Downplaying Expectations for a Bipartisan Health Bill
Email ABC News' Z. Byron Wolf reports: What about the "bi" in "bipartisan? The Democratic half of the bipartisan "Gang of 6" negotiations are already warning that what comes out of those negotiations might not be bipartisan at all. Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., is expected to introduce the fruits of the gang's labor on Wednesday, but don't hold your breath for the Republican members of the "Gang of 6" to throw their support behind it.
"It may well be that people reserve their final decision until we go through the committee process," said one of the Democratic negotiators, Sen. Kent Conrad of North Dakota. And that process will change the bill. After Baucus introduces his version, it will be marked up by committee members. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has scheduled a special Democratic caucus for Thursday, but many more liberal Democrats are already lining up against it. Democrats on the Finance committee but not part of the "Gang of Six," like Sen. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, have pledged to do their best to amend what the bipartisan negotiations produce. And whatever the committee passes next week will be changed again before it hits the Senate floor as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid combines it with the partisan bill Democrats passed out of the HELP Committee over the summer. So it will not be surprising for the Republican half of the gang – Mike Enzi of Wyoming, Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Olympia Snowe of Maine – to keep their poker faces.
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What really could we expect? The Gang of Six were not in it for health care – they were in it for themselves. Check out Center for Responsive Politics and you’ll see why.
Senator Olympia Snowe gets $ 360,000 from the health sector. Aetna Inc is her 2nd individual top donor. She also gets campaign contributions from Spectrum Medical, and Goldman Sachs. So Snowe’s “trigger” is really a snow job.
The same could be said about the other two Republican members of the famous or rather infamous Gang of Six.
The top 6 contributors for Charles Grassley include Blue Cross, 2nd place: Select Medical Group, 3rd place; and Amgen. Throughout Grassley’s career he has received hundreds of thousands of dollars from the industries health insurance industry, health products, and pharmaceuticals.
Mike Enzi’s top political contributor is Pharmaceutical industry. Health professionals get 2nd place, and lobbyists take 7th place. Some of his top individual contributors include Blue Cross, Amgen, Merck & Co, and Goldman Sachs.
Do Senators Enzi,Grassley, and Snowe tell you that when you or your employer pay for health insurance, you are giving them a campaign contribution?
I’ve also noticed that Blue Cross offers a Medicare Advantage program. How much money from Medicare Advantage goes into these senators’campaign coffers? Are they robbing senior citizens so they can buy fancy new jet planes?
I’d sure like an answer to that question.
In the meantime, while the Gang of Six are carrying on with their soap opera, 22,000 Americans are dying each because they do not have access to medical care, according a report by the Urban Institute. Our infant mortality rate is twice as high as the infant mortality rate of France or Sweden. (SOURCE, the 2009 CIA fact book.)
Our current dysfunctional health care system is killing 7 times more Americans than we lost in 9/11, and all the Gang of Six can think about is their source of revenue. Osama bin Laden must indeed be jumping for joy.
Posted by: William Joseph Miller | September 15, 2009, 7:02 pm 7:02 pm
William Joseph Miller … Thanks for that well thought out post …
Posted by: 1enlightened | September 15, 2009, 7:33 pm 7:33 pm
Where is House bill #3217,why is it still in committee? It would allow insurance companies to compete across state lines,but is being held up by the Democrats. Obama said competition will lower health insurance costs,so why is this bill stuck in a Democratic controled Committee?
Posted by: Marion | September 15, 2009, 7:59 pm 7:59 pm
I want to hear about what the bill will do to ensure private insurance does their job for patients after they receive a serious illness diagnosis. It was disgusting how much fighting I had to do with my insurers to get them to pay my claims to doctors/labs.
Instead the town halls were given over to the screamers.
Posted by: trueblue | September 15, 2009, 9:20 pm 9:20 pm
Snow has already told the Dems she won’t be voting with them so now is the time for the Dems to just put Single Payer back on the table since there will be no Republicans voting with them anyway. If we are going to use reconciliation we might as well get everything we want the 1st time around.
Posted by: Jim Dandy | September 15, 2009, 9:39 pm 9:39 pm
Jim Dandy – You once again come to “the rescue” with a great post that cuts through the BS and gets to the heart of the matter. They need to use reconciliation or the state legislature in MA needs to hurry up and get a new Senator in for Kennedy so the Dems will have they 60 they need. Then: No more excuses – meaningful health reform now.
Posted by: Mark from atlanta | September 15, 2009, 10:19 pm 10:19 pm
Jim, if the Dems COULD have moved Single Payer through without the Reps, don’t you think they would have already done so? It would have been a finishing blow that would have taken decades for Reps to recover from. Can’t you see it is DEMOCRATIC INCOMPETENCE and DEMOCRATIC OPPOSITION that has stymied this thing? Why do you and others keep insisting Republicans are to blame?
Your “brilliant” analysis that it will take reconciliation to get what Dems want only heightens the truth that they cannot get it through open debate. That may get a bill to the Left’s liking but this is too sweeping a change to set well the American people if comes by way of smoke and mirrors and back room deals.
Posted by: Don | September 16, 2009, 12:24 am 12:24 am
Funny, the Democrats and Republican senators were able to agree on something like voting 83 to 7 to defund ACORN. It shows that they are capable of bipartisanship.
Of course ABC doesn’t know anything about this big news flash, just ask Charlie Gibson (anchor). WHERE IS THE COVERAGE?
On September 14, 2009 there was an 83 to 7 vote to defund ACORN. Senator Mike Johanns of Nebraska introduced Johanns Amendment #2355 to HR 3288
Posted by: E. Gonzales | September 16, 2009, 1:41 am 1:41 am
Interesting title ABC, but I dont think you have to fear- there are probably many BI sexualliberals who are voting for this healthcare monstrosity. Its just the conservatives (you know, the ones who care about the country and are listening to the wishes of the American people) who will defiantly vote AGAINST it
Posted by: realman1963 | September 16, 2009, 6:24 am 6:24 am
Create an anti-business environment, tax the crap out of them and they will move to where they are more appreciated. USA has the second largest corp. tax in the world. Working people need to wake up. This is not the 1920′s and 1930′s where business did not have a choice. This is a small world now. Take care of business, they will take care of you. Business and labor are in the same boat, they are not the enemy any more. Working people need to understand that jobs here mean more tax money all the way around. When you drive business out of the USA the remainder of the working class have to take up the slack in tax revenue to drive this MASSIVE government we have. Make sense? (note – I am a working man, not a business owner)
Posted by: jamgo46 | September 16, 2009, 6:35 am 6:35 am
I look forward to more meaningful debate, and am anxious to see any amendments to the legislation.
Posted by: Kevin | September 16, 2009, 6:58 am 6:58 am