When the Finance Committee eventually gets around to voting on the bill they cobbled together last week, it's still not entirely certain that it will pass, the New York Times reports:
Senator John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia is upset that a health care bill poised for approval by the Finance Committee would turn nearly a half-trillion dollars over to insurance companies, whose profits he says are "out of sight."
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And Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon warns that the bill would lock many workers into health plans selected by their employers, without allowing them to shop for better, cheaper plans, an alternative that could help drive down costs for everyone.
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"Democrats from the president on talk about how the American people ought to have choices like a member of Congress," Mr. Wyden said. "Now under consideration is an idea that millions and millions won’t get any choice at all, let alone what a member of Congress gets."
"When you think about where this is headed," he added, "you are still seeing additional patches added to the crazy quilt that is American health care."
To put it more directly, the exchange as set up in the Baucus bill will be open to just 25 million people, most of whom have been uninsured, un-doctored, untreated for a long time. It's enough to make one think they're setting not just the public option but the exchange to fail.
The hostility among the committee's senior members, particularly those on Baucus's Gang of Six, to the Wyden Free Choice amendment just reinforces that impression. Jon Walker at FDL has the whole sordid story of how Baucus blindsided Wyden on that late night of markup, when Baucus ruled his amendment out of order because it hadn't been scored by the CBO. Except that the amendment that Wyden offered had been scored, more than a week before the markup.
FDL has obtained the two CBO letters that were sent to Wyden, one on September 22 (PDF) and another on September 29 (PDF), which indicate that Baucus was not correct when he told Wyden that the amendment had not been scored. It had. There was a "proposal variant," as the CBO calls it in the September 29 letter, that they indicated they could not score. But that wasn't the amendment Wyden submitted, which was supposed to be voted on that night....
October 2: Shortly after midnight, Wyden introduces his original, fully scored version of the amendment -- not the modified version which the CBO had not analyzed. Baucus let Wyden bring it up as the last amendment on the last day of mark up. Debate started at approx. 1:00 am. Roughly half an hour into it, Baucus surprised Wyden by declaring that he would rule it out of order (there would not be a vote on the amendment):
BAUCUS: Now, the fact is CBO has not scored this amendment. CBO has not analyzed this amendment. I justs checked a few minutes ago with CBO.
A late night text message sent to Kent Conrad by someone at the CBO supposedly backed up Baucus's claim.
According to sources familiar with what transpired, the CBO never withdrew its score for the Wyden amendment before Wyden introduced it. They confirmed this to Wyden the next day.
The big issue is that Baucus blindsided Sen. Wyden at 1:45 in the morning on the very last day of mark up. For reasons of protocol and simple good manners, Chairman Baucus had the duty to inform Wyden that he would be ruling his amendment out of order before doing it publicly at 1:45 am. Given the proper warning, Wyden would have had the chance to confirm with CBO director Elmendorf that his amendment was fully scored and should not be ruled out of order. Wyden did try to argue that he was indeed correct, but to no avail (I guess late night text messages sent to Conrad trumps logic). There was no one from CBO present at the hearing to settle the matter.
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This is the quintessential ending to Baucus's handling of the health care reform bill. It was defined by extreme secrecy, zero transparency, endless delays, back room sweetheart deals to industry, and a complete disdain towards other Democratic senators on the committee. It is the perfectly undignified end to a shameful committee process.
Why is all this important? Well, Wyden's amendment would have provided everyone with the ability choose their own plan on the new exchange -- and that means a public option, if one is available. Which is why, even though it was supported by policy wonks, it was opposed by the Chamber of Commerce.
There are two issues at play here--Baucus's actions as committee chair which have shown him essentially incompetent to achieve a decent bill of this scope and dishonest in dealing with his colleagues. But the more important issue for the moment goes back to Rockefeller's problem with the bill--the half trillion dollar gift it is to the insurance industry, made an even bigger gift by the crippled exchange it creates.
There's going to be tremendous pressure on Wyden and Rockefeller, from Baucus, from the White House, from Reid, to vote for this crappy bill to get it out of committee so the process can move on (pressure that should have been on Baucus months and months ago, since it's his fault we're now well into October with no bill). As long as there's a Snowe-inspired delay why the CBO does it's work on the crappy bill, Wyden and Rockefeller should hold out on saying how they'll vote. They should be using this time to extract as many concessions as possible from Reid and the White House before agreeing to anything.
Update: And please head over the pronin2's diary for more discussion.