RSS Feed MenuIn September, they seemed hopeless – internally divided, unfocused in their message, and unable to clear the Senate Finance Committee. The President’s promise of health-reform legislation by year’s end seemed like an exercise in wishful thinking.
What a difference a month makes. The Democrats are on fire. The squabbling about the public option has quieted down. With a hand from the CBO, they now have a clear message of expanded coverage without larger deficits. And, yes, today Senator Baucus pushed his draft legislation though the Senate Finance Committee – and did it with a Republican vote.
Much work remains to be done and problems remain for the Democrats. Polling suggests that Americans are against new taxes to finance new healthcare programs – and taxes will rise with their proposals. The insurance industry is pushing back hard. It’s even possible, though quite unlikely, that Senator Snowe will drop her support (her endorsement this afternoon was hardly robust).
Make no mistake, however: Democrats took a major step forward today. And the path ahead is obvious: a Senate compromise that largely favors the Baucus bill over the HELP Committee draft, with the House then passing this with few (if any) amendments.
Health-reform legislation by year’s end. Maybe earlier.
The true cost? The practicality of the Medicare cost cutting? The impact of the tax hikes? These questions will almost surely remain unanswered.
The Democrats have been skillful in their politics. America will soon find out if good politics makes for good policies.
balconesfault // Oct 13, 2009 at 3:58 pm
It was an inevitability that some bill would pass out of the Baucus committee. He took an extra 5 months to get Republicans onboard (remember the Gang of 6?) and at the end of the day managed to get Snowe to come aboard.
The next question is cloture. Snowe’s vote here seemingly makes it unlikely that she will vote against cloture … which would give the Dems the ability to stop a filibuster even with Ted Kennedy’s seat unfilled.
After cloture, weeks of floor amendments, followed by passage. Reconciliation. Signature.
While I think the insurance companies estimates of raised premiums were a little inflated – I think they were right, for a very sensible reason. If we make them cover pre-existing conditions and not sever themselves from bad risks, AND we don’t introduce competition via public option (which Baucus bill does not), they will significantly jack up premiums. They’re certainly not going to absorb the costs of that additional risk themselves. And they’ll tack their 25% margin on whatever additional costs they incur. Because they’ll be able to.
Can You Taste It? It’s So Close, Can You Taste It? « Around The Sphere // Oct 13, 2009 at 4:00 pm
[...] David Gratzer at New Majority: Much work remains to be done and problems remain for the Democrats. Polling suggests that Americans are against new taxes to finance new healthcare programs – and taxes will rise with their proposals. The insurance industry is pushing back hard. It’s even possible, though quite unlikely, that Senator Snowe will drop her support (her endorsement this afternoon was hardly robust). [...]
rbottoms // Oct 13, 2009 at 4:17 pm
Don’t you guys just have this time of year? Every fall we whip your butts in some major fashion and then you spend the next 12 months trying to convince yourselves that the result is actually good for the GOP.
Har. And double har.
SpartacusIsNotDead // Oct 13, 2009 at 4:18 pm
“If we make them cover pre-existing conditions and not sever themselves from bad risks, AND we don’t introduce competition via public option (which Baucus bill does not), they will significantly jack up premiums.”
This is a really huge point that a lot of people seem to have overlooked. The least controversial parts of reform (no pre-existing conditions, removal of lifetime caps, no cancelation of policies, etc.) all have the effect of raising the costs of doing business for insurers. They (and providers and pharma) will have either have to raise premiums or accept lower profit margins. Absent a public option, they will raise premiums.
balconesfault // Oct 13, 2009 at 4:27 pm
They (and providers and pharma) will have either have to raise premiums or accept lower profit margins. Absent a public option, they will raise premiums.
And moreover – in the absence of any reason why not to – they will retain the same overhead/profit margins. So when the insurance companies come out and say that premiums will cost $4K/year more per family … what they’re really saying is that providing insurance will cost $3K/year more per family – and that the other $1K/year will go into their admin and marketing and compensation and profit pool.
This is not inherently an evil thing, as some liberals would claim. It’s how businesses function – ALL businesses. If money is there to be made, they make it. The question becomes do we continue to pump that much money into the pockets of insurance companies.
rbottoms // Oct 13, 2009 at 4:46 pm
This is not inherently an evil thing, as some liberals would claim.
But it is a purely American thing as most of the rest of the civilized world seems to think. You live only so long as you can afford it. Kid dying of leukemia and you don’t have the money then beg or hold a bake sale. Nothing evil about that.
LFC // Oct 13, 2009 at 5:05 pm
DF said… With a hand from the CBO, they now have a clear message of expanded coverage without larger deficits.
The GOP just got pwned by the Democrats. Compare this to the expansion of Medicare by the Republicans, where there was virtually NO discussion and certainly no action on how to pay for it. The GOP can whine “tax and spend”, but they really have no current track record on being fiscally conservative. They are “borrow and spend”, which is vastly worse.
Time for them to walk the walk on fiscal responsibility.
ottovbvs // Oct 13, 2009 at 7:28 pm
Guys……this is the end of scene 5 Act 1……We have another two acts to go……..the bills are now all out of committee and this means three game changing things happen……Firstly much of the power shifts to the house and senate leadership and the WH…….Secondly decisions have to be made on what maneuvers are going to be required to get this passed ie. Is reconciliation required…….Thirdly the WH gets control of the messaging which has so far been in the hands of five different sets of committee members so that all of a sudden a much clearer and more unified story will emerge (this is not to be underestimated in terms of public opinion)…….Remember the white house ultimately has to make this work and produce the deliverables once the bill is passed so there are certain things they want/need……in legislative terms my guess is they’ll be going for a 60+ vote on cloture and a comfortable majority say around 56-60on the actual bill……..if they can’t see 60 for cloture on a bill that gives them 95% of what they want it will be reconciliation…….and btw Mr Gratzer for the past three months you’ve been telling us Obamacare was dying a slow death……..that was complete nonsense and you’ve known it all along……..now you’re engaging in some more wishful thinking about the likely outcome which I personally believe will look very like the bill Obama would have written with a better than 50% chance it will contain the public option and probably a tax on benefits over say 25k…….we will see
sinz54 // Oct 13, 2009 at 8:27 pm
ottovbs:
On Intrade.com, the betting has been below 30% for a public option since the beginning of September.
The news that the Baucus bill had passed through committee actually caused betting on the public option to fall, as Snowe’s vote suggests that the Baucus bill can count on one more moderate vote, will likely pick up all the Blue Dog moderates, and don’t have to make any concessions to liberals for extra votes anymore.
http://data.intrade.com/graphing/jsp/closingPricesForm.jsp?tradeURL=https://www.intrade.com&contractId=683800
If Snowe had voted no, that would have been a warning sign that the votes of moderates could not be counted on, and THEN Baucus would have had to go negotiating with liberals for some of their votes. Now he doesn’t have to.
But if you believe you’re right, then put your money where your mouth is and go place some bets on Intrade.com.
balconesfault // Oct 14, 2009 at 8:15 am
eh – if you play the market, Sinz, that’s just a typical “buy on rumor, sell on news” type chart. You see it all the time … Company X is about to announce with rumors of good earnings … there’s a runup on Company X’s stock … positive earnings are announced, and Company X’s stock drops. That doesn’t suddenly mean there’s a loss of faith in Company X – but rather there’s profit taking from people who rode a nice upcurve, and now want to take their speculative money elsewhere.
Now that the bill is out of Baucus’ committee, he loses much of the control of the negotiations that he had for months. The majority of Dems want a public option … the biggest question now may be whether a bill that includes it carries an “opt out” program for states, so blue dogs can go back to their states and say they didn’t force them to have the option to buy insurance from the government.
sinz54 // Oct 14, 2009 at 10:09 am
balconesfault:
Actually, the predictive value of Intrade has been proven many times. It has accurately called the results of some elections even when the polls proved wrong, as in the case of Florida in 2004.
Here’s a comparison of the Intrade predictions for the 2008 election, versus the actual result:
http://electoralmap.net/index.php
You’ll notice they are nearly identical–better than many pundits had forecast.
balconesfault // Oct 14, 2009 at 10:47 am
Predicting voters based on polling data is quite different than predicting the actions of Congressmen.
ottovbvs // Oct 14, 2009 at 10:48 am
sinz54 // Oct 13, 2009 at 8:27 pm
……..I didn’t say a public option was a certainty merely that in my opinion the odds of it being there have risen…….as for Intrade I don’t think you understand how odds are fixed……they are simply a reflection of how much money has been bet on a particular outcome and are therefore essentially a look in a rearview mirror not necessarily an objective assessment of the future…….the intrade gyrations on Obama’s election prospects should have told you that…..all you’ve done is produce the Intrade numbers for the end of the campaign when only a blithering idiot didn’t think Obama was going to win……prior to this they were all over the board…..ergo if events move in the direction of the public option being in I can confidently assert Intrade will get this right on the eve of the bill passing …….And I don’t bet, not even quarters in slot machines, it’s a mugs game
ottovbvs // Oct 14, 2009 at 2:54 pm
…..As a follow up to my above comment it appears Republican Governor and former HHS sec Tommy Thompson agrees with my most likely scenario….viz.
” The mergers of the House and Senate bills would yield a House bill with a public option and a Senate bill without one.
In conference committee Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the House Democrats would insist on a public option, and they would ultimately win.
Thompson said the resulting bill would be forced into budget reconciliation in the Senate, and needing just a simple majority to pass — which it would get.
The final vote would take place just before Christmas.”
…….There’s a faint chance some Republicans could bolt and that way no need for reconciliation but this is and always was the most likely outcome.