Liberal Democrats and Blue Dogs Clash on Health Care

Last week AGC expressed its opposition to the massive $1.5 trillion health care overhauls being debated in the House and Senate. AGC remains opposed to the bill because AGC members and their employees will face a nearly impossible task of keeping insurance coverage, paying for coverage and maintaining an acceptable level of coverage without being pushed into a national plan. As such, AGC currently opposes the health care reform proposals in Congress. This week House negotiations between House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Blue Dog Democrats have achieved an outline of a deal that allows the Energy and Commerce Committee to continue to consider the bill. The outline of the deal with the Blue Dogs will separate reimbursement rates under Medicare from reimbursement rates under the public option included in the House bill. This will likely allow higher reimbursement rates in rural areas and for some specialties. The deal also allow reduces the number of companies covered by the employer mandate to make  businesses with $500,000 or less in total payroll not subject to a tax penalty if they do not provide employees with insurance. The deal also reduces some of the costs to the federal government by saying that individuals will qualify for subsidies to buy insurance if they spend 12 percent of their income on premiums, not 11 percent as in the original bill. And states would be required to pick up seven percent of the cost of expanding Medicaid to everyone who makes 150 percent of poverty or less. The more liberal wing of the Democratic Party has attacked the deal with the Blue Dogs and will try to undo the deal. Speaker Pelosi is a very prominent member of that liberal wing and she is responsible for melding the 3 versions of the bill into a single bill for floor consideration in September. The House Energy and Commerce Committee continues to work on the bill while liberal members of the House are attacking the deal with the Blue Dogs and may keep the bill from coming out of committee before adjournment. In the Senate the bipartisan group negotiating the bill includes Senators Baucus (D-Mont.), Grassley (R-Iowa), Conrad (D-N.D.), Enzi (R-Wyo.), Bingaman (D-N.M.) and Snowe (R-Maine). The group is under intense pressure from the President who calls Chairman Baucus daily asking for quick action and other members of the Senate Democratic Leadership who would like the Senate Finance Committee to complete action before the Senate adjourns next Friday for a 5 week break.