fyi – approx 10 mins ago
‘ “senior democratic aides” report vote is delayed as CBO didn’t finish their homework on Baucus bill over the week end – vote not expected until end of week at earliest’

Wow. This would be excellent, wouldn’t it? Then you have no Finance bill and only HELP and others which all have a public option. Correct?

… “somehow” the CBO did not fully score Wyden’s amendment.

Murder by spreadsheet.

I sincerely hope both Wyden and Rockefeller vote against the bill. That would be one way to send a strong message to Baucus, Emanuel, and Obama that liberal progressives will not put up with the games being played for the sole purpose of giving the medical industrial complex greater profits and bonuses. ENOUGH! (to borrow Obama’s campaign word). Baucus is the insurance industry’s biggest recipient of corporate donations in return for the blessing of corporate welfare for the suffering, hungry millionaires who may have their bonuses cut unless Baucus guards their back.

Wyden and Rockefeller, we have your backs. Push back on those B*#!@*ds and let them know there’s a gang of millions against that gang of six!!!!!!!!!!

am I wrong to recall Labor was unhappy with Wyden’s amendment – essentially a tax on working people’s benefits ?? or was that yet another amendment ?

good for Mr.Wyden, max bill should not go to the floor.

Labor disliked his 2006 bill much more strongly than they did this stand alone amendment. They for the most part did not support his amendment. Regardless even if it lost it still deserves a really debate.

Murder by last minute message. Did anyone really see that message?

Baucus is an underhanded, lowlife scumbag.

I went ahead and sugar-coated my sentiment.

Given Wyden’s commitment to bipartisan health care reform and his policy expertise, it was incredibly strange that Baucus shut him out of his “gang of six” negotiations.

Its only strange if you believe that Baucus wants to reform health care.

I’m not sure I can fully agree with Wyden’s “free choice” proposals until and unless there is a public health insurance option.

But this episode reveals 2 things:

1) How much the Finance Committee was set up to ensure that REAL reform would fail. Did the other committees have an even number of Democrats and Republicans the way the Finance Committee did?

2) The the person in the Senate who probably has done more work to understand the issues of health care will most likely vote AGAINST the Senate’s bill.

The import of the second is probably going to be missed on most people. So is there a way to point this out loudly?

thanks. was just wondering if there wasn’t some connection btw WH wanting to keep Labor happy and the mysterious circumstances surrounding the CBO scoring

Jon, I have followed Wyden on health care because it is of vital necessity to my family here in Oregon. You have to take the facts as they have come, not as they appear. Wyden has always referred to insurance changes. He does not talk about a public option that is paid for by taxes. He offers employees out of their existing coverage, for what? A non existent program, who’s only progenitors have been serious failures. Co Op like creations, as yet only in the thought process stage, are not solutions we can use tomorrow, or even next year. He has never said anything about a Medicare option for people. These committee votes are nothing if the man will not commit to a public health care option like Medicare. He has not to this day, correct? He has never promised us that he will vote for a bill only if it contains a complete public option. He only refers to it as selecting insurance. He will not do what other senators have. He will not publicly and openly demand a public health care option for us, the constituents that vote for him in Oregon.
Why do you defend him so? Are we limited to taking the crap we get when these people work for us and get permanent health care forever?
If I am wrong, and I have misread anything about his offerings or his guarantees, I will apologize to the Senator in person or in print. But until that time, just show me one thing he has said that gives you hope about what he is going to do. Not might, not has done, but what he guarantees he will or will not do now.
Now. Before it is too late for my family.

Aww. You sugar-coated it? Tell us what you really think!

Interesting development.

Am I wrong to assume that the HELP bill will make cloture even more difficult? Wasn’t the strategy to let the crap come out of the finance committee, get cloture, and then add the PO during reconciliation?

AND THE KILLIN’ GOEZ ON AND ON AND…

Citizen Jon Walker and the Firepup Freedom Fighters:

What makes you think that because Wyden has been workin’ with one of the most unrepentent fascists to save the corporate health insurance industry he will support a real public option that is not paid for on the back of union workers and what’s left of the middle class? The frantic work by folks like Rahm Emmanuel and Wyden has been to craft legislation that can attract a majority of Republicans and all the Blue Dogs…another great example of what Rahm did with NAFTA which led directly to the death of healthcare reform and the loss of congress for the Democrats.

No, if Wyden is pissed off enough at Baucus and ObamaRhama to NOT vote the bill out of committee that doesn’t mean he will support a public option or cloture on a real bill.

KEEP THE FAITH AND PASS THE FUCKIN AMMUNITION, JUST REMEMBER WHO THE ENEMY IS HERE!!

Jeebus, the machinations are so complex and go off in so many directions — and that’s just ron, the others are by a scale of 100 — this may just be a gift of the gods by way of inflated egos… if so… okay, we’ll take it. go ron go, kill the bill…

Wyden has not been a strong support of the public option, but he did vote for both public option amendments and has publicly said he supports the public option.

I have urged Sen Nelson (D-FL) to vote against the Baucus bill as it is not in the best interest of the people.
The best approach should be clear after the reform fiasco: support HR 676.

I did endorse Wyden’s amendment I’m just pointing out the way it was treated. I’m above all else an open transparent government advocate.

Kent Conrad was informed via text message that “somehow” the CBO did not fully score Wyden’s amendment. Wyden had been told by the CBO that they did score his amendment. This is no small mistake.

I smell Rahm. Also these kind of cheap tricks might give some other Dems a reason to also vote against the bill the Senate is nothing if protective of their rights. I’m hopeful.

Cover story they don’t have the votes. Baucus was Obama’s pointman on Healthcare there is no way the CBO did not score his plan.

He knew in advance that both would be killed in committee. We all did. He will not guarantee to vote for us.
What more can be said of someone that has never supported what we want? Is he feeling the heat? Certainly. But so are all of them.
He is one of the gang in finance. He is not Jay Rock. He could be. But he has chosen to take his orders from the insurance companies so far. I sure as hell hope he proves me wrong. But nothing will make me believe it until I hear him guarantee to fight, to filibuster and demand our public health right. Until then, not a piece of silver for tribute.

When will the CBO score for H.R. 676 be published?

Ok he votes against Baucus but if he votes against a healthcare bill in Oregon thats political suicide Oregon has offered healthcare to poor folks who can’t pay for awhile and everyone I knew loved it.
I’m not saying he won’t do it I’m sure he will get a lobbyist job because he will get a Primary challenge and likely lose his seat if he does vote against Healthcare.
Any likely challengers? Rahm will have a hard time taking credit for election results next time if Healthcare no votes all start getting primary challenges.

You would still need to get the vote on the reconcilliation bill. If the PO is a kill switchn for the Senate vote, it would probably still be oine in the Senate vote on the reconcilliation bill. It could still pass if the hammer would put down on the conservadems and explain the consequences of their very public roll call vote on cloture. They will be named as the ones that brought down Obama.

He can’t lose his seat for as long as he wants it if he says Public Option or nothing. But you are right. Anything less and he loses the support of half his voters.

Murder by spreadsheet.

not a whodunit; Wyden it.

Given Wyden’s commitment to bipartisan health care reform and his policy expertise

Bipartisan healthcare reform is a contradiction in terms. We got pieces sucking up to Olympia Snowe when she appeared to be wavering. If Wyden helps kill the Baucus plan fine, but he is not a good guy on this.

What oldtree said at #13.

The original Wyden proposal would have allowed all employees to purchase from a national exchange (current bills limit it to small businesses only). If the employer was offering/providing health insurance before, then the amount of the employer’s contributions to the premiums would have become a voucher that the employee could use against the cost of premiums for whatever plan chosen in the exchange.

The effect of this is to create more choices for employees, beyond those offered by employers, and give the flexibility to the individual. But from labor/employer point of view it would also unravel the employer-based system which both labor and some employers may favor, because they control it.

And by allowing employees to opt out of the employer-based insurance and choose something different in the exchange, it would likely allow adverse self-selection, as young/healthy/low-cost employees chose something cheaper in the exchange while leaving the older/sicker/higher-cost employees with the employer-based plan, whose premiums would likely rise. Hence the strong resistance to the original plan.

The revised Wyden amendment would have been less of a threat, but still present the same problems from the labor/business point of view.

The underlying theory that Wyden is aiming at is a single, unified market for health insurance. The current bills all create bifurcated markets, one for employer-based plans, another for exchange-based plans. A single, unified system is probably easier to administer and thus cheaper in the long run, but the transition is a mess.

During the period in which dual systems exist, you have to worry about movement between the two (that’s why congress is limiting access to the exchange), and that involves gamining and adverse selection. If you try to correct that through risk-allocation (moving $$ from insurers that get the healthy to insurers who get the sick) then you have to move those $$ not just between insurers in the exchange, as the current bills do, but also between insurers in the exchange and insurers in the employer-based market — It would be a nightmare, and no one wanted to face that.

However, Wyden did solve one problem: if you broaden access to the exchange, you also increase the number of employees who leave their plans at work and instead choose a plan from the exchange, which means that the fed govt might have to pay more in subsidie, and CBO would score it as very high cost. But Wyden would have the employer who “lost” the employee to the exchange contribute the share of $$ the employer would otherwise have contributed to the employee plan, thus making up for the increased federal subsidies, if any, and even more, creating a net greater contribution to the pool — that’s where much of the “savings” to the Wyden plan might be coming from.

Hey Knoxville, did you get enough sleep? I did not.

We have to do whatever we can to encourage Wyden, Rockefeller and any others (including the gentleman from NY, Stabenow, Kerry, etc) to consider voting no or, failing that, to not vote at all, in Finance. If the rethugs do the wrong thing, which they might very well, then this can be stopped in committee (especialyl considering how lukewarm even some conservadems like Nelson and Lincoln are). That’ll send a powerful signal on commitment to real reform and the public option. Technically, 3 votes definitely stops it. 2 if either Snowe or Lincoln sits it out.

So what in the Wyden plan would guarantee that there would be competition in the exchanges or cost control stemming from them? As far as I can see, nothing. To me it seems that the currently uninsured would still be mandated into buying junk insurance.

Even assuming a good bill passes both houses and is signed by Bahma & Rahma, current plans are that it would not enter into force until 2013.

According to the Harvard study cited by Cong. Alan Grayson, 45,000 people die prematurely each year owing to lack of health care. Over four years, that’s 180,000 family, friends and neighbors who will die unnecessarily, waiting for Congress and President Barack Obama and to act. That will require construction of three new Vietnam Veterans Memorials on the Mall in front of the Capitol Building to list the names of the dead.

Is there no concept more immediate than manana that Congress and this White House understand?

I hope that Wyden and Rockefeller vote against the Baucus bill. It is so important to have the Public Option as part of the Health Reform bill.

http://www.google.com/hostedne…..QD9B54FH82

looks like Baucus is stalling the vote (unless you really believe his staff’s CBO-scoring line). Earliest is now Wednesday. I assume that this means that he knows that he simply doesn’t have the votes.

isn’t there an Oct. 15 deadline after which reconciliation is not an option?

After the way Wyden was treated, I don’t blame him a bit.

Hopefully he’ll vote against it on principle, because it’s such a bad bill.

But if anyone is wondering why Wyden has reached his limit, all you have to do is watch what Baucus did to him in that committee mark up hearing. It was disgraceful.

NYT:
“October 5, 2009, 2:45 pm
Former Bush Health Secretary Thompson Praises the Senate Finance Bill”

Hopefully that’s a kiss of death.

http://prescriptions.blogs.nyt…..ance-bill/

Wyden believes in opening up the exchange to everybody, not just those who do not have insurance in the workplace. That seems like a good idea to me, especially if the exchange includes a public option, something Wyden says he supports.

I know the union leaders are opposed because they have counted workplace insurance among their bargaining wins. However I would think that rank and file union members would like the option of going to the exchange to get the public option or one of the listed private plans. Besides if health care was removed from the bargaining table it would increase the focus of the union leaders on fighting for higher wages for their members. Ordinary working people do not get paid enough.

“Some insiders have wondered how the Oct. 15 statutory deadline to make a decision on reconciliation affects the timeline. The answer: It doesn’t. While the deadline is part of the budget resolution’s conference report, there are no consequences if senators fail to act by then, a Senate Democratic leadership aide said. Practically, it means Democrats can use reconciliation anytime after Oct. 15. And while they are currently focused on getting 60 votes, reconciliation “is in the back of everyone’s mind,” the aide said.”

Interesting
http://blogs.wsj.com/health/20…..e-finance/

WSJ is discounting both Lincoln and Snowe. If this happens, this measure fails if EITHER Wyden or Rockefeller votes no. This is fun. Kremlin-watching.

I think a lot of progressives greatly underestimate the benefits of the Wyden plan. They are also repeating the insurance industry talking points against it (confusing transition etc.)

The Wyden amendment and a public option are complimentary. A bill with either is much better than a bill is neither and one with both is best. Opposing the Wyden amendment because it isn’t a public option or because he has not been confident that a public option could pass is stupid.

What is does is breaks through the insurance industry cabals and local monopolies and lets anyone buy any plan that is on the exchange. This creates huge competitive pressure and puts the squeeze on the industry to really deliver a value for the money. That is why the industry and Baucus hate it. If there is a public option in the exchange, great, but this amendment does a lot even without one.

It also give something tangible and real to everyone– people who may be otherwise be screaming about the mandates and throwing the dems out as a result. It gives freedom- freedom to shop, to find a better plan for you. It is likely to be very, and immediately, popular with voters The one part of the whole thing that improves their situation right away.

I’d imagine its because unions don’t want younger (i.e. healthier) members to opt of the union’s bargained for high dollar “Cadillac plan” by choosing the cheapest, lowest benefit plan available and just pocketing the cash difference.

Draining the Cadillac plan’s of younger members would mean higher premiums (or less coverage) for the remaining members in the insurance pool. This isn’t rocket science, simply exempt collectively bargained health plans from Wyden’s Choice Amendment.

Wyden explains his amendmently clearly in this op ed.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09…..wyden.html

thx

Here is Wyden getting screwed

Evening session part 2

Start at 1:17:00

I don’t think the ownership of our congress has been more luridly revealed than during this mark up.

Kerry even attacks the amendment on the basis that Raytheon is against it. He really seems to deliver a late-night stab in the back. Bingham isn’t much better.

http://www.cspan.org/Watch/Med…..Day+7.aspx

Good point.

Wyden is from Oregon, not Washington. Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell represent Washington. Both support a PO.

So does Wyden.

Your point?

Sorry was fixed on the Silo page but was not corrected on the base draft used to populate the front page.

Maybe the “conservative” CBO has handed Wyden, Rockefeller and like-minded Dems a stick with which to beat Baucus & Co.

I’m sure they just meant to shove that stick up Wyden’s amendment, but maybe he’s taken it out of their hands and turned on reform opponents.

It would be a stunning turn-around which is rarely seen in the legislative process.

for what it’s worth, all Oregonians should call Wyden’s office & beg him to vote no on this insidious “bj for the insurance industry,” though perhaps not using those exact words.

I just watched the clip you linked. It’s an ambush, plain & simple. Do you suppose Wyden knew they were going to pull that stunt?