White House Denies Obama Is Considering Scaled-Back Reform Plan

[Pirate Smile]

Source: Huffington Post

White House Denies Obama Is Considering Scaled-Back Reform Plan

Administration officials with knowledge of current health care negotiations pushed back Wednesday evening against a report that the White House is readying a paired-down version of reform should the current proposal fail to win sufficient congressional support.

Hours before Thursday's much anticipated White House health care summit, the Wall Street Journal reported that the president and his team are "working on a more modest Plan B", just in case. This alternate approach would provide insurance to approximately 15 million uninsured Americans, or half as many as the current plan, and would include modest expansions of Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program -- all in all, a far cry from the current legislation under consideration.

The Journal reported that "no final decisions had been made" with regards to the Plan B approach. But one administration official who spoke to HuffPost insisted that while a fallback option had been developed, it is not even on the administration's radar.

"This proposal was developed because the president wanted to know what the impact would be if he had to go small post-Massachusetts Senate race. It's not where we are," the official said.

"As you can tell from covering the news this week," the official added, "this is not the proposal we're pursuing."

The president has instead -- as the administration official notes -- placed his chips behind a comprehensive package of insurance reform and coverage expansion. Based on the Senate's legislation, with fixes taken from the version passed by the House, Obama's plan would cost roughly $950 billion over the course of 10 years. It would cover more than 30 million uninsured with expansions to Medicaid, the establishment of state health insurance exchange pools, and major subsidies to help individuals purchase coverage, among other reforms.

The fallback option would roughly halve those achievements, relying on incremental, less controversial reform proposals. The idea is that, as a last ditch gambit, the Plan B proposal could net the White House the bipartisan support necessary for a much-needed health care victory.



Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/24/white-house-denies-report_n_475980.html

[Oregone]

1. "This proposal was developed because..."

So theres the confirmation there is a scaled back plan

[Pirate Smile]

4. Bullshit. They did an evaluation, I think Obama even mentioned it at a town hall or something, to

see all options available after Massachusetts. Obama said that it really isn't possible to do a scaled back HCR. It has to be comprehensive and can't be done piecemeal. Everything is too interconnected to do that.

I just love how people let RW'ers and others who are trying to undermine getting HCR done, jerk their chains repeatedly.

[Oregone]

5. "it really isn't possible to do a scaled back HCR"

The entire reform approach looks pretty scaled back to me. :)

[Iowa]

11. Nonsense...

"Obama said that it really isn't possible to do a scaled back HCR... I just love how people let RW'ers and others who are trying to undermine getting HCR done, jerk their chains repeatedly."

"Obama said..."

Obama says a lot of things. Unfortunately, people have learned that what Obama says doesn't mean squat, and sometimes means the opposite. People have been conditioned to expect the worst. The biggest "chain jerker" of them all is Obama himself.

[No Elephants]

24. Does it also confirm that Coakley's loss

was not exactly unanticipated in the WH (and therefore not in the DNC, either)?

Until the very last minute, all Obama said was that he had no plans to go to Massachusetts to campaign for Coakley and the DNC claimed no one tried to help her sooner bc she insisted everything was fine.

Meanwhile, Scott Brown was campaigning in Massachusetts all along on being the 41st vote against health care reform, while the RNC and all the Republican Party stars, such as they are, helped him. So, how he would vote on that if he defeated Coakley was never a secret.

Some of us in Massachusetts could not understand why the DNC, the WH, Obama and the rest of the Democratic Party stars were acting like the Coakley-Brown fight for the sixtieth member of the Senate Democratic Caucus (and liberal Ted Kennedy's seat) was not even happening. The DNC claims it simply took Coakley's word that all was fine (even though she had never run for federal office--or anything outside legal prosecutorial type jobs). Mmmm....what?

[Cha]

2. Who started that rumor?

[TomCADem]

7. Who is the Wall Street Journal Owned By?

<>

[Cha]

9. What I thought..some regressive rumormonger like that.

[lonestarnot]

3. I do not want to hear that bipartisn bullshit again. Why do they keep saying that bullshit?

Who the fuck said that? The official, who the fuck is the official?

[TwilightGardener]

6. RW media trying to weaken the President going into the summit.

[jobwithout]

8. He has weakened himself.

Talk about squandering political capital. He gave his political capital to wallstreet...GM, AIG, etc.......

[BP2]

10. He has weakened US. We've been knocked back years because of his incompetence. eom

[JTFrog]

15. Oh what fucking total bullshit.

Was there a birther and bagger sale going on somewhere? Sounds like the Dick Armey had a Cheney/McCain sale. $1.99 - "President Obama is making US weaker." "President Obama is incompetent".

Can't wait to see what else you've bought.

[karynnj]

20. Sean Hannity has a DU account?

Are you saying Obama "weakened America" and is "incompetent"? Is there some sarcasm I am missing?

[BP2]

22. Let me be more clear - he has weakened our Party. We should have had HCR locked up and

be working on Immigration Reform by now. Instead we're still spinning our fucking wheels on HCR without a Public Option.

He's weakened the Party - us - not the country.

However, by weakening the Democratic party, the country is weakened as well.

[karynnj]

19. Both the AIG and the GM bailout happened before he took office

No matter how much the RW wants to shift his term back to September 2008, he did not take office until January 2009. The Treasury Secretary Paulson and President Bush were the men who made the decision on AIG.

[jobwithout]

23. So GM didnt get 4 billion in Feb?

[No Elephants]

25. Not completely. The second part of the TARP went out on Obama's say so AND

Geithner, then Obama's nominee, successfully leaned on Dodd to remove some restrictions from the original bill before it passed and Dummya/Paulson distributed the money. As for the GM "bailout," that, too, was not a fully done deal until after Obama took office.

Surely, you knew those things?

[PSPS]

12. "Obama's plan would cost roughly $950 billion over the course of 10 years"

... Based on the Senate's legislation, with fixes taken from the version passed by the House, Obama's plan would cost roughly $950 billion over the course of 10 years. It would cover more than 30 million uninsured with expansions to Medicaid, the establishment of state health insurance exchange pools, and major subsidies to help individuals purchase coverage, among other reforms.

If they would just expand Medicare to cover everyone and raise income tax rates to something progressive (pre-reagan rates are a good start) to pay for it, it would "cost" roughly zero over ten years. On top of that, the extra tax people pay would be less than their current premiums, which would no longer be required.

Whenever you see a "cost" figure in these stories, remember that this "cost" is almost entirely the "subsidy" the taxpayers will be giving to the gluttonous private insurance companies so they will "cover" the uninsured. So this "cost" includes yachts, hookers, bonuses, "executive retreats," billion-dollar CEO salaries and, of course, the requisite kickback bribes to congress.

[Lorien]

13. The banksters cost several times that in one year

and the wars will cost more as well. Though if he wants to cut that figure in half he knows what to do: single payer.

[western mass]

14. scale back the size of this massive handout to the HC industry?

the corporate backers wouldn't hear of it!

[pattmarty]

16. If they "scale it back" any more from the "final" Senate version..............

.............that's just laying out there now, there won't be a god damn bill left. How in the fuck do you "cut" something from nothing? This has finally become a cruel joke on the American people.

[karynnj]

17. One clue - if the President wer to leak something would it chose Murdock's WSJ

Now, I don't rule out the President doing something less if this fails, but it really looks like we have the numbers.

Does anyone recall the WSJ arguing in 2003, that Bush would go for less tax cuts for the wealthy if he couldn't get bi-partisan support? You know, when he passed it with 50 votes and Cheney.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

18. we already "scaled back" the reform for the Repukes and they are crying and blubbering all over

the MSM that we aren't giving them anything.....hell their is no PO and no "Cadillac Tax" isn't that enough.

I loathe these bastards

[Javaman]

21. Scaled back reform? LOLOLOL isn't that want the senate bill amounted to? LOL

priceless, simply priceless!!!