There are 51 self-identified "Blue Dogs" in the 435-member U.S. House of Representatives. That coalition is working to slow down health care legislation and water down a public option.
John Boehner must love 'em.
From Politico:
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi spent half of Wednesday finalizing a deal with the Blue Dogs — and the other half quelling a brewing rebellion among progressives who think conservatives have hijacked health care reform.
Liberals, Hispanics and African-American members — Pelosi’s most loyal base of support — are feeling betrayed after House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) reached an agreement with four of seven Blue Dogs on his committee who had been bottling up the bill over concerns about cost.
The compromise, which still must be reconciled with competing House and Senate versions, would significantly weaken the public option favored by liberals by delinking reimbursement rates to Medicare.
Two months ago, most of the 80-plus members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) signed a pledge that they would oppose any health care bill that didn’t contain a bona fide public option that would compete with private insurers.
House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) predicted that House liberals, who believe they have compromised away several core issues to further President Barack Obama’s agenda, might finally buck leadership if they are force-fed a weakened public option.
“I don’t think it would pass the House — I wouldn’t vote for it,” Frank, a CPC member, told POLITICO.
He answered “yes” emphatically when asked if progressives were willing to delay the entire process as the Blue Dogs have done.
From the AP/Huffington Post:
The House changes...would steer away from using Medicare as the blueprint for a proposed government insurance option, reduce federal subsidies to help lower-income families afford coverage, and exempt additional businesses from a requirement to offer health insurance to their workers.
In the Senate, the pace of negotiations appears to have accelerated in recent days, with lawmakers all but settling on a tax on high-cost insurance plans to help pay for the bill, as well as a new mechanism designed to curtail the growth of Medicare over the next 10 years and beyond.
More problematic from the point of view of most Democrats is a tentative agreement to omit a provision in which the government would sell insurance in competition with private industry. In its place, the group is expected to recommend nonprofit cooperatives that could operate at the state, regional or even national level.
Even if the negotiations succeed before the Senate's vacation, which starts next week, it isn't clear when the Finance Committee would vote.
Meanwhile, back on Main Street, 12,000 Americans are losing health care coverage each day.
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