Lawmaker News

House lawmakers will have to provide their Senate colleagues some "adult supervision" by moving ahead on a healthcare bill without them, Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) suggested Monday.

Weiner, who has spent the past week pushing Democrats to more forcefully assert their majority status in the healthcare debate, said that the House should no longer wait for the Senate to act before sending its own bill to conference with the Senate.

"We need some adult supervision, so we need the House to act," Weiner said during an appearance on MSNBC. "Honestly, this is getting ridiculous over there."

Weiner's words reflect a growing frustration with the Senate for not having moved forward on healthcare, letting members of the Senate Finance Committee continue to try to cobble together a reform bill by mid-September.

The New York liberal decried a "vacuum" of leadership during the August congressional recess, and called on the House to move forward to fill the void.

But problems still percolate in House Democrats' own backyard; Blue Dog Democrat Co-Chairwoman Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D-N.D.) suggested this weekend that the public (or "government-run") option favored by Weiner and other liberals wouldn't survive a conference with the Senate bill -- if the public option even makes it into the preliminary House bill.

Weiner called on President Obama to make his own position more clear as the health debate progresses, too.

"I think the time has come for the president to say here's why we need it and here's what it is," he said. "We need to the president to be very clear what he wants, and then we'll do it."

Senate Democrats are actively making preparations to move forward on healthcare legislation without Republicans, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Monday.

While bipartisan negotiations amongst the Senate Finance Committee's "group of six" senators on a reform deal, Schumer said during an appearance on MSNBC that Senate leaders are getting ready to move forward with a bill if deadlines for the compromise bill pass without a product.

"We will all come together. Both the president and leader Reid have said we will make every effort to come up with a bipartisan bill," Schumer said. "But if not, we're making preparations on how to get this done without them."

Reid and Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) have set a September 15th deadline by which the group of six will have had to produce a bill. But some issues, like the inclusion of a public (or "government-run") option, as well as the size and financing of the bill, are still high points of disagreement between Democrats and Republicans.

If Democrats have to move forward to "go it alone" on healthcare, Schumer predicted that House and Senate leaders would be able to bring enough centrists in both houses on board with the bills to pass them without Republican support.

"We will be able to get, just as the Blue Dogs did in the House, the moderates in the Senate, and liberals to agree on a level playing field," Schumer said.

It's still possible for President Obama to work with Republicans to achieve bipartisan healthcare reform, one liberal House lawmaker suggested Sunday.

Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.), who earlier this week said he's willing to "push the reset button" on healthcare legislation, urged the president to "make haste slowly" on reform, while staying "immovable" on introducing a plan to encourage competition with the private sector.

"I think that there is the possibility that the president can work with some Republicans," Cleaver said Sunday on CNN. "And I think he works with the ones who are interested in trying to get something accomplished."

Cleaver said that while Congress still needs to make progress on advancing reform, the process should be slow enough to try to ameliorate centrist Democrats and some Republicans' concerns.

"I think we've got to move slow enough to bring them along," he explained. "But I think we don't move so slowly that the American public says, well, it's over; we've lost another battle."

"I think now is the time, but I think we make haste slowly," Cleaver added.

Cleaver reserved praise for the president, though.

"He's not doing anything wrong. In fact, he should be praised for being audacious enough to bring this contentious issue to the public," Cleaver said. "And I think that he has done a yeoman's job in trying to articulate what this health care bill will do."

Americans are foolish to believe rhetoric about so-called "death panels" determining end-of-life care being in healthcare reform legislation before Congress, one Democratic lawmaker said Sunday.

Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) scoffed at concerns about end-of-life provision in healthcare bills under consideration, and defended the public (or "government-run") option, a centerpiece of the proposed law, as "hardly a radical idea."

"Some people have foolishly fallen for the myth that a 'death panel' would somehow decide when you must die, or that the new plan would provide coverage for illegal aliens," Slaughter wrote in an op-ed for the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle. "None of that is true."

Some Republicans, most notably former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, had described end-of-life care provisions in the bills as establishing "death panels" to mandate rationed care for elderly Americans.

Slaughter is a strong proponent of the public option, but said it is "too early" to pledge to vote against any bill that doesn't contain the plan, backed by the Obama administration and liberals in Congress.

Some of Slaughter's colleagues, including many more liberal members of the New York congressional delegation, have threatened to jilt President Obama on healthcare if he backs a bill lacking a public plan.

Still, the veteran lawmaker from western New York defended the public option as a mainstream -- and already effective -- solution for healthcare problems in the U.S.

"t

Healthcare reform shouldn't cost the $1 trillion price tag forecasted by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), one freshman Democrat told constituents this weekend.

Rep. Betsey Markey (D-Colo.) expressed frustration at the projected cost for House health reform bills.

"We are right now spending more money than any other country on health care," Markey said at a town hall meeting, according to the Greeley Tribune. "It shouldn't cost us a trillion dollars to fix it."

"The bill is estimated by the Congressional Budget Office to cost $1 trillion over 10 years, and I do think right now that's unacceptable," she told the Tribune in a separate interview.

Those words echo concerns by other centrist Democrats about the overall cost of healthcare reform. Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) said Sunday that a health bill would have to cost "significantly less" than is currently estimated in order to win enough votes to make it out of Congress.

Markey, a freshman lawmaker from a relatively conservative Colorado district, argued that the centerpiece of the bill, a public (or "government-run") option for consumers, would actually cost very little, but should only be funded through premiums in the plan, and not government subsidization.

She also pledged to only support a bill that addresses long-term budgetary concerns.

"I won't vote for a bill that doesn't bring efficiencies into the system and lower the cost," she told attendees of the town hall.

Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said he was "horrified " at celebrations in Libya that greeted the return of the Lockerbie bomber.

He also said the U.S. should introduce a resolution at the United Nations condemning the celebrations, and called for an investigation into whether the release of the bomber was related to oil contracts between Libya and Great Britain.

"That would be despicable," he said.

British officials have said there was no link between the release of the bomber and business between the two countries.

Schumer said Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton should all for Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi to apologize for the celerations that greeted the return of Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi.

Republicans "owe it to this country" to make clear what aspects of healthcare reform they would support, former Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean argued Sunday.

Rebutting claims that President Obama needs to make known whether he would support a healthcare bill without his favored public (or "government-run) option for consumers, Dean insisted that it's Republicans -- not Obama -- who need to make a more concrete stance.

"I think the Republicans owe it to this country to give us a much clearer message about what they'll support, and what they won't support," Dean said during an appearance on CBS's "Face the Nation."

Dean took a shot at Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), a key Republican negotiator of bipartisan health compromise, for saying the Obama administration had sent "mixed signals" on health reform.

"We're getting pretty mixed signals from Sen. Grassley," Dean said. "I did not hear one time Sen. Grassley say what he would vote for. When he was in Iowa all last week, he basically letting people know that he didn't think he could vote for any bill that did not get the support of his Republican caucus and Republican leadership."

Dean, a physician who no longer practices, has emerged as a vocal proponent of the public option in recent weeks as the Democratic-backed component of health reform has been under attack by Republicans during the August congressional recess.

Dean condemned the idea of healthcare cooperatives, which have been proposed by some on the FInance Committee in lieu of the public option in order to win Republican and centrist Democrats' votes.

"That proposal is a political compromise, not a policy compromise," he said. "Nobody would know what it looks like."

A public (or "government-run") option in the healthcare bill before Congress is unlikely to survive conference between the House and Senate, a leader of the centrist Blue Dog coalition said this weekend.

Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D-N.D.) said that while there is a good chance the preliminary House bill will contain the controversial provision, the final bill which will head to the White House probably won't contain the option.

"I think that it will not survive the conference committee," Herseth Sandlin said during an interview with The Daily Republic. She said any version to pass through the House would have to be "structured under very stringent requirements to meet the many concerns that people have about the potential of driving out private companies that would offer plans on the exchange."

Blue Dogs have been reluctant to back the version of the healthcare bill in the House, over concerns about the public option, as well as over some of the taxes used to finance the $1 trillion bill.

Herseth Sandlin did not signal whether she would back healthcare cooperatives, a compromise under consideration by the Senate Finance Committee in order to bring in centrist Democrats' and Republicans' votes for the reform bill.

The South Dakota Democrat, the Blue Dogs' co-chairwoman for administration, said that if the healthcare bill were to have a public option, she would prefer it have a "trigger."

She did predict a more extended timeline for the healthcare debate than those in House and Senate Democratic leadership, who have said that they want to have a bill ready for the president's signature by October.

"I think there will be a real full-court press by the White House to try to get both chambers to act on something just to get it out of the chambers, get it to conference if the Senate Finance Committee can act," she said. "I think you

Using budget reconciliation to pass healthcare reform legislation in the Senate should be only an option of last resort, Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) said Sunday.

Specter, a former Republican-turned-centrist Democrat, insisted that it would be preferable for senators to attain a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate to pass a bill, instead of short-circuiting that threshold through budget rules.

"I think the vastly preferable way is to go the 60 vote rout, and with 60 Democratic senators, I think that can be done," Specter said during an appearance on Fox News Sunday, adding that reconciliation should be on the table -- but only as a last resort.

"I think 51 votes is not desirable," added Specter, who had previously been critical of budget reconciliation as a Republican member of the Senate.

The ranking member of the House Budget Committee, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.), took strong objection to the tactic, which would essentially shut out Republicans from crafting a health bill in the Senate.

"If you use what we call reconciliation, that is really sort of denying democracy," Ryan said.

The healthcare proposals before Congress have been waning in popularity because people have actually had a chance to familiarize themselves with the plan, Ryan asserted.

"The rhetoric that's been used to sell this plan is completely disconnected and contrary to the substance of the plan," he argued.

Specter blamed flagging support for the reforms on "misinformation," but denied that the August recess has hurt the bill's prospects.

"I do not think it is in trouble," Specter said. "I think it is in a period of analysis and reanalysis."

A bill introduced late in July before Congress adjourned for recess would allow Americans to deduct up to $3,500 on their taxes for expenses related to caring for their pets.

The Humanity and Pets Partnered Through the Years ("HAPPY") Act would allow taxpayers to deduct "an amount equal to the qualified pet care expenses of the taxpayer during the taxable year for any qualified pet of the taxpayer," with a cap at $3,500 for the maximum deduction.

The bill, introduced by Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-Mich.), would allow Americans to deduct expenses like veterinary care for their pets -- as long as they're "qualified pets," meaning a domesticated animal not used for commercial purposes.

It's not clear whether or not the legislation has much of a future; it was introduced on July 31st, the last day Congress was in session before recess, and referred to the House Ways and Means Committee. McCotter doesn't serve on that committee, but fellow Michigan Republican Rep. Dave Camp serves as the powerful committee's ranking member.