I see how this is going to happen now:

Fineman lays out part of the strategy here in his blog:http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/thegaggle/archive/2009/08/18/fineman-the-democrats-new-strategy-on-health-reform.aspx

Dems plan to use Budget Reconciliation to pass it. However, as Fineman points out, this is up to the Senate parliamentarian: Alan Frumin. If he decides the bill doesn't meet the requirement, it ain't going through. And as Fineman suggest, the current bill doesn't appear to meet this requirement. The Dems would be taking a big risk in doing this.

However...

There has also been talk of the bill being broken up in parts (Sanders on Rachel's show last night discussed this, but not in detail).

The first part would be insurance reform: no preexisting conditions, no coverage caps or denials, etc.

The second part would be a public option, based on... you guessed it... Medicare. If the public option is based on Medicare, it easily meets the requirements of Budget Reconciliation.

I believe this is going to be the Dems strategy. First get the political momentum going by forcing the Repubs to vote on just the reform part. They will ultimately destroy themselves if they vote against it and so far, Blue Dogs would support the reform-only portion. After that passes, use the Budget Reconciliation to push the Medicare-based public option through. The Dems only need 50 votes to get the public option done.

This is it people. The Repubs squandered their opportunity to be part of a great change in America and they will pay for it come the next election.

congresscritters who are wholly owned subsidiaries of these corporations.

I SOOOOO hope you're right about this.

:kick:

Here's hoping.

:kick:

When are they going to pass the individual mandate?

I've got no problem with telling insurance companies that they can not exclude people for pre-existing conditions, but they agreed to do that only if they get the individual mandate (and I am fervently opposed to that mandate). I want a robust public option before Congress makes it illegal for me not to have insurance. Otherwise, no deal.

And I will so advise any politician that will listen.

:dem:

-Laelth

I agree Insurance should not be mandated for those who cannot afford it.

As you might imagine, "hopefully" is not quite good enough for me to throw my support behind this plan.

:dem:

-Laelth

insurance subscriptions will not apply to all people. First, very poor working people who cannot afford to pay the premiums will apparently just not be required to buy in. (I don't know what the plan is for them.) And young people who really don't want to buy in will required to buy only catastrophic and preventive parts of the plan. Also some people's care will be subsidized. This is based on my understanding of Obama's explanation in the call today. I could have misunderstood.

Under the status quo, a healthy young person is not covered by his or her parents' insurance and may choose to forgo buyin insurance. That would be OK except that once in a while a young person gets into a car accident and lands in the emergency room or has a rare disease. The health care costs for that young person end up being paid by everyone who pays for insurance and uses the same health care facilities. That's not fair.

When he ran against Hillary, this ad had a big impact:



The individual mandate was a bad idea last year, and it's a bad idea now. I will feel completely betrayed if Obama signs a bill that contains it. I'll be even more mad if the individual mandate passes without a "robust" public option--and by that I mean a plan that is projected to cover 50+ million Americans within five years.

So, I return to my original, unanswered question. If they're going to break this bill down and pass it in stages, When are they going to pass the individual mandate? I support NO give-aways to the health insurance cabal until we have a robust public option!

:dem:

-Laelth

An expanded medicare seems the most logical to me.

If you develop a public option without the pre-existing conditions, without the caps, etc. Private insurers will have to move to something similar.

Breaking it into two parts seems unnecessary, and would only allow the insurers more time.

then they can go the reconciliation route. If they can get 60 votes by going with the "co-ops", then there are those that think they can change that to a public option in reconciliation.

They NEED to get the public option done somehow in order to have any meaningful reform.