Health Care and the 2010 Mid-Term Elections--the Only Thing Now Certain is the Uncertainty

@font-face { font-family: "Cambria"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; } The election has given us a Republican House and a still Democratic controlled Senate. But, instead of Democrats having the 60 Senators they had when health care was passed in December, they will have a

Passing the Democratic Health Care Bill is Not the “Right Thing To Do”

Any big health care bill will be full of compromises—political or otherwise. But this bill doesn’t even come close to deserving to be called “health care reform.”As the Democrats make their final push to pass their health care bill many of them, and most notably the President, are arguing that it should be passed because it is the “right thing to do whatever the polls say.”Their argument is

The Issue Has Become Arrogance Not Health Care

Away from Washington people I talk to are just amazed at what the Democrats are in the process of doing on health care.What I think the Democratic leadership is missing is that this is no longer about passing a health care bill in the minds of lots of these voters—a majority of voters from what the polls say.To these people, this is about Democratic arrogance. What the polls don't measure is the

"What a Disaster Looks Like"

In case you missed Peggy Noonan's column in the WSJ yesterday, let me suggest it is worth your time.I think she hit the nail on the head:It is now exactly a year since President Obama unveiled his health care push and his decision to devote his inaugural year to it—his branding year, his first, vivid year.What a disaster it has been.At best it was a waste of history's time, a struggle that will

Post-Summit Health Reform: What a Mess

Everyone agrees our health care system is unsustainable and too often unfair. At the White House health care summit, that was the only common ground between Democrats and Republicans.Many Americans are either left-brain liberals or right-brain conservatives, with the remainder somewhere in the middle. These left- and right-brain types look at the same facts but come to different conclusions—no

The White House Health Care Summit--Democrats: 0 Republicans: 0 -- The Republicans Win

There is politics and there is policy.On the policy front what we saw today was the same exchange of the old talking points we have watched for a longtime. No progress was made toward any kind of health care bill. That is no surprise--this was never going to be the place to fashion any kind of compromise.At the end the President asked the Republicans if it was worth it to spend another month or

Obama to Uneasy Democrats: Please Walk the Plank for Me But If It Doesn't Work Out Here's Plan B

The President and the Democratic leadership have been pushing hard on the idea that the Democrats should ram their unpopular health care bill through by using reconciliation--no matter how many Democrats in swing districts lose their jobs over it this November.But Laura Meckler had an important story in the Wall Street Journal yesterday that is bound to give many of the nervous moderate Democrats

The President’s Health Care Plan—Not a Game Changer

It is hard to see how the health care plan the President released this morning changes anything.There is nothing new in it save a health insurance rate regulatory board that is an awkward political proposal at best. What powers would it really have and how would it operate in conjunction with the states already charged with insurance company oversight are just two of the first questions it does

The Health Care Summit—Who’s Gonna Win the Photo-Op?

Getting Democrats and Republicans to constructively engage on health care is the best way to make progress.To date, the Democrats have blown health care reform once again by being too arrogant in thinking they could just ram their version through.The Republicans have no health care proposal. Their “black book” list of ideas they handed the President in Baltimore is a collection of second and

A Way Out of the Health Care Wilderness?

I just came across an interview that I will suggest we all may have missed and perhaps charts the way out of this health care reform wilderness we now seem to be in.It was on February 2nd and was between the Washington Post’s Ezra Klein and rising Republican House star Paul Ryan (WI).Ezra asked Ryan about the bipartisan Wyden-Bennett bill as a place for both sides to find common ground. It’s a

“Plan B” Has Begun

With word that the House is likely to take up the repeal of the health insurance industry anti-trust exemption it is now clear the Democratic leadership has begun Plan B.It is also clear that this is much more a part of a political Kabuki dance then any substantive effort at even piecemeal health care reform.The House probably has the votes to pass the repeal. The Senate does not. I doubt that

Friday in Baltimore--The Way to Actually Accomplish Something

Intentionally or unintentionally, my sense is that the White House came out of Baltimore thinking they are now on to something, and I hope the Republicans took the same lesson away.Constructive good faith political engagement in Washington actually works.It is just incredible that House Minority Leader John Boehner has had not direct contact with the White House for about a year. A pox on both

The State of the Union--The President Came to a Fork in the Road and He Took It

As Yogi Berra said, "When you come to a fork in the road, take it."The President came to a fork in the road tonight on health care reform. Would he do what many liberals have demanded--push harder to pass the Democratic health care bills? Or, do as many moderate Dems and some Republicans have called for--work to get a smaller but bipartisan health care bill?Listening to his speech he seems to be

Plan B—There Isn’t One—But There Could Be

As the State of the Union approaches Democrats are considering their health care policy options. There are lots of reports about “Plan B”—pushing through the Senate bill with a parallel corrections bill that could be passed in the Senate using reconciliation rules.That’s as dead as the original House and Senate health care bills. Moderate Democrats have no stomach for such a legislative stunt in

A Smaller Bipartisan Health Bill? What It Could Look Like

In the wake of the Massachusetts vote, Democrats are scrambling to find a way out of the health care political mess they are in.Right now they are in a daze standing by waiting to see if any of the "trial balloons" they have launched gain any traction. So far, ideas to ram though the now toxic Senate bill in the House in one parliamentary form or another are falling flat.Last night, the President

Stick a Fork in It! The Democratic Effort to Pass a Health Bill is Dead

Tuesday’s Republican victory in Massachusetts means the current Democratic health care bills will not be on the President’s desk in 2010.Forget the crazy talk of ramming something through—including just having the House pass the pending Senate bill.I’ve talked to lots of people in the past few months that didn’t like the Democratic effort but conceded that the Dems won the 2008 election on a

The Union “Cadillac” Tax Sweetheart Deal

Just when you thought you couldn’t be more cynical about the health care bill.As I have said before, there wasn’t a lot of hope the same administration that ignored the rule of law in granting unions priority over Chrysler bondholders was going to offend them on the “Cadillac” tax.We’ve seen the “Louisiana purchase” giving Senator Landrieu hundreds of millions for her vote, only to be upstaged by

How Will the Senate Bill Impact the Insurance Companies and Their Customers?

How will the Senate bill impact health insurance companies and their customers?Even better, how will it impact a not-for-profit health plan--one with a reputation for being a "good guy" that continually wins the country's top awards for member services and with historic profits of less than 1% of premium? And, one that is operating in Massachusetts--a market that has already been through much of

The Senate Bill--Wall Street Likes It and the House Will Have To

In morning trading HMO stocks are once again hitting 52-week highs with each of the major publicly traded plans up 3% to 6% from their Friday gains.Hospitals and pharmaceutical companies are also doing pretty well.Liberals have been talking all weekend long about having to make the Senate bill better—and more like the House bill. That just won’t happen. Reid’s 60-vote majority is held together

Oh, Ease Up on Joe Already

The Democratic rhetoric coming from Capitol Hill today beating on Joe Lieberman is, in the least, disingenuous.The public option has not been tenable for months. It was not just Lieberman that has been against it in all forms--robust Medicare-like or the neutered variety in the House and Senate bills.All of the liberals claiming they weren't going to vote for a health bill without a public option