10.30.09
Health reform round up
The US House health care proposal got a good review from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), CBO Says House Health Care Bill Is Deficit Reducer In Near And Long Term.
The CBO has weighed in with a preliminary cost estimate of the House’s health care bill–and there are almost certainly some very happy people in House leadership.
At $894 billion, the bill’s 10 year cost comes in a hair under President Obama’s $900 billion red line. But, more politically and substantively important, the bill is projected to reduce the deficit in both the first 10 years and the second 10 years after enactment, just as Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) told me earlier today.
Of course two Senators who caucus with the Democrats and whose wives make A LOT of money from health insurance corporations are playing coy about whether they’ll vote for health reform that includes a public option. Evan Bayh: Hypocrisy on the Public Option.
Evan Bayh, the junior senator from Indiana, is in the middle of a heated debate in the Senate on whether a public option should be included as part of President Obama’s health care reforms. An organizer of a group of so-called Senate Blue Dog Democrats, to date, Bayh’s been a staunch opponent of any changes to the status quo in this debate.
He’s worried aloud that any public option would be a nod to socialism and counter to his principles as a fiscal conservative. When pressed on the issue, he’s said he’s simply a vessel reflecting the views of his Indiana constituents.
Yet Bayh, who until very late in the campaign last year was considered a top contender to be Obama’s vice president, is at best naive and disingenuous, and at worst supremely hypocritical in pushing his views as those of his voters.
His wife, Susan Bayh, sits on the board of WellPoint in her hometown of Indianapolis. Over the last six years, Susan Bayh has received at least $2 million in compensation from WellPoint alone for serving on its board.
Why does Joe Lieberman oppose healthcare reform? Ask his wife. It looks like Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin is making sure Lieberman knows what’s on the line, Harkin: Lieberman Has Something to Lose.
“[Lieberman] still wants to be a part of the Democratic Party although he is a registered independent. He wants to caucus with us and, of course, he enjoys his chairmanship of the [Homeland Security] committee because of the indulgence of the Democratic Caucus. So, I’m sure all of those things will cross his mind before the final vote.”
Joe will have to decide if he’s rather kill heatlh care reform or keep being chair of a committee. Life is full of choices.
In Arkansas Democrat Blanche Lincoln is non-committal on a public option even though her political survival depends on it. The interesting thing is that in all of these states, like the country overall, the public option enjoys majority support. That’s why their insurance corporation ties and contributions loom so large.
The House has released Top 14 Provisions That Will Take Effect Immediately [.pdf] when the plan is passed.