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3/8/2010
Feingold will push public option with 51 votes

Senator Feingold won’t let 60 votes get in the way of good health tax increases. From a statement Sunday, Feingold said he would support reconciliation for health reform in specific instances.

Feingold said he is open to using reconciliation to enact health care provisions specifically targeted at reducing budget deficits. He also said reconciliation would not be an appropriate way to move forward wide-ranging health care reform measures, such as the bills passed by the House and Senate.

In one of his “listening sessions” Saturday in Racine, Feingold was asked twice about his support for reconciliation. Fred Dooley captures the specific questions on tape here and here.

Policies in the health bill, said Feingold, don’t belong in a reconciliation piece, such as banning the use of pre-existing conditions. However, Feingold supports using reconciliation to handle pieces of the health reform bill that impact the budget and (supposedly) reduce the deficit. Mind you, this would be after the House passes the current Senate bill, trusting the Senate to make critical changes.

Like adding the public option.

Feingold claimed in the Racine meeting Saturday that the public option would save $35 billion. (Do you believe the public option would reduce the deficit?) Whatever the number, what does that mean? Yup, reconciliation, 51 votes, to slip in the public option. Just like that. 51 votes to pass a new Senate bill adding the public option after the current Senate bill is signed into law (if passed by the House in its current form).

We learned via his “listening session” in Appleton, how Senator Feingold defines “reducing budget deficits.” He actually stated repeatedly that the bill is a money saver. Unbelievable.

When asked how much the health care bill will cost families in America, Feingold responded that the health care bill will save Americans $187 billion – not cost them. When many in the crowd objected, Feingold absolutely would not acknowledge that the bill supposedly “saves” Americans dollars only because taxes, fees and other costs are increased.

As I said back in January, “suffice it to say, when estimates are in the $1 to $2 trillion ‘range’ – you know you’ve got problems.” And when the Senate can add the public option and increase those taxes and fees willy nilly with just 51 votes, you’ve really got problems.

Jo Egelhoff, FoxPolitics.net

COMMENTS

You have twisted the facts. The fact is that 51 votes is a majority.
Feingold won't let 49 votes get in the way of good health reform.

Dean Weichmann (Mon Mar 08 08:02:22 2010)

I don't see how the public option can "save" public dollars. If we have to eat this insurance industry giveaway in the first place, which I hope does not pass, the best and most efficient public option would be allowing now-privately-insured companies or individuals to opt into Medicare at cost. If we let them in at "above cost" then (and only then) will the public benefit financially.

Jack Lohman (Mon Mar 08 08:25:08 2010)

Since when should lives be counted like beans and costs for war simply shoved under "the supplemental". For 90 years the monied interests have said that real health care reform is, socialistic, a budget breaker, government interference in our lives etc, etc. Yet once real reform like Medicare happens people like it and it does a lot of good for alot of people. Same broken record "it costs too much". Nonsense, if it costs too much it is simply because the alternative is to deny people medical care they need. So many lives counted like beans. Enact the reform now, get control over the system and drive the costs out with good programs we can all agree on like true cost transparency that Kagen has been pushing for years. Trillions for a War of choice with no questions asked but not a buck for health care unless it proves that it saves money now and forever? Shame on us. Where is our humanity? By the way, Reconciliation was used to produce the Bush tax cuts in the early 2000s. The very same tax cuts that could be repealed (or allowed to expire) to fund health care reform.

dave allen (Mon Mar 08 08:31:16 2010)

The broken record is not "it costs too much" but rather "nothing in the House, Senate or President's bill does anything to control skyrocketing health care costs."

Jo (Mon Mar 08 08:37:15 2010)

Medical "costs" have been increasing at about 5% per year. Health insurance premiums a different case, 39% in extreme cases. The most efficient way to eliminate the major costs is through a single-payer system. Ouch. We certainly don't want that, do we?

Jack Lohman (Mon Mar 08 09:11:14 2010)

It's entirely possible that reconciliation will NOT be utilized at all.

The House will be pressed to vote on the Senate law. If it gets a majority 'yea', the President will sign the bill.

End-game, done.

dad29 (Mon Mar 08 09:17:49 2010)

I agree. How can the House trust the Senate to make what they see as needed modifications? Dem division sinks the bill...

Jo (Mon Mar 08 09:27:15 2010)

"Since when should lives be counted like beans .."

When you want to pay for something, the money has to be accounted for somehow.

I understand that you don't like the idea of accounting and keeping track of moeny, but the beans will be counted just as remorselessly by the government as by private industry.

"Enact the reform now, get control over the system and drive the costs out with good programs we can all agree on .."

If you think giving anything to the government decreases costs you have not been paying attention. Look - this may work in a place like Sweden or Singapore where they actually have 'good' government. This ain't Sweden and the government we got isn't one that can enact fiscally prudent anything.

Brian Dunbar (Mon Mar 08 10:52:03 2010)

Brian, that's because our government is owned by the special interests that fund the elections. That will continue until we buy our government back with public funding of campaigns. That's the only way we can match Sweden or Singapore.

Jack Lohman (Mon Mar 08 11:10:11 2010)

Brian,
Do you prefer that wars of choice are funded under the Supplemental (under Bush's term) without any objection from Republicans but when it comes to Health Care lives are counted like beans and the scale has to be balance because we have a deficit. It is obvious that many people objecting to the cost component of these bills as a matter of "it has to save money over the current system" didn't give a damn about wasting a trillion dollars in Iraq.

dave allen (Mon Mar 08 12:43:46 2010)

Jo,
if you look at the way other countries do it the number one way to get costs under control are to establish a level and consistent playing field with no wiggle room then let the private market compete inside that box. Only massive overhaul of the system can do that. Secondly, fee for service must go. You cannot get control over costs if you have thousands of different plans, insurers, payers, forms, record keeping systems and on and on. Just look at what the world has done successfully and we have failed to do. We're the laughing stock.

dave allen (Mon Mar 08 12:49:42 2010)

I agree Dave. Establish the rules within a certain box, just as the government establishes rules for reporting interest on loans, selling mutual funds and the 3-day rescission rule, to set only three of a million examples. In health care, yes, it would help the markets function much more efficiently and yes fairly if the government were involved with transparency in prices, definitions of services, definitions and specific guidelines for a specified number of insurance plans. Yes, establish the rules.

Then consumers must be responsible for paying for their own health care choices, to a certain limit, above which one buys insurance for. Health care is not free, so most all income earners would be responsible for a certain amount of health spending and the vast majority would be responsible for all health care and health insurance spending - just as most of us are responsible for maintaining our home and cars and insuring against higher cost losses.

That individual responsibility is the "consumer-driven" part of what many see keeping costs down signficantly. John Torinus is a great disciple of keeping costs down - and has lived out what he preaches. Below is the latest blog I've written on the journalist/successful business owner/Birkebeiner-er.

Torinus buys health care for his employees at a total cost less than half the cost the State of Wisconsin incurs for its employees. Torinus and Serigraph employees continuously live and breath the answers to keeping heath care costs down and value up. Again I say, why isn’t this guy at the Summit?

Jo (Mon Mar 08 13:14:15 2010)

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