House Dems Accuse Senate Dems Of "Dithering"

House Dems: Senate is "Dithering"


House Democrats’ long-simmering frustration with the slow pace of the Senate has begun to boil over, with a broad swath of Democratic representatives accusing their Senate colleagues of failing both their party and their country.

The cross-chamber assessment is brutal:

• “There is a growing sense that we’re lifting more than our share,” says California Rep. Xavier Becerra, a member of the Democrats’ leadership team in the House. “Members are hoping the Senate will kick into gear because the public expects a lot more to get done.”

• “Sometimes I get the feeling that some of those guys [in the Senate] just like to see their names in the paper and see their faces on TV,” says Massachusetts Rep. Jim McGovern.

• “I talk a lot about the psychology of consensus,” says House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.). “Too often, it appears, that the psychology in the Senate is the psychology of one.”

• “When it comes to a jobs bill, the Senate seems more interested in dithering,” says first-year Rep. Tom Perriello, a Virginia Democrat whohas taken heat back home for tough votes on climate change and health care — two issues that remain bottled up in slow-moving Senate deliberations.

• “If you just take a look at the number of bills we’ve sent to the Senate and what they’ve done, I don’t know what they’re doing with their time honestly,” says Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Cal.).

• “I think the majority leader sometimes has to have the leadership to resolve these things,” says Pennsylvania Rep. Joe Sestak, a Democrat challenging Sen. Arlen Specter, in a direct attack on Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.). “I understand it’s politically challenging, but we have the votes — and we should be doing much better than we are. I think this place needs a change, quite frankly.”

Reid spokesman Jim Manley said he understands the House Democrats’ frustrations but argues that their anger is directed at the wrong set of senators.

“We appreciate their concerns, but give me a break: The real concern is Senate Republicans,” Manley said.

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) said the Senate is just a different place.

“You see, we have different rules here,” he explained. “It’s called the ‘filibuster.’ Maybe they haven’t followed the number of Republican filibusters here, which is an all-time record.”

Senate Republicans, in turn, say Senate Democrats are to blame: With 60 votes in their caucus — a number that includes independents Joe Lieberman and Bernie Sanders — Democrats have the votes they need to overcome Republican filibusters if they can just agree among themselves.

But they can’t — or at least they haven’t — and that makes House Democrats nervous that they’ve been left exposed heading into the 2010 midterm elections. They’ve taken the heat for tough vote after tough vote. And with the Senate having failed to act, they have little to show for their efforts.

House Democrats kicked off 2009 by passing a huge economic stimulus package — only to watch it whittled down to win over three recalcitrant Republican senators.

In June, they made a tough vote on climate change in the hope of setting the stage for a deal in Copenhagen — only to watch the bill slide to the back of the line in the Senate.

In November, they worked overtime to approve a health care reform bill — only to watch the Senate slow roll it through long committee deliberations and then an agonizingly slow ballet with Sen. Joe Lieberman and other moderates.



Last week, they passed sweeping reforms for the rules that govern the nation’s financial institutions — knowing full well that the bill won’t look much like the one they passed when — or if — the Senate gets to it.

And this week they’ll try to pass legislation to help address the nation’s unemployment crisis — even though they know there’s no chance the Senate will do its part until after the holiday break.

The Senate started 2009 at a faster clip. At the beginning of the session, it passed legislation to expand children’s health insurance, control tobacco and respond to a Supreme Court decision on gender pay discrimination. But things have slowed down drastically since; the Senate took four weeks to pass a widely supported extension of unemployment benefits when the House passed it in a matter of hours.

For House Democrats, the Senate health care debate has been particularly painful.

The fate of the Senate bill remains in doubt even after Reid made a series of concessions this week to appease Lieberman, who declared that he would join the Republicans in filibustering any bill that contained either a public option or a proposed expansion of Medicare.

Lieberman’s one-man act prompted Connecticut Democratic Rep. Rosa DeLauro to call for his recall and another Connecticut Democrat, Rep. John Larson, to ask: “What gives a senator that right?”

The answer: The Senate rules, which give just about any member the power to stall legislation — especially when that member is the would-be 60th vote to invoke cloture.

On the House side, the speaker has the Rules Committee to help limit debate on the floor and keep the minority party - or her own upstarts - in check. In the Senate, an objection from a single senator creates the need for a procedural vote and a time-consuming process that can paralyze the chamber for days.

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) — a former House member himself — said there’s built-in tension between the two bodies, and that the tension leads to frustration among members of both.

“I understand that. I meet with them all the time — they are not happy with the pace of our deliberations,” he said. “But unfortunately, it reflects more on the institution than any given member ... [T]he rules here are designed to block. That’s what the founding fathers had in mind.”

Some House Democrats aren’t buying it.

“I know their rules are different over there,” McGovern said. “But like-minded people should be able to come together on this stuff. So it is frustrating. ... They’re definitely slowing things up.”

Of course, not all House Democrats are unhappy with the Senate’s slow pace.

South Dakota Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin said she’s glad the Senate takes more time to consider “legislation [that] is overreaching in some cases.” Still, even she says the Senate has “broken down” as an institution with the use of the filibuster.

Should Reid get a health care bill passed before Christmas, party leaders will still need to decide how to pay for it — through either a tax on high-end plans or a surtax on the wealthy — and then figure out how to wrap up differences on abortion, immigration and cost containment.

But House Democrats aren’t in the mood to trust their colleagues in the Senate, and that will make the process more difficult — even as Democrats acknowledge that they need to start getting some of these bills wrapped up if they want to reap the rewards next November.

Hoyer told reporters on Tuesday that it’s been “a very productive Congress, or House term, but it won’t be productive unless we can get those bills through the Senate.”


Sources: Politico

Landrieu, Lincoln Mull Saturday's Health Care Reform Test Vote...Pressure, Pressure

Senate Democrats are under extreme pressure to pass Health Care Reform Bill.

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Landrieu leans yes in Sat. cliffhanger



Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) said Friday night that she’s “leaning towards” voting to start debate on the health care bill – which would leave Democrats just a single vote shy of clearing a critical test for the reform package on Saturday.

Asked outside the Capitol if she’s made up her mind on starting the debate, Landrieu said she planned to announce her intentions Saturday but told POLITICO, “I’m leaning towards it.”

That would mean Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s hopes for a successful vote hinge on one senator: Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), who remained mum about her intentions as the clock ticked down to the critical vote.

Lincoln told POLITICO Friday afternoon that she has no timetable to make her decision ahead of the vote, scheduled for 8 p.m. "I was told I have time to make my decision," Lincoln said.

And Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) announced he would vote yes on going ahead with debate, even though he is calling for significant amendments to the bill on the floor.

Democrats from the White House to Capitol Hill projected confidence that Reid would have the 60 votes needed to start debate on health reform, despite the reservations expressed by senators on various details in the bill.

But with barely 24 hours left before the Saturday vote, no issue had emerged to immediately derail the $848 billion package, and Reid’s No. 2, Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, told reporters, “We will proceed with this bill."

The White House issued a statement of support for Reid’s bill, calling it “a critical milestone in the effort to reform our health care system.”

Other, less noticeable factors broke Reid’s way. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who has long pushed to expand consumers' health care choices, scored a big win today when Reid and Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus agreed to open the insurance exchanges to more consumers.

The change would allow roughly a million Americans who have employer-provided insurance to choose between keeping their employer coverage and buying coverage in the newly created health insurance exchanges. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce criticized Wyden’s plan, saying it would undermine the current employer-based health insurance system, but Wyden maintains that it doesn't impact businesses.

Landrieu, a co-sponsor on Wyden's Healthy Americans Act, said she was "very happy" to hear Wyden had struck the deal.

In recent days, Landrieu has sounded more and more open to voting for Reid’s measure. She told reporters earlier in the week that she was leaning against the vote, but shifted to neutral on Thursday and earlier Friday. By Friday night, with a stack of health care briefing papers under her arm, Landrieu said was leaning in favor of supporting the procedural motion.

She acknowledged that she had fought for changes to the bill to help people in her state. Reid included an extra $100 million in Medicaid funding for states hit by Hurricane Katrina, which includes Louisiana.

“I’m using as much leverage as I have for the issues that I think are important not just to Louisiana but to broad constituencies throughout this country... In some ways, you can’t fix anything unless you keep the debate moving forward but in the other ways, you’ve got to use the leverage when you’ve got it to get some things that are important,” Landrieu said.

It was Lincoln who remained the biggest question mark about the vote. Durbin told reporters that Lincoln had revealed her vote to Reid but Lincoln later said that wasn’t true, and Durbin had to pull back his remarks..

On the eve of the vote, Reid’s plan came under fire from Republicans and the Catholic Church, as one official from the U.S. Conference Catholic of Catholic Bishops told the Associated Press it “the worst bill we’ve seen so far on the life issues.”

It was the influence of the Catholic bishops that made abortion an last-minute issue that almost derailed the House vote on health reform two week ago. The issue seemed to have less resonance in the Senate, and two senators who have in the past voted to restrict abortion, Sen. Kent Conrad of North Dakota and Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania – didn’t seem inclined this week to inject the abortion issue into the Saturday debate.

Republicans tried to step up pressure on Nelson and the other moderates to keep them from voting yes. Republican Sen. John McCain emailed his supporters this morning urging them to call Nelson's office to urge him to vote no tomorrow on moving health reform forward.

But the 11:30 a.m. email probably came too late to make much impact. Shortly after noon, Nelson announced his yes vote.

Senate Republicans also stepped up their attacks on the bill, with Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) saying it relied on budget gimmicks to keep its price-tag under $1 trillion – like pushing off the start date of major reform until 2014.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) also tried to knock down the argument of Nelson and others that a vote Saturday is merely a vote to proceed to debate. “No Senator who votes for cloture on the motion to proceed tomorrow I think can with a straight face can contend they have somehow not embraced the bad policy contained in this bill,” he said.

If Reid still had his eye on Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), she dashed any hopes of giving Democrats a surprise "yes."

"How does this bill help small businesses? On balance, it doesn't," Collins said in a floor speech. "America would be better served by a bipartisan deal that brings together ideas on both sides of the aisle."




Health Care's Public Option Would Cover Little of Population


A proposed government-run health insurance program, among the most divisive issues in the health care debate, would cover less than 1.5 percent of the population, new estimates show.

The latest version of the "public option," included in the 10-year, $848 billion health care bill headed toward an initial Senate vote Saturday, would cover up to four million people, according to the Congressional Budget Office report released late Wednesday night.

The issue remains among those that have prevented Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid from securing the 60 votes he needs to pass the bill.



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Sources: Politico, ABC News, Google Maps

Reid's Senate Health Care Reform Bill Doesn't Appear To Cut Costs (CBO)...He's In For A Fight

Reid Plan ups pressure on Moderates


Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid unveiled his $848 billion health reform bill Wednesday to broad support from fellow Democrats — and the move quickly turned up the pressure on the last few wavering moderates to support the plan, which includes a sizable chunk of deficit cutting.

Reid’s plan would expand coverage to 94 percent of Americans through a government-run health insurance option — allowing states to opt out — and other features, all while reducing future federal deficits by $130 billion over the next 10 years, according to a Congressional Budget Office report released late Wednesday.

“Tonight begins the last leg of this journey” to bring health reform to the nation, Reid said in announcing the bill.

But Reid’s plan contains considerable differences from House legislation passed earlier this month — with a more limited public option and different ways to pay for the bill. Reid included an excise tax on insurers who offer “Cadillac” health plans, not the “millionaire’s tax” that’s in the House bill.

And one of the biggest differences between the bills – on language restricting federal funding for abortion – could prove problematic for Reid. His bill doesn’t include as many limits as the House bill and already is drawing fire from anti-abortion activists.

Democrats on Wednesday were clearly hoping that the deficit figures — the biggest deficit reduction of any health bill to date, Reid’s office noted — would knock down one of the last remaining obstacles to winning the votes of key centrists, at least to go ahead with debate on the bill as early as this weekend. Reid’s office said the bill could reduce the deficit by $650 billion in its second 10 years.

And, in fact, the strategy seemed to be working. Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson and Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu both sounded more positive about voting to allow debate to proceed.

Nelson told reporters he still had problems with the public option plan — he prefers a plan that would allow states to opt in instead — but signaled he’d wage that fight on the floor. He also made clear the vote to allow debate wouldn’t be the final fight on the bill.

“There will be opportunities to amend the legislation, and if it is amended to the satisfaction of several people, then it will have enough votes to pass on the back end,” Nelson said. “If not, it won’t. That is the risk.”

Other centrists sounded positive toward the bill. “If the bottom line is what it appears to be, that’s an encouraging thing. ... But you’ve got to trust but verify,” said Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.), who said he would vote to allow debate.

One holdout appeared to be Sen. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, who faces a tough reelection fight next fall. On her way in to the briefing with Reid, Lincoln was asked how she will vote on the motion to proceed: “We’ll wait and see,” she said.

Reid’s hopes of calling a vote to proceed with debate as early as Friday seemed to fade, but a Saturday vote remained a possibility. But he has no margin for error, needing all 58 Democrats and two independents to block any move toward a filibuster and bring the bill to the floor.

And over the course of Wednesday, the announcement of the plan emerged as a key test of his leadership and vote-corralling abilities — with President Barack Obama dispatching Vice President Joe Biden back to his old Senate haunts to help.

Adding to the uncertainty Wednesday was the absence of Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, who flew back to Montana to deal with a family emergency.

Beyond the moderates, Democrats praised Reid’s effort to thread the needle with a bill that will keep costs lower than Obama’s target of $900 billion, reins in deficit spending and still expands coverage to more than 31 million Americans. The reimbursement rates for the public plan will not be tied to Medicare, and co-ops will still be offered.

As for the $650 billion estimate, it grows out of a calculation by the CBO that the Senate Finance Committee bill would reduce the deficit by one-fourth to one-half percent of gross domestic product over its second 10 years. Finance Committee officials converted that to $650 billion to $1.3 trillion, and Reid’s office believes his bill to be in the one-fourth range and maybe higher — leading to the claim of $650 billion.

The Senate bill pushes back implementation of major parts of reform to 2014 — a shift from both the House and the Senate Finance Committee bill, which created 2013 effective dates.

This is bad news for lawmakers who will need to explain to constituents why the elements that have attracted the most attention -- the public plan, the Medicaid expansion and the insurance exchanges -- won't be available for four years. Some reforms would kick in earlier, Senate aides explained, but the big pieces would still be a ways off.

Reid sought to sidestep hot-button issues that could cause trouble for the bill. Illegal immigrants will not get health benefits under the bill, and it would restrict taxpayer funding of abortion — an issue that almost derailed the House bill.

Abortion rights supporters were quick to praise the language Reid included in the bill, which was an early warning sign that it doesn’t go far enough for some in the anti-abortion community who led the effort to amend the House bill.

The National Right to Life Committee slammed the language as “unacceptable.”

“Reid seeks to cover elective abortions in two big new federal health programs, but tries to conceal that unpopular reality with layers of contrived definitions and hollow bookkeeping requirements,” NRLC Legislative Director Douglas Johnson said in a statement.

Other Democrats praised Reid’s efforts.

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass), who was concerned about the tax on Cadillac benefits, praised Reid for raising the limits to policies costing $23,000 for a family and $8,500 for an individual. “They moved, and I like the new numbers. It is closer to where I first began. ... I think we are going pass this legislation.”

Kerry also praised Reid’s efforts to reduce the tax on medical device manufacturers to $20 billion, down from $40 billion, over 10 years.

The Reid bill would increase the Medicare payroll tax on couples who earn more than $250,000 and individuals that earn $200,000 from 1.45 percent to 1.95 percent.

The bill levies a 5 percent tax on elective cosmetic surgery. The provision raises $5 billion and was needed to make the numbers work, a Democratic Senate aide said. The Finance Committee considered the tax but dismissed it, in part because it was a public relations battle that senators were not willing to wage.

The Senate bill includes a public insurance option that allows states to choose not to participate. In order to opt-out, states would have to pass a law, the aide said.

The Congressional Budget Office estimated only a fraction of the uninsured -- 3 million to 4 million people -- would enroll in the public plan, in part because some states would decide against offering it. The figure is lower than the 6 million who were estimated to enroll in the public plan under the House bill, which does not provide an escape hatch for states.

“Overall, CBO’s assessment was that about two-thirds of the population would be expected to have a public plan available in their state,” the CBO report stated.

The Reid bill only slightly toughens the requirement that people carry insurance. It levies a $95 fine in 2014 and scales up to $750 by 2016. The Senate Finance bill had no penalty in the first year.

Critics worry that people will choose to pay the cheaper penalty rather than buying the more expensive insurance plans because the bill also requires insurers to offer coverage to people who are sick. That combination could lead to an older, sicker and more expensive risk pool.

In what can be viewed as an election-year sweetener for senior citizens, the coverage gap in the Medicare prescription drug program would shrink by $500 in 2010 only under the Senate bill. The Senate aide described it as a "down-payment" that would move the Senate closer to the House bill, which eliminates the donut hole over the next decade.

Getting 60 votes on what amounts to a procedural vote has proved challenging for Reid. Biden held court for more than three hours in a room off the Senate floor. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle were also dispatched to the Capitol by Obama to lobby senators.

As expected, moderates were the focal point. Salazar ate lunch with Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) in the Senate dining room. Lincoln hustled into the Senate reception room for a sit-down with Biden, but she emerged without making any public commitments.

“We’re still counting. Harry is still counting and working,” said Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill).





New CBO Score


Here it is. Will update with details shortly.

Update: Some highlights:

--Costs $848 billion

--Cuts the deficit by $130 billion over the next decade

--Cuts Medicare spending by $491 billion over 10 years.

--Covers 94 percent of non-senior residents. By 2019, about 31 million more people would have insurance, leaving about 24 million uninsured -- about 8 million of which would be unauthorized immigrants.

--3-4 million would join the public plan or roughly 1 in 8 people buying insurance through the exchanges.

--Medicare spending would decrease by about 2 percent over the next two decades.





Reid's restrictions on Abortion

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid tries to do what House Democrats couldn't by silencing an abortion debate before it overtakes the negotiations over his health care bill.

As promised, Reid didn't include the controversial Stupak amendment, which prohibits coverage of elective abortions under the public plan and prevents insurers from offering it to anyone who receives federal subsidies through the new insurance exchange.

Instead, Reid's bill tries to maintain current law, wherever applicable, and extend it to new programs created through the legislation. But it wasn't enough to satisfy abortion opponents that federal funds won't be used to fund the procedure.

"Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nv.) has rejected the bipartisan Stupak-Pitts Amendment and has substituted completely unacceptable language that would result in coverage of abortion on demand in two big new federal government programs," said Douglas Johnson, legislative director for the National Right to Life Committee. "Reid seeks to cover elective abortions in two big new federal health programs, but tries to conceal that unpopular reality with layers of contrived definitions and hollow bookkeeping requirements."

The bill grants the secretary of Health and Human Services the authority to determine whether federal money is being used to fund abortions under the public plans, but doesn't ban those plans from offering the coverage. Reid's bill also explicitly requires insurers to separate private premiums from any public subsidies used to pay for that coverage to assure taxpayer dollars aren't used to fund the procedure - which is prohibited by the Hyde Amendment.

But critics of the original abortion language in the House argued that the subsidies alone would make coverage more available to people who might not otherwise be able to afford it. Therefore, these critics requested the blanket ban on insurance companies from offering it to anyone who used subsidies to pay for coverage. Since the subsidy structure is different in the Senate bill, these explicit guidelines might be enough for anti-abortion lawmakers - many of the Democrats briefed on the bill Wednesday night said they were okay with the current language. But it might not. So expect the outside groups, like National Right to Life and the Catholic Church, to dictate those terms.

There is a conscience clause that makes it perfectly acceptable for insurance companies to deny that coverage or health care providers to refuse carrying out the procedure. But the bill also requires each exchange to offer one plan that provides abortion coverage and one that doesn't - a major sticking point for critics of the original House language.

California Rep. Lois Capps, who tried to hatch a compromise on the Energy and Commerce Committee, commended Reid's language, saying, “I am pleased that the Senate has adopted a reasonable, common ground approach on this difficult question. It appears that their approach closely mirrors my language which was originally included in the House bill."

In a statement, she went on to point out that the bill "ensures that federal funds do not pay for abortions but allows continued access to this legal medical procedure."

But given how abortion opponents reacted to the Capps Amendment, this might not be the endorsement Reid was looking for


Sources: Politico, CBO, LA Times

Health Care Reform May Not Happen This Year...Per Harry Reid

Harry Reid: Health Care Bill May Not Be Finished This Year


In a blow to the White House, the Senate's top Democrat signaled Tuesday that Congress may fail to meet a year-end deadline for passing health care legislation, leaving the measure's fate to the uncertainties of the 2010 election season.

Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., spoke as Democratic officials said it could be December before Senate debate begins in earnest on the legislation atop President Barack Obama's domestic agenda, months after senior lawmakers and the White House had hoped.

House leaders, on a somewhat faster track, pointed toward a vote this weekend on a bill to extend coverage to tens of millions who lack it, ban insurance industry practices such as denying coverage because of pre-existing medical conditions and generally slow the rate of growth of medical spending nationwide. The 10-year, $1.2 trillion legislation is estimated to expand coverage to about 96 percent of eligible Americans.

The measure includes an option for consumers to purchase a government insurance plan, an attempt to put pressure on private firms.

While Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and House leaders weighed final changes to their version of the bill, Reid for the first time publicly raised the possibility that lawmakers would not be able to meet their – and Obama's – self-imposed deadline of completing work on health care by year's end.

"We're not going to be bound by any timelines. We need to do the best job we can for the American people," he said after the weekly closed-door meeting of rank-and-file Democrats.

At the White House, spokesman Dan Pfeiffer sought to put the best face on the developments.

"The House plans to vote on the health reform bill within days. Senator Reid has committed to the president that as soon as the Senate has the information back from the CBO they will move expeditiously to pass health reform," Pfeiffer said.

The Congressional Budget Office is at work on a cost estimate for the draft bill Reid submitted last week.

A few hours later, Reid's office revised his remarks with a written statement. "Our goals remain unchanged. We want to get health insurance reform done this year, and we have unprecedented momentum to achieve that. There is no reason why we can't have a transparent and thorough debate in the Senate and still send a bill to the president by Christmas," it said.

Any delay past Obama's oft-repeated year-end timetable would put the issue off until the 2010 election year and inevitably raise doubts about Democrats' ability to deliver on behalf of the Obama administration.

Despite the late-afternoon statement, numerous other officials said it could be early December before the Senate begins work in earnest on long-delayed health care legislation, making it a virtual impossibility for lawmakers to send a compromise to Obama's desk by the end of the year.

It has long been obvious that Reid would need 60 votes to overcome a threatened Republican filibuster. As late as last week, when he announced his intention to include a government insurance option in the bill, he avoided saying he had enough support to prevail.

Democrats in both houses have been plagued all year by internal divisions on the issue, a problem more difficult for Reid to manage because he must have unanimous support of his rank and file as he tries to overcome solid Republican opposition.

Pelosi, by contrast, leads a caucus of 256 Democrats, and can afford more than two dozen defections and still be assured of passing legislation when the roll is called in the House. She projected no concern about a possible delay in final action until next year.

"Our members know they have an historic responsibility and an historic opportunity to do something great, and we would hope that it would be sooner but I don't think anybody has a clock ticking," she said.

Officials said Democrats were still deciding whether to jettison a provision creating a new long-term care insurance program to help seniors and disabled people stay out of nursing homes. Because the government would collect premiums for several years before any benefits were issued, the measure would raise an estimated $70 billion over 10 years – money that would have to be replaced before the health care bill could be completed.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity, saying they were not authorized to discuss details.

Across the Capitol, House Republicans readied an alternative bill that bore little similarity to the Democratic blueprint.

A copy obtained by The Associated Press called for loosening numerous restrictions on the insurance industry as a way of expanding coverage. As an example, it would permit firms to sell policies across state lines without having to submit to regulations in every state.

It contained none of the tax increases or Medicare cuts that Democrats rely on.

Unlike in the Democratic bills, the Republican draft would permit insurers to continue denying coverage on the basis of pre-existing medical conditions. They also would be permitted to charge higher premiums for individuals who fail to enroll in a "standards-based wellness program."

The measure would place caps on medical malpractice lawsuits, limiting the amount of damages that could be awarded as well as the size of attorney fees. It also called for the permanent ban on federal funding for most abortions. Current restrictions must be renewed annually.

"We believe it's going to resonate with millions of Americans who don't want this massive government takeover of health care to become law," Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., said in a reference to the Democrats' legislation.


Sources: Huffington Post

Harry Reid Steps Up!...Promises Public Option Will Be In Final Bill

Reid Says Public Plan Will Be In Final Bill

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who will have wide control over reconciling two versions of health care legislation in the Senate, told local constituents on Thursday that the final bill will include a Public Option for insurance coverage.

The remarks, first reported by the Las Vegas Review-Journal are destined to bring a wide smile to the faces of progressives who view the melding of health care legislation by leadership in the Senate -- and the subsequent melding between the Senate and the House versions -- as the best chance of ensuring the public option's passage.

Reid had been skeptical of getting a government-run plan through Congress in recent days -- though aides say that the provision remains his personal preference. And after the defeat of two public option amendments in the Senate Finance Committee it seemed that the policy proposal was all but pronounced dead.

But on Thursday Reid reportedly told a conference call of Nevadans that: "We are going to have a public option before this bill goes to the president's desk."

"I believe the public option is so vitally important to create a level playing field and prevent the insurance companies from taking advantage of us," Reid added.

UPDATE: Reid's office clarifies his remarks in a statement sent over from an aide to the Senator.

"Sen. Reid believes that health insurance reform must include a mechanism to keep insurers honest, create competition and keep costs down," the statement reads. "He feels that the public option is the best way to do that. While we don't know exactly what that option will look like, Sen. Reid, working with President Obama, will ensure that whatever is included in the final bill does just that."

This seemed somewhat inevitable as Reid has largely resisted going out on a limb when it comes to the public option.



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Sources: Huffington Post, Las Vegas Review Journal, Google Maps

Pres. Obama In Nevada With Senator Reid For Sun & Fundraising, Talks Recovery Act, Solar Energy, Green Jobs

President Obama: "You know, it's always a pleasure to get out of Washington a little bit."

"Washington is okay, but it's nice taking some time to talk to Americans of every walk of life outside of the nation's capital. And there's nothing like a quick trip to Vegas in the middle of the week."

"Like millions of other Americans, we come to this beautiful city for the sights and for the sounds -- and today we come for the sun."

"Because right now, we're standing near the largest solar electric plant of its kind in the entire Western Hemisphere -- the entire Western Hemisphere. More than 72,000 solar panels built on part of an old landfill provide 25 percent of the electricity for the 12,000 people who live and work here at Nellis. That's the equivalent of powering about 13,200 homes during the day."

"It's a project that took about half a year to complete, created 200 jobs, and will save the United States Air Force, which is the largest consumer of energy in the federal government, nearly $1 million -- $1 million a year. It will also reduce harmful carbon pollution by 24,000 tons per year, which is the equivalent of removing 4,000 cars from our roads. Most importantly, this base serves as a shining example of what's possible when we harness the power of clean, renewable energy to build a new, firmer foundation for economic growth."

"Now, that's the kind of foundation we're trying to build all across America. One hundred days ago, in the midst of the worst economic crisis in half a century, we passed the most sweeping economic recovery act in history -- a plan designed to save jobs, create new ones, and put money in people's pockets. It's a plan designed not only to revive the economy in the short term, but to rebuild the economy over the long term. It's a plan that we passed thanks to the tireless efforts of Harry Reid and Congresswoman Berkley and Congresswoman Titus and all the other outstanding public servants in Washington."

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Sources: Whitehouse.gov, Huffington Post, MSNBC, Day Life, Reuters, Nellis Air Force Base, Google Maps