The Bi-Partisan Group Pushing Health Reform in the Senate

Bi-Partisan

As discussed before, the centrists have the ability to pass a bi-partisan bill that the president can sign, but at the risk of driving the left bananas. As for the grand bargain, it sheds most of the ideas that the right would find obnoxious and scales back a significant amount of the costs and corresponding tax increases:

Already, the group of six has tossed aside the idea of a government-run insurance plan that would compete with private insurers, which the president supports but Republicans said was a deal-breaker.Instead, they are proposing a network of private, nonprofit cooperatives.

They have also dismissed the House Democratic plan to pay for the bill’s roughly $1 trillion, 10-year cost partly with an income surtax on high earners.The three Republicans have insisted that any new taxes come from within the health care arena. As one option, Democrats have proposed taxing high-end insurance plans with values exceeding $25,000.

The Senate group also seems prepared to drop a requirement, included in other versions of the legislation, that employers offer coverage to their workers. “We don’t mandate employer coverage,” Senator Olympia J. Snowe, Republican of Maine and one of the six, said Monday. Employers that do not offer coverage may instead have to pay the cost of any government subsidies for which their workers qualify. In the House, centrist Democrats have temporarily stalled the health care bill, many lawmakers want to see what Mr. Baucus’s group produces before voting on tax increases in the House bill.

Mr. Obama, in his news conference last week, praised the three Republicans in the Senate group — Michael B. Enzi of Wyoming, Charles E. Grassley of Iowa and Ms. Snowe. Mr. Grassley, the senior Republican on the Finance Committee, and Mr. Baucus share a history of deal-making, and group members said they share a sense of trust despite the partisan acrimony that pervades the Capitol.

What are Cooperatives?

The idea of creating health-care cooperatives was proposed by Senator Kent Conrad, a North Dakota Democrat. It would allow non-profits to negotiate directly with health-care providers for low-cost rates. The plans they offer would be sold, like private plans, through Internet-based exchanges where consumers could buy insurance at lower-cost, group rates. Conrad said the cooperatives could be chartered by either the federal government or the states, and that they could receive federal seed money.

‘Private Sector Option’

Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa, the top Republican on the finance committee, hasn’t committed to the idea, though in a recorded interview today with reporters from his home state he called it a “private-sector option” that could boost competition. He said keeping government involvement minimal is key to attracting Republican support.

Its becoming clear this group will hash out a compromise that many in the GOP will latch onto and this version of the bill would likely garner more support then the more liberal version pushed by Pelosi\Rangel\Dodd and company. Will the President sign it, or will he try and Buffalo his own party to accept the plans he prefers, we will find out in the fall.