Despite the panic, last week’s news contained nearly no mention of the Senate Finance Committee, the committee in the Senate that is holding up the legislation process because they have yet to complete their health care bill, but not for a lack of trying; Chairman Max Baucus (D-Montana) and a group of five other Senators (which, including Baucus, divides into 3 Democrats and 3 Republicans) on the Committee had locked themselves in Baucus’ office, chatting health care reform behind closed doors while reporters eagerly waited just outside, cameras and notepads readied in case this was the time that the Senators revealed to the public what exactly was going on.  The progressive members of the Committee, completely excluded from the talks, have complained along with several prominent bloggers about these back door discussions.  Eventually, Baucus let reporters in for several minutes before kicking them back out.

This week began with the breaking of the floodgates: Senator Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) finally gave the public some details of what exactly is being worked out in the antechamber.  Not much has changed since we last reported on the Committee’s bill: it still has a health care co-op scheme in place of a real public plan option, and creates a “free rider” initiative requiring employers to pay for those receiving Medicare or government subsidies in place of a employer mandate.  These substitutions just won’t cut it: the co-op initiative was tried during the Great Depression and failed, and the “free rider” initiative could discourage employers from hiring single workers or workers from low-income families.  Nate Sloan from Fivethirtyeight declared that “the math on this bill is so bad I doubt it will survive intact.”

So much for holding our breath for what will come out of the Senate Finance committee.  We’ll be best off if the HELP bill’s public option and employer mandate components win out when these bills are combined before the floor vote- which is now delayed until September, at the earliest. (more…)

The seeds of the Great Health Care Panic of 2009 were sown in early July, when GOP strategist Alex Castellanos sent out a memo offering poll-tested language Republicans could use to destroy Obama’s plans for health care.  “If we slow this sausage-making process down, we can defeat it,” he reasoned.

Rep. Jim DeMint sounded the war cry on Friday, stating that “If we’re able to stop Obama on this it will be his Waterloo. It will break him.”  The GOP immediately charged:

• Rep. Michell Bachman (best known for dodging the census) stated that “On the 16th page, it says whatever health care you have now, it’s going to be gone within five years.  So your current health care plan, you’re not going to have in five years.  What you’re going to have is a government plan and a federal bureau is going to decide what you get or if you get anything at all.”  Unfortunately, that claim is flat-out false: page 16 is actually titled “Protecting the Choice to Keep Current Coverage.”  As former Campus Progress wonk Ezra Klein notes, “[the private insurer] just has to offer itself through the Exchange and follow the new rules, like not jacking up your prices because you had strep throat last year.”  But facts didn’t stop the Wall Street Journal from making the claim in an editorial.
• Sen. Orrin Hatch withdrew from the Senate Finance Committee talks, citing an “unwilling[ness for the Democrats] to roll up their sleeves and agree to protect a bipartisan health care compromise from being gutted on the Senate floor and in a conference with the House.”  Remember, the Finance Committee is the one responsible for the do-nothing reforms meant to create a bipartisan agreement.

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It’s been 13 days; 13 days of markups(which Senator Dodd quips might be a new record), 13 days of partisan games, 13 days of financial hijinks and fake scandals, and finally, on the 1^3th day, the Health Education and Labor & Pensions(HELP) Committee passed the “Quality, Affordable Health Coverage for All Americans” bill! The bill has emerged from committee, passing along partisan lines, and is now ready for the next step of being combined with the Senate Finance Committee bill before being voted on by the entire Senate. So what does it look like?

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A few weeks ago, the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee submitted an unfinished version of their bill for scoring by the Congressional Budget Office.  The results were bad: a cost of $1 trillion with coverage for only one-third of the uninsured.  People freaked out.  Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) declared the “death. . . [of] a government run health care plan.”  But somewhere along the way, these people (both Republican and Democrat) seemed to forget that this incomplete bill had excised language about the public plan or an employer mandate.  The bill that had been scored had no mention of Graham’s government health care plan.

But since then, the missing language has been added, detailing both the public plan (named the “Community Health Insurance Plan”) and an employer mandate.  CBO scores came back yesterday, and they’re suprising:

The plan carries a 10-year price tag of slightly over $600 billion, and would lead toward an estimated 97 percent of all Americans having coverage, according to the Congressional Budget Office, Sens. Edward M. Kennedy and Chris Dodd said in a letter to other members of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

Chew on that, naysayers.

And while Jonathan Cohn, of The New Republic, reminds us that the total cost of health care reforms will be $1 trillion (once reforms to Medicare not under the jurisdiction of the HELP committee are added in), a trillion happens to be the magic target Obama and Congress are aiming for.  The ways to pay for this have been worked out and are already on the table.

Wonk Room has the details of the new plan:

- Community Health Insurance Option: Will have to compete on a level playing field with private providers and offer competitive rates and premiums. Presumably, the plan will be able to use its administrative efficiency and its market power (assuming it is able to attract a significant number of applicants and providers) to lower premiums.

- Employer mandate: Large employers would have to provide coverage to their workers or pay $750 per full-time employee, $375 for each part-time employee. Businesses with less than 25 employees will receive a tax credit, on a sliding scale, based on the number of workers. Ezra Klein points out, “the CBO estimates that “a mere 150,000 will lose their coverage. That’s nothing. And it means that a lot more Americans end up insured and the government spends a lot less in subsidies.”

With savings that good, it’s no wonder the AMA has decided to endorse the public plan.

Two weeks ago, centrist Democrats introduced a series of better-than-nothing compromises that we’ve been tracking; these were apparently designed to appeal to Republicans, making a bipartisan solution possible, but their inability to cooperate has left at least one Democrat angry.  CBS reports:

Behind-the-scenes attempts to get a deal with Republicans on nonprofit co-ops as an alternative to a public plan have led only to frustration. . . He and his colleagues may have to go it alone, said Sen. Chuck Schumer.

Along with the public support visible in recent polls, this makes one think the Democrats would take Schumer’s advice and begin the push for a public plan, but centrist Democrats still seem weary.  Diane Feinstein, who appeared on “State of the Union” this weekend, said that she thinks it will be difficult to control health care costs, adding,  “I think there’s a lot of concern in the Democratic caucus.” In addition, some have suggested that some special interests could be behind the uncertainty surrounding the public option.  All in all, it looks as if there is a sizable number of Blue Dog Democrats who are “determined to party like it’s 1993.” So, how can the Democrats save Health Care?

By pulling out the big guns: Ladies and gentlemen, here comes Mr. President.

The push began last week, when Obama addressed the AMA:

If we do not fix our health care system, America may go the way of GM; paying more, getting less, and going broke.

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