Executive Order Kicks Off Broader Minimum Wage Push
"Obama launches fresh effort on minimum wage as part of populist election message" reports W. Post: "...Obama signed an executive order hiking the minimum wage for federal contractors to $10.10 from $7.25 starting next year ... Obama also called on Congress to do the same for all other workers by 2016. Senate Democrats plan to pursue legislation next month doing just that, but House Republicans have no plans to pass it ..."
House Dems will press for votes on immigration and inequality. WSJ: "...top Democrats said they will continue to push House Republicans to allow votes on a range of issues: raising the minimum wage, overhauling immigration laws, and restoring long-term unemployment benefits ... Democrats have seized on comments from some Republicans in the wake of Tuesday’s vote that suggest Republican leaders do not plan on bringing up any other major measures this year."
GOP Strains To Approve Debt Limit Hike
Debt limit vote awkward for Sen. Mitch McConnell. AP: "Matt Bevin, who is challenging McConnell in the GOP primary in Kentucky, seized on the senator's vote Wednesday to move ahead on legislation to increase the nation's debt limit, describing it as a blank check for President Barack Obama ... Instead of going along with a simple majority vote, [Sen. Ted] Cruz showed no mercy in forcing Republican leaders to cast a tough vote to clear a filibuster hurdle, exposing them to widespread criticism from primary challengers and outside groups ... After what seemed like an eternity, a grim-faced McConnell finally voted yes."
Senate also approves House bill to restore military pensions. The Hill: "Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) decided to hold an up-or-down vote on the House bill Wednesday, rather than push for legislation from Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) and other vulnerable Democrats that did not contain an offset. Republicans had said they were opposed to the Pryor bill because it would have added $6 billion to the deficit. Reid had said Tuesday that he was opposed to the House measure with the Medicare sequester extension, but the majority leader reversed course on Wednesday and said he’d hold a vote on the House bill."
Krugman celebrates victory over deficit hysterics: "Has anyone noticed what we’re not talking about? I mean, really not at all? The budget deficit. After all those years when deficit scolds completely dominated the conversation, when Fix the Committee for a Responsible Debt Coalition were, if you listened to the press, the source of all that was good and noble and BowlesSimpsonish, quite suddenly the whole thing has dropped off the agenda ... it’s a good thing — although the price for years of warped discourse and completely wrong priorities has been immense."
Obamacare Enrollment On Track
"Obamacare Enrollment Is Back on Track" reports National Journal: "About 3.3 million people had signed up for private insurance plans through the end of January ... the growth put the administration within reach of a strong total when open enrollment ends in March ... the White House said it wanted young adults to make up about 38 percent of all enrollees. Sitting at 25 percent now is a sign that the benchmark—or something close to it—is achievable by the end of March. The mix is good enough now to avoid a 'death spiral,' ..."
Many unknowns, but encouraging signs, says TNR's Jonathan Cohn: "We don’t know how many of these people have paid premiums. We don’t know how the demographics compare to what insurers had expected. And we don’t know how many of these people had insurance previously ... [But according to Gallup] which includes 19,000 survey responses between January 2 and February 2, the proportion of Americans without health insurance has fallen to 16 percent—lower than it was in the first quarter of 2013 and lower than its been anytime since Obama first took office."
Though enrollment not the end of the story. NYT: "...industry experts and insurance officials say that the reality is murkier than either party wants to admit, and that the numbers at the heart of the national political debate are largely meaningless outside Washington’s overheated environment. The determination about whether the law works from an economic standpoint will not be clear for years, when individual insurance companies are finally able to tell whether their expectations about the health of their customers — and the premiums they set for coverage — were accurate ... WellPoint, which has said it has signed up about 500,000 people, recently told investors that it was comfortable with its pricing. Independence Blue Cross has enrolled 67,478 people, including 40,000 who signed up through the exchanges. Mr. Lobley said that he was pleased with those numbers, but that the pricing for premiums in 2016 would be critical."
Vulnerable Dems see opportunity in supporting Obamacare Medicaid expansion. Roll Call: "In 20 states, Republican governors have so far rejected a key piece of the health care law — federal aid to expand Medicaid for some of their states’ poorest citizens. Three of those 20 states — Alaska, Louisiana and North Carolina — are home to some of this cycle’s most competitive Senate races, where three incumbents up in 2014 voted for the law ... That has given vulnerable Democratic senators in Alaska, Louisiana and North Carolina an opening to run against their home-state GOP governors in 2014 ... Estimates suggest that 40,000 Alaskans, 240,000 Louisianans and 500,000 North Carolinians are not getting Medicaid coverage offered under the plan that GOP governors in those states rejected."
