Rahm Emanuel: Changes To Health System Take Time

npr
The House of Representatives does plan to vote on health legislation before leaving for its August recess, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel told NPR.
Emerging from several hours of meetings Thursday with House leaders, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Emanuel told NPR’s Steve Inskeep that “their intention is to go next week and she is working toward that goal.”
Despite an earlier push by President Obama for Congress to complete its work on the legislation before the break, he and his chief of staff have acknowledged that a final product is more likely to be seen at the end of the year.
Still, setting the deadline for August was important, Emanuel said, because Congress “can use the summer months to basically work out and iron out differences.”
Those differences include debates over thorny issues like taxing the wealthy to pay for expanding health coverage, whether to create a government plan that would compete for patients with private insurers, and what kind of role businesses should play, among other things.

“Having a deadline focuses the mind,” he said.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid acknowledged what had become obvious in recent days — that the full Senate would not vote on health care in August.

“It’s better to have a product based on quality and thoughtfulness rather than try to jam something through,” Reid said.

But he said the Senate Finance Committee would produce a bill and work on it before the August recess begins.
Still, many members of Congress have raised concerns about leaving incomplete legislation unfinished over the summer to be picked apart.
Emanuel dismissed the idea that this would bring down the bills, noting that 14,000 people a day lose their health insurance.

“The public wants health care reform that fundamentally doesn’t put the insurance companies in control of the process, which is where they fundamentally are,” he said.

Emanuel shrugged off comments from Sen. Jim DeMint, a Republican from South Carolina, who said Wednesday that health care is Obama’s “Waterloo.” He also dismissed remarks Thursday by Sen. James Inhofe, a Republican from Oklahoma, that Republicans are plotting the bill’s demise on a “week by week” basis.

But tensions are also evident within the Democratic caucus as the Senate Finance Committee struggles to put together its version of the bill.
The administration’s efforts to get and keep big health care interest groups on board has been worrying some Democrats in recent days. Hospitals, physicians, insurance companies and prescription drug industry groups have all pledged varying degrees of support for an overhaul.

Emanuel said it was important to keep the advocates who have been opposed to reform in the past on board, but “not at all costs. That has been a key part of this.”

Fiscally conservative Democrats have also raised concerns about cost, but Emanuel urged the country to take a step back and think about the scale of what Congress is trying to accomplish.

“For 40 years, we’ve had a debate about health care that was solely about expanding coverage. For the first time, you have the dual goals of controlling costs and expanding coverage,” he said.

“We’re not just running it up on the credit card, which is how they did the prescription drug bill,” he said, referring to the passage of a bill in 2003 under a Republican-controlled Congress that added a prescription drug benefit to Medicare.

“They charged it, which is a $900 billion charge,” he said. “And nobody paid for it.”

Emanuel sees giving more power to a commission already in place to advise Congress on how to hold down Medicare spending as key to keeping costs under control.
At the end of the day, Emanuel expects a bill-signing ceremony.

“We will have a bill by the end of the year for the president to sign on health care that controls costs, expands coverage and provides choice,” Emanuel said.

But he declined to predict how, exactly, the president and Congress would get there.

“I don’t want to fast forward the movie; you’re just going to have to watch the movie all the way through,” he said.

Wild Thing’s comment…….
“I don’t want to fast forward the movie; you’re just going to have to watch the movie all the way through,” he said.
OMG he thinks this is a movie? The movie that Rham spoke about is not ‘Debbie Does Dallas’ but ‘Obama Does America’.
I’m getting REALLY sick of these people in the White House.
Obama, Pelosi, Rahm Emmanuel and David Axelrod are running the country—into the ground. Add to that WH Chief of Staff’s (Rahm’s) brother who is also running the health care show in the WH.
“We’re not just running it up on the credit card, which is how they did the prescription drug bill,” he said, referring to the passage of a bill in 2003 under a Republican-controlled Congress that added a prescription drug benefit to Medicare.
Little known fact. It was Emmanuel who was the driving force behind the “buy drugs from Canada” movement which would have bankrupted our drug companies.
Which was the reason Pres. Bush signed the bill…to keep our medical co’s profitable.
Emmanuel has been in a huge snit since then. One reason for his frenzy to see this bill passed…He sees it as payback vs. Pres. Bush.
On FOX news Bret Baier said Rahm Emmanuel says House will vote on Health Care before the August recess but Senate will not. When Brett announced that the House will be voting, he said something I didn’t quite understand….that by having the House vote, they will be bypassing Bluedog committee…and going straight to a vote? Anyone understand? It sounds Bad. It probably means that they do not care about any Blue Dog concerns. Rahm has probaly put a folder in front of each of them detailing how they will each be ruined unless they vote for this bill.
Rahm has been metting with the Blue Dogs like mad.

“The White House chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, led a hastily called three-hour negotiating session at the Capitol with conservative Blue Dog Democrats, the group of fiscal hawks who have stalled action on the health care bill in the House.”

And some White House aides were optimistic that the negotiations between Mr. Emanuel and the Blue Dogs in the House would result in Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s scheduling a floor vote for next week. Emerging Thursday afternoon from the session with Mr. Emanuel, Representative Mike Ross, Democrat of Arkansas and a leader of the Blue Dogs, said many issues remained unresolved and that talks would continue. The Blue Dogs have expressed concerns about the cost and scope of the health legislation. But even if those differences are settled, the lack of a Senate vote before the recess hinders Ms. Pelosi’s ability to bring a health plan to the House floor.

Many House Democrats are wary of casting a potentially career-defining vote to raise taxes to pay for expanded health coverage unless Democratic senators are also on board for a tax increase.

It’s time to melt the phone lines.

Time to start calling Congressmen, they vote on this horrendous bill Next week and we have to let them know we don’t want it.
I am gonig to remind as many as I can to votee NO and we do not want this thing and that they can be replaced next year.
Here is the Blue Dog Coalition website
Here’s a website for quick reference to your reps…it gives contact phone numbers, fax numbers, email addresses and the rep’s homepage…just click on your state and have at em’!…
Capital Switchboard #800-965-4701, 800-828-0498, 202-224-3121.
The White House at 202-456-1414.
Pelosi: 202-225-011

….Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67