Posts Tagged ‘Democrats’
Monday, February 15th, 2010
Veterans of the Clinton administration’s efforts to reshape healthcare policy are lining up to support President Barack Obama’s plan to extend coverage to all Americans and make medical care more affordable. Although this group isn’t a believer in making concessions to the opponents of reform, they have an attentive audience because of their hands-on experience and belief that Democrats can’t afford another healthcare failure.
“If Bill Clinton couldn’t get it done, and Barack Obama can’t do it, no Democrat will ever try again,” said Len Nichols, an economist and health policy director at the New America Foundation. Nichols is currently an unofficial advisor to lawmakers and Obama administration officials hammering out details of the proposed healthcare reform legislation. Another veteran of the Clinton-era healthcare reform effort, Chris Jennings, says “History is written by the victors, not the vanquished. Failure would serve as the ultimate judgment as to whether this effort was worth doing. Jennings, congressional liaison for Hillary Clinton during the 1990s, now works as a lobbyist.
The current healthcare reform legislation is significantly scaled back from the ambitious Clinton plan, though it still faces Republican opposition. The Obama plan concentrates on people who have the most difficulty obtaining and retaining health insurance - small businesses and those who buy their own coverage. “We are using the private insurance market and private incentives, as opposed to command-and-control,” Nichols said. “As a policy matter, we are in the middle.”
Tags: Chris Jennings, Democrats, Department of Health and Human Services, healthcare insurance, healthcare reform, Hillary Clinton, Ken Thorpe, Len Nichols, New America Foundation, President Barack Obama, President Bill Clinton, State of the Union
Posted in General, Healthcare | No Comments »
Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010
President Barack Obama used his first State of the Union Address to tell members of the House and Senate to continue their efforts to enact healthcare reform. “As temperatures cool, I want everyone to take another look at the plan we’ve proposed,” the president said. “Not now. Not when we are so close. By the time I’m finished speaking tonight, more Americans will have lost their health insurance. I will not walk away from these Americans and neither should the people in this chamber.” The president’s comments won applause and ovations from both sides of the aisle.
Richard Umbdenstock, president and CEO of the American Hospital Association said “I think it’s the right approach.” Umbdenstock, who worked closely with the Obama administration to shape elements of healthcare reform legislation, said it was “important work” and “there is a real need to continue.” He also linked healthcare reform to the crucial issue of job creation, noting that “Hospitals are the second largest source of private sector jobs.”
Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL) said “I think the House should just pass the Senate bill,” although he agreed that there likely will be efforts to amend the legislation through a procedure that allows passage on a simple majority vote. “But clearly the House can pass the Senate bill and the Senate’s bill is a good bill.”
“We all know we’ve been trying to get healthcare done since Teddy Roosevelt,” Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) commented on Wednesday. “So a few more weeks isn’t a long period of time in the context of how tough a fight this is when you go up against the special interest. We’ll do it and we’ll do it the right way.”
Tags: American Hospital Association, Chris Van Hollen, Democrats, healthcare reform, House of Representatives, President Barack Obama, Republicans, Richard Umbdenstock, Senate, Senator Barbara Boxer, Senator Bill Nelson, Senator Max Baucus, State of the Union Address, Teddy Roosevelt
Posted in Healthcare | No Comments »
Monday, February 1st, 2010
Some Democrats think legislating in baby steps to achieve healthcare reform is their best option now that the party has lost its 60-vote super majority with Scott Brown’s upset victory in Massachusetts to fill Senator Ted Kennedy’s seat.
According to Representative Bill Pascrell, Jr., (D-NJ), some House Democrats are proposing an incremental approach to fix the healthcare system via multiple pieces of legislation instead of a single all-encompassing bill. The goal would remain to reform insurance coverage, assure patients’ rights and improve the way that healthcare is delivered. Pascrell envisions introducing three or four bills in quick succession. The legislation would encompass the least controversial elements of the broader reform package now stalled in Congress.
Pascrell believes that his measures might garner some Republican support because they would eliminate the public option, individual insurance mandates and entitlement programs. Pascrell notes that “You can blame the Senate all you want, but we are our own worst enemy. We do everything in mega-fashion. We need to do it in mini-fashion.”
Tags: 60 vote super majority, Bill Pascrell Jr, Democrats, entitlement programs, filibuster, healthcare reform, House of Representatives, individual insurance mandates, public option, Republicans, Scott Brown, Ted Kennedy
Posted in Healthcare | No Comments »
Thursday, December 10th, 2009
Declaring that “failure is not an option” on healthcare reform, Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) said that the legislation will be passed with or without Republican support. “We’re not going to not pass a bill,” Schumer said, pointing to a healthcare system that is broken because some 47 million Americans lack any kind of insurance coverage.
Before this can happen, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has the task of resolving issues within his own party regarding abortion, taxes and allowing the government to sell health insurance in competition with private insurers. Democratic leaders are working to persuade Senator Olympia Snow (R-ME) to cross party lines and vote in favor of the ultimate bill, even though she sided with her fellow Republicans on the recent procedural vote to move the debate to the full Senate floor.
Both the Senate and House of Representatives bills require all Americans to have healthcare insurance, and plan to make government subsidies available to help pay premiums. Insurance companies would be banned from denying coverage or charging extra for individuals with pre-existing conditions. New insurance marketplaces would be created for those Americans who have difficulty finding affordable coverage - such as the self-employed and those who own small businesses. Americans who currently have employer-provided coverage won’t see any big changes in their coverage. Senior citizens will see improvement in their prescription coverage.
As for paying for these bills? The House bill depends primarily on an income tax hike on upper-income individuals. The Senate bill would tax Cadillac insurance plans, increase the Medicare payroll tax for the wealthy and mandate fees on medical industries.
Tags: Blue Dog Democrats, Cadillac insurance plans, Democrats, Healthcare, House of Representatives, Medicaid, Medicare, President Barack Obama, public option, Republican, Senate, Senator Ben Nelson, Senator Blanche Lincoln, Senator Charles Schumer, Senator Harry Reid, Senator Olympia Snowe
Posted in Healthcare | No Comments »
Tuesday, December 1st, 2009
In a rare Saturday evening roll call, the Senate recently voted 60 - 39 along straight party lines to open debate on wide-ranging healthcare reform legislation. The procedural vote - in which Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) won backing from his entire 60-member caucus - moves the healthcare reform debate from committee into the full Senate. Even with an important victory under his belt, Reid still faces a fight from conservative Blue Dog Democrats - not to mention Republicans.
Senator Ben Nelson (D-NE) told ABC’s “This Week” that he voted to cut off a Republican filibuster because it opens the way to revising the legislation as it currently is written. “If I thought the bill couldn’t be amended and couldn’t be improved, I wouldn’t vote to move it forward and move the debate,” Nelson said. “Debate can begin. We ought not to stop the opportunity to improve the bill.”
Conversely, Senator Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) told “Meet the Press” that Saturday’s vote was a victory for President Barack Obama and Senator Reid. “We have a lot of different opinions on our side of the caucus and we came together last night.” New York Democrat Charles Schumer agreed, saying the bill can win the necessary supermajority to fend off a filibuster because the Senate’s public opinion is adequately centrist. “There is no intent to compete unfairly with private insurance. This is a modest public option,” he said, noting that it has the same requirements as private insurance coverage.
Conservative Republicans, on the other hand, want to write entirely new legislation with significant GOP input. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) said the current bill will be an expensive “disaster for our country” that would increase the deficit and force some Americans to lose healthcare coverage.
Whatever shape the ultimate Senate legislation takes, it will have to undergo reconciliation with the more liberal House of Representatives’ bill passed in early November. Although Saturday’s procedural motion required a 60-vote majority, passage of the final healthcare reform bill will require just 51 votes.
Tags: Democrats, filibuster, GOP, healthcare reform, House of Repres, President Barack Obama, Republicans, Senate, Senator Charles Schumer, Senator Dick Durbin, Senator Harry Reid, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison
Posted in Healthcare | No Comments »
Monday, October 26th, 2009
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has reported that the Senate Finance Committee healthcare reform bill would cost $829 billion over 10 years and reduce the deficit by $81 billion. This report on the bill, which would cover 94 percent of Americans, could bolster President Barack Obama’s healthcare reform initiative. As authored by Senator Max Baucus (D-MT) and amended by committee members, the bill would fulfill Obama’s preference for healthcare reform legislation that does not increase the deficit.
The Finance Committee is expected to vote on the plan, which does not include the public option that Obama and liberals want, next Tuesday. Instead, the Baucus bill proposes a nonprofit cooperative as an alternative, an option that the CBO report noted was unlikely to attract significant enrollment or spend all the subsidies allocated to it. All three House of Representatives committee bills include a public option, as does legislation passed by the Senate Health Committee.
Once the Democratic-controlled Finance Committee bill is approved, it will be merged with the Health Committee legislation and sent to the full Senate for debate later this month. In the House of Representatives, Democrats are holding meetings to merge their three healthcare reform bills into a single one that could win the 218 votes necessary for passage.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said the CBO news on costs is “irrelevant” because he believes that Democrats will pump up the Baucus bill to make it more expensive.
Tags: Congressional Budget Office, deficit, Democrats, healthcare reform, House of Representatives, Max Baucus, President Barack Obama, public option, Senate Finance Committee
Posted in Healthcare, Hospital Systems | No Comments »
Wednesday, October 7th, 2009
Healthcare reform is putting Democrats at loggerheads with each other, as the party’s liberal wing failed to include a public option in legislation now being negotiated in the Senate Finance Committee. The two failed votes (which saw some Democrats cross the aisle to vote with Republicans) were a victory for Senator Max Baucus (D-MT), whose committee is trying to finalize the proposed legislation. At the same time, Democrats in the House of Representatives were looking at ways to trim approximately $900 billion over 10 years from their legislation, President Obama’s suggested price tag.
Baucus and four other Democrats voted against Senator Jay Rockefeller’s (D-WV) amendment to include a public option in the proposed bill. “The public option would help to hold insurance companies’ feet to the fire, I don’t think there’s much doubt about that, but my first job is to get this bill across the finish line,” Baucus said. “No one shows me how to get 60 votes with a public option.”
The second failed amendment was a proposal from Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY), designed to increase competition into the insurance market. This amendment would have let the government negotiate payments with physicians, hospitals and other healthcare providers for two years rather than pay them at Medicare rates.
Advocates of the public option believe that private insurers are placing profits before coverage and vowed to insert this amendment into the legislation once the full Senate votes on healthcare reform. “With some work and some compromise, we can get the 60 votes on the floor of the Senate that will make our system better by providing for a strong, fair and viable public option,” Schumer said.
Tags: Democrats, healthcare reform, House of Representatives, Max Baucus, President Barack Obama, public option, Senate Finance Committee
Posted in Healthcare, Hospital Systems | No Comments »
Tuesday, October 6th, 2009
The name Olympia Snowe (R-ME) has been prominent in the debate on healthcare reform – and for good reason. Snowe is the lone Republican member of the Senate Finance Committee who is still talking with Democrats to shape the ultimate bill. This willingness to engage the opposition party gives Snowe significant leverage because she may provide the 60th vote that Democrats need to prevent a Republican filibuster. In return, Snowe is likely to get what she wants in healthcare reform legislation — affordability.
Snowe’s perspective may be due to the fact that she represents a relatively poor state whose health insurance market is dominated by a single large firm that charges some of the country’s highest premiums. Maine insurance costs are rising at nearly four times the rate of wages, hurting the small businesses that form the core of the state’s economy.
Even though Democrats are actively courting Snowe, her “yes” vote is not guaranteed. She voted with Senate Finance Committee Republicans when they insisted that Senator Max Baucus (D-MT) submit his measure to the Congressional Budget Office to determine the bill’s price tag. Additionally, Snowe was the sole member of Baucus’ bipartisan “Gang of Six” who complained that the federal subsidies included in the bill to help low- and middle-income people buy insurance were too small. Baucus’ response was to increase the size of the subsidies.
Snowe’s most provocative input to the healthcare debate is her proposal for a trigger that would set in motion a Medicare-like, government-run public option to provide affordable coverage if private insurers don’t step up to the plate. “It would be a safety net, a fallback mechanism,” Snowe says. She points out that a similar idea was effective to stimulate competition in the Medicare prescription-drug program.
Tags: Capitol Hill, Democrats, health insurance, healthcare reform, Medicare, President Barack Obama, Republican-led filibuster, Senate Finance Committee
Posted in Healthcare, Hospital Systems | No Comments »
Wednesday, September 30th, 2009
Congressional Democrats are mulling a tax on high-cost insurance plans to pay for overhauling the nation’s healthcare delivery system. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) says that such a tax is “under consideration” as Democrats seek consensus before bringing a bill to the House floor this fall.
“We just have to see how much money we need for what,” according to Pelosi. “And if we’re taking the bill down in cost, there are other provisions in the Senate bill that bend the (costs) curve that might be more palatable.” A House tax option likely would be a scaled-down version of the one Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) has proposed.
The Democratic House plan wants to increase taxes on upper-income people to pay for covering the uninsured. Baucus wants to tax high-cost “Cadillac” insurance plans often valued at more than $8,000 for an individual and $21,000 for a family and which may have no deductibles or co-payments. Those in favor of the tax, which President Obama supports, believe it will reduce healthcare costs by persuading people to become more cost-conscious consumers.
The insurance tax should reduce the cost of the House’s healthcare reform bill. How to pay for the plan is just one issue that House leaders are trying to settle as they work to merge three committee-approved bills into one piece of legislation. The major issue is that the House Democrats’ 10-year bill costs $1 trillion-plus, higher than the $900 billion that President Obama prefers. Although House Democrats realize that cuts are required, they want to protect the subsidies that will help low-income Americans purchase coverage. Unfortunately, the subsidies are the most expensive part of the legislation.
Tags: Democrats, healthcare reform, House of Representatives, insurance coverage, labor union, Nancy Pelosi, President Obama, public option, Senate committee
Posted in Healthcare, Hospital Systems | No Comments »
Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009
Senator Max Baucus’ (D-MT) long-awaited centrist healthcare reform bill was met with strong objections by both liberal Democrats (who decried the lack of a public option) and Republicans (who oppose any expanded government role in healthcare).
Still, the Baucus proposal could serve as a blueprint for the ultimate compromise healthcare legislation that President Obama calls the “defining struggle of this generation” when it finally emerges from Congress. Baucus’ proposal would expand consumer protections and require that all Americans have medical insurance with the government providing financial help to pay premiums for low- and middle-income people. Insurers would no longer be able to deny coverage to people with pre-existing conditions or cancel policies after people get sick. The Baucus bill would create private healthcare insurance cooperatives, which centrist Democrats prefer in place of the public option supported by liberals.
Despite tailoring his proposal to cost less and limit government involvement in healthcare,Baucus’ proposal is unlikely to win much support from Republican Senators. According to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), “Americans don’t think a bigger role for government in healthcare would improve the system. Yet despite this, every proposal we’ve seen would lead to a vast expansion of the government’s role in the healthcare system.”
The Baucus bill is unpopular with liberal Democrats who insist that a public option be included in any healthcare reform legislation. Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the House bill, drafted by Democrats, was superior and “clearly does more to make coverage affordable for more Americans.” The Congressional Budget Office said the expansion of coverage would cost $774 billion over 10 years, compared with price tags of more than $1 trillion for the other measures.
Tags: affordable healthcare, Democrats, health insurance, healthcare reform, Max Baucus, Nancy Pelosi, President Obam, private healthcare, public option, Republicans
Posted in Economics, Healthcare | No Comments »
