Later Saturday night, the Senate Democrats' healthcare reform bill will pass its first test. Majority Leader Harry Reid officially has the 60 votes needed to win on a cloture motion that will open debate on the legislation. The last two members of the Democratic caucus to announce their intentions, Sens. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, both said Saturday that they'll be voting with their party.
But this is just one procedural vote. The more daunting hurdle of the cloture vote to break a filibuster and hold an up-or-down vote on the bill itself still lies ahead, and there Reid may have serious trouble, especially if a plan to create a government-run insurance provider -- the public option -- remains in it.
Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., who is a member of the Democratic caucus, has already said he'll vote to filibuster a bill that contains any form of the public option. (He is voting for cloture tonight, but not, he says, the next time around.) And on Saturday, Lincoln too threatened to support a filibuster of the legislation if it includes the public option.
Both will be tough nuts for Reid to crack. Lieberman's not up for re-election next year, and has already been taunting liberals by saying he's not afraid of possible retribution. Lincoln, on the other hand, is up for re-election -- and that's the problem. She's seriously vulnerable, and is looking at polling numbers that seem to indicate voting with her party to support a public plan would only put her in a more precarious position.
Earlier this week, Senate Democrats finally unveiled their healthcare reform legislation. Despite all the squabbling that's gone on over the public option the bill does, like its House counterpart, contain a plan for a government-run insurance provider. However, there are a number of important differences between the two proposals. Assuming Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid musters together the 60 votes necessary to get his version through the Senate, there are going to be a number of points that negotiators will need to work out in committee. Here are some of the most important differences between the bills.
Public Option: Will states be allowed to “opt out”?
Both bills include the creation of a government-run insurance provider to compete with private insurers. However, the Senate version would allow states to opt out of the public plan.
Abortion: The Stupak Legacy
To garner much-needed support from anti-abortion Democrats, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) allowed them to attach the infamous Stupak-Pitts amendment to her chamber's version of the bill. The provision would bar women who are receiving federal subsidies for their insurance from purchasing plans that cover elective abortions. It would also bar the public plan from offering abortion coverage. The Senate version takes a more moderate approach: Those receiving federal subsidies could buy insurance that covers abortion -- but insurers would have to place federal money in separate accounts and could only use private dollars to cover the procedure. The public plan could also offer abortion coverage, as long as it segregated federal subsidies in the same way.
Cost: The difference a year makes
According to the Congressional Budget Office, the House bill would cost about $1.052 trillion and reduce the deficit by $138 billion. The CBO predicts that the Senate bill would cost $849 billion, while cutting $130 billion from the deficit. This difference is largely due to the fact that many major provisions in the Senate proposal would not go into effect until 2014 -- a year later than in the House bill.
Coverage: Universal? Not quite
For decades, the Democrats talked of providing universal healthcare. These bills come closer, but neither quite reaches that goal. Both, however, will significantly reduce the number of uninsured. Today, 83 percent of non-elderly legal residents have health insurance. (The elderly are covered by Medicare.) Under the House bill, 96 percent of that population would be covered by 2016. The Senate's legislation would expand coverage to 94 percent. Still, about 18 million people would remain uninsured under the House's proposal, as would about 23 million in the Senate's.
Paying the bills: What gets taxed
Under the House bill, much of the money to pay for the reforms would be raised through a 5.4 percent surtax on high-income people -- that is, individuals making more than $500,000 a year or couples with annual incomes in excess of $1 million. The Senate version, on the other hand, would impose a different series of new taxes including: A 40 percent tax on “Cadillac health plans” (employer-sponsored group plans with premiums of over $8,500 for individuals or over $23,000 for families); the introduction of annual fees for health care companies; an increase in Medicare payroll taxes from 1.45 percent to 1.95 percent for those earning more than $250,000 a year and the implementation of the so-called "Botox tax," which is a five percent tax on elective cosmetic medical procedures.
Employer mandates: Do companies need to offer health insurance?
The House bill stipulates that employers with payrolls of more than $500,000 must offer health coverage or pay a federal tax. The Senate version does not explicitly require employers to provide coverage; however, companies with 50 or more full-time employees would have to pay a penalty of $750 per employee if they fail to offer coverage and if any of their employees obtain federally subsidized care via the new health insurance exchanges.
Friday, Senate Democratic leaders agreed to include the Wyden amendment in their healthcare proposal. Under this provision, employers would have one of two options. Companies could offer their employees a single plan and give all eligible workers the option of accepting a voucher to independently purchase their own insurance. Alternatively, an employer could offer two or more health care plans, provided that at least one has a premium that costs no more than the average premium of the two least expensive health plans in the local exchange. The House bill includes no comparable language.
Individual mandates: Penalties for remaining uninsured
Both bills require most Americans to maintain a minimum level of health insurance. However, the penalties for not doing so are much stiffer in the House bill: Those who failed to acquire insurance would pay a tax equal to 2.5 percent of their gross income of over $9,350 for individuals or $18,700 for couples. Under Reid’s legislation, the penalties would start at $95 per person in 2014 and gradually go up to $750 a head in 2016.
Insurance Exchanges: State-based or national
Both bills would create some sort of health insurance exchange, a marketplace where individuals and small companies can shop for insurance and compare benefits and prices. The exchanges would put individuals into large risk pools, which are intended to provide them with leverage to purchase insurance at a lower cost. The House bill would create a national exchange, although states could petition to run their own exchanges as well. Under the Senate proposal, states would form their own exchanges. This, however, could prove problematic, as it is unclear whether state exchanges would be able to attract a sufficient number of enrollees to push for lower premiums.
Illegal Immigrants
The House bill would allow illegal immigrants to buy insurance from the exchanges, but would not allow them to obtain federal subsidies. The Senate version prohibits illegal immigrants from purchasing insurance from these exchanges, even if they could pay for their own coverage in full. This could have the effect of preventing illegal immigrants from buying individual insurance altogether.
It's been an odd day for political videos, and on both sides of divide, no less.
On the right, there's a preview for a movie about the Tea Parties floating around. And yes, it's just as corny, melodromatic and self-important as you'd think.
Then there's a public service announcement, scheduled to air over Thanksgiving, that features NFL players tossing a football around with kids and, um, President Obama. That one, too, is just plain weird -- you don't often expect to see New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees on the White House lawn. Plus, the shot in that commercial that involves Obama slowly appearing on screen in order to catch Brees' pass is so forced that it just looks like unintentional self-parody. (Also, Obama, who's almost 50 years old, can apparently burn an All-Pro safety. Who knew?)
Both videos are below.
Doug Hoffman, the Conservative Party candidate who lost a close race in a special election for an upstate New York Congressional seat earlier this month, has already retracted the concession he made on election night. Now, though, he has to decide whether he'll try to challenge Democrat Bill Owens' win in court.
A spokesman for Hoffman, Rob Ryan, says Hoffman will be making that decision "over the weekend," according to CQ Politics' Emily Cadei.
Over the past two days, after Hoffman officially unconceded, victory in the current count has become mathematically impossible for him. The third-party candidate had hoped to gain on Owens during the tally of absentee ballots, but as the count stands now, it's actually Owens who's picked up a net of 61 votes during the process.
There was some measure of hope for Hoffman's supporters on Thursday, though, due to a report in a local publication that a virus had affected voting machines. An election watchdog has debunked that claim, however.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid can rest at least a little bit easier tonight. As he heads into the first vote in his chamber on Democrats' healthcare reform bill, he knows he has at least one senator who was wavering on his side.
Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., said Friday that he will vote with his fellow Democrats Saturday night on a cloture motion that will allow the Senate to begin debating the legislation.
"Throughout my Senate career I have consistently rejected efforts to obstruct," Nelson said in a statement. "That's what the vote on the motion to proceed is all about. It is not for or against the new Senate health care bill released Wednesday .... If you don't like a bill why block your own opportunity to amend it?"
Another key vote, though, remains uncommitted. Majority Whip Dick Durbin had said Friday that Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., had told Reid how she'll vote, implying that she, too, was a yes. He's since walked that back, however, and Lincoln remains publicly uncommitted. So does Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La.
Elsewhere on Salon today, there's a great piece from Joe Conason on Lincoln and her vote. You can read it here.
For the second time this week, a reliable pollster shows President Obama's approval rating falling below 50 percent. On Wednesday, it was Quinnipiac; now, it's Gallup. This new survey will likely prove the more symbolically important of the two, due to Gallup's long history and the weight it's given.
49 percent of respondents in Gallup's poll said they approve of the job Obama's doing, compared to 44 percent who disapprove. According to the pollster, Obama's fall below the 50 percent threshold is the fourth fastest of all the presidents in the post-World War II era. Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton beat him to the mark.
That said, the value of these numbers is mostly symbolic, and if history's any guide, it's likely that he'll be back up over 50 percent soon. But this kind of data has a way of scaring members of Congress who are unsure about whether or not to back the president.
War Room is written and edited by Alex Koppelman, with contributions from Salon reporters around the country.
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