Progressive Breakfast: What's Next For Health Care

The daily Progressive Breakfast serves up what progressive movement members need to know to start their day.

Finance Bill Hit From All Sides As Full Senate Poised To Weigh In

Time previews what's next: "Over the next two weeks they will finish merging the two measures and begin counting votes on some of the hundreds of amendments expected to be filed. Some losing proposals will have to be raised, debated and then defeated before winning provisions are adopted. For example, 30 members advised Reid last week that the Senate must take up a robust public-plan amendment before they will consider voting on a reform package without one. Reid hopes the amendment process will last just two weeks, but it is likely to take longer. Such an old-fashioned debate on the Senate floor where the final outcome of a bill isn't a foregone conclusion hasn't happened in many years."

HCAN lists why the Finance bill is weaker than the Senate health committee bill: The bill is not affordable, costing families thousands of dollars more [pdf] than Kennedy's HELP bill. The bill does not ask employers to pitch in their fair share for their employee's health care. The bill raises money by taxing the middle class, not the wealthy who can most afford it. The bill does not give us a choice of a public health insurance option."

27 unions oppose Senate Finance bill for lack of public option and imposing tax on many union-members' health plans, reports Bloomberg

Insurance lobby shows its cards, starts running ads against compromise bill. W. Post: "America's Health Insurance Plans, an industry trade group, opened a fresh line of attack with a multistate advertising campaign warning that senior citizens enrolled in private Medicare plans could lose benefits under the legislation.

Sen. Snowe threatens to withdraw support if public option is included. From ABC News: "That would mean significant costs were added to the bill or significant taxes. If some issues aren’t addressed such as affordability, we still have to work on that issue making sure Americans have affordable health plans. They do under this legislation, but we need to do more and to be certain of that. And finally, of course, the public option. That is not an area I have agreed to. I don’t want government at the outset of the process. It really could shut off the private sector."

The Treatment's Suzy Khimm lists Snowe's priorities to add to the bill: "One idea she floated today: 'maybe lower the actuarial value' of insurance--which roughly means to scale back the benefits that insurers will be required to offer in the exchange, i.e. skimpier benefits to bring down the price tag ... She said it was important 'to bring in more small businesses' into the exchange, creating a bigger pool that could bring costs down for the other participants ... she's still all for [the "trigger."] She reiterated that she wasn't inclined to support the proprosed state "opt-out" option."

The Walker Report laments: "I fear all of these terrible ideas from Sen. Snowe will make their way into the final bill."

Ezra Klein notes Sen. Ron Wyden is also a tenuous supporter: "[Wyden] wanted not only all employers, but all individuals, given access to the exchanges. He wanted to give individuals the option to move beyond the employer-based system, but that wasn't very popular, given that preserving the employer-based system was among the central premises of health-care reform ... [Now,] Baucus and Wyden are, in theory, working together to get a compromise version of Wyden's amendment into the merged bill."

CBPP lambastes Senate Finance provision creating disincentive to hire and retain lower-income workers: "The provision would require employers who do not offer health coverage to pay substantial amounts ... for low- and moderate-income individuals employed at least 30 hours a week who receive subsidies ,,, But firms would not pay anything for employees who do not receive subsidies because their family incomes are higher (or for other reasons) ... The result ... is to make the cost to many employers of hiring people from low- and moderate-income families still greater, and thus to make the incentive to avoid hiring them (or to let them go first when a firm downsizes) stronger."

Showdown with Banks in House Cmte Today

AP previews today's House action: "The House Financial Services Committee on Wednesday is taking up key elements of President Barack Obama's proposal for correcting the practices of banks, investment houses and other financial institutions that caused last year's economic collapse. Up first is a measure that for the first time would regulate privately sold derivatives like credit default swaps, the complex contracts that brought down Wall Street banking house Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and nearly toppled insurance giant American International Group Inc. ... one sticking point is whether to give states additional powers to regulate the consumer practices of federally chartered banks. Obama and Frank favor doing it; Rep. Melissa Bean, a moderate Democrat from Illinois, is leading the opposition against it ... Frank dropped several of Obama's proposals, including making banks offer standardized 'plain vanilla' mortgages. His draft bill also omits Obama's proposal to make lenders take added measures to ensure that their communications with customers are not deceptive."

CQ on Bean's amendment to weaken state rules: "The fate of Bean’s amendment is uncertain. Fourteen of the 42 Democrats on the committee belong to the New Democrat Coalition, and some of the panel’s 29 Republican members might support the amendment. Other Democrats, such as Brad Miller of North Carolina, have threatened to oppose the bill if the amendment is adopted."

W. Post's Harold Meyerson criticizes early concessions to banks: "The bill that the House Financial Services Committee will take up Wednesday wouldn't establish an exchange [for derivatives]. It would establish a clearinghouse, which is a weaker vehicle for tracking such deals. But it also would allow the banks and their counterparties to avoid posting such deals to the clearinghouse if they didn't want to, by insisting that their deal wasn't really standardized to clearinghouse practices. An earlier draft of the bill would even have exempted deals that hedged risk -- and since almost all such deals are created to hedge risk, it would have essentially exempted everyone."

TARP watchdog hits handling of AIG bonuses. Bloomberg: "The Treasury Department failed to monitor 'explosively controversial' bonuses American International Group Inc. paid to executives before the U.S. pumped $30 billion into the insurer, said the chief watchdog of the U.S. financial rescue program. There was a 'failure of communication' between Treasury and Federal Reserve Bank of New York officials regulating the bailed-out company, Neil Barofsky, special inspector for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, said yesterday in a report. Barofsky is scheduled to testify at 10 a.m. today at a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee..."

Climate Bill Senate Hearings To Begin This Month

Sen. Boxer to begin hearings on her climate protection and clean energy jobs bill on Oct. 27, reports AFP. Politico adds: "Boxer expects to mark-up the legislation in early November. A final bill will then be complied by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid with input from five other committees."

Wonk Room's Brad Johnson reports Sen. Lindsey Graham gets booed, called a "traitor" at SC town hall as he tries to explain that they won't get their precious offshore drilling and nuclear power without a compromise with Democrats.

HuffPost reports of another possible Chamber of Commerce loss: "Executives at MacAndrews & Forbes Holdings, which owns significant stakes in a range of companies, most notably cosmetics maker Revlon, have been holding internal discussions on whether to pull out of the chamber over its recent challenge to the Clean Air Act."

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