Health Care Blues.

From the AP:

The drive to remake the nation's health care system suffered yet another setback in Congress on Thursday when a pivotal group of House Democrats demanded changes in legislation the leadership was drafting on a fast track.

The emerging bill "lacks a number of elements essential to preserving what works and fixing what is broken," 40 members of the Blue Dog Coalition of moderate to conservative Democrats wrote party leaders. To win their support, they said, any legislation would need to be much more aggressive in reining in the growth of health care as well as in addressing a disparity in Medicare payments they said adversely affects rural providers.

A group of the moderates met into early evening with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and arranged to sit down with committee chairmen on Friday to go over proposed changes. Officials said the public release of the bill, originally set for Friday, would occur no earlier than Monday.

It was the second setback in three days for President Barack Obama's top domestic priority, although it was unclear whether it would amount to anything more than a brief delay for a bill of enormous complexity and controversy.

From Roll Call:

Rep. Mike Ross (D-Ark.), the chairman of the fiscally conservative Blue Dogs’ health care task force, warned leadership in a Thursday night meeting that lasted more than two hours that the vast majority of the group could not support the bill unless major changes were made.

Forty Blue Dogs signed a two-page letter communicating a series of demands ranging from more aid to rural areas to more cost-cutting to protections for small businesses.

But the fiercest opposition is to a public plan option based on existing Medicare reimbursement rates.

“We cannot accept a public option based on Medicare rates,” Ross said. Ross said regional disparities in Medicare would have to be fixed for Blue Dogs to consider such an idea, because payment levels are too low in many parts of the country.

Ross said that the Blue Dogs would meet with the three committee chairmen writing the bill on Friday to try to address some of their demands. Ross said some concerns could be addressed before the bill goes to markup and others could potentially be dealt with via amendments in committee.