Obama to rally Democrats amid health fight. President Barack Obama will travel to Capitol Hill on Sunday to urge Senate Democrats to remain unified and pass a bill by Christmas. NBC’s Mike Viquiera reports.
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Health Care Reform is still under intense negotiations in the US Senate.
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Dems weigh new Public Option deal
President Barack Obama will meet Sunday with Senate Democrats on Capitol Hill, as a group of moderate and liberal senators weighed a new public option compromise in hopes of striking a deal by early in the week.
The president’s visit comes at the start of what will be a critical week for the health care reform bill. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) will attempt to reach a so-far elusive compromise on the public option, and begin taking the procedural steps needed to pass a bill by Christmas.
As the Senate convened a rare Saturday session, about a dozen Democratic senators continued intensive talks on the public option, with the goal of agreeing on a framework that can garner 60 votes.
There appeared to be serious consideration of a new proposal on the table: a national health plan similar to the Federal Employee Health Benefits Plan, which provides insurance to members of Congress and federal workers. It would be administered by the Office of Personnel Management, which oversees the federal plan, and all of the insurance options would be not-for-profit.
“So in other words, what we got is a national plan that the progressives would like, but that’s where that middle is, we’re trying to find that middle,” said Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa).
“There’s sort of a kind of a general agreement on where we’re headed on this thing,” Harkin added.
Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), a public option opponent who faces a tough reelection next year, said she was encouraged by the proposal.
“It’s one of the things that’s been talked about, and I think it bodes well for being able to do what we want to do, which is to create greater choice and options in the marketplace but also have a downward pressure on premiums on cost ,” Lincoln said. “Those are the dual objectives we've got.”
For what was expected to be a quiet weekend session, Saturday turned into a significant day for senators seeking a compromise on the public option. Moderate and liberal Democrats huddled in the morning, met separately in the afternoon, reconvened around 4 p.m., and left for the evening agreeing to resume talks Sunday afternoon. Senators said they expected to negotiate into the night Sunday.
“We’ll work until midnight or whatever it takes,” said Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.V.).
The flurry of activity suggests Democrats have reached a new stage in their bid to pass a health care bill. Reid needs to develop some sort of consensus in the next few days if he hopes to pull together a “manager’s amendment” – the vehicle through which changes will be made to the bill – by the end of the weekend.
Obama’s trip to the Hill Sunday is intended to rally the caucus, and remind senators of “all the things where they have agreement,” a senior administration official said Saturday, declining to elaborate on whether he will state preferences on policy during the meeting.
Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), who has been publicly urging the president to get more involved, said earlier on Saturday that Obama should make a strong pitch for the current Senate bill.
"I’d like to hear him push what we’re doing," he said. "I like the bill now the way it is, the president pushing the people who are more reluctant to vote for it, to vote for it."
It’s unclear whether this latest round of public-option talks will produce a result that has remained out of reach. But for the first time in months, Democrats representing every faction of the caucus were sitting at the same table.
The moderate Democrats –Lincoln, Mark Pryor (Ark.), Ben Nelson (Neb.), Thomas Carper (Del.) and Mary Landrieu (La.) – attended each session. Harkin, Rockefeller, Brown and Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.) represented the liberals. Sen. Chuck Schumer (N.Y.), another participant, has served as an intermediary between the two sides.
The Senate leadership is still eyeing Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), who has maintained regular contact with moderate Democrats in recent weeks. She participated in a separate meeting Saturday of moderates.
“We are going to either find the vertex of where everybody comes together or we are not,” Lincoln said. “It is difficult thing. We are looking for those 60.”
She said she was hopeful, adding “People really want it bad enough.”
Details on the latest proposal for the public option were limited late Saturday. Brown described it as a take-off of the Federal Employee Health Benefits Plan. With the Office of Personnel Management as the administrator, the program would be separate from the Department of Health and Human Services, which regulates the insurance marketplace.
“It would be a national, not-for-profit,” Brown said. “(The Office of Personnel Management) would administer it. It would be any number of national not-for-profits that would compete nationally and they would take the place – more conservative members hope – of the public option. They would be in states and be running a kind of lookalike to a public option.”
The nonprofit insurance companies would “go to OPM and say I want to compete and then you show them you’ve got standing to compete,” Brown said.
Existing insurance companies could participate as long as their plan is not-for-profit, he said.
Lincoln said she, as well as Snowe and Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), has advocated a similar proposal in the past for small businesses. The Office of Personnel Management has been effective in negotiating affordable premiums and generous benefits in the Federal Employee Health Benefits Plan – and could presumably do the same under this expanded program, Lincoln said.
“I just think it's a good idea,” Lincoln said. “I've always thought it was a good idea for quite some time now, for years, because it does utilize what we utilize as federal employees, which is volume and a good negotiator with private industry.”
Brown, however, said he is not a convert to the latest proposal. Supporters of the public option have already compromised enough, he said.
"Well, I don't think much of it, frankly, compared to a public option,” Brown said. “I'm willing to talk to anybody about anything but they haven't sold it yet."
Republicans used the weekend session to highlight nearly $400 billion in Medicare cuts to help pay for the bill, forcing Democrats to take politically-difficult votes in favor of spending cuts to the popular program for the elderly.
The Senate rejected an amendment from Sen. Mike Johanns (R-Neb.) to eliminate $42 billion in cuts over 10 years to agencies that provide home health care to seniors under Medicare. It went down on a 53 to 41 vote, but four Democrats – Lincoln, Nelson, Evan Bayh (Ind.) and Jim Webb (Va.) – crossed the aisle to join Republicans in supporting it.
In a move that drew Republican criticism, Lincoln initially voted with Democrats opposing the amendment, but switched her vote within the 15-minute window to "yes" after it became clear that the measure would not pass.
Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) responded with an alternative amendment stating that the new health bill would not reduce guaranteed home health benefits that passed on a 96-0 vote.
Amendments aide, Harkin suggested every senator in the room was open to the negotiations because they all want to pass a bill.
“Oh, we all say strong things around here, but I’ve never seen a senator yet who isn’t willing to compromise,” Harkin said. “We all agree we want a bill and to move forward.”
Rockefeller concurred: “My general view is that those statements have been part of floor conversations, conversations with the press, but when you go into these kinds of things they're less said because there you all are.”
Following an afternoon session, Rockefeller said the group made "more progress than we’ve made in any meeting so far.”
"People are open in ways that they have not been open before," he said. "Sometimes people just out of sheer fatigue can agree to things.”
Senators said they were hoping Obama would provide more direction during their Sunday afternoon caucus meeting.
Harkin said he wants the president “to take leadership, that is what the president is supposed to do, to use his bully pulpit.”
Asked if Obama has done that so far, Harkin said: “I haven’t seen much of it, no.”
View Larger Map
Sources: Politico, MSNBC, Reuters, Google Maps
.jpg)
No comments:
Post a Comment