Wheeling And Dealing

It looks like Henry Waxman is determined to get a health care reform bill out of committee in the House before the August break.

From Steve Benen:

A couple of months ago, the Washington Monthly ran a cover story on House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman that highlighted, among other things, the fact that the California Democrat knows "not only how to make a deal, but how to make the right one."

It's a skill that's been put to the test this week, and Waxman seem to have come through quite nicely.

As of yesterday, the committee chairman was struggling to get a health care reform bill out of his committee and onto the House floor. He had a deal with Blue Dogs that angered the left, and if Waxman pulled back to satisfy liberals' concerns, he'd lose the conservatives. After more discussions this morning, another compromise is reportedly in place.

Liberals and a small core of conservative Democrats set aside long-standing ideological differences early Friday to cut a deal that should allow the House Energy and Commerce Committee to approve a sweeping health care bill, breaking a two-week deadlock that threatened President Barack Obama's top domestic priority.

Blue Dog Democrats on the committee, who are the linchpin in the House health care debate, agreed to allow their liberal colleagues to cut billions from existing government-funded health care programs in order to restore some $50 billion to $65 billion in subsidies set aside in the bill to help middle-income families purchase coverage. [...]

Moderates and liberals on the committee will offer a package during committee consideration that will make changes the Blue Dogs secured in a deal with Waxman earlier this week. The amendment also includes a liberal priority: reducing premiums many uninsured people will be required to pay for health coverage. The change would lower the premium from 12 percent of a household's total annual income to 11 percent.

This middle-of-the-road approach should give both sides the cover they need to approve the overarching legislation.

Good on Waxman for finding a way forward. Now if we can just get Max Baucus to get off his ass and jettison the Republican obstructionists we might get some where.

I can tell you this much, if every other committee has voted out a bill except the Senate Finance committee, Baucus is going to feel the heat on his ass. And we should be the ones helping to apply it!

Update: And we finally have the bill out of committee. (apologies for the GOPolitico link)

Waxman FTW?

According to Talking Points Memo it appears that the Blue Dogs blinked after all.

Substantively, leadership seems to have given up very little, but, Blue Dogs succeeded at slow walking the bill, which won't get a vote until after the August recess.

After a week or so of canceled hearings, the Energy and Commerce Committee will continue to mark up House health care legislation this afternoon, and pass a bill by the end of the week. On substance, the exemption from penalties for small businesses that do not provide health care to workers has been raised to include small businesses with payrolls of $500,000 per year or less. Originally the bill called for the exemption to apply only to businesses with payrolls half that size.

The public option hasn't gone away, and remains in tact. Now, though, instead of being directly tied to Medicare, the rates will be negotiated by the Health and Human Services secretary--a provision which at a glance seems similar to the public option the Senate HELP Committee endorsed. States will be able to erect health care co-operatives if they choose, but that would be in addition to the public option.

The Blue Dogs managed to pull $100 billion in savings from the bill by lowering by one percent the rate at which people living between 300 and 400 percent of the poverty level will be subsidized to buy health care in insurance exchanges--they had originally tried to eliminate that bracket entirely.

Blue Dogs will likely herald this as a major victory, but compared to their original wishlist, this seems pretty minor.

Hopefully this is really the case and we will only have to worry about the asshattery going on in the Senate Finance Committee.

Looks Like The House Is At Least Getting It In

By now most people know that the AP has reported that chairman of the Senate Finance committee, Max Baucus, has pretty much sold us all down the river by putting together a health care reform bill with no public option and no employer mandate. I have a sneaky suspicion that the CBO is going to bust him upside his dome anyway when they send it up for analysis but the truth of the matter is if he really does go that route, every liberal and progressive person in this country should commit on the spot to giving money to defeat him the next time he is up for reelection, even if it means contributing to a Republican challenger. And no I am not kidding.

On the other hand it looks like the Democratic leaders in the House of Representatives are actually, you know, leading.

House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman said he hopes to restart work on healthcare legislation Wednesday after cobbling together the beginnings of a possible agreement with centrist Blue Dog Democrats.

snip

Reps. Waxman (D-Calif.) and Mike Ross (D-Ark.) emerged from more than three hours of negotiations late Monday to say that the Blue Dogs were weighing an offer from Waxman. Blue Dogs have asked Waxman to get a cost estimate for the bill.

"The chairman has made an offer," said Ross, who is the lead Blue Dog on healthcare reform. "We have asked that he get a [Congressional Budget Office] score, that is, find out how much it would cost. We're going to review it and see if it's something we can accept."

Ross and Waxman would not discuss any specifics of the proposal. But Ross said it addresses all 10 of the concerns Blue Dogs have raised with the bill.

Waxman emerged from the negotiations saying, "I feel very good right now. I don't think failure is a reasonable option."

snip

Talks nearly collapsed in acrimony Friday as each side hurled accusations at the other. But late Friday, they agreed to keep negotiating. The House is scheduled to leave at the end of the week for its summer recess.

"This is the week for markup," Waxman said. "If we're going to do the bill out of committee, this is the week."

Earlier, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) had emerged from the talks, saying there is no way for the lower chamber to meet its Friday deadline for a vote on healthcare.

"That clearly will not be possible at this time," Hoyer told reporters. He said the deadline can't be met because of procedural hurdles and promises leaders made to give lawmakers time to read the bill.

But he added, "We have other days available to us." He has previously said that the House could meet Saturday, Monday or Tuesday.

In contrast to our bought and paid for Senator Max Baucus, we have both Congressman Henry Waxman and Congressman Steny Hoyer both trying to make it happen before the August break in the House of Representatives.

Maybe its time for Rahm Emanuel to send Max Baucus a dead fish.

Talking Point DESTROYED!

Over the past few months the Republicans have repeatedly lied about the costs that the Waxman/Markey energy bill would pass along to the consumers. Well finally the CBO has come out with its analysis and it rips the GOP talking point to shreds!

Told, over and over again, that their talking point has no basis in reality, Republican officials nevertheless keep saying it. When the GOP isn't denying climate change science altogether, it's pushing the $3,128 claim.

OK, so we know the Republicans are lying, but what's the actual cost Americans can expect if a cap-and-trade system becomes law? The Congressional Budget Office, which has produced several reports of late that Republicans just love, reported on the expected costs of Waxman-Markey.

...CBO estimates that the net annual economywide cost of the cap-and-trade program in 2020 would be $22 billion -- or about $175 per household. That figure includes the cost of restructuring the production and use of energy and of payments made to foreign entities under the program, but it does not include the economic benefits and other benefits of the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and the associated slowing of climate change.

Now the MSM, which has been flogging an erroneous CBO report all week about healthcare reform, needs to harshly push back the next time a Republican tries to repeat that bullshit line since they obviously find the CBO so credible. It is not the media's job to pass along blatant lies to the public no matter what David Gregory says.

Genius

By now you have probably heard the story about Congressman Henry Waxman hiring a speed reader in response to GOP efforts to slow down progress on a new cap and trade bill. Well check out this clip of how Waxman's idea made the GOP back down.

Waxman Comes Off The Top Turnbuckle

First rule of fight club is use credible sources. When Newt Gingrich cites the Weekly Standard to start off you know this is about to go left. From the video you can tell that Henry Waxman was pretty much hoping that Newt brought the weaksauce today and he wasn't dissappointed. I bet Newt won't be running his ass to the Hill to testify again anytime soon.