Crunch Time For Health Care Fight
W. Post: "For the next five weeks, Congress will attempt the daunting feat of turning a mishmash of half-written proposals into health-care reform legislation that can pass the House and the Senate before the August recess."
Sen. Chuck Schumer says public plan option will be in final Senate bill, lays out principles on CBS' Face The Nation:
First it has to be available on the first day to everybody ... so there shouldn’t be a trigger [saying] two years later, maybe we’ll have one. Second, it has to be national. ... Third, it has to be transparent ...when it makes a deal with the drug companies or big hospital association, we’ll know what it says and it will keep the insurance companies honest ... And it has to have the clout to go against the big boys.
Krugman praises Senate HELP cmte bill with public plan option: "The 'centrist' senators, most of them Democrats, who have been holding up reform can no longer claim either that universal coverage is unaffordable or that it won’t work."
Dionne also warns so-called centrists: "...centrist Democrats in Congress could usefully recall that the party's inability to deliver on Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign pledges, particularly on health care, led to a stunning defeat two years later that decimated its moderates and liberals alike."
NYT reviews the fierce grassroots action to persuade the two remaining GOP moderates in Maine: "...the challenges of insuring the entire [Maine] population are complex. The state has large rural, poor and elderly populations with significant health needs. It has many small businesses and seasonal workers, and few employers large enough to voluntarily offer employees insurance. Meanwhile, most insurers no longer find it profitable to sell individual coverage here, leaving a few companies to dominate the market. 'So many people are being priced out of the private market,' said Lisa McSwain, who runs a steeple restoration company in Edgecomb. 'In my community, where so many people are self-employed, everyone wants a public option.' Stavros Mendros, a consultant from Lewiston, is equally wary of insurance companies but his solution is to avoid them completely and risk going without coverage. Mr. Mendros said that when his 4-year-old daughter got sick recently, he took her to the hospital and paid the $1,200 bill, which he said was cheaper than a single month of an insurance premium for his family would be."
USA Today editorial board strongly backs public plan: "If private insurers can't compete with government, who needs them? ... a [self-financed public] plan would upset the cozy relationship insurers and providers have devised for harvesting money from the companies that pay for health care. Private insurers operate in an industry like none other. Each year their costs rise 10% or so, and yet they still can hike profits simply by passing these costs along. A public plan would pressure them to cut their own costs and those of their providers."
W. Post reviews the ways Senate Finance Cmte may weaken the bill to reduce costs without help of a public plan: "The Senate Finance Committee is considering an income threshold of 300 percent of the poverty level, or $54,930 in gross annual income for a family of three, to keep the legislation's 10-year cost at $1 trillion. For example, a single person earning $35,000 per year who does not have coverage today would be required to buy it under the legislation but would probably not receive help in offsetting a policy's cost, which averaged $4,704 in 2008. The committee also is considering provisions that could lead to higher insurance rates for adults in the 55-to-64 age category and higher out-of-pocket costs for certain people who buy their own insurance ... In an analysis of the Finance Committee draft, the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found that families with modest incomes that buy the lowest-cost coverage could face steep out-of-pocket costs if they experience a serious medical problem. And families who are just outside the 300 percent subsidy threshold could face daunting bills, with no relief."
Politico Pulse teases another deal with private health industry: "Senate Finance Committee negotiators hope to seal PhRMA-style cost-saving deals with hospitals and docs this week."
Politico looks at political fallout from PhRMA deal: "Having struck a bargain with Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.), the industry is aggressively targeting individual House Democrats, warning of repercussions in the 2010 elections if they go along with a tougher set of savings advocated by House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) ... PhRMA, the powerful Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Association lobby, is openly playing one chairman against the other."
OurFuture.org's Monica Sanchez flagged PhRMA's motives last week: "t. PhRMA is not acting out of a charitable impulse. It is trying to forestall strong health reform legislation that would cost the industry more than it is promising. PhRMA took action in 2003 when adding a drug benefit to Medicare seemed inevitable and managed to keep a public health insurance plan—Medicare—from cutting drug costs. Now the threat of a new public health insurance option for people under 65 has spurred the powerful lobby into action once more, with promises of cooperation and voluntary discounts."
W. Post spotlights the heavy corporate lobbying: "The nation's largest insurers, hospitals and medical groups have hired more than 350 former government staff members and retired members of Congress in hopes of influencing their old bosses and colleagues ... The aim of the lobbying blitz is simple: to minimize the damage to insurers, hospitals and other major sectors while maximizing the potential of up to 46 million uninsured Americans as new customers. Although many firms have vowed to help cut costs, major players such as PhRMA, America's Health Insurance Plans and others remain opposed to the public-insurance option..."
Boston Globe reviews the debate over taxing employer health benefits: "Opponents of the tax exclusion want to get rid of it because they say it is grossly unfair - it gives the biggest tax break to those with the highest salaries and the best benefits, while the millions of Americans who don’t get insurance through their employer get little or no help at all. 'It provides enormous tax breaks to those who need them least, and little or nothing for millions of working families who really need help,’' said Robert E. Moffit, director of the conservative Heritage Foundation’s Center for Health Policy ... But Diana Lacey, the chair of collective bargaining for the New Hampshire state employees’ union, says it’s wrong to call their plan 'Cadillac’' coverage, or to encourage employers to offer workers skimpy coverage. A health overhaul, she said, should 'bring people up to the standard we have - healthcare that is responsible and affordable and you don’t have to go bankrupt to get the treatment you need.'"
Assessing The Stimulus
VP Biden on possibility of second stimulus, during ABC's This Week: "I think it’s premature to make that judgment. This was set up to spend out over 18 months. There are going to be major programs that are going to take effect in September, $7.5 billion for broadband, new money for high-speed rail, the implementation of the grid -- the new electric grid. And so this is just starting. The pace of the ball is now going to increase."
HuffPost reminds VP Biden of all the economists who warned the stimulus, weakened by Senate "moderates," was not going to be big enough.
HuffPost's Robert Kuttner proposes solution to state fiscal crisis undermining federal stimulus: "Congress should pass an emergency revenue-sharing law, giving the states another $150 billion immediately. "
Brad DeLong calls for additional stimulus: "If the Obama fiscal boost program has its anticipated impact on the economy as its main effects take hold over the next year, it is still half the size of the program it now looks like we need ... if the situation deteriorates further we will need an even bigger stimulus, while if the situation improves having too-big a stimulus is not a problem because we can soak up the demand through monetary policy."
House Maj. Leader Steny Hoyer wants stimulus spent faster but Dean Baker says that's impossible: "more than 60 percent of the stimulus takes the form of lower tax rates and higher benefit levels for programs like unemployment insurance ... More than a quarter of the remaining stimulus is devoted to state and local government stabilization funds. This spending will limit the cutbacks at the state and local level, but will not lead to additional growth. The remaining funds are projected to be spent out at an $80 billion annual rate over the course of 2010. Even if we assume that we are starting from zero spending at the moment, this is boost of just over 0.5 percent of GDP. "
No More Too Big To Fail?
AP looks at implications of President's reg reform plan to giant financial institutions: "Under the administration's proposal, companies such as Citi, Goldman Sachs and others in a broad top tier engaged in complex transactions would face stricter scrutiny and have to hold more assets and more cash as cushions against a downturn. They also would have to anticipate their own demise, drafting detailed descriptions of how they could be dismantled quickly without causing damaging repercussions. Think of it as planning their own funerals - and burials. Obama's plan, in short, aims to make it far less appealing to be so big. That was the middle ground the administration sought, a step short of an outright ban on systemically risky companies."
Consumer Financial Protection Agency fight heats up this month. The Hill: "Financial services lawmakers and lobbyists will ramp up their efforts this week to shape legislation creating a consumer financial protection agency. House Financial Services Committee chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) is aiming to draft and pass legislation through his committee by the August recess..."
WH trying not to run firms it partly owns. Bloomberg: "The Obama administration is set to release a policy on how it will vote the government’s shares in the coming weeks. On many resolutions offered by investors -- from demanding pro-environment policies to allowing domestic partner benefits to reining in executive bonuses -- the Treasury plans to ask that its ballots be counted in the same proportion as the votes of other stockholders so it won’t impact the results. The rules are similar to an accord the government reached last month with Citigroup Inc. and guidance issued May 31 on ownership in the auto industry, said Treasury spokesman Andrew Williams ... While the strategy may ease Wall Street concern of greater federal intrusion into commercial decision-making, it could spark tensions with labor and consumer-rights advocates..."
Climate Fight Begins Anew In Senate
LA Times previews Senate global warming debate: "The Senate bill will emerge from several committees -- including the finance, foreign relations, commerce and agriculture committees -- with dramatically different memberships and priorities. The energy committee already has approved its chunk with wide bipartisan support. It includes a requirement to produce more electricity from renewable sources, but also expands drilling -- a possible deal-breaker for environmentalists. Boxer's committee will center its work on cap and trade. The House bill would cut U.S. emissions by 17% below 2005 levels by 2020 and 83% by 2050. Environmentalists expect Boxer, who said she was 'looking closely' at those limits, to strengthen them."
Climate Progress praises first-term congressperson for climate vote: "A true American hero, Tom Perriello (D-VA), on Waxman-Markey: 'The Republicans may win some seats because of this vote, but they can’t regain their souls for demagoguing the issue.'"
BBC reports G8 on verge of agreement on long-term greenhouse gas emission goals: "The G8 leaders are set this week to deliver their strongest statement so far on global warming. They are likely to agree that the world ought to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by 2050 - with rich nations reducing them by 80% ... But it looks as though the G8 will fall short of agreeing the short-term targets scientists say are essential to ensure that the 2C threshold is not breached ... American officials have privately told BBC News they cannot cut emissions as fast as the science requires, because the issue is still too politically contentious in the US Congress."
Terrance Heath contributed to the making of this Breakfast
