Via The Hill: Temperamental Judd Gregg is not going, though he apparently wanted to.
McConnell instead tapped Senate Republican Conference Chairman Lamar Alexander (Tenn.), ranking Finance Committee member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee member John McCain (R-Ariz.), and the Senate’s only two physicians — Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) and John Barrasso (R-Wyo.). GOP Whip Jon Kyl (Ariz.) and Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) are also attending and were previously invited. Enzi is the ranking Republican on the HELP Committee, of which Coburn is also a member. McConnell spokesman Don Stewart had no immediate comment on Gregg’s exclusion, but did say that dozens of GOP senators had lobbied to be invited.
Asked about McConnell's choice not to invite him, Gregg declined to comment. “You'd have to ask Sen. McConnell,” he said.
Democrats:
The Senate’s Democratic attendees to the summit include Reid, Majority Whip Dick Durbin (Ill.), Conference Vice Chairman Charles Schumer (N.Y.), Conference Secretary Patty Murray (Wash.), Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (Mont.), Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (Conn.), HELP Committee Chairman Tom Harkin (Iowa), Senate Finance Subcommittee on Health Care Chairman Jay Rockefeller (W.Va.) and Conrad.
The White House originally invited 21 members of Congress — 12 Democrats and nine Republicans — along with aides and representatives from the Office of Management and Budget, the Joint Committee on Taxation, the Congressional Budget Office, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Office of Health Reform Director Nancy DeParle.
Mark Knoller's photo of Obama family on Marine One. Destination: Hawaii
Merry Christmas! Even to the wingnuts! You're going to love health care. Seven presidents have tried and failed to pass healthcare. Watch Biden, who presided over the vote. Now, the House and Senate bills must be reconciled.
Obama called 12 senators and thanked them for their work on the bill, according to CBS' @markknoller. He also called Vicki Kennedy. Ted would be proud. He called David Turner, a man who had his healthcare taken away by his insurance company. Obama also called 10 soldiers overseas. Now, Obama and the First Family are off to Hawaii.
Harry Reid says he has the 60 votes. Obama will speak at about 1:30 pm eastern. It will be live streamed at msnbc.com and cnn.com. Bernie Sanders' amendment sounds good. It expands community health centers, which will help drive down costs.
Republicans are very, very upset. Mitch McConnell: "this bill reshape our nation and our lives." Let's hope so! Republicans have no right to complain because they haven't helped one bit. They've only stood in the way, deciding early on to make this Obama's waterloo.
As expected, republicans condemn the bill. They've lost all credibility. Even if they were right no one would listen. They actually cite the health insurance industry study:
Her vote today, though, won't be her final vote, she said. She wants to see a better bill as the House and the Senate bills merge and more bipartisanship. Snowe says skyrocketing insurance premium costs is akin to the Titanic. She says the bill will provide exchanges for small businesses. She affirms her opposition to the public option but says affordability is her main concern. All Americans need to have access to affordable insurance plans, she said.
Important to note: Just because the health insurers don't like the bill doesn't make the bill good. Still a lot of work to be done:
Update: Snowe says she will vote for the bill, according to CNN breaking. The fact that Olympia Snowe dismissed the AHIP report pretty much says how she's going to vote. Yesterday the insurance industry issued a report saying they'd raise health insurance rates if reform passes, which caught everyone off guard. A Senate Finance Committee vote is expected around noon.
On the Democratic side, clues may emerge that liberals are eyeing a compromise on a government-run insurance plan once the bill reaches the floor. Close watchers will take note when Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, talks about the need to give Americans more choices; experts and the public seem to agree with him.
Still, the moment of truth is expected sometime after lunch, when the committee chairman, Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana, calls for the ayes and nays.
A vote by Ms. Snowe in favor of the bill would go a long way toward vindicating the effort by Mr. Baucus to work with Republicans over three months of intense drafting sessions.
The other Republicans who participated in the process — Mr. Grassley and Senator Michael B. Enzi of Wyoming — will speak out strongly in opposition to the measure. Still, many of their views were taken into account, including Mr. Grassley’s strong insistence that any new taxes and fees be confined to the health care arena. NYT
The Senate Finance Committee legislation to revamp the health care system would provide coverage to 29 million uninsured Americans but would still pare future federal deficits by slowing the growth of spending on medical care, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said Wednesday.
The much-anticipated cost analysis showed the bill meeting President Obama’s main requirements, including his demand that health legislation not add “one dime to the deficit.” Indeed, the budget office said, the bill would reduce deficits by a total of $81 billion in the decade starting next year.
The report clears the way for the Finance Committee chairman, Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana, to push for a panel vote within the next few days, and sets the stage for Democrats to take legislation to the floor for debate by the full Senate this month.
Despite the expansion of coverage at a cost of $829 billion over 10 years, the budget office said 25 million people — about one-third of them illegal immigrants — would still be uninsured in 2019. In all, it said, the proportion of nonelderly Americans with insurance would rise over the 10 years to 94 percent, from 83 percent today. Republicans, who are overwhelmingly opposed to the legislation, minimized the significance of the cost analysis. They suggested that the “real” bill would be written secretly by Democratic leaders as they combine the Finance Committee measure with a version approved by the Senate health committee in July. Read more at the NYT
The White House calls it an important step. Eric Cantor puts on his whiny voice and says Americans have rejected the public option:
Liberal democrats have been attacking moderate democrats with attack ads. But Shumer says it's not working. Shumer says democrats have to show Baucus that there are 60 votes. Shumer said he's spoken to the moderate dems and no one has closed the door on the public option. "We lost today," Shumer said. But there's momentum for public option.
A good story about caring for yourself in the WSJ today:
What cures colds, flu, sore throats, sore muscles, headaches, stomach aches, diarrhea, menstrual cramps, hangovers, back pain, jaw pain, tennis elbow, blisters, acne and colic, costs nothing, has no weird side effects and doesn't require a prescription?
Plain old-fashioned time. But it's often the hardest medicine for patients to take.
"Most people's bodies and immune systems are wonderful in terms of handling things—if people can be patient," says Ted Epperly, a family physician in Boise, Idaho, and president of the American Academy of Family Physicians.
"I have a mantra: You can do more for yourself than I can do for you," says Raymond Scalettar, a Washington, D.C., rheumatologist and former chairman of the American Medical Association. But, he says, "some patients are very medicine-oriented, and when you tell them they aren't good candidates for a drug they've heard about on TV, they don't come back."
Also, if healthcare is going to be mandated, it better be a good bill. But I'm getting kind of nervous like the republicans. Let the mark up begin:
Corporate America sure isn't doing itself any favors. See the mailer here.
The government is investigating a major insurance company for allegedly trying to scare seniors with a mailer warning they could lose important benefits under health care legislation in Congress.
The Health and Human Services Department launched its investigation of Humana after getting a complaint from Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., a senior lawmaker usually viewed as a reliable ally of the insurance industry.
"It is wholly unacceptable for insurance companies to mislead seniors regarding any subject — particularly on a subject as important to them, and to the nation, as health care reform," Baucus said Monday, disclosing the HHS investigation. ... The Humana mailer focused squarely on the Medicare Advantage program.
"While these programs need to be made more efficient, if the proposed funding cut levels become law, millions of seniors and disabled individuals could lose many of the important benefits and services that make Medicare Advantage health plans so valuable," it said.
It urged seniors to sign up with Humana for regular updates on the health care legislation, and encouraged them to contact their lawmakers in Washington.
In a warning letter to Humana, HHS said the government is concerned that the mailer "is misleading and confusing" partly because the company's lobbying campaign could be mistaken for an official communication about Medicare benefits.
HHS ordered the company to immediately halt any such mailings, and remove any related materials from its Web site. In the letter, the government also said it may take other action against Humana. AP
Everyone is acting as though the Baucus bill is the final bill. Yesterday, Gibbs said the Baucus bill is only a "building block." The bill is a work in progress. Seems to me that if only 1 republican is needed to get to 60 Senator votes, then a public option ought to be included. But still, one republican seems practically impossible at this point. Moderate republican Olympia Snowe said she wouldn't vote for a bill with a public option. Another moderate republican Susan Collins also says her problem with the public option is scope and cost. That's it folks. They are the two most high profile moderates. Maybe there is one lurking in the background just waiting to vote for the public option. Ha! The question is: How much of reform would need to be sacrificed to accommodate 1 republican?
It sorta ticks me off that republicans have been such thorns on healthcare, throwing every obstacle in the way, encouraging wingnuts to wingnuttery, exploiting people's fears. Since it's not a bipartisan bill and the bill doesn't have a public option, it's safe to say that democrats stood in the way of the public option. Instead of a public option, poor Americans can get tax credits to buy insurance. At first glance, it doesn't look like a bad bill. I'll have to do more research. Senate Finance Committee head Max Baucus says he thinks the bill will eventually get republican support. At this point, I don't think republicans matter. I'm sure before the day is out the bill will be bloodied and beaten, in need of healthcare:
Elements of the bill: Costs $856 billion over 10 years. Gives tax credits to small businesses to help them buy insurance. Creates health-insurance cooperatives but not a government insurance plan. Requires individuals and families to buy insurance coverage. Gives refundable tax credits to poor Americans to help buy coverage. Creates Internet-based insurance exchanges. Levies new taxes on drug-makers and insurers to help pay costs.
In the video below, Chuck Todd thinks he would know if there were some republicans working on a bipartisan bill. Maybe not Chuck. The media seems to be focused only on tea baggers and the opposition to health reform and taking polls each time Obama speaks. What's with all the polls lately? Pollsters must be raking in the bucks. NPR has a story that says the Senate bill may be coming soon:
Baucus and Conrad said the plan under consideration is coming in at less than $880 billion over a 10-year period. The plan would require all Americans to get health insurance — through an employer, a government program or on their own.
It would also include consumer protections pushed by President Obama that would prohibit companies from denying coverage because of pre-existing conditions or increasing the premiums of those who are sick.
From what I've read of his proposal--fees on insurers and hefty penalties on Americans who don't get health care insurance-- he's lost it. Chuck Todd says he'll be drafting what Obama says tonight:
Losers in Congress (yes, I'm getting impatient) can't get past their own petty bickering to come up with a decent health care bill. The republicans have essentially sent their trolls out to do their dirty work--finding communist art on buildings and such-- and the democrats have been blaming the Obama administration for not being clear enough.
The whole health care debate, if that's what you want to call it, is all about the left vs. the right -- a big fat power struggle. The left has held up the public option as the saving grace and it's all or nothing and the right just keeps talking stupid.
There isn't room for solutions for the American people. Wouldn't it be funny, and wonderful, actually, if the White House drafted its own legislation and then tied it up in a neat little bow and put it on a silver platter and handed it off to the geniuses in Congress? CNN says that's what they may be doing. Obama hadn't originally slated an extra week of vacation time, so something could be cooking. Oh, let it be true. (Chuck Todd says CNN's wrong)
CNN has learned that the White House is quietly talking about drafting formal health care legislation after allowing Congress to work on its own for months.
Multiple sources close to the process told CNN Friday that while the plan is uncertain, they are preparing for the possibility they could deliver their own legislation to Capitol Hill sometime after the President Barack Obama's speech to a joint session of Congress Wednesday, with one source calling the possibility of new legislation a "contingency" approach if efforts by Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus to craft a deal fall through.
The White House emphasized Friday that no formal bill has yet been written. "The President has been reviewing all of the various legislative proposals, but no decision has been made about whether formal legislation will be presented," said Deputy Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer. CNN
Yet another respectful town hall, where even the skeptics were polite. There was one man, Randy, who said he watches cable news because network TV gives him too much spin. It wasn't hard to figure out where he was coming from. Obama says he doesn't want health reform to look like the Canadian system or the British system. He wants it to be a uniquely American system. Two-thirds of healthcare reform can be paid for by cutting costs out of the system, he said. They still need to come up with a way to pay for the other third but Obama reiterates, he's not going to do it by raising taxes on people who make $250K or less. Tomorrow, Obama will hold another town hall in Colorado. Full video:
Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins are two republicans I respect because when they criticize they do so without the name calling. They're also the only two that have shown willingness to work with the democrats on a consistent basis. Obama met with six folks on the senate finance committee. Here's what Snowe said:
We’re not talking about government-run health care – we’re talking about ensuring Americans have access to meaningful, high-quality, affordable health coverage – and we are moving heaven and earth to reach that objective. As I mentioned to the President today, unless every American receives better value for their health dollars, we cannot sustain our current health care system. And that’s why we will keep working within this bipartisan, collaborative process Chairman Baucus and Ranking Member Grassley have set the tone for -- and that we will continue over the coming weeks.” Read the whole thing at Politico
