At 1 ET today, the House will vote on Republican Rep. Fred Upton's "keep your health plan" bill, legislation that House Speaker John Boehner
admits isn't really about people keeping their health insurance, but about repealing Obamacare and keeping millions from ever getting it in the first place.
Upton's bill wouldn't just allow health insurers to keep selling crappy policies to their current customers, it would allow them to sell them to new customers, severely undermining the market reforms included in the law. That's why Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi says the bill "does violence" to the law, and is whipping the Democratic caucus against it. Democrats will offer a version of the Landrieu plan, a bill that will give Democrats who might be tempted to vote with Republicans an alternative. The Landrieu approach puts the onus on insurers to fully inform customers of what they're missing out on. Landrieu's bill would be permanent, the House Democrats' bill would only for one year.
There aren't likely to be too many Democratic defections to the Upton bill since President Obama announced an executive fix on Thursday, making legislation essentially unnecessary.