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Reaction to House Bill Vote

 In our roundup of bloggers’ reactions the House vote to pass their health overhaul bill, conservatives speculate whether this is “the high water mark” and liberals take a moment to consider the historical significance.

  • Heritage’s Bob Moffitt and Nina Owcharenko: “The health care bill passed by the House tonight took another step towards transferring power over personal health care decisions from individuals to bureaucrats in Washington. The Republican alternative was a good strong first step of targeted reforms that are necessary to improve health care financing and delivery.”
  • The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein: “Health-care reform passed the House, quite literally, at the eleventh hour. It passed with a slim, two-vote margin. But it passed. That is more than has ever happened before. More than Truman or Nixon or Carter or Clinton managed. More than Rayburn or O’Neill or Gingrich managed. It is success, at least for this stage in the process. It is history, even, though it’s hard to sense the importance of the moment when you watch members of Congress spend the day squabbling over the true meaning of the word freedom.”
  • Cato’s Michael Tanner: “The fat lady hasn’t even started to warm up yet. The narrow 220-215 victory in the House on Saturday night was a step forward on the road to a government takeover of the health care system.  But as close and dramatic as that vote was, that was the easy part.  The Senate must still pass its version of reform—which will not be the bill that just passed the House.  Nancy Pelosi was, after all, able to lose the votes of 39 moderate Democrats.  Harry Reid cannot afford to lose even one.”
  • Families USA’s Ron Pollack: “It was a moment to cherish. Long in the making, this victory represents a major step toward the achievement of high-quality, affordable health care for all Americans. Those who were watching the vote on television saw the House erupt in celebration. What they could not see was the cheering in the homes of the activists and ordinary Americans who worked tirelessly to achieve this historic vote.”
  • Sally Pipes on Critical Condition: “Following the Republican gubernatorial wins last week in Virginia and New Jersey, it seems clear that there is a backlash against the Democrats and their plan to put government in charge of our health care.  The Republicans’ plan to take back the House in 2010 is underway.  The health-care reform plans as proposed by the House and Senate must be slowed down and ultimately stopped.  As Yogi Berra says ‘The ball game is not over till it’s over.’”
  • The Washington Monthly’s Steve Benen: “As for the bigger picture, there’s quite a bit of work to do before reform becomes law, but it’s worth pausing to appreciate the historic significance of last night’s accomplishment. A lot of presidents have pushed health care reform initiatives before this year, and a lot of lawmakers have tried to get to this point. When it comes to domestic policy legislation, health care reform has been something of a holy grail — but before nine hours ago, the House had never even voted on, better yet passed, a bill of this significance.And yet, here we are.”
  • Hot Air’s Ed Morrissey: “We always thought the fight was in the Senate, so the only real surprise yesterday was how weak Pelosi actually was on ObamaCare.  Our focus now has to shift to those red-state Senators who will have to explain to voters their potential support of a bill that imposes unconstitutional mandates and trillions of dollars in new costs on a government that can’t pay its bills now.  And in this case, we’ll only need two of them to stop the runaway tyranny of the Democratic agenda.”
  • The New Republic’s Jonathan Cohn: “Now is a moment to appreciate what has taken place. The House has passed what is arguably the most significant piece of domestic policy legislation in a generation. Dramatic or not, it qualifies as history.”
  • The American Spectator’s Philip Klein: “House Democrats just narrowly passed their health care legislation, by a margin of 220 to 215, with 39 Democrats voting against it, and just one Republican — Louisiana’s Joseph Cao — voting in favor. Obviously, this is an historic victory for Democrats as it’s the first time that a health care bill of this magnitude has made it this far. Passing it in the House gives it momentum going into the Senate. And also, in a larger sense, Democrats have proven once again that no matter how messy the daily grind may look, they’ve eventually been able to use their overwhelming majority to keep moving the health care ball down field.”

Monday, November 9th, 2009

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A Rush To Dissect The House Bill

The House unveiled its final health overhaul bill this morning, presenting anxious Beltway observers with almost 2,000 pages to digest.

Some bloggers quickly went to work dissecting the bill, pointing out their least favorite provisions or looking for differences that remain with the other chamber.  Others are taking in the moment.

Critical Condition’s Mark Hemingway catalogues responses from GOP lawmakers, including Minority Leader John Boehner, who says the bill is “clearly designed for government takeover of our system.”

Wonk Room’s Igor Volsky has 10 reasons that Republicans should support the bill (though only one GOP senator has so far), framing  in an “Republicans asked for, Republicans got” style.  One example:

1. REPUBLICANS ASKED FOR – DEFICIT NEUTRAL BILL: “Do the American people believe that this almost 2,000 page bill won’t add to the deficit?” [Rep. Eric Cantor, 10/29/2009]

HOUSE BILL – DEFICIT NEUTRAL BILL: According to the Congressional Budget Office, the House bill costs $894 billion over 10 years and actually reduces the deficit by $30 billion and continues to reduce the deficit over the second 10 years.

Hot Air’s Ed Morrissey quips, “Nancy Pelosi and the House Democratic Caucus will unveil their version of ObamaCare this morning, and the New York Times reports some significant changes made in the last few days.  First, the ‘public option,’ which had changed to the quasi-Orwellian name of ‘competitive option,’ now goes the full 1984 to the ‘consumer option.’”

Heritage’s Marguerite Higgins writes, “As we scour through this 1,990-page monster of a bill (topping the 1,502-page health bill from the Senate Finance Committee), it will be important to determine how the feds and health care providers will come to these negotiated rates. Plus, other questions crop up, like will the government-run plan be subject to the same rules and market regulations that private insurers face? If we see the same language in the new House bill that was in H.R. 3200, then government will operate on an unlevel playing field where it has a clear advantage in the marketplace.”

Families USA’s Julia Eisman says the bill “sets a gold standard.”

The New Republic’s Jonathan Cohn titles his post, “House to PhRMA: No Deal.”  Cohn notes that the House bill does not square with the White House and PhRMA’s $80 billion deal: “The House, though, was not party to this deal. And so it’s decided to ask a little more–about twice as much, in fact.”

The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein interviews Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., saying, “there is no politician alive today who has worked as long, or as hard, on health-care reform as Rep. John Dingell Jr.” Indeed, the octogenarian has worked on health legislation for decades. Dingell says, “This is the furthest I can recall health-care reform ever going, including in my days, and my dad’s days. A bill moving in the House. A bill moving in the Senate. Strong support in the admin. Strong popular support for the bill. A carefully crafted piece of legislation. A willingness of everybody to work together to work together towards what is a widely shared common goal.”

And The American Spectator’s Philip Klein points out new tax provisions, “Scanning through the bill, I noticed that the bill would add a new section to the federal tax code: “PART VIII:HEALTH CARE RELATED TAXES.” Among the new taxes are penalties for individuals who don’t purchase insurance and employers who don’t provide insurance, income tax surcharges of up to 5.6% to those earning more than $1 million, and a 2.5% excise tax on medical devices.”

Thursday, October 29th, 2009

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Many Flavors Of A Public Plan

Developments this week are “far from the last episode of ‘As the Public Option Turns.’”  Politico Pulse’s Chris Frates explains:

It’s dead. It’s alive. It’s robust, state-based and opt-out. It’s the public option in all its varied forms. And the flavor this week is the opt-out, a national public insurance plan that would allow states to opt out of participating. The proposal got a huge boost yesterday when word spread that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was inclined to include it in the Senate bill he will take to the floor. And while the news is important because it signals that the public option — left for dead after the August recess — is a contender again, yesterday’s breathless speculation on its bright future is a bit premature.

Jacob Hacker, widely credited as the originator of the public plan idea, comes out against a “trigger” idea on the New Republic’s The Treatment. Hacker says, “In short, we cannot wait for a public plan—and one of the biggest problems with a trigger is that it virtually guarantees we will have to.”

The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein outlines scenarios in the House, which appears ready to present three different ‘public plan’ “flavors”:

The House of Representatives is readying itself to release three delicious flavors of health-care reform. One of the bills will have a public option trigger. Another will have a level-playing field proposal. And the third will have the Hardy’s Thickburger of public options: Medicare rates plus 5 percent, national, the whole deal. They’re even forming a commission of independent experts to build a new formula that addresses the concerns of rural and Pacific Coast members, both of whom feel that Medicare underpays their hospitals.

It doesn’t matter to James Capretta which version the House goes with. He blasts House Dems’ strategy to pass a tweaked bill, frustrated that nothing has been presented for public viewing:

If House leaders decide to go public with CBO’s apparent bottom line, CBO really should be obligated to go public with the entire analysis to ensure no misunderstanding. Otherwise CBO’s findings can be distorted. House Democrats are trying to build momentum again toward passage by creating the impression they have found a painless way to turn their budget-busting bill from July into one that actually cuts the deficit. It’s CBO’s job to make sure no one gets away with this kind of phony free-lunch argument. If in fact a new version of the House bill reduces the federal budget deficit over two decades, someone is paying. Who? Here’s betting that’s it’s the American middle class. And as soon as that becomes known, the new updated House bill is likely to become just as unpopular as the now dead and buried old one.

Is some of the opposition to Dems’ plans floundering? Politico’s Ben Smith says insurers are failing in their efforts to get positive publicity for new reports on the cost of health overhaul bills: “What might have in another era been a clean shot — for AHIP, a leak to the Washington Post; today, to another paper; instead seems to be sending these documents as orphans into a media universe that views them, appropriately, as arguments for one side, rather than revelatory statements of fact, and where left-leaning wonks are primed to tear them apart.”

Insure Blog’s Bob Vineyard calls President Obama “a finger wagging President” while mulling over the health overhaul debate and says, “The politicians promise to make health care and health insurance more affordable. Problem is, the way they are going about it won’t accomplish either. So now both sides, politicians and health insurance companies, are pointing fingers saying the other side lied.  If either side really knows the truth, they aren’t telling it.”

Think Progress’ Matthew Yglesias reviews comments from Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., (highlighed by the Washington Monthly’s Steve Benen) that some people like the idea of a public plan option because they think it would mean “free health care.”  Yglesias concludes: ”I think maybe she doesn’t understand what’s being proposed and thinks that liberals are proposing to create an additional spending commitment. In reality, adding a public option would make the Finance bill cheaper and not involve any additional taxpayer subsidies.”

Reason’s Ronald Bailey takes the former point to the extreme — saying “no one knows anything in health care.”  His solution? “Competition in markets tends to lower prices and improve quality over time. It can do so in health care markets as well.”

Friday, October 23rd, 2009

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Back to the Beltway, Back to Public Plan Prognosticating

Good Monday Morning to you. We took a break from the Beltway on Friday but it’s time to revisit the health care debate. The three House committees with jurisdiction over health reform released their bill, sending a renewed wave of commentary through the blogosphere. The legislation, which includes a competitive public plan option and more generous subsidies for low-income Americans to purchase health insurance, is the most progressive proposal so far, and is changing the dynamics on the Hill.

Liberal bloggers reacted to the House ‘Tri-Committee’ bill with approval and relief. Wonk Room’s Igor Volsky compiled a handy table comparing the House bill with the Senate HELP and Finance committees’ bills. Volsky seems pleased with the House bill’s competitive public plan option and affordability measures.

The New Republic’s Jonathan Cohn said, “In a week of discouraging developments on health care reform, the House of Representatives has stepped up and offered reform advocates reason for optimism.”  Cohn also emphasizes that various Democratic party faction, not just the three committees, are cooperating.

The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein thinks the bill is more representative of the public’s wishes because House lawmakers, who have to face election every two years, are under more pressure from constituents than senators are. Klein says the bill is:

Recognizably left-of-center, particularly on points of controversy like the public plan. Which makes sense: In the last two elections, voters have expressed a preference for Democrats, and so you might expect the views of Democrats to prevail in legislative tussles.

But Tevi Troy on the National Review Online’s The Corner points out a smaller item in the bill: an apparent repeal of the Medicare Modernization Act’s “trigger provision,” which requires the president to submit a plan to contain Medicare costs if they reach a certain level.  Troy says, ”Taking this provision away gives the HHS Secretary one less tool for trying to fix the problem of Medicare’s impending bankruptcy.”
(more…)

Monday, June 22nd, 2009

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