Obama to Highlight Cost in New Health Bill Push

NYT: 

Democrats are planning to attach any compromise revisions to a budget reconciliation measure, which would circumvent a Republican filibuster and allow the plan to be adopted by a simple majority in the Senate.

With Democratic Congressional leaders, particularly Speaker Nancy Pelosi, facing a steep challenge in mustering votes for the health care legislation, Mr. Obama’s remarks on its financial and fiscal implications could be crucial. In effect, officials indicate, he will contrast Democrats’ proposals for expanding coverage and for regulating insurance company practices with what he sees as the shortcomings of the Republicans’ incremental plans.

Mr. Obama on Wednesday “will talk about the merits of the legislation, mainly about the costs of doing nothing versus the cost of doing something and what this will accomplish,” said his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel.

The White House is also pressing business supporters to take what could be a final stand in favor of the Democrats’ initiative. Mr. Obama’s emerging message against higher insurance costs was seconded on Monday by the Business Roundtable, a Washington group representing major corporations. Mr. Obama spoke to the group last week, and had its executive board to the White House for dinner.

In a statement, the group’s president, John J. Castellani, repeated its position that overhauling the health insurance system should be “a national priority” given the burden of rising expenses on individuals, the government and especially employers. Without action, Mr. Castellani said, “if present trends continue, the cost to provide an employee with health care will rise from $10,000 to $28,000 over 10 years.”

The president’s spokesman, Robert Gibbs, took up the argument in his daily news briefing. Mr. Gibbs cited insurance premium increases proposed by Anthem Blue Cross in California that have become Democrats’ favored ammunition against the insurance industry — and against their Republican opponents, including Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, the second-ranking House Republican leader.

“If we don’t act, this is what our future is,” Mr. Gibbs said. “If we don’t act, insurance companies like Anthem that are sending letters to individuals in the individual insurance market saying their rates will rise 39 percent — that’s what will happen. Congressman Cantor says let’s start over, but the insurance companies aren’t starting over.”

Of the 38 House Democrats who voted against the health care bill in November, 25 are members of the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition. They have expressed deep reservations about whether the country can afford such an expansive and expensive bill, though it includes spending reductions and tax increases to avoid adding to annual deficits.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has projected that the bills passed in the House and the Senate would reduce future federal deficits over the next 10 years by more than $100 billion, and the White House has insisted that the plan Mr. Obama unveiled last week would do the same.

But the budget office has yet to analyze the president’s plan — indeed, the White House has yet to provide legislative language that would allow it to do so. In any case, critics have expressed doubt that the projected savings would ever materialize, given Congress’s failure to follow through on some past efforts to reduce the growth of Medicare.

“On policy, I need to hear more cost containment,” said Representative Jason Altmire, Democrat of Pennsylvania and a Blue Dog who opposed the House bill in November. “It’s still weak.”

Republicans have capitalized on such skepticism and have had some success in defining the Democratic proposals by their immediate costs in new spending to expand coverage to the uninsured. By contrast, the administration and Congressional Democrats continue to struggle, despite support from nonpartisan analysts, to make the case that long-term costs would be lower under the overhaul they propose.

“Obviously we expect costs to come down because of a lot of the things we’ve done in the bill,” said Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the House Democratic leader. “But,” Mr. Hoyer acknowledged, “this is not the financing reform vehicle I think that it might have been.”

As for the legislative strategy, the Democrats are not trying to pass an entirely new bill under the reconciliation process.

Instead, a reconciliation measure would include only provisions to change the Senate-passed bill in ways reflecting compromises with the House and the White House. Then, in a legislative two-step, the House would adopt the original Senate bill, the House and the Senate would approve the package of changes, and Mr. Obama would sign both into law.

The compromises would adjust subsidies to help people with moderate incomes buy insurance, raise Medicare payroll taxes on the wealthy, further reduce the impact of an excise tax on high-cost employer-sponsored insurance policies, and increase federal aid to states for their Medicaid costs.

Some House Democrats who oppose abortion rights have said they might vote against the Senate bill because its restrictions on insurance coverage for abortions are not as great as those in the House version. But reconciliation rules prevent changing provisions that do not have any budgetary impact.

Posted via email from Jim Nichols for GA State House