While the Senate debates what kind of health care reform bill to write, lawmakers on the other side of the Capitol have put their foot down, saying the House of Representatives will not pass a bill without a strong government-run health insurance option.
“I cannot see a bill passing without a public plan,” said Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., who chairs the House Energy and Commerce Committee and is a chief architect of the House health care reform bill that will be introduced Friday.
House Democrats are in no mood to compromise on health care, having just taken lots of heat from the Left for passing an energy reform bill that gave away billions of dollars in free pollution permits to electric companies, oil refineries, and manufacturers.
“You can’t compromise on health care,” said Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Calif., co-chairwoman of the chamber’s most liberal faction, the 80-plus-member Progressive Caucus. “There is a point where compromise gets you nowhere.”
Having all but abandoned bipartisanship for health care, the focus for Democratic leaders is on keeping peace between moderate and liberal members of their party. The House bill includes a plan to create a massive government-run insurance plan, but such a proposal would likely alienate more than a dozen centrist Senate Democrats needed to ensure passage.
Senate negotiators are instead weighing the creation of a national insurance cooperative, though that is losing support because the liberal faction opposes it. Senate Democrats are also discussing a government-run plan that would take effect only if the private health insurance industry did not reform itself within a certain time frame.
But if the Democrats pass such a plan in the Senate, it is all but doomed in the House, where liberals have vowed to vote against it.
Members f the Progressive Caucus gave White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel a verbal lashing about the trigger plan at a closed-door meeting. Emanuel had told the Wall Street Journal that the trigger approach was under consideration, though President Barack Obama issued a statement from his overseas trip reaffirming his support for a comprehensive government-run plan.
“We told him that we won’t put up with that,” Woolsey said.
The health care debate is bound to get more complicated Friday, when the Congressional Budget Office is scheduled to release its cost estimate of the House bill. The CBO has estimated costs of the Senate proposals to exceed $2 trillion.
Waxman said he wants much of the House bill to be paid for through savings, but said a special surtax on high incomes could be imposed to pay for the plan. Three House committees will begin work on the bill next week.
Waxman insisted he is not “going to draw lines” on the public option but pointed out that there is little wiggle room in the House.
“From the point of view of the Progressives, the public option is a compromise,” said Waxman, who is a member of that caucus.
