"Deal" Is Announced, And Congress is "Gone 'Til September"
Call it a call it a breakthrough, or call it a betrayal (and it will be called many things during the next month or so), but a deal has been made on Capitol Hill, concerning health care reform. Whether it's a "done deal" or not depends on what happens between now and September. NY Times: Efforts to pass sweeping health care legislation took a big step forward on Wednesday as House Democratic leaders reached an agreement with fiscally conservative party members that would cut the bill’s cost and exempt many small businesses from having to provide health benefits to workers. Under the House agreement, the federal government would still establish a public insurance plan to compete with private insurers, but the public plan would not use Medicare fee schedules to pay doctors and hospitals, as envisioned in the original House bill. Instead, the public plan would negotiate rates with health care providers, as private insurers often do. Representative Mike Ross of Arkansas, the chief negotiator for the fiscally conservative Democrats known as Blue Dogs, said the changes were “a huge win for us.” Meanwhile the Senate is pushing the health care exchange model.
