The effort by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to find consensus that will get him sixty votes to consider health care reform in the Senate continues to be a difficult task, with the Congressional Budget Office playing a large role in that effort. Yesterday’s New York Times details his difficulties with the CBO scoring process, and how centrist Democrats are insisting on cost controls as well as extending coverage. Ben Nelson is a pretty good example:
“The message at times has gotten garbled, where it has been more about extending coverage to individuals than it has been about bending the cost curve,” said Senator Ben Nelson, Democrat of Nebraska. “I think we need to control costs.”
Reid’s conundrum is not limited to centrist Democrats however. A potential tax on cadillac plans, included in the Senate version, is opposed by organized labor. If Reid drops the provision he needs to replace it, and the alternatives available to him will make it difficult to get to sixty. Reid is in a tough spot, and the fact that he will be in a tough re-elect fight next year has got to be weighing on him as he considers alternatives. Does Reid get to sixty? Right now he has to be considered a slight underdog. Read the Times story here.
And read about the head bean counter at the Congressional Budget Office here.
Bill Manzi.com 
Mr. Mayor:
In this case, I think Ben Nelson is right and organized labor is wrong. Yes, we need to cover everyone, but yes, we need to control cost. Towards that end, everything, including taxing of so-called “cadillac plans” should be on the table.
Only when people are actually connected to the costs they are incurring will they be incented to save.
-FM
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Your Honor,
What is the purpose of a blog? This entry is like a AP Report.
Do you have a stand in this matter? What is it? I would be interested to find out so I can reply in an appropriate manner.
As you know, I find this entire legislation to be a danger to our freedom. Stupid? Maybe. But, it might be interesting to argue the points.
I await your reply.
Jules
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Jules,
My thought on the House bill is that it does too little to restrain costs. I believe in full coverage, and I believe we all are paying for full coverage whether it is through insurance or other “back door” means (uncompensated care pool)but the runaway costs will sink the entire economy. The Senate bill is not a known commodity yet, but the posting was designed around Reid’s political problems in getting to sixty to stop the coming Republican filibuster. My thought on that is that Reid does not have the votes as of today, and that he also likely does not have the CBO scoring he needs. More needs to be done around cost containment for a bill to be true “reform”. There is that word again.
Bill
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Your Honor,
How can anyone think the process that this bill has gone through and continues to go on, will yield a economic and functioning system that meets the desired goals.
The economy not growing jobs at this time, the multi-trillion dollar debt, the problem of political vagaries from issues of principle, lobby pressure, constituent expectations and ideology will twist this thing out of joint.
How do you manage a 2,000 page bill that ties itself to hundreds of exsiting bills and is incomprehensible?
This thing will enlarge the federal government by thousand creating at least 111 new departments clawing deeper into our personal lives.
IT WILL NOT DO THE THINGS YOU OR FRED OR JIM THINK IT WILL DO. IT WILL ENHANCE THE NARCISSISTIC DREAMS OF BARAK OBAMA. Our families will suffer without recourse.
We are like the rats following the pied piper.
This bill is designed to start 3 years after passage. At the beginning it will collect taxes. The all hell will break loose. At that time the perpetrators will be leaving office.
God help us. Oh! Then their is Cap and Trade. If you can’t see what is happening,I am surprised.
Jules
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Jules,
I am not ideological in the way you appear to be. In the area of health care, whether you care to admit it or not, the current system will bankrupt the country, and in fact is doing so now. I do believe that the Democratic bill out of the House tries to get near full coverage, which is a noble goal. But I have said here on a few occassions that it lacks true cost containment. That is a recipe for disaster, but so is maintaining the current system, which in and of itself is a HUGE job killer. I am not sure how you will be able to maintain the status quo, and I submit to you that draconian change will soon be imposed by financial necessity if something is not done to bend this cost curve in health care.
Bill
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The City of Methuen website has been down since at least 3pm. When will it be available?
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John,
They are working on it. I will post something here first thing in the morning.
Bill
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Mayor Manzi, Jules et al:
One of the items in the House Bill which needs to be maintained in the Prohibition of funding for Abortions. While I would love to see Roe v Wade overturned, at least keeping it out of this Bill and not backdooring it in the Senate is a great thing.
Gerard
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Your Honor,
This bill IS ideological. Only the Democrats are moving it, but Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are trying to sneak it through. Closed door meetings followed by rush to vote to get it past before anyone can absorb it.
The goal is to give Obama a victory at any cost. Once enacted there is no going back. And, you know the law will be amended to eventual meet ideological goals such as single payer.
It’s not a bill, it’s a campaign.
There are other ways.
Jules
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Your Honor,
One more point. Cost containment means rationing.
Also, based on the breast cancer reports circulating indicate that the death panels are beginning. If they cut off mammograms, et at, at 50 years old their could be problems.
I understand there were no Oncologists on the panel.
What a country.
Jules
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Gerard:
Do you favor the government overriding a doctor’s trained advice, standing firmly between a doctor and a patient on an ideological and not medical judgment?
What happens if someone decides that middle aged men from Methuen shouldn’t get screened for cancer, because of their ideology?
-FM
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Gerard,
What is Fred talking about?
You and I know the Government Health Care will put a Federal Lawyer between the patient (middle aged man) and his doctor, providing he is still in business.
I have been rationed at the pharmacy by one of those lawyers.
Socialism ahead.
Jules
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Jules:
Can’t Gerard answer for himself?
Are you still working on the Reagan question?
Was Ronald Reagan wrong in thinking that deficits don’t matter?
Yes, or no?
-FM
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Poor Fred, stuck in the stone age.
Just for the record, Reagan was the best president I can remember. He said many things, but he did the right things in the end.
Jules
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Poor Jules, unable to confront the simple things.
-FM
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Jules:
If you don’t mind me asking, are you saying that your Medicare Part D drug benefit was rationed by a lawyer? Tell us more! Who was the lawyer working for?
-FM
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Your Honor,
Cost of “influencing” a reluctant Democrat (Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) $100 million.
Nice.
Jules
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Why Fred,
That lawyer was working for the same Government that will ration Obamacare.
Jules
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Jules:
Are you sure that lawyer wasn’t working for your insurance company? I say this because I thought Medicare is prevented from stopping care based on cost … but insurance companies are another story.
BTW: great segment on 60 minutes after the Pats game. They are talking about how much money is spent by Medicare at the very end of life. It’s much, much more than I recall hearing in the 90’s.
Get ready for uncomfortable conversations about rationing federal dollars at end of life. I thought I saw the doctor’s eyes redden with tears knowing that the money they were spending wouldn’t provide any more life, and what that money would do for the 46 million or so that aren’t covered.
-FM
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Jules:
Olympia Snowe or Susan Collins could have saved the taxpayers 100 million dollars, as could have any Republican.
Nice.
-FM
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Fred,
Those Maine RINOs can be bought just like Mary Landreau and any Liberal. 100 to 300 million dollars seems to be the going amount for buying a change of mind.
If I’m not mistaken, Senator Snowe sold out to pass stimulus.
The American people better stop voting their own wallets and vote for best governance.
Jules
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Jules:
“The American people better stop voting their own wallets and vote for best governance.”
Wow.
So, when exactly did you become a Liberal? 😉
-FM
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