Blue Dogs Bleeding HealthCare Reform

Some Blue Dog Dems agree on health bill

UPDATED

Some conservative "Blue Dog" Democrats have

agreed to compromise measures that will "move health reform forward in the House," CNN is reporting.

But the compromise also means there won't be a floor vote on the issue until the fall, The Hill confirms.

This is a key concession to Republicans and conservative Democrats who have been trying to slow down the legislative process on health reform. They argue the current proposed plan is too expensive and would give government too large a role to play in health care.

Now, thanks to a compromise that strips $100 billion from the $1 trillion cost of the reform plan, opposition to a health reform bill among conservative House Representatives "is easing," CNN reported Wednesday afternoon.

"Four of the seven so-called Blue Dog Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee said they resolved their differences with Chairman Henry Waxman of California," AP reported.

According to Paul Kane's blog at the Washington Post, the $100 billion in savings means the proposed health plan "would not pay health-care providers based on Medicare reimbursement rates, which conservative Democrats say pays rural hospitals disproportionately low rates compared to urban areas."

“We have cut the cost of the bill substantially, and we have delayed a floor vote to September,” House Rep. Mike Ross (D-AR) told the New York Times. According to AP, he and three other Blue Dog Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee have come to an agreement with Democrats pushing for health care reform, though it's not clear whether other Blue Dogs would get on board with the compromise.

Progress is also being reported in the Senate. The "Gang of Six" centrist Senators -- three Democrats and three Republicans -- don't have a deal done yet but "are pretty pleased with what they've done so far," CNN reported. According to the New York Times, the Senate Finance Committee has drafted a health package that "would considerably trim costs." No further details were immediately available.

OBAMA FIGHTS HEALTH CARE FEARS

President Barack Obama, who was appearing at a town hall meeting on health care in Raleigh, N.C., as word broke of the House and Senate agreements, took a tougher tone against critics of the public health proposal.

"Nobody is talking about a government takeover of health care," he said at the town hall meeting. "I'm tired of hearing that."

But the president acknowledged that Congress had failed to meet the August deadline he had set out for passage of a health reform package.

"We did give them a deadline, and sort of we missed that deadline. But that's OK," AP quoted Obama as saying.

"We don't want to just do it quickly, we want to do it right."

But the president added: "The American people can't wait any longer. They want action this year. I want action this year."

-- Daniel Tencer

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 29th, 2009 at 12:14 pm and is filed under government, nation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.