After weeks of turmoil, House Democrats reached a shaky peace with the party’s rebellious rank-and-file conservatives today and cleared the way for a vote in September on sweeping health care legislation.
Bipartisan Senate negotiators reported progress, too, on a bill to extend coverage to 95 percent of all Americans without raising federal deficits. “We’re on the edge. We’re almost there,” said Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, the senior Republican involved in the secretive Senate talks.
The House changes, which drew immediate opposition from liberals in the chamber, would reduce the federal subsidies designed to help lower-income families afford insurance, exempt additional businesses from a requirement to offer insurance to their workers and change the terms of a government insurance option.
More problematic from the Democrats’ point of view 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 non-profit cooperatives that could operate at the state, regional or even national level.
Nor is any bipartisan recommendation likely to include a requirement for large businesses to offer insurance to their workers. Instead, they would have a choice between offering coverage or paying a portion of any government subsidy that noninsured employees would receive.
Like the House bill, the bipartisan proposal under discussion would expand eligibility for Medicaid to 133 percent of the federal poverty level.
http://www.neworleanscitybusiness.com/uptotheminute.cfm?recid=26001&userID=0&ref
After weeks of turmoil, House Democrats reached a shaky peace with the party’s rebellious rank-and-file conservatives today and cleared the way for a vote in September on sweeping health care legislation.
Bipartisan Senate negotiators reported progress, too, on a bill to extend coverage to 95 percent of all Americans without raising federal deficits. “We’re on the edge. We’re almost there,” said Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, the senior Republican involved in the secretive Senate talks.
The House changes, which drew immediate opposition from liberals in the chamber, would reduce the federal subsidies designed to help lower-income families afford insurance, exempt additional businesses from a requirement to offer insurance to their workers and change the terms of a government insurance option.
More problematic from the Democrats’ point of view 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 non-profit cooperatives that could operate at the state, regional or even national level.
Nor is any bipartisan recommendation likely to include a requirement for large businesses to offer insurance to their workers. Instead, they would have a choice between offering coverage or paying a portion of any government subsidy that noninsured employees would receive.
Like the House bill, the bipartisan proposal under discussion would expand eligibility for Medicaid to 133 percent of the federal poverty level.
http://www.neworleanscitybusiness.com/uptotheminute.cfm?recid=26001&userID=0&ref