House Begins To Shape Public Plan Option
Bloomberg reports on a draft House health care plan:
U.S. House Democrats are weighing ... a mandate that employers provide coverage to all full- time workers or pay a percentage of their payroll to the Treasury. Also being considered is a new government-run program to provide health coverage to some of the estimated 46 million uninsured Americans. The so-called 'public option,' competing with private insurers, would likely be run by the Department of Health and Human Services, according to a document written after a meeting earlier this week of House Democrats who will draft legislation to overhaul the health-care system...
In the House, Democrats are considering a “national health exchange” to let individuals and employees of small businesses choose among health insurance plans to purchase. That concept is also favored by Baucus, who said yesterday that senators in both parties embraced the concept ... The exchange would be overseen by a committee that would recommend benefit packages “based generally” on the plan offered to federal employees, according to the House document. Several benefit levels would be offered and would vary by price...
... The public option would be available to some consumers lacking insurance and would operate separately from the health exchange. It would be subject to the same insurance market revisions and consumer protections as plans offered by private insurers, according to the document, and pricing would vary by geographic area. That option would function without government subsidies under the plan outlined by House Democrats. Government subsidies for coverage would be available to some consumers. Individuals with incomes of as much as $88,200 for a family of four would get aid, on a sliding scale, and their annual out-of-pocket health expenses would be capped.
Change.org's Tim Foley surprised by lack of surprise: "This is what we’ve been talking about since the presidential primary season. There’s no news here. The only detail that’s not immediately familiar is ... only small business with 10 employees or fewer would be able to purchase coverage through the Exchange when it starts up, and other businesses will get that option eventually. Other than that tiny detail, I could have written this article without benefit of a leaked document. You probably could have, too. So come to think of it, having watched Congress for years, the big surprise is that there is so little difference of opinion. The stars (pun intended) are aligned."
Senate meeting ends without resolution, as Grassley hints at weakening public plan. The Hill: "Grassley indicated that the door to a public plan remains cracked open from his perspective. 'In its purest form that Democrats might offer it … then it’s a problem,' he said. 'But I don’t want to say it’s a problem when you’ve got three or four different ways to compromise it. We might be able to find a consensus.'"
Private health lobby not making friends with the White House today. NYT: "Hospitals and insurance companies said Thursday that President Obama had substantially overstated their promise earlier this week to reduce the growth of health spending ... They say they agreed to slow health spending in a more gradual way and did not pledge specific year-by-year cuts."
While grassroots groups hit stride. CBS: "Grassroots advocacy groups in recent days have launched public campaigns advocating for a health care reform bill that would give consumers the choice of signing up for a government-run plan, otherwise known as a 'public option.' Groups like MoveOn.org and Health Care for America Now are mobilizing their members and running television ads in states represented by congressmen playing a critical role in the health care reform debate. Based on the progress of the debate, the public option proponents say Congress is listening. More and more senators have said they are open to the idea of a public option, and a new plan for health care reform that surfaced this week shows the House of Representatives is considering a public option as well."
OMB director Orzsag makes the fiscal case for health care reform in WSJ oped.
Economist's View's Mark Thoma adds: "the political cost of reforming Social Security is very high and the returns are low (because the problem is not very big), so the highest return per dollar of political capital spent is in health care reform, not reforming Social Security, and until that changes health care reform is where our efforts ought to be."
Newsweek's Jonathan Alter urges no compromise on public option.
NYT's David Brooks demands health cost cuts, but apparently can't specify them.
HCAN's Jason Rosenbaum enjoys CNN and Fox (!) piling on Rick Scott
Coal Country Dem Backs House Climate Bill
Politico reports Rep. Rick Boucher is on board: "'I intend to vote yes, and I intend to encourage all other members of the committee to do the same.' ... Waxman and Markey are still in deep negotiations with a few remaining Democrats who are hung up on parochial concerns."
CQ concludes: "This likely means that coal plants would not have to shut down or switch to natural gas generation in order to meet the emissions limit. Instead, they could either increase efficiency or fund special projects, known as offsets, such as planting trees on farmland."
Coal Tattoo checks in with the miners' union: "So is the [United Mine Workers] likely to think the 17-percent level is acceptable? I doubt it. But they weren’t saying so yet. Union spokesman Phil Smith said the UMWA wasn’t going to comment yet. Part of the issue might be that things are still developing, and it’s not clear — to me, at least — what sorts of other efforts to help coal (money for CCS, free allowances that help companies deal with the near-term emissions cuts, etc.) are going to end up in the bill."
The Green Grok's Dr. Bill Chameides of Duke U. crunches the numbers: "So how does the bill stack up? Are the emissions cuts adequate? The answer is yes and no – it depends critically on what the rest of the world does. [If all] G8 and non-G8 countries adopt the same emission targets but the latter wait 10 years to get started [we will keep] carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations below 450 parts per million and the increase in global temperatures below two degrees Celsius throughout the century ... These two benchmarks -- 450 ppm and 2 degree -- have been identified as the generally accepted threshold for avoiding dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate."
NOTE: The above refutes latest conservative talking point based on hack study, that House bill would not lower global temperature.
NYT's Paul Krugman says China needs to step up.
"Chamber of Commerce Details Opposition to Waxman-Markey Bill: WSJ. (Or should we say, the divided Chamber of Commerce.)
Grist's David Roberts debates coal industry flack, flack fails to respond to anything.
Blog for Clean Air: Joe Barton unveils cynical Republican alternative to Waxman climate bill. The Questionable Authority: "Representative Joe Barton Brings The Stupid On Climate Change."
Credit Card Bill Delayed
"Senate Democratic leadership decided Thursday to push all votes on credit card legislation into next week. ... Dodd said there will be a manager’s amendment that will attempt to address a number of the nearly 40 amendments filed by colleagues ... Not a single senator took to the floor this week in opposition of the bill. Yet Dodd and Reid have pleaded with senators — mainly Democrats — to file their amendments and come to meet with the bill’s managers in an effort to lock up deals or modifications in language that would make the amendment politically acceptable.": CQ
Wonk Room adds: [Sen. Dick] Durbin [(D-IL) and] Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO) ... propose an amendment to the Credit Cardholder’s Bill of Rights that 'would allow discounts for debit cards and ban retaliation against retailers who charge less for transactions that don’t involve credit cards,' which is somehow not prevented right now. And guess who is standing in the way, according to the Wall Street Journal: 'Heavy pressure from banks could force lawmakers to shelve the measure Thursday to avoid sinking the broader bill.'"
Time's Barbara Kiviat rejects card industry claims: "the bill before Congress isn't about changing the game on card companies. It's about creating a fairer set of rules to play by."
"U.S. regulators are arguing over how much influence the government should wield over bank management, pitting taxpayer protection against concern at roiling fragile financial markets. The clash intensified as supervisors completed last week’s stress test results on the biggest U.S. banks. Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. officials sought to make top executives and boards of directors of 10 banks accountable for raising more capital by November. The Federal Reserve insisted that managers’ fates be left to boards and shareholders.": Bloomberg
GM Deal Close and Chrysler Shuts Down Dealers
WSJ on possible GM deal: "General Motors Corp., under the direction of the U.S. Treasury, is near a deal that would cut its hourly labor costs by more than $1 billion a year and reduce its $20 billion pledge to the United Auto Workers to cover health-care obligations, said people familiar with the matter .. Cutting GM's health-care costs is an essential part of the 'controlled bankruptcy' plan the Treasury Department is formulating for GM."
"Chrysler ... announced Thursday it's dropping 789 dealers by June 9. Dealers in every state except Alaska are on the list.": USA Today
Economic Populist's Robert Oak: "It's one thing to close them, plus lose all of those jobs, but to stick it to the business owner on parts and inventory too?"
"The next auto businesses on the chopping block will be 2,600 General Motors dealerships. GM Chief Executive Fritz Henderson said Monday that the company would by the end of the week start notifying dealerships it wants to eliminate over the course of the next year. The company said last month that it planned to eventually eliminate 42% of its 6,250 dealer locations, which employ more than 300,000 workers among them."
Bailout Expands To Insurers
FT on insurer bailout: "Hartford Financial , the No. 4 US insurer and beset by worries about capital, got preliminary approval to raise $3.4bn via the Troubled Assets Relief Program ... The three other insurers that also secured a greenlight are Prudential Financial , Lincoln National , and the Principal Financial Group , a Treasury spokesman said. The Wall Street Journal reported that Allstate and Ameriprise Financial had been cleared too."
McClatchy finds loans still hard to come by: "While the auto industry has been disproportionately battered by the recession, businesses of all kinds continue to struggle to get bank loans despite the hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars the government has poured into banks to spur more commercial lending "
New Deal 2.0's Robert Johnson says fund managers are admitting "public is getting hosed" in toxic assets program.
Terrance Heath contributed to the making of this Breakfast
