Democrats are looking at adding the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act (SAFRA) to health care care reform legislation. SAFRA would abolish privater lenders of student loans, people would borrow directly from the government, increases Pell Grants and aims to keep loan interest rates loan.    Continues...

As a final vote on U.S. health care reform nears, Representative Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), known for being a far left liberal, has made clear that he'll vote against the final bill. Among his concerns are the "...timidity of the legislative language and, specifically, the unwillingness of lawmakers to seriously consider a single payer system".

With the final House vote promising to be close, Democrats are growing alarmed at Kucinich's position, with Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas promising a primary challenger if the Congressman proceeds to vote against reform.

President Obama this morning unveiled his take on health care reform this morning (download 11 page PDF), in preparation for Thursday's showdown, er, televised health care summit with Republicans.

Key points:
The proposed bill is $950 billion, up from the Senate's $871 billion plan.

Nebraska's special Medicaid deal is gone.

New federal authority over insurance rate increases.

Delay's the tax on high end insurance plans until 2018, instead of 2013.

Closes the Medicare donut hole.

Confused? Here's a nice chart comparing Obama's bills against the House and Senate bill.

If Republicans continue filibustering, the White House has made clear that's it's open to passing health care reform via reconciliation, but alas, no public option is included in the President's plan, despite the renewed interest by some Senators for the plan.

With health care reform stalled due to the pesky problem of the Democrats losing their slim majority in the Senate and the House balking at passing the Senate plan with no changes, President Obama is trying a different tactic. He has invited Republican and Democratic leaders to take part in a televised gathering to discuss health care reform, to occur on February 25th.

With the US House and Senate having based separate bills on health care reform, it's time to merge the two bills into one, in order to present a single bill that both chambers can pass and send to the President. However, since Republicans seems intent on slowing down the process anyway they can, Democrats, who hold the majority, have decided to do negotiations informally, in a process called "ping pong" where formal procedures are skipped and officials work out agreements outside the chambers and away from the spotlight.

House Majority Whip James Clyburn (SC) says he could back legislation that doesn't include a public option, further signaling that the final health care bill from both houses will resemble the Senate version.

Newt Gingrich and the Tea Party are pushing for Republicans in the 2010 and 2012 elections to run on a platform of repealing any health care bill that passes.

Congress is currently not in session, the House returns on January 11th, Senate on the 18th. Though loose negotiations are said to be taking place between the chambers, nothing official will happen until the chambers gavel back into session.

It's Christmas Eve and the US Senate is voting on its health care reform bill at 7am. It's important to realize that this is not the final vote. Once the Senate passes its version, the legislation will need to be reconiled with the version voted on by the House of Representatives and then approved again by both chambers, before being sent to the President, who's been making the rounds to champion the Senate bill.

Just another crazy day in the health care reform battle:

The normally pro defense spending Republicians are not voting for cloture on a bill authorizing funding for the military, which would cause a huge headache considering the US is in the midst of two wars, but doing so would delay health care legislation, so hey, win some, lose some. The Democrats have to muster 60 votes, prompting anti war Senator Russ Feingold to agree to vote to invoke cloture, though he'll vote against the final bill.

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, an Independent that caucuses with the Democrats and who's vote is one of 60 they're counting on to involve cloture, is now making saying "As of this point, I’m not voting for the bill". He's not happy with the public option and Medicare buy-in being dropped.

Meanwhile the White House has gotten into a public argument with Howard Dean, who thinks the Senate bill should be killed believing it'll be a bailout of the insurance industry. Dan Pfeiffer, White House Communications Director, calls Dean's line of reasoning perplexing in blog post on the White Houses website. Guess we know who won't be trading Christmas gifts.

The Democrats seemed like that had a plan for passing health care reform: drop the controversial public option in exchange for lower the age of medicare. Senator Joe Lieberman didn't like that idea (even though he was ok with it three months ago) and it looks like he's going to get his way since his vote is needed. The result? Some form of health care reform will pass, but it won't be as strong as it could have been.

The latest step in trying to find get health care reform passed is more talking and new version of the public option.

First up, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has asked ten Democrats Senators to negotiate among themselves a comprise that'll unite the party and enable reform to pass. On one side are Sens. Blanche Lincoln, Ark., Mary Landrieu, La., Ben Nelson, Neb., Tom Carper, Del., and Mark Pryor,Ark. On the other side is Charles Schumer, NY Jay Rockefeller, W.Va., Sherrod Brown, Ohio, Tom Harkin, Iowa, and Russ Feingold, Wisc. The group has met briefly, but it still has a lot of work to do in bridging the divide among Democrats and the two Independents that caucus with them, Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

Meanwhile, a new version of the public option is being trotted out: "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." It would allow for national insurance plans, as opposed to state plans, but wouldn't be run directly by the government per se (The OPM vs the Health and Human Services Agency), but the OPM, supposedly because of its previous experience would have leverage to make good, affordable deals for citizens, particularly since it would all citizens in its risk pool,

Georgia's House speaker has resigned after a suicide attempt and alleged affair with a lobbyist.

The United States only lost 11,000 jobs in November and no, that's not a typo. According to the nice bar graph at Washington Monthly, job losses have been slowing since January of 09 for the most part (there was huge lose in June).

NATO has pledged 7,000 troops to Afghanistan, in addition to America's 30,000. No specifics though on exactly what NATO are contributing troops.

In U.S. health care reform, the Senate is is chugging through amendments. Senator Ben Nelson doesn't have the votes to get strict abortion language inserted into the bill, while Senators Tom Coburn an David Vitter are trying to force Congressional members to use whatever health care plan is approved. Doesn't seem like it'll pass. Meanwhile, Senator Mary Landrieu, who is against the public option, has offered her own health care idea, which appears to be a federally financed, but state funded "competitive community option" which kicks in only if coverage isn't deemed affordable.

A recent Reuters survey shows that most Americans do want a public option in the health care legislation, but the real question is at what's the price of overall reform for the public option?    Continues...

The Senate takes up the health care debate today, here's seven issues to look for. The big fight though will be within the Democratic party, as Senators Bill Nelson (D-Neb.), Mary Landrieu (D-La.), Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) have all come out solidly against the public option, which is seen as pivotal to the final bill.

In the wake of the Senate's slim margins for health care debate (60 votes are needed to invoke cloture) Harry Reid is said to be casting about for potential Republican votes. The most likely place is Maine, where Republican Senators Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, who voted with the Democrats on the stimulus bill, are being sought as potential votes on health care reform.

The US Senate will be debating the health care reform bill all day today, ahead of the 8pm vote on whether to allow the bill to reach the Senate floor. CSPAN will be carrying the a live feed from the Senate floor starting at 10am as the various Senators argue for and against health care reform.    Continues...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will unveil that chamber's version of health care reform to other Democrats this evening. Reid is pleased about the CBO score, which should be publicly available to today. He's cautiously optimistic about getting 60 votes to pass it.

The US House of Representatives will be taking up the Medicare Physician Payment Reform Act of 2009, which is supposed to correct a problem with the sustainable growth rate. See, back in 1997, Congress tied Medicare spending to the economic growth via a formula, with the goal of making Medicare payments to doctors predictable and thus able to budget for. However, changing dynamics in the economy made the formula not work well and rather than risk reducing Medicare payment to doctors, Congress has consistently overrides the law on yearly basis. Since those cuts are never enacted, they keep growing each year and now in 2009, they're slated to be 21.5% and go into effect on January 1st, 2010. So the House bill is supposed to be permanent fix.

Why wasn't the act in the House's health care reform bill? Because it would cost between $210-$300 billion dollars (there's debate about what the final number is) and including that amount in the final health care bill kicks the cost of that bill over a trillion dollars over ten years (i.e. about 100 billion a year, for ten years), which no one wants.

Long story short, Congress is working to pass another piece of health care legislation to that will definitely add to the deficit to the tune of between $200-$300 billion while preventing cuts in Medicare payments to doctors. Since the bill adds to the deficit, it's expected to be a contentious debate.

Independents don't like the health care bill, even though there isn't an actual final bill and won't be one till the end of the year at the earliest. Meanwhile the President says he's looking to change the anti-abortion Stupak amendment, to make it more in line with the current status quo i.e. no federal dollars for abortions, but still leave options for private health care.

Yesterday brave patriots staged a protect at House Czar Nancy Pelosi's office, taking the fight for freedom to the very doorsteps of America's government.

Or was it just Operation Rescue, mugging for the cameras again?

Remember how health care reform was supposed to be passed by the end of year? Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is signaling that there may be a slight delay. How much delay? Nothing specific but before the State of the Union address on January 20th is being bandied about.

Meanwhile the final House bill on health care is heading to the floor and may be voted by Friday evening.

Yesterday, on Face the Nation, Senator Joe Leiberman vowed to filibuster any health care reform bill that has a public option in it.

(Leiberman) "There're so many good things we can do to make health insurance more affordable and to extend it to people who don't have it now, but I feel so strongly about the creation of another government health insurance entitlement, of the government going into the health insurance business, I think it's such a mistake that I would use the power I have as a single Senator to stop a final vote."

"But wouldn't that mean that you might wind up with nothing instead of something?" asked Schieffer.

"Yeah, but I'd say to the people who are all of a sudden making the public option a government health insurance company the litmus test here, they're stopping us from getting something done."

The big news is that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will include a public option in the Senate's health care bill enabling individual states to opt out of the public option. it's widely thought that right leaning states will be the most likely to do so. Still, just getting any sort of public option into the Senate bill is being hailed as a victory.

But as Ezra Klein points out, this is a compromise. This isn't a single payer system. It isn't even an expansion of Medicare. States will be able to opt out, so it won't be national policy. It will only be available to those eligible for health exchanges, which doesn't apply to the majority of the population who get health insurance through their employers. Even if a person is eligible, they'll still be limited by what their state decides.    Continues...

Over in the House, Speaker Nancy Pelosi seems ok with legislation letting the states opt out of any public option.

In the Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid supposedly has close to the 60 votes needed to avoid a filibuster, based on the idea that states would be able to opt out a national public option

The only problem is the White House, which prefers Olympia Snowe's idea for triggers, thus getting her vote and being able to call the bill bi-partisan. The White House says those reports are false though.

A Handy Guide to Congress' Health Care Bills, courtesty of opencongress.org. Good and quick breakdown of the differences between the bills.

There's talk of rebranding the public option as Medicare, Part E, where E stands for everyone. Why? Everyone loves Medicare, its got a proven track record, whereas the term 'public option' conjures up all sorts of boogeymen.

Tentative CBO scores for the House version of health care reform put the price tag at $900 billion over ten years and includes a public option. This is only slightly more than the Senate Finance Committe's $829 billion dollar bill, which has no public option. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is reportedly going to push hard for a public option in the final House bill.

"With Democratic leaders and White House officials holed up in Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-Nev.) office negotiating a final bill, Republicans are demanding a deceleration of the process and moving to define whatever plan that emerges as a combination of Medicare cuts, tax increases, higher insurance premiums and rising overall costs."

As the Senate Finance Committee prepares to vote on health care reform, Republican member Olympia Snowe has said that she will vote for the committee's bill. However, she was quick to warn her vote on the final health care bill, whatever it may look like, is in no way guaranteed.

With the U.S. Senate Finance Committee getting ready to vote on on health care reform, Senator Tom Carper (D-Delaware) has suggested another compromise to woo centrist Democrats and Republicans: the public option at the state government level, seeded by $6 billion in federal money. States would also be able to ban together to create regional co-ops.

Most polls show that Americans want a bipartisan health care reform bill, bu they're not married to it. If the choice is a bipartisan bill with no public option or Democrat only bill with a public option, the majority want the latter.

Something to keep in mind as the Senate Finance committee finishes up its version of reform this week and Senate Majority leader Harry Reid begins work on reconciling that bill and the HELP committee's bill, which does have a public option.

Slate is live blogging the Senate Finance committee's markup of health care legislation, which started on bacon on Sept. 22nd. It's lovely view of the sausage making, as Republicans complain about the government takeover of health care and the attack on civil liberties (Senator John Kyl (AZ), what would we do without you?). Other highlights include surly Senators wanting to know the cost of the bill, only to be told that since it has 564 amendments, the CBO doesn't know yet, arguments of whether they should vote on the amendments legislative language which hasn't bee written yet (this is common) and other tactics to delay the bill. Fun times.

Slate has also complied a list of all the proposed amendments to the bill.

After a leader of the Blue Dogs says he's completely against the public option, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi begins planning to include one in the House bill anyway.

The Senate Finance committee beings marking up its version of reform today.

On that note, Senator Kent Conrad, a member of the "Gang of Six" in the Finance Committee working on reform, wants a full CBO score on the Finance Committee's bill before voting on it, which would take about two weeks.

Vice-President Joe Biden is stepping up his role in the reform debate.

Health insurance premiums rose by 5 percent this year, while wages only went up by 3.1 percent.

After months of seeking bipartsian support for health care, Max Baucaus, Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, released a draft of a bill on health care reform yesterday.

It's a terrible bill. It has no Republican support, no public option, has an employer mandate that "penalizes employers for hiring low-income workers who are eligible for subsidies".

The committee is supposed to be release a final version next week and then the "fun" begins as the differences between this and the HELP committee's version (PDF) are hammered out in the Senate before reconciling with the more liberal House bills.

Maine's Senators, Olympia Snow and Susan Collins, both Republicans, are often seen as moderates willing to work with the Democrat administration, especially on health care reform. But when it comes to the 'public option' they've taken noticeably partisan tone.

Snow says the public option is "universally opposed by all Republicans in the Senate", while Collins rejects the idea and the 'trigger' compromise, which would allowed the public option only if insurance companies failed to do certain undefined things.

Meanwhile, Max Baucus, chairmen of the Senate Finance Committee, says he'll make a final push this week to win Republican support for his committee's bill.

Over the weekend, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus presented his idea for health care reform. It has no public option, would cost about $900 billion, tax insurance companies to pay for the uninsured and would have yearly limits of $11,900 for a family and $5,950 for an individual. Supposedly Baucus designed this to appeal to Republicans, but they don't seem interested.

The big issue is still the "public option" which is either a government take over of health care, or was to force private to be competitive for the greater good. Most conservatives don't want it, most liberals do. Currently, meaning this particular day, a "trigger option" is being floated around for the "public option" which cause the latter to kick in only if some still undefined things didn't happen from the insurance companies. The trigger is seen as a way of appealing to conservatives, both Republican and Democrat, who are wary of the public option. It doesn't seem to be too appealing though.

The President is set to make speech tomorrow before a joint session of Congress, but it's unclear how that will go. The White House still favors a public option, but it hasn't strongly advocated for one. What's next? No one really knows. Some kind of health care reform will pass, but the width and depth of it is still very uncertain.

Where is the U.S. on health care reform? A New York Times editorial sums up the situation. Despite having majorities in House and Senate and the Presidency, Democrats are still struggling to win the debate. In the House, 3 committees have passed versions of reform legislation, while in the Senate, 1 of 2 committees has done the same. All that's left is the Senate Finance panel, where six (3 Democrats and 3 Republicans) of its 23 members are working on reform and it doesn't look good.

Two of the Republicans working on the compromise — Charles Grassley of Iowa and Michael Enzi of Wyoming — have said they would not vote for a bill that could not win broad support, which Mr. Enzi defined as 75 to 80 senators, implying that roughly half of the Senate’s Republicans must sign on. That is unlikely — no matter how good or bipartisan or middle-of-the-road any bill may be.

Given that, the Democrats are seriously considering going it alone via the reconciliation process which would enable a simple majority to approve legislation.

The approach is risky. Reconciliation bills are primarily intended to deal with budget items that affect the deficit, not with substantive legislation like health care reform. Senators could challenge as “extraneous” any provisions that do not change spending or revenues over the next five years, or would have a budget impact that is “merely incidental” to some broader policy purpose, or would increase the deficit in Year 6 and beyond.

Some sort of reform seems bound to happen, but the exact depth and breadth of what that reform will looks is far from certain.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee has published an analysis of how its health care reform bill, H.R. 3200, would impact each district in the United States. Keep in mind that these are estimates and that they're from only one committee in the House, not any type of final bill.

WIth healthcare reform stalled in the Senate Finance Committe and 2 of the 3 Republican Senators drafting reform legislation on that committee saying they're willing to vote against it, it may be time for the Democrats to go it alone.

Chuck Grassley (R-IO) and Sen. Mike Enzi (R, WO) have both said they're looking to vote on a bill that generates at least 75-80 votes in the Senate, otherwise they won't vote for it. If all the Senate Democrats voted for the bill, that would be 60 votes, and the remaining 15-20 would be Republican, which looks extremely unlikely in the current climate. To break it down, Grassley and Enzi, both part of the "Gang of Six" on the Fiance Committee who are crafting that panel's reform legislation may (and that's a big may) vote for some sort of reform from their committee, only to turn around later and vote against whatever final bill the Senate comes up if it doesn't get enough votes from other Republicans.

No wonder the White House and congressional Democrats may be willing to go it alone. According to Bloomberg news, the President will begin pressing for a straight party vote in both chambers in September. Hopes for some Republicans to vote on reform still linger, but the debate seems to be shifting to "We tried to comprise, yet got little in return, so the hell with'em."

Betsy McCaughey, a former Lt. Governor of New York and current Republican talking head appeared on the Daily Show last and did the back and forth with Jon Stewart. Just watch, it's what is sorely missing from most debate about healthcare reform, solid back and forth and debunking of lies.

Part 1

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Exclusive - Betsy McCaughey Extended Interview Pt. 1
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Healthcare Protests

Part 2

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Exclusive - Betsy McCaughey Extended Interview Pt. 2
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Healthcare Protests

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius appeared on CNN's State of the Union, talking and answering questions. One of the key points she made was a downplaying of the public option in health care reform, saying it's "not the essential element".

Instead what's being looked at are co-ops, an idea originally suggested by Senator Kent Conrad (D, ND) as way to get Republican support and Blue Dog support in the Senate. It's not definite that the public option is dead, but with the White House strongly signaling, via Sebelius, that it's open to co[ops, final negotiations in the Senate Finance committee, should be very interesting.

Just another week in August, as town hall meetings continue to get violent, guns put in an appearance (though are not used), along with death threats. Has the White House lost control of debate? Perhaps, but its response is kicking into overdrive with Democrats fighting back, a new website with a reality check and the President himself appearing at town hall in Portsmouth, N.H. today at 1pm EST.

The U.S. House of Representatives is in recess for August and on Friday the Senate will join them. Lawmakers will be spending the month talking to their constituents about a number of issues, but the main one will be healthcare reform. In the House, the three committees responsible for healthcare have all voted on their individual versions, which will have to reconciled with into one bill. There are two Senate committees dealing with healthcare and only one, HELP (Health, Education, Labor and Pensions), has voted on their version. The other committee, Finance, is working to finish by Friday. Once each chamber works out the differences between the its various committees, which will occur a bit over the recess and then in earnest in September, there will be two separate bills, one by the House and one by the Senate. Each of these bills will then have to be reconciled with each other before being signed off by the President. So with changes still on the table and lawmakers home, August is looking like a busy month for those against and for reform.    Continues...

The Associated Press has a round up of the various health plans being proposed by House Democrats, the Senate HELP Committee, Senate Finance Committee, House Republicans and Obama's proposal from his campaign.

None of the plans claim 100% coverage, topping out at 97%, which probably means less than that and no time frame is given for achieving that rate. The price ranges from about $600 billion to over a trillion dollars. Cuts in Medicare and Medicaid are proposed, though exact specifics are unknown. Subsidies for those close to poverty line are in the works, though how close a family needs to be to the poverty line for coverage vary. A government run plan is also included in most proposals. Employers will be required to provide health care options, with a range of penalties if they don't.

It should be noted that the plan by House Republicans is the least defined, with no details on how much it'll cost and who will pay for it. They do mention wanting to reduce Medicare and Medicaid fraud and generating revenue that way, but no details are given. Of course, there's no public option, as the party is vehemently against the idea.

With the various plans and the upcoming August recess, the goal of getting a healthcare plan finished before Congress takes its annual vacation is looking increasing unlikely.

In the U.S. the healthcare reform debate continues, with the public option still a major point of disagreement:

In the Senate 37 are for a public option, 40 against and 22 don't know.
In the House 197 are for a public option, 6 against and 237 don't know.

Resistance to the public option may due to insurance companies having a monopoly in the various geographical markets.

Most Americans want it, but then say they won't use it.

The current Senate plan doesn't have a public option in it, instead going for Kent Conrad's idea of healthcare co-ops.

In other news, the President will be doing a town hall about health care reform in Viriginia at 1:15pm today.

The House draft of the health care bill came out yesterday.    Continues...

Today President Obama begins concentrating on health care reform with a town hall in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Why here? Because the city and state have been a good job of reducing medical costs without sacrificing quality.

In the final two years of a patient's life, for example, they found that Medicare spent an average of $46,412 per beneficiary nationwide, with the typical patient spending 19.6 days in the hospital, including 5.1 in the intensive-care unit. Green Bay patients cost $33,334 with 14.1 days in the hospital and just 2.1 days in the ICU, while in Miami and Los Angeles, the average cost of care exceeded $71,000, and total hospitalization was about 28 days with 12 in the ICU.

Some differences can be explained by big-city prices, acknowledged Elliott Fisher, principal investigator for the Dartmouth Atlas Project, "but the differences that are really important are due to the differences in utilization rates."

This comes after a meeting yesterday with Senators dealing with healtcare legislation, where the President emphasized that he wanted a bipartisan bill on healthcare, but that he wasn't compromising on the timetable he's laid out. It's July or bust.

A draft of Ted Kennedy's healthcare plan is circulating and it's not promising. Employers would be forced to provide health care or pay a fine. Everyone would be guaranteed coverage, via subsides for those who can't afford it or presumably those without jobs.

Republicans aren't happy with health care plans, especially the idea for a public plan option alongside the private one, with Senator Grassley saying “Our caucus is very, very much against a public option. It’s kind of a litmus test.”

Paul Krugman thinks the insurance industry can't be trusted and Robert Reich points out how the health care and pharmaceutical industry is planning to kill the public option.

Advocates of a single payer system fight on, but with even the President against the idea, it looks like a non-starter.

As healthcare reform continues to be hammered out, a new twist has been proposed. A public option would be available, but only after certain "triggers" kicked in.

A trigger would pave the way for public option to come into place only after certain market conditions are met -- mainly if private insurance companies are unable to achieve various metrics for coverage within a certain time frame. The proposal would placate many of the private health care actors who consider a public plan the first step towards a single-payer system. Progressives, however, view it as reform in name and not substance.

This isn't written in stone or anywhere near a done deal, just a proposal at this point. If it does become part of the reform package, expect a fierce and ugly fight about it.

Senator Chuck Grassley (R, Iowa) will be sticking around as the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, which is working on Health Care Reform. Though he's publicly committed to working closely with the chairman, Max Baucus (D Montana), he still has to keep options open. Meanwhile, Baucus has been busy dividing up the health care reform agenda among Democrats on the Finance Committee, with the goal of working on the legislation in earnest starting in July.

Today, the Senate Finance Committee will finally get around to voting on the nomination of Kathleen Sebelius for Secretary of Health and Human Services. If approved, which seems guaranteed, then the Senate will have to confirm her. Contributions from George Tiller, a doctor who provides second and third trimester abortions, has sparked some controversy and questioning of her nomination.

The Committee has posted a document containing all the written questions its members have poised to Sebelius.

Elsewhere in the healthcare debate, the GOP continues to stumble around, while infighting fractures the Democratic coalition.