Here are the amendments that never made their way into the Senate Finance Committee bill mark-up:
- The Rockefeller amendment that addressed the lack of regulations for the self-insured market.
- The Rockefeller amendment eliminating the lifetime and annual caps on all new plans in the exchange, and phasing in the elimination of such caps to grandfathered existing plans.
- The Rockefeller amendment that increased the actuarial value of health insurance plans to 85%.
- The Rockefeller amendment striking health care co-operatives.
- The Rockefeller amendment addressing the foxes guarding the henhouse--the NAIC.
- The Rockefeller amendment establishing a public plan.
- The Schumer amendment establishing a level-playing public plan.
The important amendments such as the ones on the public option failed, first by five Democratic votes on the Rockefeller vote, and then by three Democratic votes on the Schumer amendment. Other amendments were pulled for the lack of a CBO score, which is ironic since the amendment offered by Maria Cantwell's on the creation of a basic health plan for states passed without an actual CBO score.
Senators Wyden, Rockefeller, and Schumer pulled some of their amendments to save for the floor vote on the merged bills from the Senate HELP Committee and the Senate Finance Committee. There's also an amendment that was never offered--the trigger amendment by Senator Snowe which was designed to be a catch-22 for the public option in making sure it never got started. The trigger amendment may be offered for the floor vote as reported by TPMDC:
Senate sources suggest Snowe may withhold the amendment until health care legislation hits the floor next month. And a Snowe spokesperson confirms that, though the situation is very fluid right now, that is a possibility.
The exact reason for that is unclear, but Time's Karen Tumulty notes that, in the wake of yesterday's losing public option votes, things may be a bit too hot in Finance right now for triggers to survive. And that makes sense intuitively: Republicans not named Olympia Snowe almost certainly won't support the amendment, and public option enthusiasts like Sens. Jay Rockefeller and Chuck Schumer may not want to back a trigger at this point, for fear of foreclosing on a straightforward public option down the line.
Calls to aides to Schumer and Rockefeller were not returned before publication time.
If the Snowe trigger had been offered, some of the Democrats on the committee may very well have voted against the trigger along with the Republicans, or they may not have wanted to take political heat for supporting the trigger amendment during the mark-up. We'll see what happens when and if it's brought up again to see if it might meet the definition of a public option according to Senator Reid:
"Remember, a public option is a relative term. There's a public option, there's a public option, and there's a public option, and we're going to look at each of them."
Here are my questions below for Senator Harry Reid and these weak-kneed Democrats:
- Will the Snowe trigger which is a catch-22, be called a "public option?"
- Will the so-called Cantwell basic health insurance (which is nothing more than allowing states to use subsidies to buy private insurance) be called a "public option?"
- Will the so-called Carper amendment allowing states to band together to administer a co-op or a public option, AFTER action has been taken by each state legislature with the signature of their governor (which is sort of a trigger in its own way), be called a "public option?"
- Will the so-called pilot programs be called a "public option?"
And while we were looking towards the Senate Finance Committee mark-up, the House leadership took another serious look at Rep. Clyburn's so-called pilot programs, just like co-ops, these new compromises seem to keep coming up to prevent us from focusing on what works best--a national public option.
These pilot programs are largely unrelated to proposals circulating in the Senate that would grant states more authority to determine what level of competition to impose on private insurers. But it's a further sign that leaders in both chambers are weighing new options to stake out a middle ground between supporters and foes of the public option.
During a leadership meeting on Thursday, Miller told his colleagues that they should renew their discussions on this topic early next week, someone familiar with the conversation said afterward.
Party Whip James Clyburn of South Carolina has been pushing the idea for months, arguing Congress needs to establish some sort of pilot programs before 2013, when the bill would go into effect, so people will understand how the new state exchanges would work, with or without some form of public option or non-profit health care cooperative. Clyburn and Speaker Nancy Pelosi both told the White House on Wednesday that this idea has become popular among their rank-and-file, according to notes from that session.
As I wrote about this earlier, I'm opposed to pilot programs because they're a way to prevent the public option from being delivered on a national scale. In order to contain costs of private insurance premiums, the public option has to compete nationally in order to deliver this kind of power. A regional pilot program is just a way to kill the public option because it won't be effective in providing competition on a smaller scale, and it's basically like a regional co-op in terms of scale and cost-effectiveness. It has to be done on a national scale.
If the public option isn't effective on a regional scale (which they won't be, given the scale of competition), then the national public option would never get started. It's their new trigger for the public option that they're trying to push as a compromise between the House liberals and the conservative Democrats. We all know what works best is a national public option, and we won't be fooled by any other sham compromises!
I also want to show you this great video of Senator Rockefeller explaining the reasons for his amendment increasing the actuarial value that insurers must pay up to 85%, and the video from Senator Bingaman defending the right of insurance companies to increase their profits:
And Senator Bingaman defending the right of private insurance companies to gouge Americans:
Tomorrow, we've got to push back against the House leadership who are considering the pilot programs as a way to stake out middle ground between supporters and opponents of the public option, since the public option itself is already a compromise. We've got to keep up with the phone calls against these pilot programs like we've been doing with our phone calls against the trigger and co-ops to those in the House!
We'll keep on fighting for what is right, and please help support our work (since we do literally work for you guys) by donating to our fund at Firedoglake! Your donations go to our living stipends, expenses, and travel costs, including awesome tools like these. And also follow me on Twitter @slinkerwink for further updates and news on the public option.