Time’s Karen Tumulty notes that, in the wake of yesterday’s losing public option votes, things may be a bit too hot in Finance right now for triggers to survive. And that makes sense intuitively: Republicans not named Olympia Snowe almost certainly won’t support the amendment, and public option enthusiasts like Sens. Jay Rockefeller and Chuck Schumer may not want to back a trigger at this point, for fear of foreclosing on a straightforward public option down the line.

Calls to aides to Schumer and Rockefeller were not returned before publication time.

This could be a way to keep the trigger amendment alive. If Senator Snowe does bring it to the Senate floor, I’d expect to hear floor speeches from so-called Democrats like Harry Reid, Conrad, and Lincoln advocating a vote for the trigger. Talk about damaging their own re-election chances. It’ll be interesting to see what happens, and especially if Senator Snowe votes the bill out of the Senate Finance Committee. If she votes no, then they’ll still try to cajole her into voting with the Democrats for the full floor vote which means the bipartisanship pursuit of Senator Snowe isn’t going to end anytime soon.

Senator Rockefeller Being Pressured By White House?

It seems that the White House is twisting the arms of Senator Rockefeller to vote the bill out of the Senate Finance Committee. The President directly placed a phone call to Rockefeller, according to the New York Times:

The president of the United States was on the line. And what he wanted was the commitment of a vote in favor of the health care legislation now under consideration in the Senate Finance Committee.

But Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, Democrat of West Virginia, said he refused to give any assurances. “I was noncommittal,” Mr. Rockefeller said, describing the call, as he rode the subway back to the Capitol after the Finance Committee proceedings broke for lunch Wednesday.

The Finance Committee, now in its sixth day of public debate of the legislation, is on track for a final vote, probably sometimenext week. And the phone call from Mr. Obama highlighted the intense lobbying effort underway by the White House.

It’s kind of funny how the White House is twisting the arms of Democrats like Senator Rockefeller who stood up for a robust public option, and called out the bullshit that is the Baucus health insurance reform bill. I haven’t heard any reports of President Obama twisting the arms of conservative Democrats—have you?

Rep. Grijalva Pulls No Punches In Hill Editorial!

Here’s a fantastic editorial from Rep. Grijalva in The Hill:

Some members of Congress are not making it easy to pass true reform. Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) recently released his version of healthcare reform.

However, his bill fails to meet the most basic principles of healthcare reform. The legislation presented is nothing more than a giveaway to the insurance companies. It is telling that even with the concessions made to the bill, no member of the Senate, including the “Gang of Six,” stood with him in support.

The Baucus bill is all about the insurance industry’s bottom line: no teeth in enforcements and regulations, endless patent hoarding for the pharmaceutical industry and laws that rein in citizens to pay these industries the largest transfer of wealth in history.

The lack of competition among health insurance companies is crippling consumer choice, driving up prices and hurting those who need healthcare the most. A robust public option will make the private insurance companies compete, help bring down out of control prices, and ensure that the American people are guaranteed a choice when searching for affordable, quality healthcare.

Republicans are not going to support any healthcare bill we put forth. It is time for Democrats to start talking honestly among themselves about what is best for the American people, not offering watered down bills to appease Republicans and the insurance company executives who have them in their pockets.

Bravo, Rep. Grijalva, and thank you for telling like it is. We need more Representatives like Rep. Grijalva in the House of Representatives and in the Senate as well! And here’s more from his editorial, which I have express permission from his office to reprint in its entirety:

We in the majority must have the courage to do what is in our power to do, and pass a bill that guarantees access to affordable, quality healthcare.

The public option will serve as this guarantee. It will be one entity, operated by the government, which will set policies and bear the risks for paying medical clams to keep costs low and quality high. The public option will be modeled after successful public programs, like Medicare, and provide the transparency and consumer protections that are lacking in the private insurance industry today. My progressive colleagues and I envision an option that is available to all individuals and employers, without limitations. We do not need a “trigger” to let us know if healthcare is unaffordable. The 47 million uninsured Americans are proof of our healthcare system’s failure.

The public option is absolutely critical to control costs and act as a check on private insurance companies because no anti-trust regulations are applicable to private insurers. Real competition is currently stymied by large national insurance companies buying up smaller firms and creating a monopoly. In some states, a single company may control over 83 percent of the insurance market. Lower premiums are out of reach for millions of Americans because of the lack of competition.

The public option that so many of my Progressive colleagues and I support will end the insurance companies’ monopoly and control over our individual health. The public option is one of the choices that individuals will have as consumers of health insurance. The era of insurance companies dictating who receives care and what care they receive will be over.

Standing by and praying the insurance companies will develop a conscience can be no more. If we are to ensure that all Americans receive healthcare that is accessible, guaranteed and of high quality, we must include a public option.

Please call Rep. Grijalva at (202) 225-2435 to thank him for standing up for progressives in supporting a real public option in health care reform!

U.S. Chamber Of Commerce Targets Good Amendments To Baucus-FaucUs Bill

Even though the Senate Finance Committee is in recess, the lobbying is still going on over the weekend among various groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. They’ve targeted three subjects they view as being dangerous to their lobbying agenda:

–Rockefeller’s amendment to apply new rating rules to the large and self-insured (ERISA) market.

–Schumer’s public option amendments.

–Wyden’s Healthy Americans Act.

They’re opposed to the Rockefeller #C1 amendment because it would apply regulations to the self-insured market, which insures over half of Americans. The regulations in the Baucus bill leaves them out completely, and it’s a glaring loophole that I wrote about earlier.

And the public option amendments–well, they produce an element of competition, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce opposes that for its members which includes major companies and associations such as AdvaMed, the American Medical Association, Biotechnology Industry Organization, Council of Insurance Brokers and Agents, and PhRMA.

The Wyden amendment also removes the current “firewalls” which prevents people with employer insurance from ever accessing the national insurance exchange, and allows them to do so. This is seen as ending the employer-based insurance system which the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is against.

We’ll see which lobbying groups will prevail over the weekend—will it be the unions,advocacy organizations such as HCAN, DFA, and Moveon.org or the U.S. Chamber of Commerce?

This Is Incredibly Stupid–Taxing Health Insurance Plans?

There are now recent reports that Speaker Pelosi is open to a tax on health insurance plans that are called “Cadillac” health care plans:

Speaker Nancy Pelosi acknowledged publicly on Friday that House Democrats have considered including a tax on high-end insurance plans to help pay for their health care bill.

The plan resembles one offered by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus and would put House and Senate negotiators a little closer together, if both plans survive passage in their respective chambers.

“It’s under consideration,” Pelosi told reporters Friday. “We just have to see how much money we need for what. And if we’re taking the bill down in cost, there are other provisions in the Senate bill that bend the curve that might be more palatable. We’ll see.”

She was asked about an excise tax on high-end insurance plans that would raise more than $200 billion over the next 10 years. She had told freshmen Democrats earlier this week that the bill could use the Cadillac plan tax to help fund the bill.

Democrats in the House need to bring the overall costs of the bill down from a rumored $1.1 trillion price tag. They also need to fill a shortfall from raising the minimum income that would be taxed under the so-called millionaire’s tax, from $280,000 to $500,000 for individuals and from $350,000 to $1 million for couples.

I don’t support this because it encourages insurance providers to provide health insurance plans with fewer benefits, and allows them to pass on the tax in the form of premium increases. It’s bad public policy, and the Democrats shouldn’t be supporting this. Here’s more from Les Leopold at Huffington Post who explains why this is bad policy from a voter’s point of view:

If you tax my plan and drive up my premiums and co-pays I will not change my behavior except marginally. But my employer might decide to drop certain kinds of coverage because of the tax. The net result is that when I need care it will cost me more. It will not drive down the overall costs of health care in a meaningful way.

Not only is the free-market ideology totally inappropriate for health care but the attack on “Cadillac” plans is pernicious. It sends a terrible message that somehow these plans are bad, and that cheap plans that barely pay for anything are terrific. But what exactly is a high end plan? It’s a plan that we all should have: full prevention from health care disasters, low premiums, low deductibles, and the range of serves that we need: eye, dental, mental health and nursing home coverage, etc. This is radical?

The reason for being open to the tax on health insurance plans is because the Blue Dog Democrats and moderate Democrats in the House oppose taxing the wealthy as a financing mechanism to help pay for health care reform. This is nothing more than a tax increase on the middle class via insurance companies, which once again is stupid and a bad policy choice from a populist viewpoint.

The Dailykos Community Project Video For The Public Option

This video was a huge community effort by me and others at Dailykos. I would like to thank the dozens of kossacks who sent in inspiring photos showing why they support a public option with no triggers or co-ops, and I’ll never forget their faces and the signs they held. I wish I had more eloquence to support my sincere gratitude to these people at Dailykos, but I’ll leave it with this below:

Thank you from the bottom of my heart!

Accountability NOW PAC Goes After Jim Cooper On His Lies!

I wrote a while ago about Jim Cooper’s lies on health care reform, and his lack of support for the public option. It looks like the chickens are coming home to roost for Jim Cooper since the Accountability Now PAC has announced they’re going to go after him with a primary challenge due to Cooper’s lack of actual representation of his constituents in Tennessee. Here’s the press release from the Accountability Now PAC:

According to a Research 2000 poll from August 24, 2009, Cooper’s approval rating has sunk to below 50 percent (47% favorable, 41% unfavorable). Even more telling, was that just 36% of likely voters stated they would vote to re-elect Congressman Cooper.

Ranking high among Nashville voters concerns was Cooper’s perceived obstruction of the “public option” during the recent congressional debate on health care. According to the poll conducted in August, 80 percent of Democratic voters and 64 percent of independents support a public option. 77 percent of Democratic voters and 60 percent of independent voters disapprove of Congressman Cooper’s actions on the health care issue.

“Cooper has spent so many years in Congress without being accountable, that he’s forgotten how to represent his constituents,” said Markos Moulitsas, owner of Daily Kos and the commissioner of the poll.. “He has a choice ahead of him — continue representing the interests of his insurance company buddies, or those of the people who elect him.”

Cooper, who has collected more than $1 million dollars from health care special interests and related political action committees, has come under fire in recent weeks for failing to represent Democrats in the 5th Congressional District.

They’re now running a fund at the Accountability Now PAC against Rep. Jim Cooper. Will you please help donate to Accountability Now PAC on ActBlue in their search for a better Democrat to represent Nashville? And here’s the link to the website about all things about Rep. Jim Cooper’s record on health care reform, the environment, energy, and other issues.