MEMORANDUM EXCLUSIVE FOR REDSTATERS
FROM: Michael Hammond
RE: The Pelosi Bill

-The real cost of the bill is at least $1.3 trillion (the CBO score, plus the “doc fix”) –- and probably much, much more.

-The absolute minimum increase in the deficit would be $150 billion. You can probably add to this most of the $426 billion in supposed Medicare “cuts,” plus the substantial overruns in program costs as a result of underestimation of premiums. A deficit increase of between half a trillion dollars and a trillion dollars is almost certain.

-Employers would be required to purchase government-mandated government-prescribed insurance for all of their employees with premiums which, according to some estimates, would be double the minimum wage. With a penalty which, for most employees, would be 8% of payroll, it would be more economical to drop insurance for anyone making under $2-300,000, depending on the level of employer contribution.

-As a result, most individuals with employer-provided insurance will not be able to “keep the insurance they currently have.” The 10.2 million seniors with Medicare Advantage will also lose “the coverage they currently have.” And it is possible that the “grandfather” protection of individuals could be defeated by something as simple as a rate increase.

-Premiums will go through the roof and, unlike currently, Americans will be required to pay them, under penalty of law. Price Waterhouse estimates that the average family policy for a family of four will be $25,900 by 2019 (under the comparable Reid bill). And, although the study does not look at the impact of the subsidies, unlike the liberally touted Kaiser study, it does not ignore the impact of taxes on premiums.

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Plumline’s Greg Sargent has posted the results of a highly confidential House Democratic Party Whip Count which shows 47 Democrats at No on a public option, with another 8 leaning No for a total of 56. A dozen Democratic House members are still undecided. The hard No votes, alone, are enough to kill the bill. The leaked document was produced by the U.S. House Majority Whip’s office.

In a major violation of whipping protocol, the document was shared with Progressive House members who refuse to vote for health reform unless it contains a robust public option. Plumline reports that the Progressive Members of Congress (hard core left-wingers) blamed everyone: the White House and the Democratic leadership for not putting enough pressure on members to vote for the public option, from Plumline:

“House progressives argue that the document should light a fire under Dem leaders. One House progressive tells me he’s convinced that most of the undecideds, and a number of the No votes, can be won over with the right mix of pressure and incentives — which only the House leadership and the White House can provide.”

“Only leadership and the White House can get this done,” this progressive says.

Plumline quotes the spokesperson for James Clyburn, the House Majority Whip: “Kristie Greco would only say: ‘We currently do not have the votes for a robust public option.’”

For a look at how the Dems do not have enough votes in the Senate, click here.

Plumline begins the start of the first push back from Progressives since Senator Durbin (D-IL) blamed liberals for forcing their hand and including the public option — and likely is the start of the new inside the beltway drama headlined by Democrats and now in its second day: Who-gets-blamed-for-the-failure-of-the-public-option?

H/T Joe Guarino

Joe Lieberman just announced he will filibuster any health care legislation that has the public option in it.

This pretty much guarantees the death of the public option in public form. The Democrats will now have to surreptitiously implement it through some sort of “let the states opt-out” or trigger option nonsense that will still amount to the public option.

But at least they have to work for it now.

Thank you lefty bloggers so very much for primarying Joe Lieberman and helping him be bold enough to shaft you.

-TobyToons

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid promised today the final health care bill will include a controversial public option insurance plan, contrary to recent indications by Democratic staffers that such provisions might be eliminated to make the reforms more palatable for moderate Republicans and conservative Democrats.

“We are going to have a public option before this bill goes to the president’s desk,” Reid said Thursday afternoon on a conference call with constituents.

But the Nevada Democrat, who is tasked with reconciling the competing Senate committee versions of the bill, yesterday told reporters the final bill would not be fashioned until the White House and leaders of the Finance and HELP committees had been consulted.

“Once that’s done, we’ll decide jointly as to what should be in that bill,” he said.

On Wednesday, the final bill hinges on consultation with Senate leadership and the President. Thursday, news surfaces that suggests Reid has consolidated the two Senate versions, and opted for the more progressive. There exists only two possible explanations. Harry Reid is either the single most productive member of Congress or he’s circumventing Democratic leaders—and the Ranking Republicans of the HELP and Finance committees—to advance his own agenda.

While Reid’s comments will likely embolden disaffected progressives, they promise to marginalize Democratic Senators Ben Nelson and Mary Landrieu and Republican Senator Olympia Snowe.

Some Democratic leaders maintain there’s no “line in the sand” in the health care overhaul, signaling the potential for negotiations with Republicans. Still, Reid’s comments today represent the increasing vulnerability of Democrats to attacks from the liberal wing of the Democratic Party for rejecting the public option.

Highlighting this vulnerability, Daily Kos Founder Markos Moulitsas wrote on Twitter today, “Blanche Lincoln will soon wonder why no one is riding to her rescue, or [cares] about her possibly losing.”

Moderate Democrats must fall in line like Speaker Reid or risk losing deep-pocketed progressive donors and online advocates like Moulitsas.

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Senator Rockefeller’s public option amendment offered in the U.S. Senate Finance Committee went down in flames today.

The implications for Speaker Pelosi are profound. Her insistence on a public option in the House bill will force even more Democrats to vote no, and the chances that it will become law are small.

Rockefeller is threatening to offer the same amendment on the Senate floor, but now Rockefeller is between a rock and a hard place since he has publicly said he will not vote for any health reform bill that does not have a public option.

Senator Cantwell made the same threat. But, meanwhile Senator Harkin claims he has whipped his Democratic colleagues and he says “we have the votes” for a public option.

There is substantial doubt about Harkin’s claim, but regardless, either Senators Rockefeller and Cantwell follow through on their threat, or their threats, now and in the future will be meaningless. I wonder if that means they will vote no on final passage in the Senate Finance Committee, forcing Chairman Baucus to find a Republican vote to move the conceptual language essay to the Senate floor?

Here is the roll call vote in the Finance Committee.

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The difference between President Obama’s Joint Session of Congress speech on health care and this early primary campaign speech is stark and dramatic.

Candidate Obama admits the savings from Medicare reforms are theory, that Americans will have to pay more in taxes and that transitioning to a single payer system would be allowing everyone to join Medicare.

Now? His plan won’t add a dime to the deficit and his savings from cuts to Medicare will fund the lion’s share of his plan. But if you were wondering, does the President really believe what he said in his Joint Session of Congress and were wondering can he ever be honest about this subject — take a look at the video below.

Candidate Obama even makes a crack at the end of the video about how dangerous it is for a President to be saying to the country, we’re going this way, and to look behind him, and no one is following.

h/t Naked Emperor News and Gateway Pundit

Doesn’t matter if I had: it’s worth repeating. Via @MelissaTweets comes the wonderful news that Roland Burris is giving this ‘run for election’ thing serious consideration.  Yes, I know that the conventional wisdom is that he won’t, but Roland Burris is neither conventional, nor particularly wise - and he’s not actually ruling out a run. Admittedly, right now his major problem is that he’d need to find some surefire and very public way to appeal to the liberal faction of the Democratic party.  But how to do that?

…Sen. Roland Burris just put out a statement saying he won’t vote for a bill that doesn’t include a public option, which is not supported by many of his moderate Democratic Senate colleagues.

Yeah. Yeah, that’ll do it.

Moe Lane

PS: Just remember: if he does run, and you’re a Democrat who votes against him in the primary, it’s because you’re a racist. Just ask Jimmy Carter.

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

The words tax/taxes and fine/fines appear in the Senator Baucus bill 243 times.

There are Not Enough Votes for the Baucus Bill to be Voted Out of the Finance Committee

Without Senators Wyden, Rockefeller and Snowe, Chairman Baucus does not have the votes to pass the bill out of the Senate Finance Committee.

This means there will be horse trading a-go-go and the results will be interesting.

Senators Wyden and Rockefeller are most upset about no public option being in the plan.

CBO Scores Senate Finance Committee Bill at $500 Billion — No increase in the Deficit

The Congressional Budget Office has scored the Senate Finance Committee bill at a cost of $500 Billion with a net deficit reduction of $49 billion because of the taxes and cuts to Medicare.

Sen. Rockefeller (D-WV) and Finance Committee Member says Senate Bill has a “Big, Big Tax”

Senator Rockefeller warning of a “big, big tax” on the middle class to pay for ObamaCare is very, very strange.

It would be like a staunch Republican warning that a planned tax cut is too big.

The only conclusion that can be reached is that health care reform has so stressed and strained Members of Congress and their constituents that these stresses are manifesting themselves in very, uh, unique ways.

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The hero of the innocents, Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI), issued a clear and credible threat to the Speaker earlier this week, which resulted in the White House telling HHS Secretary Sibelius to say the President wants an explicit ban on abortion in ObamaCare.

From The Hill:

A leading pro-life Democrat in the House is threatening to block healthcare reform if Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) doesn’t allow a vote that would prevent the bill from funding abortions.

Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), co-chairman of the House Pro-Life Caucus, says the Democratic leadership must allow a vote adding the “Hyde Amendment” to the bill. That amendment prevents federal dollars from going to abortion funding.

“First of all, you have to give us our vote,” Stupak told CBN News, repeating the message he’s relaying to the Democratic leadership. “If you don’t give us our vote, everything’s off the table.”

Pro-life Democrats have the votes, all by themselves, to kill health care reform in the U.S. House.

Representative Stupak opposes the Capps amendment, which was an attempt in the Energy and Commerce Committee version of HR 3200 to have-abortion-in-the-bill-but-say-its-not.

Rep. Stupak wants his own vote on his own amendment, or he will kill health care reform in the House.

He can do it.

He will do it.

Therefore, the White House, via Sibelius, came out Sunday professing to want an explicit ban on abortion funding — which violates the promise President Obama made to planned parenthood about abortion being a key benefit in health care reform.

The question is whether any liberal Democrats will deny their vote for final passage of ObamaCare, should Rep. Stupak get a vote or if he does get a vote, his amendment passes?

How many of the liberal ideological favorites can Obama walk away from and still have their support? So far, its abortion, benefits for illegal immigrants and the public option.

(via @seanhackbarth) For the very commonsense reason that you can’t trust the people who would be pulling the trigger. No, really: that’s what she said.

A moderate Republican who has previously broken with her party to support President Obama’s $787 billion stimulus bill said Sunday that she does not support the idea of using a so called “trigger” on the public health insurance option as part of health care reform legislation.

Asked on CNN’s State of the Union if the use of the trigger would make inclusion of the public option more acceptable, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, unequivocally replied “no.”

“The problem with trigger is it just delays the public option,” Collins told CNN Chief National Correspondent John King, “because the people who are going to be making the determination about whether the market is competitive enough, want the public option.”

Note that this doesn’t mean that Sen. Olympia Snowe is going to take the same position (although it doesn’t mean that she’ll be taking a different one, either); but Sen. Collins’ position on this does make it clear that the ‘public trigger’ scenario for a government option in health care is not actually bipartisan. Please also note that Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D, NH) apparently needed only eight months as a Senator to forget how to answer straightforward questions in a straightforward manner:

New Hampshire Democrat Sen. Jeanne Shaheen refused to answer directly when asked whether Collins’ position indicated that President Obama should either not fight for inclusion of the public option in the final bill or, alternatively, pursue a legislative strategy that relied solely on Democratic votes for health care reform.

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Mark it down.  President Obama’s “make or break” speech, as the media is portraying it, will be widely viewed as a success among the chattering class.  It will be groundbreaking, visionary, full of clarity, and a “game changer,” as CNN has already labeled it.

But sit tight, that’s just for a while.  Patrick Rufini had it right on Twitter last night.

Tmrw’s speech will be widely praised for resetting the debate on #hcr. And then everything will go back to exactly how it was within 96 hrs

Exactly.  What Patrick realizes, that the MSM does not, is that short term gain is all the president’s speech is intended to do.  If the speech was to be anything like what the media is previewing, the White House would not be making it known that Obama does not plan to offer any real specifics, and plans to be “non-committal” on the central question of the whole debate, the so-called “public option.”

No, the speech is nothing more than an “operational pause,” to borrow a military term of art.  The aftermath is meant to be the calm before the storm.  Next week, the real advance begins.

So as you read the headlines tomorrow, and watch the tingling commentators tonight, remember that it’s all just part of the plan.  And steel yourself for the coming fight.

The Chief of Staff of a Member of Congress called this afternoon to suggest I look at the comments on Daily Kos about the President dropping the public option. (Now, how many times has he dropped it?)

Wow. The left is pissed-off, in deep emotional pain and feel betrayed.

Here is one comment such comment:

It’s hard to maintain a sense of equilibrium when you see all those around you, who have fought so hard for this issue, in emotional pain.

and another:

Obama is/was nothing more than another con-man politician . . . who knew how to speak the words that people outraged and despairing by eight years of Bush policies wanted to hear. But that’s all they were.

or this one:

We’re there to donate $, man phone banks, generate enthusiasm, and then let the “grown ups” make policy decisions the way they always did. We’re getting Clintonism w/o Clinton. Soon, we’ll get V-chips and school uniforms, or their contemporary equivalents.

and another:

if you take away the showmanship, it’s looking like Obama was never on the right side of that war - not even from the start.

and one more:

What’s really sad and maddening is that manypeople have worked through sickness and little money and others after a full week’s work, to get this. I’m not quite ready to believe it is dead, yet, but if they’ve known this for a long time, they have twisted the knife, by allowing us to spend our blood, sweat and tears, to no avail.

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The President’s most trusted advisor, David Axelrod told Politico:

“I think it’s fairly obvious that we’re not in the second inning. We’re not in the fourth inning. We’re in the eighth or ninth inning here, and so there’s not a lot of time to waste.”

That is about as good as it gets in terms of any admission from the White House that their signature initiative is in trouble (to continue the baseball analogy, the White House is behind) and the game is winding down.

A mid-August poll by Rasmussen of likely voters put President Obama’s support for a health reform bill at 34% without the public option:

“Just 34% of voters nationwide support the health care reform plan proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats if the so-called “public option” is removed. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 57% oppose the plan if it doesn’t include a government-run health insurance plan to compete with private insurers.”

CBS News today had more bad health care polling news for the President:

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Assuming that there’s any sort of on-message at this point. Via Hot Air, here’s the latest cloud of ink from a Democrat perhaps worried about the way things are going:

Hoyer (D-Md.) emphasized his support for a public option in a teleconference call with reporters, but also said he wants to ensure Congress sends a bill to the president.

“I’m for a public option, but I’m also for passing a bill,” he said. Democrats believe the public option is necessary, useful and important, he added, “be we’ll have to see.”

No doubt we’ll soon enough get a clarification of the explanation of the correction of the restatement of whatever the heck it is that the Democrats want to do this week. Although what are progressives going to do with Steny, anyway? Give money to Charles Lollar?

Well, they should. But that’s just the Marylander Republican talking.

Moe Lane

PS: In other words, it is not yet time for me to publicly join in the Crowder Victory Dance. And I am sure that the world finds this delay much to its liking.

[See here for the rest of the footnote.]

The Dispatch offers this short report on Mary Jo Kilroy’s health care tele-townhall:

U.S. Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy last night insisted that congressional Democrats are not considering “socialized medicine’” in their efforts to approve a sweeping overhaul of the nation’s health-care system.

In a town-hall meeting she conducted last night by telephone, Kilroy said any reform of the health system will result in private insurance companies still covering two-thirds of Americans. “We want to be sure at the end of the day we will be lowering the costs of health care,” she said. “Nothing to be afraid of there.”

But Kilroy, D-Columbus, asserted that any reform plan should include a federal insurance program that would compete with private insurers, saying that “a public option in competition with private insurance can reduce costs for all of us.”

“If you have insurance right now, you shouldn’t worry about a public option,” she said.

If you believe that then I have some ocean front property in Kilroy’s district I would like to sell you.

First of all, no matter how much they squawk, the Democrats do want to socialize health care. On a basic level they want to use government to spread the costs over a larger group to save money (at least in theory).  The healthy and wealthy pay more so the sick and poor pay less (or nothing).  This could be good or bad (most everyone is in favor of a basic safety net) depending on the scope and the mechanism (I prefer direct payments for those at the very bottom and a larger role for private charity but that is another post).  The problem comes when socialize means more than helping the less fortunate and means a takeover of a huge chunk of the economy.  But regardless the left should quite pretending they don’t want to socialize the process.

And more specifically, government mandates on who is covered and how combined with a dominant government option leads inexorably to a socialized system (which was the point from the start).

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Its a flip and a flop and an Obama flippity flop.

The transcript, below, is from Politico.

Last night on “The Daily Show,” Jon Stewart played a clip from Obama’s town hall in Colorado on Saturday when the president said … … “the public option, whether we have it or we don’t have it…”

“Wait a second! What did you just say?!,” Stewart asked, feigning surprise.

“No public option?” Stewart continued. “We still get to kill old people though, right?”

Then, again, Stewart asked: “Did you just drop the public option?”

“Mr. President, I can’t tell if you’re a Jedi — 10 steps ahead of everything or if this whole health care thing is kickin’ your ass just a little bit,” the “Daily Show” host ranted. “Why is this so hard? Why can’t you guys just stay on message? Remember the Bush team? Little bit of discipline, little bit of repetition. They sold us a war nobody wanted and nobody needed.”

Stewart then played a series of clips featuring former President George W. Bush, Colin Powell, Condi Rice, Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney speaking about weapons of mass destruction in the lead-up to the Iraq war.

“Salesmanship!” Stewart said, after the clip. “Those guys could sell ice cubes to Eskimos. The Democrats, I don’t even think could sell Eskimos BEEP they need: insulation, heating apparatus.

“Yes, we can! …Unless you don’t think we should!” the host concluded before going to commercial.

(Via Hot Air Headlines) I could be cruel about this, but if it turns out that the title here (”Party leaders prepare liberals to accept a health care reform deal“) is accurate then I see no particular reason to gloat over the fact that the quote-unquote ‘public option’ will be sacrificed for the sake of ‘conservative’ Democrat, Republican, and popular opinion. We’re all one country and we’re all Americans, after all, so I’d just be glad that we’ll be able to move on from having health care hung up on this particular controversy. That being said, once we remove the public option from consideration we will have to move on to discussing why on earth we’re talking about revising health care without first discussing the blatantly obvious need for tort reform.

This is not really negotiable, I’m sorry to say.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

The former chair of the DNC - apparently, they finally let him come back from American Samoa - very much wants there to be a public option in the health care rationing bill, and he’s willing to help launch revenge attacks against Democrats who might stop him from getting it:

Former Democratic National Committee chair Howard Dean fired one of the clearest warning shots at hesitant Democratic lawmakers on Thursday, insisting that if the party was unable to produce a health care bill with a public plan, there would be electoral consequences.

“I do think there will be primaries as the result of all this, if the bill doesn’t pass with a public option,” Dean said, in a phone interview with the Huffington Post.

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Americans are rightly concerned that a government-run health care plan will lead to changes with their own health insurance. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to draw the conclusion that employers will drop coverage once the government starts meddling with the financial incentives.

This is a problem for the White House, and it’s why President Obama uses every opportunity to tell Americans, “If you have insurance that you like, then you will be able to keep that insurance.”

Unfortunately for Obama, Americans don’t believe him. Why? Maybe because he’s done nothing to back it up. Propaganda czar Linda Douglass’ “reality check” video is comical in that her defense of “You can keep your own insurance” cites nothing but Obama’s own statements as evidence — as if he’s an independent arbiter.

The Heritage Foundation (where I work) last month asked The Lewin Group, a highly respected health care policy and management consulting firm, to examine the impact of H.R. 3200 on private insurance. Lewin reported 88.1 million Americans could be transitioned out of their current plan as employers opt out of continuing their existing coverage. The chart below reveals the consequences for people living in Maine, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

As you can see, Obama’s rhetoric simply doesn’t add up when the numbers are crunched. It’ll take more than repetition from White House to sway the American people on this one.