President Obama pitched his healthcare reform package to the American Medical Association (AMA) today, telling the physicians in the audience that healthcare reform will make their job simpler and more fruitful.
The AMA opposes a "public option," a key component of Obama's proposal, and has helped torpedo past efforts to reform and expand healthcare.
But Obama told the assembled doctors that he would work to quell their doubts.
"I know there's some concern about a public option," Obama said, citing fears that a public plan would replicate what doctors dislike about Medicare. "These are legitimate concerns, but ones, I believe, that can be overcome."
Departing from his prepared remarks, the President added: "A public option is not your enemy, it's your friend."
The president emphasized that healthcare reform would streamline bureaucracy and let doctors concentrate on treating patients.
"You did not enter this profession to be bean-counters and paper-pushers," Obama said. "You entered this profession to be healers--and that's what our health care system should let you be."
Obama made only a passing reference to medical malpractice reform, one of AMA's signature issues.
The NY Times reported this morning that the administration might use malpractice reform as a "barganing chip" to gain physicians' approval for healthcare legislation. But in his address today, the president was vague.
"[W]hile I'm not advocating caps on malpractice awards which I believe can be unfair to people who've been wrongfully harmed, I do think we need to explore a range of ideas about how to put patient safety first, let doctors focus on practicing medicine, and encourage broader use of evidence-based guidelines," the president said.
More broadly, the President framed healthcare reform as a necessary step to economic recovery.
As a "ticking time bomb for the federal budget," healthcare costs threaten to create unsustainable deficits.
Obama tied healthcare costs to the downfall of the American auto industry, arguing that the nation as a whole might suffer a similar fate if legislators fail to take action soon.
"A big part of what led General Motors and Chrysler into trouble in recent decades were the huge costs they racked up providing health care for their workers," Obama said, adding that " if we do not fix our health care system, America may go the way of GM; paying more, getting less, and going broke."
Obama said the downpayment on reform would come from revenue increases--including limiting tax deductions for wealthy Americans--and cutting costs. Those cost reductions would come from three sources, the President said: (1) reducing inefficiencies in Medicare; (2) preventing hospital readmissions by Medicare patients; and (3) more generic drugs.
The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee will begin marking up healthcare legisglation this week. Congressional Democrats hope to have a bill on Obama's desk by early October.
Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.) predicted health care legislation will pass this year, but will most likely do so with little or no help from the Republicans.
"My judgment is that it is going to pass and going to happen this year," Specter said about of health care legislation at a conference Friday morning.
Specter is a long time champion of care heath care issues and has had two public battles with cancer.
Specter when asked seemed pessimistic about the prospects of a bipartisan consensus emerging on the question of health care.
"A bipartisan approach that is highly speculative," he said. "Bipartisan has not been exactly been noteworthy in the Congress of the United States recently."
He noted that Sens. Enzi (R-Wy.) and Grassley (R-Iowa) have appeared open to working with democrats, but in the same breath criticized house republicans for the hard-line voting style.
Specter said critical of his formal colleagues said, "Republicans were of one mind" when they decided to uniformly reject the Democratic-back stimulus bill.
Specter who recently joined the Democratic may represent the critical 60th vote Democrats needed for cloture in the Senate to move the health care legislation through.
Rep. Steve Buyer (R-Ind.) might have revealed a little too much about his youthful indiscretions during House debate on the FDA tobacco bill.
Arguing that it's actually the smoke from a cigarette--not tobacco itself--that's harmful, Buyer speculated about what else should be regulated if that criteria was taken into account.
"Do you realize if you were to take that lettuce, dry it, and roll it, and smoke it-- and you go ahead and you smoke your lettuce," Buyer said. " Do you realize that you are going to end up with similar problems than if you were smoking tobacco? It's not the nicotine that kills. It's the smoke that kills. So It's the inhalation of the smoke. That's what causes and is responsible for the pandemic of cancers, of heart disease, respiratory disease, and other disease. It's the smoke."
Buyer didn't specify whether he meant romaine or iceberg, however.
Here's some video of Buyer's remarks, courtesy of C-SPAN. (The lettuce remarks begin at 1:05).
One of America's largest unions is targeting a prominent opponent of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), which would make labor organizing easier.
The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) released a new television ad Wednesday that goes after the legislative record of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Saying the business association has lobbied against health insurance for children, increasing the minimum wage and granting family leave, SEIU argues in the ad it would make sense that the Chamber would oppose "better pay and health benefits for America's workers."
Unions believe EFCA, often called "card-check," would let workers negotiate for better wages and benefits since the bill would ease organizing rules enough for them to secure collective bargaining rights. Business groups have disagreed, saying the legislation would lead to more union strikes and slow down industry.
Entitled "Bad Company," the ad is slated to run in Pennsylvania, Arkansas, Louisiana, Virginia and North Dakota.
The SEIU ad follows on the heels of an announcement by the Chamber Wednesday for a vast grassroots campaign to support free enterprise. Expected to spend $100 million, the Chamber plans to finance lobbying efforts, national ads and grassroots campaigns from now until the 2010 elections in order to "defend and advance economic freedom," said Tom Donohue, the group's president, in a statement.
Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) says he's found a cost effective way to address chronic pain, stress, and other illnesses: meditation.
Ryan is urging policymakers to consider adding "mindfulness education"--learning to reduce one's own stress level--to healthcare reform legislation.
"Every day, I meditate for at least 45 minutes before leaving home in the morning," Ryan wrote on his website. "I find it makes me a better listener, and my concentration is sharper. I get less distracted when I'm reading. It's like you see through the clutter of life and can penetrate to what's really going on."
At a hearing last week, Ryan asked HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to keep in mind the positive effects of mindfulness when re-working the nation's healthcare system.
"When we have these discussions about healthcare, there's always an issue we never really talk about, and it's the issue of stress," Ryan said. "A lot of us are seeing it in our Congressional districts because of the economic situation we're dealing with. And the issue of stress leads to, I think, we know, increased illness."
Sebelius agreed that the technique was useful as a form of preventive medicine that could reduce the need for more costly treatments.
"I think it's a prevention strategy that I know has the potential of paying huge dividends," Sebelius said.
The chairmen of the three House committees sharing jurisdiction over healthcare reform briefed the Democratic caucus today on their preliminary legislation.
Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee; Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee; and Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, will each have a hand in shaping the legislation.
According to a committee release, the chairman focused on "reducing health care costs, protecting current coverage and preserving choice for patients to ensure affordable, quality care for all."
See the full statement, issued jointly by all three chairmen, after the jump.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) had some frank thoughts on the healthcare debate when he appeared on C-SPAN's Washington Journal this morning.
Sanders, who advocates a single-payer system, said Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), the Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, would never consider it.
C-SPAN: Is Senator Baucus open to your ideas? Sen. Sanders: No. C-SPAN: He's not? Sen. Sanders: To a single-payer idea? No. Not in a milllion years.
Sanders went on to lump Baucus together with Republicans:
Sen. Sanders: Well, It bothers me. It's not just Senator Baucus. It is every Republican. I mean let's be clear. C-SPAN: But he's a Democrat. Sen. Sanders: Well I'm an independent. And that's why I'm an indedendent C-SPAN: But you caucus with the Democrats. Sen. Sanders: I caucus with the Democrats. Look, what am I going to, sit here and tell you Democrats are perfect? They are immune from money pressure? Of course not.
Finally, Sanders said any bill that would muster a filibuster proof 60 votes would be too weak. Instead, he hinted at using budget reconciliation rules to push through stronger legislation.
"My strong feeling is if we end up with a bill that has 60 or 70 votes, it will be such a weak bill that it will not accomplish what I think the American people want," he said. "I would rather pass a strong bill with 51 votes than a weak bill with 65 or 70 votes."
I missed this on Friday, but Ezra Klein got his hands on an internal Senate Finance Committee memo that explains the hoped-for timeline on healthcare legislation.
According to the memo, the committee plans to have legislation passed and ready for Obama's signature by October 1. (Though a source told Klein Oct. 15 is more realistic.)
The Finance Committee: According to the memo, Finance will meet next week to discuss the issues where it sees an emergent consensus. These include delivery system and insurance market reforms -- "80-90% of the bill," the memo says. The author also outlines the "3 major sticking points": Public plan, employer pay or play, and financing.
Finance hopes to "drop a mark" -- a draft bill, essentially -- on June 17. The mark up -- where the committee members argue over and edit the draft -- will take place the week of June 22nd. A summary of the bill, along with preliminary scoring data from the Congressional Budget Office, will be available during that period. The "goal for Finance remains a bipartisan product," the memo assures.
[snip]
The overarching goal is to get health care reform to the president's desk by Oct. 1 - though one Finance Committee staffer confirmed the other dates but said the goal is Oct. 15. It's an ambitious schedule, especially when you consider that in 1993, Congress didn't get a draft bill until Nov. 20 -- the last day of the congressional session.
Jeffrey Young obtained first section of Kennedy's draft legislation, by the way, which you can download here. Kennedy's HELP Committee will be sharing jurisdiction with Finance on healthcare.
The Hill has obtained what appears to be a draft version of the healthcare bill Sen. Edward Kennedy's (D-Mass.) Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee is planning to mark up later this month.
Howard Dean said yesterday that he favors using budget reconciliation rules to past healthcare reform if Republicans continue to "shill for insurane companies."
WASHINGTON -- Howard Dean said a public health insurance option is more important than bipartisanship, and that Democrats should pass health-care legislation that includes the option with 51 votes if necessary.
[snip]
"If Republicans want to shill for insurance companies, then we should do it with 51 votes," Dean said during a news conference at the first day of the liberal America's Future Now! conference here.
This seems pretty close to the mainstream Democratic view: a bipartisan agreement is preferable, but they're willing to revert to reconciliation if necessary. (Granted, Dean seems to think the former option is unlikely.)
But the following statement probably won't do anything to increase the chances of compromise package:
Dean added that Democrats should have "no intention" of working with Republicans if it's not the strongest possible legislation that could be passed with a simple majority.
Admitting this seems like bad strategy. Even if it's true that Democrats have every intention of getting the "strongest possible legislation" with or without Republicans, why is Dean saying it publicly? He's basically telling Republicans that they can't influence the process, then threatening to circumvent them if they don't participate in process.
Most Viewed RSS Feed »
