Did the Senate just kill a crucial ingredient of health care reform?

[ProSense]

Stocked Exchange

Did the Senate just kill a crucial ingredient of health care reform?

Ten years from now, if health care reform is a boondoggle, you might be able to trace that failure back to a decision in the wee hours of last week's Senate Finance Committee hearings.

It happened on Thursday night, just before midnight, when John Kerry put forward an amendment. It was amendment C-8: "Empowering State Exchanges to be Prudent Purchasers." The title may sound innocuous, if a bit arcane. But if you've followed the health care reform debate, then you know (or should know) that anything involving the insurance exchanges is important.

And Kerry's amendment is very important.

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But when Kerry introduced his plan last week, he couldn't get the votes to pass it. The reason, several sources on Capitol Hill say, was opposition from Olympia Snowe, the Maine Republican who also sits on Senate Finance. Snowe seems to be concerned that a more aggressive exchange would amount to more government--which, in fact, it would be. But, as Massachusetts has shown, sometimes more government is exactly what health care needs.

Chances are reasonably good that Kerry's vision of reform will prevail, if not during the Senate floor debate then afterwards, when a conference committee merges whatever passes from the two congressional chambers. But it's not a sure thing, which is why this seemingly narrow question deserves a lot more attention.

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Someone is hyping Snowe's relevance.

Since almost every other amendment passed without Snowe's support, how on earth did she kill this amendment? There had to be opposition from at least two Democrats. The committee has 13 Democrats and 10 Republicans.

There is also nothing stopping Kerry from introducing this on the Senate floor.

[yurbud]

1. can the floor of the Senate produce a more progressive bill than the clearly corrupt committees?

[valerief]

2. The Senate SUCKS!!!!! Only a few senators are worth their privileged status. The rest REEK!!!!!

:mad:

[Phx_Dem]

4. So true. They do more harm than good.

[joeycola]

3. Sens. Wyden and Rocky are holding back also........

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x8686749

[karynnj]

5. I think I found the place on the archived webcast where Kerry explains it

and even near midnight, he made incredible sense. Baucus pushed back because it did not have a CBO score - even though he agreed with Kerry that it would save money not cost money. It seemed then that Baucus wouldn't let him have a vote - Conrad backed Kerry up. Anyway - Kerry starts at about 680 minutes in on this - on the Oct 1 archive webcast that has a link here - http://finance.senate.gov/sitepages/hearings.htm

Listening to Baucus - the problem is Baucus. I really did not get his point and his comment that all states are different was pretty weak after Kerry said it saved 6% in Massachusetts.

[ProSense]

6. Thanks for the link. n/t

[ProSense]

7. You're right. That's a really good segment.

Kerry's explanation is excellent. Baucus' point makes no sense given the savings it means for consumers.

[karynnj]

8. I thought so to and was amazed how completely down to earth

Kerry's points were. This is a complete no-brainer. Given that Baucus did not act to get it scored, his team of 6 obviously rejected it out of nand. The real question is why? All I can think of is that efficiency and cost reduction means eliminating wasted money - money that goes somewhere.

This is a case where, imperfect as it is, it is good to have the MA example - and it is hard to argue with a 6% savings.

[slipslidingaway]

9. Ten years from now, I thought you might be pointing to the data exclusivity

amendments that are in the bills, but that is what Bio wanted.

[TheKentuckian]

10. Obama needs to pop Baucus like a grape and he's going to need Harry to get real tough to do it. (nt)