Progressive Breakfast: Reid Prepares To Move

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

Reid To Decide On Health Care Bill Today

Reid decision on public option to come today, reports CNN: [1] "Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is poised to proceed with plans to introduce a Senate health care bill with a public health insurance option that would allow states to opt out, a senior aide to Reid told CNN on Sunday. The aide ... said a final decision would be made Monday. Reid is likely to make the move without having firm commitments of support from 60 senators..."

WSJ gets early peek at Reid's bill: [2] "Senate leaders plan to submit the bill to the Congressional Budget Office for a cost estimate as soon as Monday, and make the legislation public as soon as Tuesday ... Employers with more than 50 workers wouldn't be required to provide health insurance, but they would face fines of up to $750 per employee if even part of their work force received a government subsidy to buy health insurance ... The bill to be brought to the Senate floor would create a new public health-insurance plan, but would give states the choice of opting out..."

ABC reports Reid will allow several compromises to be considered on the Senate floor: [3] "In order to reach 60 votes, Reid is expected to offer to his colleagues what could be called 'the option-option.' On ABC's 'This Week with George Stephanopoulos,' Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri laid out what senators can expect in Reid's plan. It will include a national, not for profit, government insurance plan. But senators will be able to vote on three options on how such a plan would be implemented. That would include allowing states to 'opt in' or 'opt out' of the plan -- or approve a trigger that would activate the government health program only if private insurance companies are unsuccessful in cutting costs."

Sen. Schumer says "opt-out" public option compromise is nearing 60 Senate votes [4] but Sen. Ben Nelson only goes as far as "opt-in."

Sen. Lieberman offers transparently phony concerns about the deficit, which CBO already said would go down. The Hill: [5] "[Sen. Lieberman] says his concern about the Senate bill is based on the national deficit — not the insurers that dominate his state ... 'I want to be able to vote for a health bill, but my top concern is the deficit.'"

Official WH blog refutes claims that Obama is not in step with Reid. Politico quotes: [6] "President Obama made clear that he supports the public option because it has the potential to play an essential role in holding insurance companies accountable through choice and competition. That continues to be the President's position."

OurFuture.org's Roger Hickey reminds how public option was thrust into the center of debate, and why it has renewed momentum: [7] "...the latest surge of support has come from moderate Democrats and even Blue Dogs, who have come to the realization that if they are going to vote to force their constituents to purchase health insurance, they had better make sure they have a lot of choices – including an affordable public option."

Politico analyzes as well: [8] "Having bet the farm, President Barack Obama needs a win and is willing to settle for a cheaper bill and a weaker public insurance option. Democrats in Congress, increasingly worried about the 2010 elections, want stronger medicine for fear the reforms will prove to be a house of cards if working-class voters can’t afford the coverage promised. That’s a big, underappreciated reason why the public option has resurfaced in recent weeks in what’s really a proxy war for the affordability debate."

W. Post notes most stakeholders see trying to kill the bill outright as futile: [9] "With a growing sense that Democrats may have the votes to pass health-care reform, many participants are now attempting to shape the components of landmark legislation rather than to defeat it."

LA Times argues the insurance industry are still coming out winners: [10] "...there is broad agreement that the final plan will, for the first time, require Americans to buy health coverage, with taxpayer subsidies for millions who cannot afford it. For the health insurance industry, that means millions of new paying customers. What's more, there are likely to be no limits on what insurers can charge, while at the same time the plan is expected to limit competition from any new national government insurance plan that lawmakers create."

Krugman expresses optimism that the people will be winners, based on the Massachusetts experience: [11] "Like the bill that will probably emerge from Congress, the Massachusetts reform mainly relies on a combination of regulation and subsidies to chivy a mostly private system into providing near-universal coverage ... it has gone a long way toward achieving the goal of health insurance for all, although it’s not quite there: according to state estimates, only 2.6 percent of residents remain uninsured. This expansion of coverage has tremendous significance in human terms. The Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured recently did a focus-group study of Massachusetts residents and reported that 'Health reform enabled many of these individuals to take care of their medical needs, to start seeing a doctor, and in some cases to regain their health and control over their lives.' ... And reform remains popular ... an overwhelming 79 percent of the public think the reform should be continued ... This thing is going to work."

W. Post explores whether the individual mandate would work as intended: [12] "[It] will depend on more than the penalty they would pay for refusing, many economists say. This, they say, is the lesson of behavioral economics, a school of thought that holds that people do not necessarily make decisions out of well-reasoned self-interest ... compliance will depend not only on the penalties and cost of coverage, but also on the ease of signing up for coverage and whether people can be persuaded that it is a widely accepted social norm."

Dems want some reforms to happen before 2010. Politico: [13] "Under the Democratic wish-list, senior citizens would receive discounts on brand-name drugs next year. Small businesses that provide insurance would see tax credits. And a $5 billion high-risk pool would cover people with preexisting conditions."

House Prepares "Too Big To Fail" Bill

NYT reports Rep. Barney Frank to introduce legislation to prevent too-big-to-fail banks: [14] "The measure would make it easier for the government to seize control of troubled financial institutions, throw out management, wipe out the shareholders and change the terms of existing loans held by the institution ... Timothy F. Geithner, was planning to endorse the changes in testimony before the House Financial Services Committee on Thursday ... Some regulators and economists in recent weeks have suggested that the administration’s plan does not go far enough. They say that the government should consider breaking up the biggest banks and investment firms long before they fail, or at least impose strict limits on their trading activities — steps that the administration continues to reject."

The Hill adds committee work begins "next week": [15] "[Rep. Frank said] that he believes it will be tougher to move through his panel than the [Consumer Financial Protection Agency] bill, which was approved after a five-day markup."

Boxer Makes Cost Case for Carbon Cap

Sen. Barbara Boxer, in HuffPost counterspins right-wing attempt to distort CBO on climate: [16] "A closer look at CBO's testimony, and analyses by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Energy Information Administration (EIA), shows that the cost of action is dwarfed by steady growth in the economy ... According to CBO's estimate, if we act now to address global warming and invest in clean energy, the economy 40 years from now may be about 249 percent bigger, instead of 250 percent bigger. And we'll still get to 250 percent - in May instead of January 2050."