Health Care: What’s Next?
EmailABC News' Jonathan Karl reports: The beginning of the end, or maybe just the end of the beginning. After an abbreviated holiday break, today Democrats begin the process of merging the health care bills passed by the House and Senate. The goal: crafting and passing a final bill before President Obama's State of the Union address (no date yet set for the speech, but possibly February 2). Senate leaders are still back home, but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is in town and will meet with her key committee chairman today to discuss strategy for negotiations with the Senate. After that, Pelosi and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer will meet with the President at the White House. Senate leaders Reid and Durbin will join the conversation via conference call. Although Democrats plan to avoid a formal conference committee, there will be an intense series of informal negotiations involving House and Senate leaders and the White House. Today's is the first. House Democratic staff have worked up a handy 11-page list of "Top Line" differences between the two bills. As you can see, there is much more to be worked out than the three biggies that have received the most attention: abortion, financing and the public option. Among the other major differences: The House bill goes into effect one year earlier and includes more generous subsidies. House leaders will fight on the both those counts, but their version is significantly more expensive. Here's the list of differences, as posted by Politico. Not mentioned on that list of differences: All the special treats inserted for key Senators (the Louisiana Purchase, the Cornhusker Kickback, the Florida Flim Flam, etc.) You can be sure those will subject to negotiation as well.
Sen. DeMint: GOP Race Could Go Until Convention 
Obama Avoids Questions on Contraception Rule
What’s next, is that the various states will file federal lawsuits to stop congress from enacting bills, with special favors to one state, just to get the bill passed.
The people must stop the corruption in the congress.
Posted by: Rick McDaniel | January 5, 2010, 9:43 am 9:43 am
Constitution is dead, but it has probably been disregarded for awhile.
Posted by: Huh | January 5, 2010, 10:05 am 10:05 am
Watch for more shady action:
‘U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin has advice for progressives frustrated with the prospects of meaningful health care reform in the U.S. Senate: Think of it as a starter home.”What we are buying here is a modest home, not a mansion. What we are getting here is a starter home. It’s got a good foundation: 30 million Americans are covered. It’s got a good roof: A lot of protections from abuses by insurance companies. It’s got a lot of nice stuff in there for prevention and wellness. But, we can build additions as we go along in the future. It is a starter home.
“In the future, amending it and changing it isn’t going to be as tough as passing it in the first place. We amend Medicare and Social Security all the time. We are changing rates, fixing this, doing this to make sure that they are viable. That’s what we will do in health care. I’m absolutely convinced of it.”
And there is one other thing Harkin is convinced will eventually come to pass: A public option.’
Under the Republicans; man exploits man………..
Under the Democrats it is exactly the opposite……
Posted by: Ed Taylor | January 5, 2010, 10:27 am 10:27 am
Under the Democrates we hide behind closed doors,pass bills that the majority of voters do not support. EXPLOIT the entire population .
Posted by: earl | January 5, 2010, 10:40 am 10:40 am
Congress has nationalized our bodies through this health care reform and other legislation. We are no longer free. Get use to being told what to eat, what to drive, what to buy, what to do. The census will just glean more information to regulate you. These progressives are pure and simply EVIL. When man controls others, the controlled become slaves. CO2, one of life’s building blocks is to be regulated. Progressives are against all lives except thier own. This is a very sad time for America, I pray to God he delivers us from this tyranny.
Posted by: Downwithsocialism | January 5, 2010, 10:52 am 10:52 am
Whats next??? More taxes, higher
insurance premiums and less care.
Any other questions ?
Posted by: wis134 | January 5, 2010, 11:16 am 11:16 am
You people evidently do not know as many people as I do who put off preventative care because they can’t pay for it and hosptals won’t pay for preventative care without insurance. So, they wait until emergencies pop up and we end up paying for it. If you do not support health care for all, check to see if you still have a heart.
Posted by: Albert | January 5, 2010, 11:20 am 11:20 am
Our current health care system reminds me of that great all-american short story, The Lottery, by Shirley Jackson, a writer best known for a series of housewife novels in the 50′s. In case you don’t recall reading the Lottery, Jackson’s short story revolves around an all-American small town, where the villagers gather each year to determine who is going to get stoned to death.
Our current for-profit system of health care is a Stone Age lottery. A number of people with pre-existing conditions cannot get health insurance at all, so they are supposed to die. Each year, health insurance companies cancel or reduce health insurance for any one whose illnesses interfere with their profit margin, and they too are selected to die.
Like the villagers in Shirley Jackson’s story, no one objects to this lottery system of health care. Most Americans are betting that their employer won’t outsource their job to India. They are betting that they won’t get seriously ill until they are 65 – when they can enroll in Medicare and get their illnesses treated by “socialized” medicine. As for the losers in this lottery – the folks who lose their insurance and get sick before the age of 65, well, that’s just their tough luck. They can either go into bankruptcy and/or die.
The current health care legislation really resembles the insurance system proposed by Mitt Romney. It still provides too much money for health insurance companies at the expense of the public. But at least it eliminates some of the evils of the current system and will save lives. (Look at our current infant mortality rate to see what I mean.) That’s an improvement over the barbaric system of lottery health care that we have now.
Posted by: William Joseph Miller | January 5, 2010, 11:27 am 11:27 am
***You people evidently do not know as many people as I do who put off preventative care because they can’t pay for it and hosptals won’t pay for preventative care without insurance. So, they wait until emergencies pop up and we end up paying for it. If you do not support health care for all, check to see if you still have a heart.
Posted by: Albert | Jan 5, 2010 11:20:09 AM***
Wow. Such comments really hit you where you live.*wipes away a tear*
HOWEVER, this bill is not about health care for all, or health insurance coverage for all, or reducing the cost of health care, or any other number of reform efforts.
This is about two things: 1)Keeping the far left voting for the Democrats(see repeated comments of “we have to pass any bill because we can’t afford to pass no bill”) and 2)To help current Democrats up for reelection to get reelect back into office because many of them ran on the platform of healthcare reform.
Too bad all we can expect from the federal governments efforts is higher taxes, longer waits for healthcare, higher insurance premiums. Oh well, at least is a bill that changes the status quo that we had before.
Posted by: bobtherepublican | January 5, 2010, 11:44 am 11:44 am
Albert, the expectation that health insurance should cover all health related expenses is one of the reasons we are in this mess! We don’t expect car insurance to cover oil changes or new tires! We don’t expect home owner’s insurance to replace a kitchen faucet or worn out furnace! Why expect health insurance to cover a checkup or flu shot?
One of the best things we could do to reform health care would be to enact tax policies that encourage the use of high deductible policies for catastophic coverage and HSA funding of ordinary care. Then the market forces of patients dealing directly with doctors would come work to bring costs down. Instead, we have the insanity of a doctor and some third party (whether insurance company or government) deciding how you should be treated.
Posted by: Don | January 5, 2010, 12:05 pm 12:05 pm
Most of you would be SURPRISED to learn that THE NOTE was once a somewhat “balanced”, “fairly intelligent” site where you could enter into “challenging discourse.” I am sorry to learn It has now devolved to a “hard-right-edge Radical ECHO CHAMBER.”
Posted by: bobj72 | January 5, 2010, 4:24 pm 4:24 pm
The Democrats and Obama may pass the health care reform bill, but the people hate it and they will not comply. The more they try to enforce it the more the people will hate it. The passage of this bill begins the era of a new party and the death of the Democratic party or at least its relegation to something vestigal.
Posted by: billy4877 | January 5, 2010, 9:14 pm 9:14 pm
The bill needed too be pass for the people. Today the people need health care with out that we will all die, i guess you people want the world too die. Every day that go bye peole leaves this earth with out health care so leave obama alone with this he is doing the right thing for people.We all need this.
Posted by: kimberly | March 21, 2010, 11:26 pm 11:26 pm