Obama to Rally Senate Democrats on Health-Care Plan

[Mass]

I cant say I am thrilled by hearing names like Pryor (from the Family), and Snowe or Collins in this negotiation, but this needs to end. So, hopefully, Obama can remind these people they are Democrats (well Pryor and Lincoln, as well as Nelson and Webb) too, not GOP surrogates.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aUNg4zEhANRs&pos=1

Obama to Rally Senate Democrats on Health-Care Plan (Update2)

By Laura Litvan

Dec. 6 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama went to the U.S. Capitol to urge Senate Democrats to agree on health legislation as lawmakers struggle to resolve disputes over issues including a proposed government-run insurance plan.

Democrats met throughout yesterday to seek an alternative to Senate Majority Harry Reid’s plan to create the new national program to cover the uninsured. Opposition within his party leaves Reid at risk of falling four votes short of the 60 he needs to pass the legislation, the most sweeping overhaul of the nation’s health-care system in more than four decades.



“We have to talk about how to put the final pieces together,” Kerry said. “It’s good to hear from the president now, because it’s getting to that stage where you have to come to a decision with your heart as well as your head.”

Reid called the rare weekend session to meet his deadline of getting a bill by year-end. Republicans, unified in opposition, forced the Democrats yesterday to reiterate their support for cutting more than $40 billion in home health-care services funding under Medicare. It was the latest Republican effort to highlight the bill’s potential impact on the elderly.
...

Coming to Closure

Senator Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, disputed the notion that Obama’s visit was needed to rescue stalled legislation.

“We’re coming to closure” on abortion and the public option, Durbin said today on the “Fox News Sunday” program. “The president is going to come in and urge us to bring this ball across the line, to finish this, as he should.”

An amendment targeting insurance executive pay, proposed by Arkansas Democrat Blanche Lincoln, may come up for a vote today. It would cap tax-deductible salaries at $400,000 instead of the current national limit of $1 million. The legislation before the Senate already has a $500,000 cap. The lawmakers postponed the vote yesterday.

...


To contact the reporters on this story: Laura Litvan in Washington at [e-mail]

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

1. Can someone please explain to me what the backstory is on

"cutting more than $40 billion in home health-care services funding under Medicare." ?

[jwirr]

2. Many of us before the part D swindle used to have just Medicare.

Then part D hooked us up to insurance companies which quietly offered an "Advanced Program" which put your entire coverage under that insurance company. They administer Medicare patients coverage as well as pay for drugs. For a higher cost of administration. I was fool enough to say yes because they made it sound so simple and so much better. Neither of which is true. Across the country many seniors and persons who are disabled are now covered by Medicare paying the higher costs of this extra insurance.

Not to mention that Medicaid in many states are also doing this. Instead of the government administering its own programs it is paying for-profit insurance companies to do this. The extra cost is staggering.

[jwirr]

4. This may not be what they are talking about but it is one of the ways

they have been talking about savings through Medicare.

[Mass]

3. The GOP wanted to use that as an argument to send the bill back to the Finance Committee.

No services were cut, but I think some administrative fees were cut. In any case the Dems offered an amendment making clear that the services would be maintained that passed unanimously, but the GOP insisted on submitted their amendment as as stalling method.

[Cha]

5. Thanks..that's what

I thought.