Lindsey Graham's Ultimatum To Dems: Climate Change Or Immigration?

Senate Dispute Endangers Climate Change Bill


Long-awaited Climate Change legislation was put on hold by its authors Saturday when a dispute over Immigration politics and U.S. Senate priorities threatened to unravel a bi-partisan effort that took months of work.

Voicing regrets, Sen. John Kerry said Saturday he is postponing the much anticipated unveiling of comprehensive energy and climate change legislation scheduled for Monday.

The Massachusetts Democrat made his announcement after a key partner in drafting the bill, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, threatened to withhold support if Senate Democratic leaders push ahead first with an immigration bill.

Graham is angry that Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada is considering that. Legislation to overhaul immigration laws and grant legal status to millions of long term immigrants unlawfully in the country could create problems for Republicans in the midterm elections. It's a top priority for Hispanic voters — and most Republicans are opposed. Reid's idea amounts to a "cynical political ploy," Graham asserted.

Kerry tried to assure environmentalists and other backers of the climate bill that the delay will be short. The legislation aims to cut emissions of pollution-causing greenhouse gases 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. It also likely will expand domestic production of oil, natural gas and nuclear power.

"We all believe that this year is our best and perhaps last chance for Congress to pass a comprehensive approach," Kerry said in a statement.

"Regrettably, external issues have arisen that force us to postpone only temporarily."

Kerry, Graham and Connecticut independent Sen. Joe Lieberman have spent more than six months working on the bill they had hoped to unveil Monday. White House energy adviser Carol Browner praised the three senators, reiterating that the Obama administration wants the energy and climate bill done this year.

Graham's threat to back away from the coalition came Saturday in a letter to Senate leaders.

He said putting immigration at the top of the legislative priority list would derail efforts to find common ground on climate change, a difficult issue involving critically important economic priorities. And he warned that Republican lawmakers would not take kindly to being put on the spot with Hispanics. Many in the Republican Party's political base are adamantly opposed to 'amnesty' for illegal immigrants.

"Moving forward on immigration — in this hurried, panicked manner — is nothing more than a cynical political ploy," Graham said. "Let's be clear, a phony, political effort on immigration today accomplishes nothing but making it exponentially more difficult to address in a serious, comprehensive manner in the future."

Kerry praised Graham's work on the climate legislation, saying the Republican "helped to build an unprecendented coalition of stakeholders from the environmental community and the industry who have been prepared to stand together behind a proposal."

Kerry said he deeply regrets that Graham "feels immigration politics have gotten in the way and for now prevent him from being engaged in the way he intended."

Lieberman also praised Graham's work, and said he's disappointed that "allegations of partisan politics will prevent us from introducing the bill on Monday as planned."

Pushing immigration ahead of climate legislation would disappoint and anger environmentalists, who see this as their best chance in recent years to pass a bill addressing global warming. But Reid told fellow Democrats this week he wants to pursue legislation that would offer legal status to many unlawful immigrants before tackling climate change.

Hispanics voted heavily Democratic in 2008, and they've been disappointed with President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats for not following up on campaign promises to reform immigration laws. Reid is up for re-election this year and trailing in polls in Nevada, where Latinos are an important constituency. With Democrats facing a tough political climate in the midterm elections, energized Hispanic voters could make a difference in several states.

In a statement Saturday that was both conciliatory and noncommittal, Reid said he is committed to passing both immigration and energy this year.

"Immigration and energy reform are equally vital to our economic and national security and have been ignored for far too long," he said.

Both measures will require bipartisan support, Reid said, "and energy could be next if it's ready." Comprehensive immigration reform requires significant committee work that has not yet begun, he noted.

Reid said he appreciates Graham's work on both issues, but added: "I will not allow him to play one issue off of another, and neither will the American people. They expect us to do both, and they will not accept the notion that trying to act on one is an excuse for not acting on the other."

A spokesman said Reid would continue to consult with Kerry on building bipartisan support for a climate bill.

The House last year narrowly passed a bill creating a system to cap emissions blamed for global warming, but has not acted on immigration. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has long said the Senate must vote before the House on an immigration bill.


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Jewish Voters vs. Obama Administration, Possible Anti-Semitism Or No?

The Obama White House PR Offensive On Israel


The Obama White House is engaged in an aggressive effort to reassure Jewish leaders that the tense relationship between the Obama administration and the Israeli government that has played out in public in the last few months does not signify any fundamental change in U.S. policy.

Concern within the administration over the domestic repercussions of the recent clashes with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government reached a critical point about ten days ago, as Israel was about to mark its 62nd year of independence.

Since then, administration officials have mounted what amounts to a public relations blitz trying to rectify what they have come to believe is largely a perception problem that Obama is being unreasonably tough or even hostile to Israel - not a substantive disagreement over its Middle East policies.

There is some evidence the reassurances are working – AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobbying group, issued a statement Friday saying that the president and “top members of his administration and senior military leaders have highlighted the importance of the U.S.-Israel relationship and reaffirmed that a strong and secure Israel advances U.S. national security interests.”

But the dimensions of Obama’s public relations problems were made plain Thursday by the criticism Sen. Charles Schumer of New York, one of the administration’s closest allies, leveled at the president.

Obama’s tough tone on Israel is “Counterproductive,” Schumer said.

“This has to stop.”

Schumer, appearing on the politically conservative Jewish Nachum Segal Show, said he had called White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel threatening to “blast” the administration unless the State Department backed down from suggesting that Netanyahu needed to demonstrate his commitment to achieving peace.

Asked about Schumer’s comments Friday, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said: "I don't think it's a stretch to say we don't agree with what Senator Schumer said."

Another spokesman, Tommy Vietor, said there has been no special effort recently to reach out to American Jews. “We’ve always talked about our unwavering commitment to Israel’s security,” he said. “There’s nothing new there. We’ve been consistent in our rhetoric.

But one former Democratic official said there has been disagreement within the administration about how to deal with the fallout from Vice President Joe Biden’s trip to Israel and Netanyahu’s recent visit here. Those arguing for aggressive outreach “have finally broken through to the White House which now understands and accepts that there will be no movement on the policy without [better] public relations.”

“What happened here, is they came to a moment of truth about 10 days, two weeks ago, ‘we have failed,’” the former Democratic official continued. “’Our Middle East policy and posture is in chaos, is in failure, and there is no way to ignore it. And therefore, what do we do about it.’ And they decided, we need to change the posture. They realized they were going down a bad path. So they launched a PR campaign – a blitz – entirely to support the policy.”

Both Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last week sent out notably warm congratulation messages on the occasion of Israel’s Independence Day celebration, conveying personal best wishes to Netanyahu. White House political adviser David Axelrod spoke at an Independence Day event hosted by Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren in Washington and then this week at the National Jewish Democratic Council.

Clinton gave a friendly speech last week to a revived pro-Israel Middle East peace think tank headed by former Rep. Robert Wexler (D-Fla.) and Slimfast heir Danny Abraham, and National Security Advisor Jim Jones spoke at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, the pro-Israel think tank, this week, receiving a standing ovation both before and after his remarks.

On Thursday, the White House sent National Security Council Iran strategist Dennis Ross and Susan Sher, First Lady Michelle Obama’s chief of staff, to meet with more than 20 Jewish House Democrats to give them reassurances about Obama’s support for Israel and his commitment to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapons.

And in Jerusalem on Friday, Middle East peace envoy George Mitchell went out of his way at a public appearance with Netanyahu to reiterate Obama’s Independence Day message to Israel, adding: “ That has been American policy. That is American policy. That will be American policy. The president has stated it clearly and convincingly, and I am here today as a tangible demonstration of the workings of that policy on a day to day basis on issues of critical interest to both our governments and our people.”

“What everyone was concerned about is that the White House is losing the Jewish community,” said a congressional staffer, describing the meeting with Ross and Sheer. “And they are not explaining what they doing. They are late to beat back [the chatter] that Obama doesn’t like Bibi [Netanyahu], that Obama is an anti-Semite. The same way they were late to beat back the ‘death panel’” charges from right wing groups last fall during the health care reform debate.

“They finally figured out there is a campaign being run against them,” he continued. “It’s not just a coincidence that there are full page newspaper ads” telling Obama to ease up on Netanyahu. “The problem is, if they let these things go, it spreads. …There is a difference in how you package things.”

The reference was to separate appeals from two influential Jewish leaders, Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel and World Jewish Congress President Ron Lauder who each took out ads urging Obama to ease up pressure on Netanyahu.

“Israel has made unprecedented concessions,” Lauder wrote in his open letter to Obama, which he later told the New York Times had been approved by Netanyahu.

Still, officials and Washington Middle East watchers emphasize, that what has changed is the public relations strategy for the policy, not U.S. policy. And that does not change the fact that substantive disagreements remain between the U.S. and Israeli governments on issues such as East Jerusalem.

But the National Jewish Democratic Council’s David A. Harris believes most pro Israel groups can tolerate such disagreements if the administration’s good will toward Israel is understood.

“The bottom line is that Israel needs to be a bipartisan issue,” Harris said, noting that American Jews are overwhelmingly Democratic, and pro Israel supporters can’t afford to turn into a U.S. domestic partisan debate.


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Sources: Mediaite, Nachum Segal Live, Politico, Google Maps

Bloomberg Battles Schumer On Wall Street Reform Fight

Mike Bloomberg vs. Chuck Schumer


A rift as big as Wall Street is dividing the two most powerful Politicians in New York — Sen. Chuck Schumer and Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Bloomberg visited the Capitol last week seeking to defend the financial industry. But in the process, he wound up sitting in on a GOP gripe session about New York Democrats — and, sources say, chimed in to criticize Schumer for turning against a hometown industry that has fueled both men’s careers.

Relations between the billionaire mayor and the state’s senior senator — and its sole remaining Democratic powerbroker — have curdled in the heat of policy disagreements and Schumer’s backing of Kirsten Gillibrand for Hillary Clinton’s old Senate seat.

Bloomberg had previously criticized the city’s congressional delegation in generic terms for backing stringent regulation of banks and giant hedge funds, arguing that it would cripple the city’s most vital industry.

But the third-term mayor has become increasingly disillusioned with Schumer in recent days, sources say, singling out the Brooklyn Democrat in recent meetings with business leaders and politicians.

In an April 12 meeting in Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s spacious office overlooking the National Mall, Bloomberg said that Schumer has been “AWOL,” that “this is a real problem for New York City” and that “our senators who are normally in the middle of it aren’t there,” according to a Republican senator briefed on the meeting.

Another person familiar with the meeting said Bloomberg was simply agreeing with criticism of Schumer leveled by McConnell and didn’t lash out pre-emptively: “They said that Chuck was not doing anything, that he was very unhelpful, that he wasn’t providing the ballast for New York,” the source said, adding, “Bloomberg didn’t disagree.”

McConnell’s office declined to comment other than to confirm that the meeting took place. Bloomberg's office also declined comment, but a person close to the mayor downplayed the conflict, saying, "Their relationship is fundamentally strong."

Schumer, whose wife once served as Bloomberg’s transportation commissioner, is reportedly miffed that the socially liberal, economically moderate independent hasn’t aired his gripes personally during their regular one-on-one phone conversations.

“The mayor’s jihad against [President Barack] Obama and Schumer and the Dodd bill [is] a curious strategy,” said a person close to Schumer. “When you come down to Washington and argue for next to no regulation, it puts New York in the cross hairs more, not less.”

The issue of regulating Wall Street is arguably the stickiest of Schumer’s career — forcing him to choose between an industry that has pumped more than $10 million into his campaigns and the political survival instincts that have made him one of the party’s canniest strategists.

Given the choice, Schumer has chosen to regulate, not praise, Wall Street. “He took our money and is now showing us the back of his hand,” said one banking industry executive who has unsuccessfully tried to get Schumer to roll back provisions empowering state attorneys general to sue financial firms.

Added one Schumer ally: “This is not an easy issue for Chuck Schumer, obviously. This is an industry he’s close with — but they blew up the world’s economy, and Chuck has reconciled himself to that reality. Bloomberg did not.”

Schumer watched warily as the career of Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) was destroyed by perceptions he was too close to Wall Street and had no intention of being accused of backroom deal making on behalf of banks or hedge funds.

Schumer raised tens of millions from Wall Street as chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee — cash that helped propel Democrats to the majority in 2006. But he’s played a relatively minor role in the current fight over regulation.

When he has weighed in, it’s often been to punish the banking sector, backing Obama’s plan to impose a tax on the nation’s biggest financial institutions.

“I think it’s a tough issue for him,” said Brian Gardner, a financial analyst based in Washington. “I think any senator wants to protect his home-state interests.”

Even though Bloomberg and Schumer still get along — and the senator’s wife, Iris Weinshall, recently kibitzed with the mayor at City Hall — the two haven’t had one of their one-on-one dinners in months.

The race for Clinton’s old seat has been a sore spot.

Schumer supporters say Bloomberg political operatives Kevin Sheekey and Brad Tusk actively encouraged ex-Tennessee Rep. Harold Ford Jr. to run and backed the strategy of labeling Gillibrand a Schumer puppet.

But the tension between Schumer and Bloomberg stretches back to the mayor’s successful reelection bid last fall. At the time, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) wanted to lend support to Bloomberg’s reelection campaign, but Schumer — who supported Democrat Bill Thompson — intervened and urged him not to, according to people familiar with the matter.

That Bloomberg griped with McConnell is telling; the GOP leader has been chilly toward Schumer since 2008, when Schumer’s DSCC steered attacks toward him for his support of the wildly unpopular Wall Street bailout bill.

But now faced with a bill that will arguably have more effect on New York City than any other piece of legislation this Congress, Schumer is taking a low-profile role — despite serving in Democratic leadership and on the Senate Banking Committee, which has jurisdiction over the issue.

Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker, who has been a central GOP negotiator on the Wall Street bill, said he’s had only one meeting with Schumer — and that was on the issue of proxy access, which would give shareholders more power to nominate directors to serve on a corporate board, a task delegated to him by Dodd.

Corker said his scores of other meetings have been with Dodd and Sens. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), Mark Warner (D-Va.) and Jack Reed (D-R.I.).

Corker said Schumer “hasn’t been that visible in these negotiations.”

But Democrats insist that Schumer has been working behind the scenes to shape the bill — although even some of them admit privately to being surprised that Schumer has not been trying to make the bill more palatable to the banks or Wall Street’s interests.

“Otherwise, it’d hurt him with the caucus,” said one senior Democratic aide. “He’s trying to thread the needle.”

Indeed, with polls showing Reid losing soundly in November, Schumer could very well be in a race for majority leader in the fall — and if he sided with Bloomberg and the banks, he could be tarred by many of the more liberal Democrats eager to crack down on Wall Street.

Schumer’s chief opponent for the majority leader job, Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, also has ties to financial interests — with the Chicago Mercantile Exchange based in his home state. But the CME could stand to gain big if the bill results in an enormous increase in trading volume — giving Durbin even more latitude to rail against Wall Street.

Durbin said his party’s interests haven’t conflicted yet with his home state’s interests.

“To this point, I don’t believe that I have had any problems supporting provisions they can support,” Durbin said of the futures industry in Chicago.

The same can’t be said about Schumer.

Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) praised Schumer for taking a “balanced approach” in pushing for a financial system with “clear rules of the road.”

Sen. Ted Kaufman (D-Del.), who has been vocal about his concerns about the bill, said Schumer’s been navigating the competing interests with precision.

“I wouldn’t say he’s not defending the banks, but I think he’s trying to find the best legislation and he feels the politics will take care of itself,” Kaufman said. “But that’s a very naive kind of approach for this town.”


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Chuck Schumer Slams SCOTUS Corporate Political Finance Ruling

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Chuck Schumer Calls Flight Attendant The "B" Word

Schumer Has a Flight to forget

Sen. Chuck Schumer loves the sound of his own voice, but it carried a bit farther than he might have liked on the US Airways shuttle from New York to Washington on Sunday.

According to a House Republican aide who happened to be seated nearby, the notoriously chatty New York Democrat referred to a flight attendant as a “bitch” after she ordered him to turn off his phone before takeoff.

Schumer and his seatmate, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), were chatting on their phones before takeoff when an announcement indicated that it was time to turn off the phones.

Both senators kept talking.

According to the GOP aide, a flight attendant then approached Schumer and told him the entire plane was waiting on him to shut down his phone.

Schumer asked if he could finish his conversation. When the flight attendant said “no,” Schumer ended his call but continued to argue his case.

He said he was entitled to keep his phone on until the cabin door was closed. The flight attendant said he was obliged to turn it off whenever a flight attendant asked.

“He argued with her about the rule,” the source said. “She said she doesn’t make the rules, she just follows them.”

When the flight attendant walked away, the witness says Schumer turned to Gillibrand and uttered the B-word.

“The senator made an off-the-cuff comment under his breath that he shouldn’t have made, and he regrets it,” Schumer spokesman Brian Fallon told Shenanigans.

Ironically, Schumer has been a friend of US Airways flight attendants of late, lobbying company chairman and CEO Doug Parker on their behalf after several of them asked the senator to help keep them based at LaGuardia.

Through her office, Gillibrand said Schumer was “polite” with the flight attendant Sunday and “turned off his phone when asked to.”

But moments after the flight attendant had told Schumer to shut it off, the phone rang again.

“It’s Harry Reid calling,” the source quoted Schumer as saying. “I guess health care will have to wait until we land.”



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Economic Political Revolt Is Brewing On The Hill...Pres. Obama Defends Geithner

White House defends Geithner. The White House defended Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner after he came under fire during a hearing yesterday. CNBC's Steve Liesman reports.

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Pres. Obama takes friendly fire on US Economy



The health care debate has sucked so much oxygen out of the Capitol's chambers that it's been easy to miss another simmering story: Democratic fears about the economy.

That pot has finally boiled over, with black caucus members walking out of a Barney Frank financial markup, liberals and conservatives calling for Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to resign and a policy victory for none other than Ron Paul on his "audit the Fed" proposal.

The tensions show why Democrats want to get the health care debate done as soon as possible — they can then spend much more of 2010, an election year, on jobs and economic reforms.

The wave of Democratic grief had been building privately for months, but Hill Democrats had held back on publicly criticizing the Obama presidency. But now, Democrats who see that their economic agenda seems to be flailing and fear getting wiped out in the 2010 congressional elections are going public with a burst of criticism, and much of it has poured out in the past 48 hours.

It’s coming from some of the most liberal supporters of the president, like John Conyers, who said Thursday on the Bill Press radio show that President Barack Obama was “bowing down” to the right.

"I'm getting tired of saving Obama's can in the White House," Conyers said. "I mean, he only won by five votes in the House, and this bill wasn't anything to write home about."

Oregon Democrat Peter DeFazio, who has called on Geithner to resign, vented his frustrations about the Obama economic team in an interview with POLITICO.

“I don’t see any trace of life coming out of these people when it comes to the real economy,” DeFazio said. “That’s not their orientation.”

White House officials defended their approach — and stood up for Geithner, in particular. “Secretary Geithner has helped steer the American economy back from the brink, and is now leading the effort on financial reform,” said spokeswoman Jen Psaki. “His focus — and ours — is on economic recovery and addressing the challenges the American people face every day. We invite anyone with good ideas, whether they agree with us or not, to be a part of the productive effort toward a solution.”

Many Obama supporters on the Hill, however, aren’t feeling particularly cooperative at the moment when it comes to economic policy. For months, Democratic aides and lawmakers had been complaining privately — a common theme was that the White House is constantly asking Democrats in Congress to “walk the plank” and take tough votes on politically toxic issues like cap and trade or the public option, while the White House plays it cool and avoids taking hard public stands.

Geithner was under fire from the right and the left all week, and Republicans at a Joint Economic Committee hearing Thursday called on him to resign as well. Geithner, for his part, was feisty, dropping blame on the economic crisis back on the laps of Republicans, saying, “You gave this president an economy falling off the cliff."

Rep. Jan Schakowsky, a liberal Illinois lawmaker, says she’s concerned the White House economic team has lost the common touch that was a hallmark of the Obama campaign.

“If voters don’t understand that we really are on their side and that we are the party of change and that we are going to make a real difference in their lives, that, top from bottom, the people that are working on policy have them in mind first and foremost every minute, we’re going to be in trouble in 2010,” Schakowsky said.

But the most disconcerting tensions for this White House may be hailing from the two minority caucuses in the House.

On Thursday afternoon, Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank had to yank his landmark financial reform bill after members of the Congressional Black Caucus said they wouldn’t vote for it. The CBC members had no major problems with the Frank bill itself — a sweeping crackdown on Wall Street — but they withheld their votes because they feel as if African-American economic issues haven’t gotten nearly enough attention from Obama or the Democratic Congress.

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) met with both Geithner and FDIC Chairwoman Sheila Bair earlier this week but clearly didn’t get enough traction on her priorities.

“The recession has created a unique systemic risk that threatens all parts of the African-American community, including the poor and the middle class,” Waters said after Frank had to pull his bill. “I have always been committed to addressing that risk and will continue to do so. This is a critical issue for my constituents.”

And the Congressional Hispanic Caucus let loose on Thursday regarding much tougher restrictions on illegal immigrants having access to the health insurance exchanges in the Senate health care bill, blaming White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel for the tighter-than-expected legislative language.

“A forensic study would show it all leads back to Rahm Emanuel and the White House,” said Illinois Democratic Rep. Luis Gutierrez, a member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus who worked with Emanuel when the president’s top aide was in the House.

A White House aide said that Gutierrez’s comments are “inaccurate,” but the fact that a Democratic loyalist in the House was ready to go public with these complaints is extraordinary.

There are three other key areas where the White House vs. Democratic Congress tensions could blow up at any moment:

• Regulating the Fed: Ron Paul has found some friends on the left for his crusade against the Federal Reserve, and passage of his "audit the Fed" amendment in the Financial Services Committee — a move that the central bank is resisting — sent the message that even Democrats don’t trust Chairman Ben Bernanke to make all the right choices on the economy.

• Bailout balance: The Obama administration wants to extend the Troubled Asset Recovery Program, which expires on Dec. 31, and would like to use $200 billion of the funding to look fiscally prudent and pay down the deficit. But worried Democrats want that money for all sorts of economic programs, including stemming foreclosures, small-business loans and a jobs bill. The issue remains unresolved.

• Small-business lending: The White House wants a $375 million small-business program extended as soon as possible, but there has been resistance from Congress. An administration official told POLITICO that “we are confident that members don’t want to go home to their districts for the holiday and inform them that there is no more funding for this vital program.”



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Congressional Democrats Threaten To Punish Anti-Health Care Reform Insurance Industry With $100 Billion In Fees

Politico, Reuters----

With other industry groups pledging savings to help pay the cost of health care reform, Senate Finance Committee Democrats slammed insurers for holding out — and threatened to impose new fees on the industry that could cost it as much as $100 billion.

The Finance Committee members are currently hunting for hundreds of billions of dollars to help finance reform, and with the hospital and pharmaceutical industries having pledged $235 billion, the senators said it was time that the insurers paid their share.

“We need the insurance companies to step up to the plate and be part of the solution. Most of the negotiations so far, the insurance industry has been at the table but you can only sit there at the table with your arms crossed for so long,” said Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY).

Schumer and Sens. John Rockefeller (D-WV), Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) and Robert Menendez (D-NJ) pounded the insurers, who they portrayed as unwilling to help pay for reform even while they have enjoyed exploding profits.

“The insurance companies are the people who are just rapaciously, greedily and unstoppably making money by underpaying the patient, by underpaying the provider and by overpaying, therefore, themselves,” Rockefeller said.

Democrats have yet to lay out exactly what those fees would be, but they would go toward footing what they see as insurers' share of the cost of health care reform.

Phil Blando, a health care consultant whose clients include health insurers, said it’s not surprising to see Democrats attacking health insurers as public support for reform softens.

“With consensus among Democrats elusive, this appears to be an effort to redirect the debate squarely at the private sector. A key question for the next month is which argument will prevail – the need to rein-in the private sector or growing concerns about the cost of financing health reform,” he said.

Schumer pointed to the profits of the 10 largest insurance companies — which shot up 428 percent between 2000 and 2007, from $2.4 billion to $12.9 billion — as a reason health care reform is needed.

The industry’s trade group, America’s Health Insurance Plans, said health plans have proposed reforms such as guaranteed coverage for pre-existing conditions and discontinuing premiums based on a person’s health status or gender.

“As families and small businesses struggle during the current economic slowdown, now is not the time to impose new fees on health care coverage that will make coverage less affordable. To make health care more affordable policymakers should focus on initiatives that promote value and make the system work better and more efficiently,” said AHIP spokesman Robert Zirkelbach.

But Schumer said they are working to make sure the fee can’t be passed through to consumers. Additionally, a strong government-run insurance plan that competes with the private market will make it more difficult for insurers to pass along the increased costs.

At least one Republican committee members seems receptive to the idea. Said Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Me.), “I personally wouldn’t have a problem with that.”



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