AP: Obama now seeks pared-down health care bill

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

Obama now seeks pared-down health care bill

RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON - Chastened by the Democratic Senate loss in Massachusetts, President Barack Obama and congressional allies signaled Wednesday they will try to scale back his sweeping health care overhaul in an effort to at least keep parts of it alive.

A simpler, less ambitious bill emerged as an alternative only hours after the loss of the party's crucial 60th Senate seat forced the Democrats to slow their all-out drive to pass Obama's signature legislation despite fierce Republican opposition. The Democrats are now considering all options.

No decisions have been made, lawmakers said, but they laid out a new approach that could still include these provisions: limiting the ability of insurance companies to deny coverage to people with medical problems, allowing young adults to stay on their parents' policies, helping small businesses and low-income people pay premiums and changing Medicare to encourage payment for quality care instead of sheer volume of services.

Obama urged lawmakers not to try to jam a bill through, but scale the proposal down to what he called "those elements of the package that people agree on."

... snip (long article. read the whole thing at link) ...

http://www.philly.com/philly/wires/ap/business/20100120_ap_obamanowseekspareddownhealthcarebill.html

[anonymous171]

1. Kill the bill.

If it passes it will never be fixed. This is NAFTA part two.

[WorseBeforeBetter]

18. A-fucking-men. (n/t)

[CreekDog]

21. No

not on board with killing it.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

2. God damn it.

That bill was already pared down.

And they want to capitulate further?

This is just too damn much.

:grr:

They should stand and fight....the way the Republicans would, if this was their fight.

[JuniperLea]

5. STAY MAD, PEGGY!

And figure out how we can get Obama's attention on this ridiculousness!

[CaliforniaPeggy]

9. No worries!

Every time I see him wanting to back off something we wanted.......my anger rises all over again!

I don't know how we can get his attention...

After all, we don't have the money he's apparently listening to.

Damn.

[CreekDog]

23. agreed

Of course, i'm not sure this is actually what the current plan is.

I keep complaining that the White House did not have a Plan B and all the different ideas coming from congresspeople and the White House are a reflection that they never came up with a Plan B. Instead, it's just utter confusion.

They should have asked and then answered "What if?" weeks ago and worked to get prominent Democrats in Congress to know what the White House position would be.

The confusion over the next step is so embarassing, because it's kind of ridiculous because our side doesn't know what it's doing, despite having a few different options on how to proceed. The problem is that deciding which of those was the fallback should have been done weeks ago, rather than today in a rather strange dialogue between powerful Democrats to each other through media reports. :wtf:

[Julius Civitatus]

3. This is just embarrassing -- n/t

[Name removed]

4. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

Welcome to DU, pillowtv!

:hi:

[bigwillq]

8. And what would that be?

:shrug:
Welcome to DU, anyway.

[AndyA]

10. Republican Health Care Plan:

1. Don't get sick.

2. If you do get sick, die quickly.

Thanks a lot, Barack. Lovin' all this change you promised. :eyes:

[Freddie Stubbs]

11. No, the GOP plan is tort reform and allowing companies to sell insurance across state lines

Nice try.

[RagAss]

6. Everybody gets a Bandaid and a Bottle of Aspirin !

Fuck it...We got beat !

[yourout]

7. Just go.....Medicare 4 all. It is that fucking easy.

[KingFlorez]

12. Get rid of mandates to buy insurance

I honestly do not see the point in this, the crisis exist because people cannot afford insurance.

[kenny blankenship]

I did a word search on the article - found no mention of mandates

I think you have to assume they stay in. They're pretty much the whole point of the "reform" so far as Obama and the Democrats are concerned. They're so close to the true motivations of our "reformers" that they don't even get mentioned anymore - not that they've gone away or been modified.

It's not hard to imagine that eventually they'll pare it down so just the individual mandate to purchase for profit insurance remains and nothing else.

[GreenArrow]

13. They'd do better to shit can it. n/t

.

[BlueDemKev]

14. There Are 2 Options .....

1) The House pass the Senate bill as his and (hopefully) it can be improved upon later. This option appears out as the House Democrats don't have enough common sense to realize this would be the best and easiest option and they could get this damn issue behind them for at least a year.

2) The bill will have to be SIGNIFICANTLY scaled back in order to win the backing of one or two Republican senators....specifically, Olympia Snowe and Scott Brown.

Massachusetts absolutely screwed us to hell yesterday. Stubborn progressives who withheld their support of Coakley because they wanted a stronger health care bill will now get a MUCH WEAKER one.

Maybe they should read the old story of the "The Dog & His Bone?"

[The_Casual_Observer]

16. What makes you think that brown guy is going to help ?

[yourout]

20. Your missing one huge point......if you pass the Senate bill you will guarantee a bloodbath next...

Nov.

The Senate Bill with a mandate and without a public option is political suicide. I hate it, my friends hate it, pretty much everyone I know(many of them Obama voters) hates it.

Doing nothing would be better than passing this piece of shit.

Either ram medicare 4 all thru reconciliation or lick our wounds and move on.

[BlueDemKev]

35. Doing Nothing Will Guarantee our Defeat in Nov.....

Remember what happened when we threw in the towel with health care back in '94? If we do nothing after all the time and energy we've put into this health care reform effort, we will appear impotent and UNABLE TO GOVERN, which will turn the voters off even more. The coming midterms will be tough for us, but we can and will keep a majority in Congress if the American people see that we are competent enough to get things done. "It's better to die on one's feet than to live on one's knees."

As I've said in many previous posts, the Senate bill is far from perfect, but it does take the first giant step towards universal health care. Once it's in place, it can be tinkered with, amended, have stuff added, etc.. But we can't build on something if it's not there. We don't have a house yet, but let's at least purchase the land now and break ground.

[clear eye]

29. It was mostly swing independent voters who saw the similarity to the current MA plan

and the Senate bill about to become law, who witheld support. Tweety keeps saying that since Coakley claimed she supported a public option, voters voting against her were opposing it. What he refused to admit was that w/ her high level of insurance industry campaign donations and centrist record, they logically assumed that once in office she would vote in favor of what was actually up for a vote. She certainly didn't strike anyone as someone who would stand up to WH pressure to vote against it if it didn't contain the po. Remember, they actually know how mandated private insurance w/ almost no cost controls plays out in people's lives.

[The_Casual_Observer]

15. " limiting the ability of insurance companies to deny coverage"

Not eliminating, just limiting. Jesus, why bother with any of this? Just send the fuckers home & close down the congress.

[cascadiance]

17. In other words, he wants to support Corporatist goals of DONOTHINGISM!!!

We can't afford this1 Time to play hardball!

Do one of the following or threaten to and MEAN it!

1) Put a tougher bill through reconciliation.
2) Pull the plug on filibuster rules (or scale them back to limit Blue dog power and pass a tougher bill.
3) Change the filibuster rules to force Rethuglicans and Blue Dogs to EARN their filibusters by having them do marathon speeches. Perhaps even give them a gold-plated pee pot as a "gesture" to them!
4) In addition to one of the above threaten to put public campaign financing as one of the next items of business to do in the coming session.

If he keeps knuckling under, and only listens to the corporatists about how we've "gone too far left", then I guess it will be time to form a new party, and he should be prepared for that in 2012.

[stevietheman]

19. Ya mean the House just couldn't vote on the Senate bill? Geez. n/t

n/t

[clear eye]

22. Duplicate.

See http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7524107

[stray cat]

24. No mandates but then no need for spending/subsidies but regulation of insurance companies

[regnaD kciN]

28. The thing is, it'll never work...

...because Republicans may be slimy, but they aren't stupid. They know that, if those regulatory parts of the current bill pass as a "pared-down" measure, Democrats can then turn around and pass the big-ticket items (including a public option) via reconciliation, which they could not do effectively without those regulations. So, you can count on them filibustering a ban on adverse selection just the same as a full-blown single-payer proposal.

As I see it, the only way to pass any HCR proposal, now or in the foreseeable future, is for the House to swallow hard and pass the Senate bill as-is, then work on improvements through reconciliation. Any other option, in essence, means "nothing gets done." Period.

[pleah]

25. So, they lost this election so they could make another excuse to delute the bill further?

WTFIWWTP? This really pisses me off. :mad: :grr: :nuke:

[walldude]

26. So it was a log...

then it was a stick, then a twig, now a toothpick? I suppose we'll be getting a splinter when all is said and done.

[ProSense]

27. False

facts

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

30. The dreaded refutation by vague boilerplate talking points

[ProSense]

31. I know, I should believe the media. They know best. n/t

[WyldRogue]

32. Well...

...you have been wrong on issues multiple times so I'll believe other sources before I take your word.

[ProSense]

33. My word? n/t

[Swede Atlanta]

34. My take on HCR

Wrong Time....Right Time
I think that had the debate about HCR happened at a different time, while the slogging might have been very hard, it would have been easier to challenge the nay-sayers. Obama tried to take on a monumental change at a time when the nation was in shambles...economy imploding, 10+% unemployment, 2 overseas wars, major U.S. companies on the brink, etc. So while it may never be the "right time" to take this on, I think given the circumstances this was pushed at the wrong time. I understand the need to use your "political capital" when you have it and that is often in a President's first term. But this was, despite the campaign promises, the wrong time.

Too ambitious
Enacting Social Security under FDR and Medicare under LBJ were huge, sweeping changes. I think Obama took on too much. I think that given the inherent opposition to these changes in the context of the dismal economy and two wars, he should have taken a more incremental approach - i.e. prohibit the worst abuses of the current private insurers, look for opportunities to broaden coverage,etc. I don't think that a robust public option was politically viable at this time. The way to broaden coverage in the short term may have been through a national exchange, subsidies, etc. But bite off only as much as you can swallow.

Lame promotion
The Democrats simply lacked the passion and energy of HCR opponents. We didn't do enough to explain to the American people the benefits of the plan. The opponents lied through their teeth but those lies took root because the Democrats failed to communicate. The bills never had the transparency that Obama promised in his campaign. If your opponents get to define the issue, you have lost.

The time has come to pull back from the precipice, reformulate the message and focus on those incremental improvements that can make significant changes in the lives of Americans. If this means going through Reconciliation, then do it. But let's abandon the plan for a huge overhaul of the system. We lack the political courage.