http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com...
Sources: White House drafting health care bill
WASHINGTON (CNN) – CNN has learned that the White House is quietly talking about drafting formal health care legislation after allowing Congress to work on its own for months.
Multiple sources close to the process told CNN Friday that while the plan is uncertain, they are preparing for the possibility they could deliver their own legislation to Capitol Hill sometime after the President Barack Obama's speech to a joint session of Congress Wednesday, with one source calling the possibility of new legislation a "contingency" approach if efforts by Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus to craft a deal fall through.
The White House emphasized Friday that no formal bill has yet been written. "The President has been reviewing all of the various legislative proposals, but no decision has been made about whether formal legislation will be presented," said Deputy Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer.
Multiple sources told CNN earlier in the day the thinking among administration officials was that the president will lay out a path to reform in his speech next week that the White House hopes can bridge the various differences in the competing proposals. Sources expect the president to emphasize the message: If Congress passes something now, it will serve as a foundation to pass further reform in the future.
As previously reported, the so-called trigger option remains very much on the table.
Under a 'trigger option', a new government-run health care plan would only go into effect if insurance companies fail to meet certain affordability standards with their own plans.
A source close to the White House says the administration is leaning toward dropping the public option, and continues to zero in on trying to convince Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe – who has long pushed for a trigger option — to come on board.
The source says the bill that would be presented to Snowe would leave out a public option but include a trigger provision that could lead to the introduction of a new government-run insurance plan under certain circumstances. The legislation would cover most, though not all, of the 46 million uninsured Americans. It would also include popular insurance reforms, such as ending the insurance industry practice of using pre-existing conditions to deny coverage.
This Democratic source also says that if the deal comes together, the key will be to successfully address the pushback from disaffected liberal legislators and congressional leaders.
As Obama prepares to go before Congress and lay out more details about his stance on health reform, he held a conference call Friday with some of the most liberal members of the House, who say they won't vote for a bill without a government run insurance option.
Two congresswomen on the call, which took place Friday afternoon, tell CNN that the president probed them about how entrenched they are, even asking them to define what they mean when they call for a "robust" public option.
"I think he would like to convince us that there is something sort of that could lead to a public option that would satisfy us, and guess what? It doesn't," Rep. Lynne Woolsey, D-California, told CNN in a telephone interview after the conference call.
Both Woolsey and Rep Barbara Lee, D-California, the chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, told CNN that they told the president point blank that they do not believe a health care proposal without a government run option is real reform.
"All of our caucuses are very unified about a robust public option, and that is essential in healthcare reform efforts," Lee told CNN in a separate phone interview after the conference call.
A Democratic source close to the process told CNN Friday that the White House was very conscious of the potential congressional fallout: "How do you (get the deal passed) without a revolt in the House? It can be done, but very delicately."
The bottom line, said the source, is that the president would have to "move to the center" on the issue eventually, "and it's not a bad thing to have liberals screaming at him" — that development will help sell the deal to Americans, "convince them it's a good, moderate deal, if liberals are mad."
Woolsey and Lee said Friday the president invited them to the White House to continue the discussion on Tuesday or Wednesday of next week, before his speech to Congress.
– CNN Senior Congressional Correspondent Dana Bash contributed to this report.
(Updated Friday 7:30 pm with White House comment)
Taking this with a grain of salt (It IS Ed Henry, after all), if true, this is good news and bad news. On the plus side, he's showing leadership AND can claim to be "bipartisan" because he waited to weigh the pros and cons from both sides; hopefully this generates more votes in the Senate as he certainly doesn't need them in the House. On the down side, it shows that he's allowing Democrats to make most of the "negotiations" (capitulations?) on this issue.
Triggers? Seriously? As if 50 years wasn't enough time for the Insurance companies to get on the ball?
Sure, if Congress passes something now, it WILL serve as something to change later. The question is -- will we build on it or will others that come later tear it down (see: glass steagall, et alia). I hope for the first but realize it'll probably be the latter.
I haven't read what you've put together (as you haven't released it yet). You may have not put ANYTHING together yet either. But, if the trigger report is true, IT IS BULLSHIT, MR. PRESIDENT! What part of mandate don't you understand? 70+% of Americans support a public option -- NO triggers! Besides, if the American people wanted Republicans to be in charge, we would have voted that way! I appreciate that in theory Republicans have good ideas. But they aren't negotiating in good faith!
This isn't a pity part or a public-option circle jerk. (Sure, I personally support the public option, and I hope this has a robust version. But that's only because I have ALREADY compromised by giving up the thought of single payer.) It's just that conservatives haven't given up anything yet -- they want things to remain status quo -- yet we're breaking our back bending over backwards to appease them. I have to say I don't understand that logic!
I'm not upset because he's drafting his own bill version -- I think that's great, actually, and proves he's willing to lead -- but LEADERSHIP means taking the reins, not bending over and taking it from those you hope to lead. That Obama appears willing to do that is the part I find sad and disheartening.
Public option triggers? We can debate whether that's dumb or smart politics. Negotiations with irascible republicans hell-bent on destroying his agenda? There's no way to see that as anything other than idealistic at best and destructive at worst.
For the record: I haven't read the bill -- no one has -- and realize this may not be the best source available. It's been a slow news week (as hinted at by some commenters). But even if this isn't true -- it's TERRIBLE message control. It, at a minimum, should motivate us to KEEP THE PRESSURE ON THE WHITE HOUSE, because if we don't, we may not like what we get.
Update: I wish I hadn't made my first rec list under these circumstances. :-p
UpdateII:
Not so fast?
Contrary to a CNN report, the White House is not drafting its own health-care bill, according to a senior administration official.
The White House is, however, contemplating using "legislative language" in the president's speech on Wednesday, which pulls together the 80% they believe all of the four Congressional bills agree on. But even THAT hasn't been decided on yet. As one person said to me, anyone who is claiming we're writing our own health care bill is "leaning over their ski tips."
Still, we can report that there is some frustration in the White House with the Senate Finance Committee and the fact that they haven't reported out a bill yet. There are some advising Chairman Max Baucus to report out a skeleton bill and then, with White House help, starting to cobble together a bill.
So, take all of this together, and it's clear the White House has decided to get more heavily involved in the details of how this legislation is being put together, but it would not be correct to say they are writing the bill themselves.
Jesus Christ. These anonymous sources are falling over themselves to raise trial balloons so fast you'd think they were working at Red Robin before the dinner rush. Yum.
