Booman Tribune ~ A Progressive Community

Big Day for Health Care in the House

by BooMan
Tue Jul 14th, 2009 at 11:10:50 PM EST

I have to say that it looks very likely now that the House of Representatives is going to pass a health care plan in the next couple of weeks that includes a public option and pays for it entirely with cost savings and a progressive tax on individuals making over a quarter million dollars a year (or couples who make over $350,000). I didn't think that was going to be possible. Hell, I didn't even think it would be attempted. I have to give credit to Nancy Pelosi. She engineered Henry Waxman's coup, replacing John Dingell as chair of the Energy & Commerce Committe, and Waxman rammed home a Cap & Trade bill and worked out a compromise health care bill in a mere six months. Henry Waxman was a legendary legislator before this year, but he's headed for the Pantheon now.

Yet, before we celebrate, we still have to get these bills through the Senate and then we have to reconcile the House and Senate versions and pass them, too. It's the Senate Finance Committee that is the immediate problem. They aren't passing any progressive tax on the rich to pay for health care. And the Republicans will attempt a filibuster of both the health care and the energy bills.

Still, the House deserves its due. I looked up on the teevee at one point tonight and saw four Californian liberals in the picture. Pete Stark chairs the Ways & Means Subcommittee on Health, George Miller chairs the Education & Labor Committee, Henry Waxman chairs the Energy & Commerce Committee, and Pelosi put the pieces in place. She knew what she was doing and the California liberals banded together with Charlie Rangel of Harlem to get a package in place. Dingell and Hoyer will work with Obama to get enough Blue Dogs in line to pass the bill Obama campaigned on.

The final test will be getting the Senate to pass the conference report. Hopefully, they will do that without having to use the reconciliation process.

Big Day for Health Care in the House | 9 comments (9 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

Re: Big Day for Health Care in the House (none / 1)

You know that look that Wiley Coyote gets as he looks up into the growing shadow of some large object or other he intended to drop on the roadrunner but which is now mere seconds away from crushing him?

Got it? Good. Now replace the coyote with your least favorite Republican member of congress.

Beep beep!

And right on.

by corvus on Wed Jul 15th, 2009 at 12:51:27 AM EST

Re: Big Day for Health Care in the House (none / 1)

Things are sure looking better than they did a couple weeks ago - I hope there are no more major setbacks.

by obsessed on Wed Jul 15th, 2009 at 01:53:13 AM EST

Re: Big Day for Health Care in the House (none / 0)

If anyone wants to see the gop at work, just take a peak at the cspan coverage of the Senate comittee hearings. I can honestly say that I have never seen such a blatant display of an attempt to derail something that a large majority of the public is desperately crying out for. The looks of frustration, disgust and disbelief on the faces of the DEmocratic senators is worth any price of admission to the most expensive public show.
I realize that reconcilliation is a last resort but I honestly think that without its use, health care reform will not pas congress this year. Just one quick example. At one point, the figure of 300 amendments was being discussed! 300 amendments!!!!!
What more need be said?

by billjpa (billjpa@aol.com) on Wed Jul 15th, 2009 at 08:41:26 AM EST

Re: Big Day for Health Care in the House (none / 1)

you know, if it were me in there doing something as a suggestion, I would had said lets get rid of medicare and medicaid and put off of them into this health care thingeee. It would have saved money and gotten all that everyone wanted. I really think it could have been done.

I am at a place like you booman, I am surprised at all the things it covers and how it covers them. Some of the things were summarized over at FDL when I first saw them...I was pleasantly surprised

by BrendaStewart (stormyweather1@hotmail.com) on Wed Jul 15th, 2009 at 08:53:40 AM EST

Re: Big Day for Health Care in the House (none / 0)

I didn't even think it would be attempted.

Why not? The tax component isn't 'new', it's (barely) a return to rational. Right now I don't believe there's a single human in this Country that cares if that top 5% has to pay another 1500 bux on 380 grand in one year.

by rba on Wed Jul 15th, 2009 at 09:27:25 AM EST

Re: Big Day for Health Care in the House (none / 0)

Right now I don't believe there's a single human in this Country that cares if that top 5% has to pay another 1500 bux on 380 grand in one year.

The folks in that top 5% might care. Not all of them, but many and perhaps most of them.

Also many, many clueless fools in the bottom 95% will care. Moreso than many in that top 5% actually. Because our discourse is stupid, because people don't understand marginal income tax rates AT ALL, and because our country is full of children who want things but don't want to have to pay for them (I'm convinced that if we had a direct democracy, our country would look a helluva lot like California right now because too many "citizens" in this country want things but don't want to have to pay for them - and don't even want to have other people pay for them. it's nuts.)

by nonynony on Wed Jul 15th, 2009 at 09:38:41 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Big Day for Health Care in the House (none / 0)

We're close. Very close. Closer than we have ever been.

It will make it all the more painful when the Senate ConservaDems pull the rug right out from under us, wanting to side with the other members of the wealthiest 1.2% of Americans to keep them from being inconvenienced by the unwashed 98.8% of us.

Listening to this story on NPR this morning (America's largest health insurance giant WellPoint is firmly against the public option) is a pretty stark reminder about what will happen.

It's not a question of will this get through the Senate. It's a question of whether or not progressives will accept the gutted, feckless mess that emerges as a "compromise"

More at Zandar vs. The Stupid.

by Zandar1 on Wed Jul 15th, 2009 at 09:27:49 AM EST

Re: Big Day for Health Care in the House (none / 0)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. House bill's proposed tax on wealthy Americans to help pay for broader healthcare insurance is unlikely to be in the Senate's version of legislation to overhaul the U.S. healthcare system, a senior Democrat told Reuters on Wednesday.
"I don't think that is going to be part of the Senate Finance Committee's proposal," Kent Conrad, a member of the Senate Finance Committee, said in a brief interview before a meeting of committee Democrats. Conrad is chairman of the Senate Budget Committee.

link

by BooMan on Wed Jul 15th, 2009 at 12:10:28 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Big Day for Health Care in the House (none / 0)

The House bill is going into markup in the Education and Labor Committee today beginning around 3 PM.

Jane Hamsher of Firedoglake and nyceve of dKos are going to try to get into the committee room during the markup.

slinkerwink of dKos (see her diary there) has a list of the phone numbers of the Committee members and a suggested message (tailor it to your style) asking that members of the Committee not amend the bill in a way that weakens the public option or the health plan exchanges.

As amendments are put before the committee, those of us watching the stream must react pretty fast to (1) establish its effect on the bill and (2) call some Committee members' staff telling them our opinion of the amendment.

It is often said that "the devil is in the details"; these markup sessions (the other two committees will be having theirs soon as well) are where the details get set into stone. Which is why lobbyists pay up to $3500 for a line proxy to save a seat for them.

If you want to affect the legislation, these markup hearings on the House bill will determine the best that we are likely to get. We need the public pressure on the members of the Committee to hold the line on the legislation, or if amended, to make it better.

50 states, 210 media market, 435 Congressional Districts, 3080 counties, 192,480 precincts

by TarheelDem on Wed Jul 15th, 2009 at 10:42:10 AM EST

Big Day for Health Care in the House | 9 comments (9 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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