NYTIMES: As Obama Speech Nears, Details on a Compromise

[Purveyor]

By JACKIE CALMES and ROBERT PEAR
Published: September 7, 2009

WASHINGTON — As President Obama and top advisers drafted his eagerly awaited health care speech to Congress, new details emerged Monday about fees and coverage limits under a proposal being floated by the chairman of a crucial Senate committee.

The proposal from the lawmaker, Senator Max Baucus, who heads the Finance Committee, would impose new fees on some sectors of the health care industry, but none on individuals, to help offset initial costs estimated at $880 billion over 10 years, according to officials familiar with the outline.

The plan, circulating among some committee members of both parties, would also offer the option of lower-cost insurance, with protection only against the costs of catastrophic illnesses, to those 25 and younger. In addition, it would provide basic Medicaid coverage to millions of low-income people who are currently ineligible for the program, but the benefits would be less comprehensive than standard Medicaid.

Mr. Baucus, Democrat of Montana, will try on Tuesday to win support from the three Republicans and two other Democrats on his committee with whom he has been deliberating for months. Ultimately, however, he will need a majority of the committee’s 23 members, several of whom are resentful at being excluded.

Mr. Obama plans to meet Tuesday at the White House with the top Democrats in Congress, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senator Harry Reid, to coordinate strategy.

Administration officials declined to discuss either Mr. Baucus’s plan or the president’s speech, which Mr. Obama will deliver Wednesday night to a joint session of Congress. But the officials welcomed the chairman’s draft as important progress just as lawmakers are returning this week from their summer recess.

MORE...

NYTIMES: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/08/health/policy/08health.html?hpw

[Jennicut]

1. Baucus's plan is a joke. All this time taken and he throws this at us? Pathetic.

[GoldenOldie]

2. Baucus's only concern is that he and wifee keep their high standard of living!

They know who owns them!

[d_b]

3. craptacular

[billyoc]

4. Compromis with people who's only strategy is to make sure you utterly fail.

It's become clear to me that I am obviously unable to grasp the complexities of politics.


See you on the picket line.

[xchrom]

5. mostly something i could care less about --

'In addition, it would provide basic Medicaid coverage to millions of low-income people who are currently ineligible for the program, but the benefits would be less comprehensive than standard Medicaid.'

[niceypoo]

6. Compromise?

Republicans are all going to vote against it no matter what.

[depakid]

7. Oh boy, junk insurance!

That's GOT to make Mike Enzi happy!

Time for Obama, Reid & Pelosi to cut Baucus out of the equation.

[TomCADem]

8. Just Can't See Insurance Companies and Republicans Embracing This Tax AND

If they do, it just goes to show just how afraid they are of a public option.

[Eric J in MN]

9. Medicaid coverage but with less benefits?

What garbage.

They should give everyone who would have trouble buying insurance full Medicaid.

Instead of subsidies to buy private insurance.

[still_one]

10. The TRUE progressives in the Senate will never support it /nt

[FVZA_Colonel]

11. Given how progressive politicians have come out recently,

I don't think this will be the final plan we see.

[joeycola]

13. Huff Post has an article saying some Progressives are ready for compromise!!

[Teaser]

14. not with baucus' bill they aren't

they'll take a trigger. hopefully they'll push hard and get as much as possible in the here and now.

[joeycola]

16. but I see any trigger option as a severe blow to meaningful reform!

[still_one]

20. A trigger option is a fraud, and most people know it /nt

[joeycola]

23. maybe they do. But does the President and Congress know?

[still_one]

19. which progressives? huff post sometimes likes to "create" reaction /nt

[davidpdx]

12. What we need is to take Bacus out on a pirate ship and make him walk the plank

with his hands tied behind his back. He's a trader.

[Raineyb]

15. Baucus's plan is capitulation. The public option WAS the compromise! n/t

[joeycola]

17. Yes, Obama and congress compromised us from the start!!

[kjackson227]

18. He's got to be joking, right??? Baucus is completely USELESS.

[inna]

21. why is this person, a former CEO of an insurance company, even in charge of this????

:wtf:


:banghead:


:grr:



:argh:

[inna]

22. crap, crap, crap. Baucus is a fucking corporate fascist.

absolutely sickening and disgusting; they treat us like we're absolutely mindless sheep.


i can't believe we let them get away with this crap.


we are the only industrialized country in the world that doesn't provide its citizens Universal Health Care.


:banghead: