DeParle: Health Merger “Easy” and Republicans Hit Doc Fix

ABC News' Z. Byron Wolf reports: Democratic leaders and White House aides are cloistered in Harry Reid’s office writing the final health reform bill – a process that remains opaque but which White House Health Policy Czar Nancy Anne DeParle told reporters was "an easy process and one that's going really well."
Republicans said today that the first vote of the health reform will come later this week with the Doc Fix – the bill that would spend $240 billion over ten years to keep Medicare doctors from a stiff pay cut. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was asked if health reform will meet the President’s requirement that it not add to the national debt if its predated a quarter-trillion-dollar doc fix. He dodged the budget deficit part of the question.
"…The one thing we have to understand is we are going to make sure that senior citizens have the ability to go to a doctor when they're sick.  That's the key.  We want to make sure that more doctors take Medicare patients, not less," he said. "…And so we are going to take care of senior citizens, whether it's with a one-year fix or a 10-year fix.  They will be taken care of.  We will not fail the seniors who are on Medicare," he said, ignoring whether he would fail to keep the reform effort deficit neutral.
Republicans criticized the doc fix proposal today, arguing it should be paid for with budget cuts elsewhere.
"First vote on health care reform:  Raise the national debt a quarter of a trillion dollars," said Sen. Lamar Alexander, holding up  his hometown paper at a press conference today. The paper had a banner headline about the deficit.
"Now, this was the headline in the National Tennessean on Saturday.  So on the same day we're proposing to vote on health care and raise the national debt by a quarter of a trillion dollars, the deficit leaps to $1.4 trillion," Alexander said.
Republicans have not said exactly where the budget cuts to pay for the doc fix should come from yet. But they have also declined indicated they won’t block the bill if they’re allowed to offer amendments.
Meanwhile, Reid was joined at his press conference by HELP Committee representative Chris Dodd and Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, with whom he’s writing the final health reform bill.
Another special guest came in the form of White House Health Policy Czar Nancy Ann DeParle, who didn’t offer any specifics on where the talks are headed, but did characterize them this way:
"It's going very well, and I can't over-emphasize the — the number of elements where there is agreement between the two committees," said DeParle. "So, in fact this is actually an easy process and one that's going really well."
Easy, maybe, but not yet public. Reid declined to say what would happen in the final bill with regard to the public option. Or anything else.
Sen. John McCain, in criticizing Democrats and President Obama for not being transparent enough in writing a final bill, had a snarky suggestion on the Senate floor.
"Not far from here, very close here, there's a handful of democrats and administration people behind closed doors that are reconciling these two bills, and sooner or later, they will come out of that room — fortunately no longer smoke filled, but certainly with no access or information to the American people, with perhaps a 2,100-page bill, which has yet to be on the internet so that the American people can see it," McCain said. He had printed out copies of both the 600+ page HELP Committee bill and the 1,502 page Finance Committee Bill that are being merged. He laid one on top of the other, creating a 2,100+ page stack of paper.
 
"A remarkable process, and then no one should wonder about the cynicism that's out there in America about the way we do business in our nation's capital," he said.