Senator Ben Nelson will vote yes
It’s beginning to look like the Senate Democrats finally have their 60 votes. In a series of closed door negotiations with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska has came out in support of the bill that has been crafted by Reid himself. The version that Nelson has said he will support contains hundreds of changes that most of the Senators have not had the chance to see, much less read and study. I am sure the Democrats are not happy, but the Republicans have insisted that all 383 pages of these amendments be read on the Senate floor. That reading is presently in progress.
Senator Ben Nelson
The final Democrat to throw his support behind the bill, Senator Nelson was holding out because of the language or lack thereof about abortion funding. He does not support abortion and wanted to make sure abortion funding was nowhere to be found in the legislation. His support was required to pass the bill and it appears that abortion funding language was not the only concession he was able to wrangle out of Reid. Reportedly, his home state of Nebraska will receive tens of millions of dollars in federal funds that will go for Medicaid funding.
Throughout this entire debate, I have tried to keep a positive outlook. Even though I do not agree with the Democrats approach on health care reform, I have had little illusions that some form of legislation will not pass. The Republicans do not have the votes to stop it and the Democratic leaders do not seem concerned that a lot of the American people do not wish to have such a massive piece of legislation shoved down their throats. I have been holding out hope that something good will come of this debate, but I no longer hold that hope. Maybe that is the result of having followed the debate so closely, I am not sure. I do know that I am weary with the debate.
In a few short days, the Senate will undoubtedly pass their version of health care reform and then it will go to be reconciled with the version already passed by the House of Representatives. In all honesty, there is no way of knowing how that reconciliation will turn out or what the legislation will look like before it goes to the White House for President Obama’s signature. I could quote numbers and other articles that say how much the deficit will be reduced by these reforms. I do not understand how that will happen, but that is neither here nor there.What we see now is not necessarily what we will get once the legislation is on Obama’s desk and he signs it into law.
The bill will past, and just as you indicate, the final form is unknown just at the current form is. Obama will grin and call it a great achievement and inform all who will watch who this will save America from economic ruin. But a bleak picture will again emerge shortly down the road and Obama will need you help and support again to save the nation from another great crisis and many will swoller the bait, but not as many as before. This along with the other pencil marks made by Obama on this nation can be erased and this course correction will begin next year LD, for the sun also rises. The ebb and flow of history answers to no man.
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I wanted to cry when I heard this today. I just wanted to cry… Sigh… Tomorrow, I will be back to fighting!
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Reconciliation is still going to be very tough. This isn’t a done deal by a long shot. At this point the strongest opposition argument is that insurance companies come out of this in perhaps better shape than when the process began. That is an incredible and unacceptable turn of events. And second, there is very very little attention paid to health care costs and no reason to believe this bill will slow down the rising cost of health care. I do think something will come out of this that will then be subject to individual changes in the future. I wonder if, assuming this bill or something like it gets passed, whether Republicans will be prepared, a year or two down the road, to negotiate individual changes that would improve the outcome of the bill?
Mike:
“At this point the strongest opposition argument is that insurance companies come out of this in perhaps better shape than when the process began.”
Can you confirm whether or not price controls related to the mandate is in the final Senate and or House bill (a tall order, I know)? I have read that “prior approval rate regulation” will apply to health insurance exchanges. Some have suggested that this one thing will cause the exchanges to have lower prices and a “ripple” effect. The thinking is that employers that aren’t huge will drop employer-sponsored healthcare, raise employee pay and encourage them to go to the exchanges where rates will actually be lower. The companies could continue to charge a higher negotiated rate to employer-based premiums, but how long would that last before the largest employers demanded the lowest rates or bye-bye guranteed contract?
This is not a new concept, nor is it exclusively an evil Democratic plot. The Coburn-Burr-Ryan-Nunes Mandate Price Control Act was introduced back in May. It included state-created exchanges and guranteed issue through prohibition of risk ratings.
So, if the final bill includes price controls that will make true portability a realistic, affordable option and cause lower rates, and if the final bill also includes a mandate that requires a health insurance company to spend more of its collected premiums on actual health care rather than overhead, aren’t the health insurers having to pay for their extra cusstomers and for the privilege of being the only kids on the block?
Lots of “ifs”, I realize. Your thoughts?
Easy answer — I don’t know. But even if the privately run public option (what are they actually calling this thing?) is required to pay out a certain amount of premium income thereby restricting advertising and adminstrative overhead I still see it as being run by a larger private insurance company that will not wish to see this subsidiary encroach on the parent company profits. I’ll be surprised to see the rates substantially lower and I’d expect the service will be considerbaly worse. The insurers get a huge block of new customers with very few mechanisms in place to limit future premium hikes — seems like a lucrative combination. Is it any wonder insurance stock prices are jumping?
I would hope the Republicans would be willing to do that, Mike. I don’t know what else they could do, given the fact that they tried to stop the bill and could not. If they had the chance to change it for the better and fail to do so, then maybe they should find another line of work.
Like you, I knew that some bill would be passed eventually so this doesn’t come as a surprise, but is still troublesome that the Democrats do not care what the American people want. As Mike said above, somehow this bill ends up helping the insurance companies and now even the left no longer whats this version of the bill.
In the end Nelson was bought off for his vote, there were several state senators who were able to get federal assistance to offset the Medicare costs, if this idea was so great why did certain senators make sure their home states would be exempted?
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I’d add that the backroom negotiations have made it perfectly clear to Senate Democrats that it is not in their best interest to support any Obama initiative right out of the gate. Why should they when the Republicans appear united in opposition to any Obama proposal thereby making every one of the 60 Senate Dem votes required and therefore negotiable. Why say “yes, I’m in favor of that” when you can say instead “yes, I’m in favor of that provided I get x, y, and z” for my state? And are House Dems now supposed to blindly vote yes as they watch hardline Senate Dems gain individual benefits for their states as a “reward” for their incalcitrance? It’s truly politics at its absolute worst.
I think the way this bill was negotiated and influenced by individual Senators could very well change the way these negotiations are handled in the future.
Partisan differences aside, I don’t think this changes anything. At its heart, this bill was negotiated very much the same that most bills are. Pork is a small part of the total but always a large negotiating tool, and I expect this to continue to be the way of the Congress, no matter which party advances something they really want.
That is an interesting point Mike, the fact that the Republicans are so united against the president actually helps certain Democrats who are looking to take home a little extra for their state, I hadn’t thought of it that way before.
I have one Republican and one Democrat senator, in a way I wish that Jeanne Shaheen was more like Ben Nelson but she is one of those who is going to go along with everything that is proposed.
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