Dour Industry Report Backfires

Measure that should have saved money will cost an arm and a leg

(NEWSER) - The Senate health reform bill is all fire and brimstone for the folks over at Firedoglake . The “con job” legislation “isn’t a ‘starter home,’ it’s a sink hole,” Jane Hamsher writes, and “it needs to die so something else can take its place.” Why, you ask? Ten reasons:

• $$$: "Forces you to pay up to 8% of your income to private insurance corporations."
• More $$$: "Penalties of up to 2% of your annual income" if you don't buy insurance.

Hostile insurance industry pushes Dems to consider grab-bag of proposals

(NEWSER) - The public option, left for dead by the Max Baucus bill that passed the Finance Committee just weeks ago, has a new lease on life in the Senate. Credit goes to a CBO report underwhelmed by that bill's efforts to encourage competition, and a big power play by the insurance industry that backfired. Democrats are considering a raft of possibilities, from the triggered plan favored by GOP Sen. Olympia Snowe to others that would allow states to opt in, or out. “This issue is alive,” Max Baucus tells the Wall Street Journal. More»

White House betrayed by 'hatchet job' predicting cost hikes

(NEWSER) - The White House is steamed this morning over a report, sponsored by the insurance industry, saying the Senate Finance Committee’s health care bill would cause premiums and costs to rise. The report was commissioned by America’s Health Insurance Plans, an industry group that has until now supported reform publicly, while fighting to kill certain ideas, like the public option, behind the scenes, Politico notes. It claims the bill would, by 2019, cost a family $4,000 more in premiums than projected. More»

(NEWSER) - Reasoned debate is all well and good, but the more than 300 amendments offered to the health care reform bill by finance committee Republicans are “dangerously close to a parody,” Dana Milbank writes. Or maybe they’re already there. Take Orrin Hatch’s request for “transition relief for the excise tax on high-cost insurance plans for any state with a name that begins with the letter 'U.'” There’s only one state that starts with ‘U:’ Hatch’s Utah. More»

Nancy Pelosi still wants it in House-Senate compromise

(NEWSER) - As health care reform chugs through the Senate Finance Committee, Mike Madden checks in on the prospects for a public option and finds it's not quite dead yet. A big test comes today when the committee votes on amendments from supporters of the public option, such as Jay Rockefeller. "Don't count it out," says Chuck Schumer, sounding not exactly like his usual "bulldog" self, notes Madden, writing for Salon. More»