After days of negotiating, it appears a health-care deal has been reached by Blue Dog Democrats. Details are still emerging, but essentially it looks like the Blue Dogs sold out for about $100 Billion dollars in cuts from the plan. The deal would also ensure that whatever public option offered would not be forced upon anyone. This deal should allow the 7 Blue Dogs in the House Energy Committee to vote on the package to allow a full House vote. Wow, $100 Billion dollars from a $1 Trillion dollar plan, way to be fiscally conservative Blue Dogs.
Some of the details of the plan are emerging from the Wall Street Journal:
House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., said that his committee will resume meetings on health-care legislation on Wednesday after reaching an agreement with conservative Democrats on the committee.
According to Waxman, the Energy and Commerce panel will hold a legislative session late Wednesday afternoon with the hope of approving the legislation by Friday. Rep. Mike Ross, D-Ark., who has led health-care negotiations on behalf of the fiscally-conservative Blue Dog Coalition, confirmed that Waxman and Blue Dogs on the committee had arrived at a compromise.
“We have reached an agreement that will allow health-care reform to move forward,” Ross said.
Ross said that the overall cost of the bill had been reduced by $100 billion, and that a requirement in the bill that employers offer insurance coverage would exempt small businesses with payrolls of $500,000 or less.
Ross also said that a public health insurance option contained in the bill wouldn’t use payment rates based on Medicare, which the Blue Dogs had strongly opposed.
This could be a tactical blunder on behalf of the Democrats though, especially if part of the deal (as reported) is that the actual vote will not occur until after Labor Day. Ed Morrissey agrees with this.
If they’re right, this is a tremendously stupid move by Democrats. It gives the Republicans a fixed target for the next few weeks, with an ability to cite the actual legislation and pick it apart, while painting moderate Democrats as fools who haven’t bothered to read it. Having no final version of the bill would have allowed Democrats to dodge questions about it. This makes them stand on the bill for weeks without getting moved out of way. Call it political target practice, practically akin to shooting ducks in a barrel, for the GOP.
I think Ed offers one glimmer of hope, e.g. if we hammer some of these Blue Dogs enough over the break, they may come back and say they can’t vote for it. This gives the GOP some particulars that they can use to go after this plan. Specifically health-care rationing will still be a big topic, as will the cost. Yeah, $100 Billion was cut, thanks for nothing. The Blue Dogs want to convince you that this plan will be deficit neutral, which is, of course, a crock. Show me one single government program that is deficit neutral? Certainly Medicare and Social Security are not shining examples of budget neutral programs. This program is going to turn into Amtrack or the Post Office or any other government run program. Eventually most employers will just drop their insurance plans because health costs are such a drain on costs. They’ll push us all into the public “option” and then it will turn into a single-payer system. This fall seems to be the time to push the Blue Dogs and let them know that if they vote for this pile of garbage, we’ll hold them responsible. What are your thoughts on this health-care deal?
July 29th, 2009 at 1:25 pm
Hi Bryan,
The “blue dog” is a myth. They want to vote for the legislation but don’t want to be out of work. Therefore, they come up with this phony savings and pretend that the public option won’t be the snake that swallows the mouse which, of course, it will be in the end. They are trying to buy them political cover because the R rats will not jump ship this time.
I have heard conflicting reports about when the vote will take place. I actually still think it may happen this week for the very reasons you mentioned in the post. Pelosi will call it a “national emergency” blah, blah, blah…
3 weeks at home and their constituents will be loud and clear. Pelosi can’t allow that to happen. It would not surprise me if a vote takes place late tomorrow night.
July 29th, 2009 at 1:27 pm
You could be right, this is all according to reports I’ve read today. You are right about the myth of the Blue Dog. The good news is, if they pass this piece of crap they may pass to mythology very soon, perhaps around Nov. of 2010.
July 29th, 2009 at 1:29 pm
witing is a smart move for the dems in the house
if obama keeps dropping in august they can come back and not vote for it
if obama springs back they can vote for it
only obama wins by voting now.
July 29th, 2009 at 1:30 pm
I’ve read that Rahm essentially told the blue dogs that if they ever want another dime of DNC money they had to vote for this. He’s strong arming them, pure and simple.
July 29th, 2009 at 1:32 pm
I don’t know. I can’t see why the blue dogs would agree to anything and then NOT vote before recess. It defies common sense to me especially if dead fish is threatening their funding.
July 29th, 2009 at 1:37 pm
Yeah the “Blue Dog” is nothing more than a politically valuable posture. They don’t actually care about checking the growth of government in any meaningful way.
The same can be said, of course, for all those wonderful “fiscally responsible” Republicans we have too. Nearly every politician who carries any influence has no qualms whatsoever with expansion of government power.
July 29th, 2009 at 1:38 pm
Agreed, supposedly the GOP are supposed to be the fiscally responsible ones. Unfortunately when they had majorities they ran things like a bunch of Democrats.
July 29th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
[...] As RightPundits observes, it’s more crucial than ever to hammer the BDs while they’re home for recess so they’ll go back and tell San Fran Nan and Henry Waxman “I just can’t suport it. It would be political suicide.” [...]
July 29th, 2009 at 2:26 pm
It doesn’t matter what the Republicans do. They are powerless right now. Maybe they can run a bunch of ads–I don’t know. But the DNC can run ads too.
Health care reform is coming. Might as well get used to it.
July 29th, 2009 at 3:43 pm
Well I don’t think this is going past through congress or the senate for a couple of reasons. The biggest one is that the insurance companies don’t like this plan do to it bankrupting them. So they’ll stop giving “donations” to these liberals campaigns if they vote for this bill. The second thing is that over the August recess there going to be flooded with letters saying don’t vote for this bill. And that’s pretty much it when it comes to this bill getting passed. I mean people oppose this for very simple reasons. One it will raise there taxes,two are deficits will go up, three people are sick of nobody in Congress reading the bills they vote for, four there employers are just going to say go to the government plan, five they don’t want the elderly to die, and six were gong to have a lot less doctors in this country the day this bill gets passed so they’ll have to wait months to get a cast or if they have a heart attack and there’s no doctors there to treat them at the middle of the night there in trouble. Now in the blue dog plan they eliminate the mandate on businesses making under 500 thousand dollars every year. Now first off that still is bad, because factories that don’t give all there employees health insurance will leave the US and other businesses are sneaky and they’ll find away to get passed this. My dad I was talking to earlier about this and he said he would divide his business into different parts. Also for the record my dad owns a medical practice. And the mandate will still lead to lost jobs and there will be some businesses cutting wages on there employees. Also can someone please tell me why were aloud to mandate businesses on their employees wages or healthcare, but we can’t mandate businesses to check if there employees are legal or not. Why cant we just put a large mandate on all businesses forcing them to check if there employees are legal or not. I mean it would cost them nothing to run a check on there employees and it would create millions of jobs and would probably give a lot of people healthcare. I mean people in Congress are as dumb as they come. Now anyway for those businesses that make below $500,000 that already give some of there employee healthcare they wont and that $100 billion they want to cut will be gone, because more people will say why should I purchase healthcare when I can get it for free. Also do to so few people having healthcare there will be massive price increases on the cost of insurance. Now I don’t believe this bill will get passed, because look at all of these problems and I’m not even telling you all the faults
July 29th, 2009 at 3:43 pm
“I’ve read that Rahm essentially told the blue dogs that if they ever want another dime of DNC money they had to vote for this. He’s strong arming them, pure and simple.”
The obvious three-step response for a Blue Dog to such thuggery should be:
1. Punch Rahm Emanuel in the face.
2. Tell Nancy Pelosi “F*** off Nan, neither my vote nor my integrity is for sale.”
3. Immediately switch to the Republican Party or go independent.
I’m telling you, if a Blue Dog actually did this he’d be reelected in a landslide.
July 29th, 2009 at 3:50 pm
Mark, only rarely do congressman switch to the minority party although I can share that wonderful dream. Pork projects win votes back home, and the majority party gets most the pork. They are stuck.
July 29th, 2009 at 4:09 pm
[...] a deal with the rest of the Democrats on health care. The changes in this “compromise” may as well be cosmetic. Kind of like that whole Blue Dog [...]
July 29th, 2009 at 5:15 pm
Pork is the reason why there are no line-item-vetoes or balance budget amendments all great things for the country.
July 29th, 2009 at 6:57 pm
You know can you only imagine what you could do with all of that money. You would probably have enough money to cure cancer, aids, and we’ll still have about 3 quarters of it left. Now I have already said my plan to eliminate Social Security,Medicare, and Medicaid through people putting money into geothermal and nuclear energy and thus getting profits from it to live and purchase healthcare when you are older. So if I were to propose this idea I would mention that we should 50 billion dollars of the hundreds of billions you save into medicine every year. I mean during the 2008 republican debates there was a question of where they stood on getting a man on mars by 2020. Now I feel it would be great to get a man on mars by 2020, but the problem is it will cost way to mention money by 2020 and I would rather see every nickel of funding to go to mars go to curing cancer or Aids. We talk about high healthcare prices and if we were able to cure these diseases prices of healthcare would go down. Also we really should have healthcare companies raise prices on the obese and cut them on the thin and healthy. I mean I don’t know if it’s the best idea out there right now in this economy, but if we were in a state of prosperity it would be good. Yet I really don’t like this idea, because some people are just born with obesity in there DNA and what about muscular people who are thin and healthy, but way 230 pounds so there are to many problems with this.
July 29th, 2009 at 7:20 pm
Charles, line breaks would help us learn your brilliance.
I’m not fully on board your plan. Couldn’t we just make fat people buy carbon offsets or something?
July 29th, 2009 at 8:42 pm
As our rights are infringed upon by our own government, Americans and those here legally will never benefit from a decent health care plan, owing to the abomination called ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION. By an Act in United States Congress passed in 1986, Hospital and ambulance services must provide care to anyone needing emergency treatment in spite of citizenship, legal status or capacity to pay. The predicament being that 20 million plus illegal immigrant families are using this law, for even minor ailments such as the common cold. Why should foreign nationals sign up for health care or anything, when they can get Taxpayers to pay for it all..?
But this is not just an American dilemma, as it has been forcibly imposed on subjects of the European Union. This is causing a major derailment in the EU, because both legal and illegal entrants are stealing away the single payer medical care providers, to the citizens who have paid into the system from the time they first started work.
A decent controlled governmental health care benefit, can—NEVER–be established, when a startling report disclosed the details of a cloaked meeting between nationwide businesses and open-borders groups working under the radical cover of the IMMIGRATIONWORKSUSA a lobbying group. The secret Capitol Hill National Summit” took place last month and revealed the sinister intention behind the lobbying entities efforts.
Tamar Jacoby, who runs ImmigrationWorksUSA, kicked off the conference by stating the true aspiration of the coalition. The basic target is to promote THE FREE FLOW OF LABOR INTO THE USA, with—AS ALWAYS– the taxpayer being the beneficiary for corporate welfare. They want expedited cheap labor, where no American worker—NEED APPLY!
WE MUST ACT NOW, OR IT WILL BE TOO LATE! These special interest lobbyists are well furnished with money from corporate America. We must empower mandated E-Verify as part of the Save Act, where everybody is screened in the workplace. Call your lawmaker TODAY! at 202-224-3121 I Want a health care system–even government run. BUT IT”S SURE TO FAIL, IF TAXES ARE BEING EXTORTED TO PAY FOR FREE HEALTH CARE FOR ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS?
Millions of phone calls from angry Americans are jamming the Washington Switchboards. It is making these pandering politicians to corporate welfare, very anxious. Support for the bi-partisan E-VERIFY PART OF THE SAVE Act, which will expand E-Verify and protect American Workers! We must focus on the monolithic problem in terminating illegal immigrants-and the jobs that attract illegal aliens. WE WILL ALWAYS BE PAYING FOR ILLEGAL ALIENS, UNLESS WE DO SOMETHING NOW? Many GOP members are against a Path to citizenship for lawbreakers, so we mostly need the phones ringing in the ears of Democrats, who see the millions of illegal aliens as a positive voting block. WE MUST STOP IT NOW OF SUFFER FROM IRREVERSIBLE POPULATION GROWTH.
July 29th, 2009 at 8:43 pm
DEMAND NO AMNESTY! NO FAMILY UNIFICATION KNOWN AS CHAIN MIGRATION! BUILD THE ORIGINAL FENCE! NO MORE HEALTH CARE OR ANY OTHER KIND OF BENEFITS FOR ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS. CLOSE THE BORDER AND STATION THE NATIONAL GUARD. $2.5 TRILLION DOLLARS, JUST IN RETIREMENT BENEFITS? Learn uncorrupted facts at NUMBERSUSA.
July 30th, 2009 at 3:34 am
[...] Blue Dogs: Deal on Health-care Reached - Right Pundits [...]
July 30th, 2009 at 4:38 am
Mccain:
Well the obese do have a hire chance of heart attacks so it would make seance for them to pay. Yet I would not support this, because there would be a huge list of problems. Now just to put the statement out there I think Global Warming was a myth that Al Gore brought to life in order make money.
July 30th, 2009 at 4:40 am
[...] Blue Dogs: Deal on Health-care Reached - Right Pundits [...]