A key U.S. Senate committee endorsed a sweeping healthcare overhaul on Tuesday, gaining the support of an influential Republican and delivering President Barack Obama a victory on his top domestic priority.

The Democratic-controlled Senate Finance Committee approved the measure on a 14-9 vote, with Senator Olympia Snowe becoming the first Republican in Congress to back a healthcare reform bill.

Snowe, who had been courted by Obama and his fellow Democrats as the only potential Republican “yes” vote on the panel, said she backed the plan with reservations and she could not guarantee her continued support as the overhaul advances through Congress.

Olympia Snowe was the only Republican on the committee to vote for the bill saying:

“My vote today is my vote today. It doesn’t forecast what my vote will be tomorrow.”

Snort, with all due respect senator, that’s bull… You’re going to vote for the final bill just like you voted for the Democrats failed trillion dollar stimulus bill and this bit of legislative vaporware. This bill is a testament to everything that’s wrong with Washington… They just approved a bill that hasn’t even been written yet.

Related

• Lieberman Opposes Baucus Bill – The Weekly Standard
• New Bill Would Raise Rates, Says Insurance Group – Washington Post
• Dems scramble after warning from health insurers – Associated Press
• Obamacare Tax Frays Middle-Class Vow: Kevin Hassett – Bloomberg News

A key US committee on Tuesday rejected a push by liberal Democrats to have a government-run healthcare option included in the $856bn centrist bill taking shape in the Senate.

The 15-8 vote by the Senate finance committee, which could indicate the fate of the proposal in the upper chamber as a whole, was followed by a 13-10 vote against a second, similar amendment, with three Democrats voting against both versions.

The outcome was expected, but was still a defeat for liberals who view government-sponsored insurance for the middle class as a key component of President Barack Obama’s healthcare overhaul.

The debate pitted Jay Rockefeller and Charles Schumer, senators for West Virginia and New York, against conservative Democratic colleagues, including Max Baucus, chairman of the Senate finance committee, where the bill is being hammered out.

The latter were joined by Republicans in opposing a public option as the “thin end of the wedge” that would lead to a single-payer healthcare system. Supporters of the public option fear that the White House is preparing to junk the provision in favour of getting a deal.

Mr Rockefeller said the public option was designed to ensure there was competition for private insurers. In roughly half the US states, two insurers dominated the market.

Heh, if Senator Rockefeller where really interested increased competition he’d be pushing for a bill that would allow health insurance companies to compete equally in all 50 states. Currently each state regulates it’s own insurance markets and mandates different coverages.

The current system restricts competition, drives up costs and allows just one or two insurance plans to dominate the market in most states. Allowing our nations health insurers to compete on level playing field nationwide will do far more to increase competition and reduce costs than the public option would.

The simple truth is the public option is not about increasing competition, it’s the gateway to creating a single payer system which is Democrats ultimate goal.

Related

• Health Co-Ops Aren’t the Answer – Wall Street Journal
• Why Medical Malpractice Is Off Limits – Wall Street Journal
• Liberals seek health-care access for illegals – Washington Times
• Medicare ‘Gag Order’ A Sign That Obama, Democrats Are Desperate on Health Care, Republican Leader Says – CNSNews.com

Yeah, right… I suspect it has more to do with them not wanting us to see language like what appears at pages 80-81 of the bill. Where it says:

“Beginning in 2015, payment [under Medicare] would be reduced by five percent if an aggregation of the physician’s resource use is at or above the 90th percentile of national utilization.” Thus, in any year in which a particular doctor’s average per-patient Medicare costs are in the top 10 percent in the nation, the feds will cut the doctor’s payments by 5 percent.”

As the Washington Times explains in its editorial what that means in English is:

… in any year in which a particular doctor’s average per-patient Medicare costs are in the top 10 percent in the nation, the feds will cut the doctor’s payments by 5 percent.

Forget results. This provision makes no account for the results of care, its quality or even its efficiency. It just says that if a doctor authorizes expensive care, no matter how successfully, the government will punish him by scrimping on what already is a low reimbursement rate for treating Medicare patients. The incentive, therefore, is for the doctor always to provide less care for his patients for fear of having his payments docked. And because no doctor will know who falls in the top 10 percent until year’s end, or what total average costs will break the 10 percent threshold, the pressure will be intense to withhold care, and withhold care again, and then withhold it some more. Or at least to prescribe cheaper care, no matter how much less effective, in order to avoid the penalties.

Bottom line, this is a form of rationing… While there are no formal death panels, this bill will ultimately give us the functional equivalent by arbitrarily punishing doctors who are trying to provide the best quality of care for their patients.

• Individual Mandate Tax.  If you don’t sign up for health insurance, you will have to pay a tax in the following range:
• Various industry tax grabs based on market share. $2.3 billion PhRMA; $6 billion health insurance providers; $750 million clinical labs; $4 billion medical device manufacturers:
  

  	Single	Family
  100-300% FPL	$750	$1500
  300% FPL <	$900	$3800

• Employer Mandate Tax.  $400 per employee if health coverage is not offered.  Note: this is a huge incentive to drop coverage, as $400 is much less than the average plan cost of $11,000 for families or $5000 for singles (Source: AHIP)
• Corporate 1099-MISC Information Reporting. Currently, only non-corporations providing property or services for a business must be issued at 1099-MISC.  This would expand the requirement to corporations doing business with other businesses.  The amount of reporting needed for an average business would be huge.  Paves the way for full information reporting to the IRS.
• Increase Non-Qualified HSA Distribution Penalty from 10% to 20%.  This makes HSAs less attractive, and paves the way for HSA pre-verification

• Backdoor Death of HSAs.  By requiring that all plans (besides the few that are grandfathered) provided first-dollar coverage for most services, there would be no HSA-qualifying plans available from the Massachusetts-like exchanges

• Excise Tax on High-Cost Health Plans. New 35% excise tax on health insurance plans to the extent they exceed $21000 in cost ($8000 single)

• Report Employer Health Spending on W-2. This is clearly a setup for the easy individual taxation of employer-provided health insurance down the road.

• Cap Flex-Spending Account (FSA) Contributions at $2000. Currently unlimited.

• Eliminate tax deduction for employer-provided retirement Rx drug coverage in coordination with Medicare Part D

• Medicine Cabinet Tax.  Americans would no longer be able to purchase over-the-counter medicines with their FSA, HSA, or HRA

Ouch, kiss your health savings account goodbye.

Related

• Jay Rockefeller rips Max Baucus bill – Politico
• Snowe bails on “compromise” ObamaCare bill – Hot Air

A top White House adviser said Tuesday he doubts two Senate Republicans at the center of health-care talks are negotiating seriously, as Democrats adopted a new, more confrontational tone accusing key Republicans of blocking change.

Senior adviser David Axelrod, responding to recent broadsides against Democratic health plans by Republican Sens. Mike Enzi of Wyoming and Chuck Grassley of Iowa, said Democrats would reach out to other Republicans to finish a deal this year. He added that President Barack Obama is considering laying out a more detailed vision of what he wants in a health-overhaul plan.

Democrats are shaping a strategy in response to the public pounding they took over the summer from some voters angry about proposed health-care changes. They are also responding to the troubles of the Senate Finance Committee, the only panel in Congress seeking a bipartisan bill.

Lets not bullshit each other Democrats aren’t interested in a bipartisan bill… if they were they would have incorporated at least a few ideas from any of the three (3) alternative health care reform proposals offered by Republicans into the bills current before Congress. The simple truth is Democrats are trying blame Republicans to cover their own leadership failures. Democrats have filibuster proof 60 majority in the Senate and 256 to 178 seat Majority in the House of Representatives… They have the vote to pass health care reform without a single Republican vote. The fact that they can’t get it done has more to do with the unwillingness of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to work with moderates within their own caucus than Republican objections.

Bottom line, regardless of what David Axelrod claims, Republican don’t have the votes to stop health care reform, it’s  the failure of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid to rally their own troops that is derailing the presidents agenda.