The daily Progressive Breakfast serves up what progressive movement members need to know to start their day
Medicare Buy-In Expected To Be Dropped From Deal
Medicare buy-in about to be jettisoned from Senate deal. USA Today: "Senate Democrats said Monday they are prepared to drop a proposal to let people under 65 buy into the Medicare program if that's what it takes to pass President Obama's health care initiative."
CBO estimates still expected. LAT: "Senators and senior Democratic aides stressed Monday that the issue would not be settled in the Senate until lawmakers get a report from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office about the cost of proposed changes to the healthcare bill, expected Wednesday."
Politico previews President's meeting with Senate Dems today: "In a provocative argument designed to rescue his foundering health-care plan, President Barack Obama will warn Senate Democrats in a White House meeting Tuesday that this is the 'last chance' to pass comprehensive reform. Obama will contend that if it fails now, no other president will attempt it, aides said. White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer told POLITICO: 'If President Obama doesn't pass health reform, it’s hard to imagine another president ever taking on this Herculean task. For those whose life's work is reforming health care, this may be the last train leaving the station.' Previewing the message, Vice President Joe Biden said on MSNBC's 'Morning Joe': 'If health care does not pass in this Congress ... it's going to be kicked back for a generation.'"
Several liberal senators argue remaining bill still worthy of passage. TPMDC quotes Sen. Harkin: "There's enough good in this bill that even without those two, we gotta move ... All the insurance reforms, all the stuff we wrote so hard for prevention and wellness in there, the workforce development issues that we have in there, the reimbursement based on quality not on quantity -- there's good stuff in this bill. It's a giant step forward, changing the paradigm of health care in America."
Sen. Rockefeller argues to pass this bill now, fight for more later. TNR: "'There are 500 things, and you take this one out, and you ask…could it have been better? Yeah. But it could have been so much worse if we decided not to do anything about it,' Rockefeller said tonight. 'We’re not going to get all that we want, but we’re going to get so much more than we have.' ... He added that liberal advocates could try again another year to push for the reforms that didn’t make it into the current bill. 'You know we’re going to be back next year, and the year after that, and the year after that.'"
Sen. Sanders "stopped short" of pledging to vote against bill. CQ quotes: "I believe it is absolutely imperative that we have a strong public option in there ... But you’re asking me to tell you how I would vote on the bill if that doesn’t exist. I can’t do that.”
Ezra Klein notes some in Washington are worried Lieberman can't be trusted at all. "Lieberman swung the axe and cut his deal cleanly, killing not only the public option, but anything that looked even remotely like it. Some on the Hill remain worried that Lieberman will discover new points of contention in the coming days, as they believe he had signaled that he wouldn't filibuster the Medicare buy-in. They worry whether his word is good. But assuming it is, he can provide the 60th vote Reid needs to move the bill by the end of next week, and keep health-care reform on some sort of schedule."
House Progressive Caucus sends list of demands to WH. CQ: "In the letter, Grijalva and co-chairwoman Lynn Woolsey, D-Calif., said they are 'very concerned that the overall strength of the House bill will be damaged by proposed changes in the Senate.' They cited a list of items that 'must' be included in a final package, including a government-run plan to compete with private insurance plans, affordability credits and an insurance market overhaul. But having demonstrated once that they were willing to swallow their misgivings by lining up behind the House passage, the question remains what Senate compromises would constitute deal breakers for House liberals."
CQ on what Reid might keep to assuage progressives: "Reid might appease some liberals by strengthening a requirement that private insurers spend a high percentage of their revenue on medical claims, a metric known as the medical loss ratio. The bill as written sets the ratio for insurers selling policies to individuals and small businesses at 80 percent. Rockefeller has proposed a higher requirement, and he indicated Monday that it would be increased to as high as 90 percent. Reid might also adopt a proposal Snowe has suggested: including a public option as a fallback policy to be triggered if private insurers do not offer sufficiently affordable coverage in all regions of the country. But Lieberman might oppose such a plan, and some liberals could balk."
Wonk Room's Igor Volsky suggests other provisions to demand: "hese proposals should seek to accomplish the goals of a public plan (competition, cost savings, transparency and accountability) through regulatory means and ensure that health reform does not reward private insurers with millions of new customers ... strengthen the Medicare Commission (now known as IMAC) to focus on a more systematic approach and target more providers, allow all state-based exchanges to act as prudent purchasers and select only the most efficient insurers, work to strengthen the consumer protections in the bill or bolster the mechanisms that oversee insurer compliance with the new regulations. Lawmakers should also consider including more dynamic regulatory authority that would allow the Secretary of Health and Human Services to prevent insurers from designing new ways of excluding sicker beneficiaries and give the agency the authority new insurer abuses."
McClatchy lists provisions where agreement remains: "...there's little discord over plans to require insurers to offer a minimum amount of coverage to nearly everyone, and the Democratic-authored House of Representatives and Senate bills bar insurers from denying coverage or raising rates because of pre-existing conditions. Under both bills, lower-income people could get government help to buy insurance, and Medicare costs would be trimmed significantly."
Some liberal activists deeply critical. The Nation's John Nichols: "Without a public option or Medicare expansion, the legislation expands access to health care to millions of Americans. That's a good thing -- perhaps even good enough to merit the support of reformers who are determined to get more care to more Americans. But it does so by setting up a scheme that uses scant federal resources to dramatically enrich insurance and pharmaceutical companies. And it fails to establish the government-backed competition that might have kept insurance companies in line. Thus, only half the goal of serious reform is met. More Americans will have health-care. But that progress will be purchased at enormous, and potentially unsustainable, cost to the taxpayers.
Darcy Burner says "kill it: on HuffPost: "The House bill has two major cost-control mechanisms: the public option and the 85% medical-loss ratio requirement. The Senate bill is on track to have neither, and nothing new to replace them. The Senate bill is a recipe for national disaster. If it's that bill or nothing, I prefer nothing."
On MSNBC's Countdown, Ezra Klein argues the bill would save 150,000 lives in 10 years, and so is still worth passing.
Wonk Room's Igor Volsky and FDL's Jon Walker knock CBO for undermining proposal forcing insurers to use 90% of premiums for actual health care. Volsky: "The CBO’s 'harsh assessment' concluded that the 90% MLR requirement — which insurers would only have to maintain until 2014 — 'would devastate the industry' ... 'In CBO’s view, this further expansion of the federal government’s role in the health insurance market would make such insurance an essentially governmental program, so that all payments related to health insurance policies should be recorded as cash flows in the federal budget.'" Walker: "Regardless how logically nonsensical Elmendorf’s conclusions are, they have been made. If Reid goes forward with a minimum MLR of 90 percent, the CBO will claim all business done on the private insurance market is now magically part of the federal budget. The result would be a massive increase in the appearance of the CBO price tag. Even if this change would save the government money, the new, absurdly inflated CBO net price tag will doom the change for PR reasons."
In These Times' Art Levine reports MoveOn will rally at the WH today at 1 PM.
Drug lobby steps up fight against imports. W. Post: "...the pharmaceutical industry -- which has been a key supporter of health-care reform after reaching an agreement with the White House earlier this year -- has responded with a fierce lobbying campaign aimed at killing the proposal, focusing on Democratic senators from states with large drug and research sectors ... The White House is attempting to strike a balance, expressing approval of the idea to allow drug imports while bowing to the FDA's safety concerns."
Debt Limit Deal Could Delay Deficit Commission Fight
CQ reports on state of talks between WH and right-leaning Dems: "House and Senate Democrats are coalescing around the idea of increasing the debt limit by enough to last only a few months so that congressional leaders and the White House can continue negotiating with moderates over their concerns about the mounting red ink ... Conrad wants a commission whose recommendations would have to be voted on by Congress. The Obama administration has floated the idea of creating a panel by executive order, but the group of moderates has yet to embrace that idea."
Center for American Progress proposal warns against zero deficits before 2020. US News: "CAP instead recommends continued deficit spending until the economy recovers and unemployment gets below 6.5 percent. At that time, boosting taxes and cutting spending should come into play, the group says. Likely to be controversial if the plan is adopted is CAP's balanced-budget enforcement mechanism, which requires automatic tax increases and spending cuts."
W. Post reports lack of Congressional consensus on jobs strategy: "...eager to show movement on addressing the bleak employment picture, House Democrats will move a separate legislative package later this week that will include tens of billions of dollars in infrastructure spending and other items designed to create more jobs. But the bill is not expected to even be considered in the Senate. Senate Democrats have indicated they will take up jobs legislation in January after they finish considering health-care reform."
NYT poll on toll of extended recession, unemployment: "More than half of the nation’s unemployed workers have borrowed money from friends or relatives since losing their jobs. An equal number have cut back on doctor visits or medical treatments because they are out of work. Almost half have suffered from depression or anxiety. About 4 in 10 parents have noticed behavioral changes in their children that they attribute to their difficulties in finding work."
Obama Presses Banks To Step Up Lending
Small pledges from banks. LAT: "Bank of America pledged to make $5 billion more in loans available to small and medium-sized businesses next year. JPMorgan Chase & Co. reiterated an announcement it made last month to increase lending next year by as much as $4 billion. And other bankers also promised to lend more -- within limits."
W. Post reports WH refrained from pushing hard: "Some administration officials privately conceded that borrowing always declines during recessions, and that they are struggling to find effective ways of spurring new lending. Furthermore, the administration's options continued to be constrained by the belief of many officials that meddling in the details of banking is counterproductive. The administration also is surrendering a measure of leverage over the industry as banks repay federal aid provided under the Troubled Assets Relief Program -- although officials are eager to shed the political baggage of aiding big Wall Street firms."
Wells Fargo looks to pay back TARP. Bloomberg: "The San Francisco-based bank plans to return all of the $25 billion that taxpayers invested last year, according to a company statement issued yesterday. The exit from TARP would put Wells Fargo on the same footing as Bank of America Corp., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Citigroup Inc., its largest competitors, which have already paid back the U.S. or announced plans to do so."
Cramdown fight uphill after loss in House. The Hill: "'You pick your battles, and this doesn’t feel like a battle that can be won. The consequences of not winning are pretty dire,' said Rep. Brad Miller (D-N.C.), one of the chief architects of the policy in the House. 'If politics is the art of the possible, I’m just not sure this is possible, given the influence of the industry.' There were roughly 40 House Democrats who dropped their support between the March vote and the vote last Friday. They included committee chairmen, fiscally conservative Blue Dogs and freshman and sophomore members in competitive races."
Friction In Copenhagen
Mother Jones' Kate Sheppard says treatment of Kyoto treaty causing friction between US and developing world: "The resistance from the US and other industrialized countries to this suggestion has developing nations increasingly suspicious of rich-world motives ... For poorer countries, the Kyoto Protocol is the only enforceable commitment they've got."
US and China butt heads on monitoring. NYT: "China, which last month for the first time publicly announced a target for reducing the rate of growth of its greenhouse gas emissions, is refusing to accept any kind of international monitoring of its emissions levels, according to negotiators and observers here. The United States is insisting that without stringent verification of China’s actions, it cannot support any deal."
New USA Today/Gallup poll finds support for Obama to secure international deal: "By 55%-38%, those surveyed endorse a binding accord to limit the gases tied to global warming."
NRDC's Jake Schmidt on what to watch for in Copenhagen this week. Grist: "Do developed countries come forward with clear commitments on finance? ... Will countries 'stand behind their commitments?' ... How we finalize the treaty next year ... expect a lot more back-and-forth this week before agreement is reached in the 'dark hours of Copenhagen.'"
Obama at Home Depot today to push Cash for Caulkers. Grist's Lane Burt: "There is no question that we should pursue home retrofits in a big way, but how we do it and how soon we can get started remain to be answered. The President will explain his thinking [today] ... [Many stakeholders have coalesced around] an extension of the work done on the Retrofit for Energy and Environmental Performance program (REEP) that was in the House passed climate bill earlier in the year. The basic idea is to take this great structure and get it started early."
EARLIER Manufacture This finds many energy-efficient products at Home Depot not made in US. "Will this program provide new business for domestic industries that manufacture steel, rubber, glass, and other inputs? Will idled factories across America be calling their workers back?"
700K green jobs will be created by the stimulus. Bloomberg: "President Barack Obama’s clean-energy initiatives will help create more than 700,000 jobs and allow the U.S. to double its renewable-power generation in three years, according to a report by Vice President Joe Biden."
