Tag Archives: health care

Live From Blair House

In this week’s edition of Coffee and Markets, we’re recording on-site from the president’s Blair House summit by the White House, and we’re talking about the bond market, the targeting of Toyota, and the future of health care reform.

Paul Ryan’s Moment

After the President’s sparring session with House Republicans during their retreat, I stated that the rhetorical confrontation I really wanted to see was a debate between Barack Obama, and Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin.

Here is why:

SURE The Health Care Summit Isn’t Political Theater

The President of the United States makes like a Senator and filibusters, claiming that he can act like a Senator because he is the President . . . or something. At last count, Democrats have twice the amount of speaking time than do Republicans. To the extent that Republicans do talk, they are automatically told that they are not being serious, and that they are just using “props.” Never mind that the entire summit is a prop, because Democrats just want to go ahead with their own plan after the summit comes to an end, making the entire event a Potemkin exercise.

Yeah, this was a great idea. Wonder why people didn’t agree to do it earlier.

The White House’s Broken Health Care Promises

Explained and detailed by Comrade Domenech. For all those who discuss the supposed fact that the White House finally put out a health care “bill” . . . well . . . betcha didn’t know this:

Your Health Care Roundup Of The Day

A lot of people seem to think that prospects have improved for the White House’s vision of health care reform. Those people must not be reading the same things I am reading.

For one thing, Talking Points Memo–not exactly a right-wing rag–is telling us that according to Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, health care reform will not happen unless the House passes the Senate’s health care bill first. That led to the following exchange between Brian Beutler, the author of the Talking Points Memo piece, and Conrad:

I pointed out that House leadership, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi, has repeatedly insisted they won’t take a flier on a reconciliation package–that they will only pass the Senate bill after the smaller side-car reconciliation bill has been all wrapped up.

“Fine, then it’s dead,” Conrad said.

Conrad added that he wouldn’t personally make any promises or symbolic gestures to House members to assure them that the Senate can or will take any action in a reconciliation bill to address House concerns.

“I don’t sign any blank check,” Conrad said.

The Obama Health Care Plan

A day after the President released his health care plan, it is clear that the plan is running into a fair amount of trouble. Bart Stupak is objecting to the language concerning abortion funding, Senator Jay Rockefeller has stated that he will not support pushing through a public option via reconciliation, and the White House, via Robert Gibbs, itself stated that it does not believe that the public option can pass via reconciliation.

The Hard Part About Playing Reconciliation is Knowing When to Flinch

Here’s the problem that reconciliation predictions run into: there’s simply no way to do the math.

The White House And George Stephanopoulos Need To Do Their Homework Better

That’s not just some line from the Clinton era, either.

What Matt Yglesias And Paul Krugman Don’t Know

There is a big difference between implementing tort reform, and merely promising to study tort reform. If Yglesias and Krugman were more accurate in their writings, they would note that difference.

Blair House Summit: No CBO Estimate on Obamacare

Doug Elmendorf of the Congressional Budget Office reports that the CBO did not receive President Obama’s plan in advance, and still doesn’t have the actual legislative language. He writes:

We had not previously received the proposal, and we have just begun the process of reviewing it—a process that will take some time, given the complexity of the issues involved. Although the proposal reflects many elements that were included in the health care bills passed by the House and the Senate last year, it modifies many of those elements and also includes new ones. Moreover, preparing a cost estimate requires very detailed specifications of numerous provisions, and the materials that were released this morning do not provide sufficient detail on all of the provisions. Therefore, CBO cannot provide a cost estimate for the proposal without additional detail, and, even if such detail were provided, analyzing the proposal would be a time-consuming process that could not be completed this week.

But of course he can’t — because the White House didn’t want him to.

Meet The New Obama Health Care Plan

It is much like the old Obama health care plan:

White House Releases First Real “Obamacare” Package, Senate Bill With Bonus Pork

Reconciliation, here we come: “President Barack Obama released a $950 billion health care reform proposal Monday aimed at pleasing the warring wings of his own party and bringing along skeptical voters, in part by including a provision to put off an unpopular tax on high-cost health insurance plans until 2018.”

- March 20, 2010 -

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