Rangel Wants Health Care Before Climate Change

Don't even think about climate change before health care, Charlie Rangel said Wednesday night.

Long on the periphery of the climate-change debate, Rangel (D-N.Y.) announced Wednesday that his House Ways and Means Committee will make health care its top priority in the coming months and has no intention of turning to climate change in the meantime.

Rangel is positioning himself for post-Memorial Day negotiations with Henry Waxman, whose Energy and Commerce Committee has been working long hours -- including a possible all-nighter into Thursday -- to pass a climate-change bill out of committee and into Rangel's hands.

"Planting trees is one thing, giving out money is another," Rangel said. "It's not a question of Waxman. ... If you're dealing with money, you can't bypass my committee. Nobody challenges that."

Waxman (D-Calif.) was quick to rule out any chance of seeing the bill put to the full House before July, and declined to comment on a full vote before the Congressional recess in August. But he remained upbeat Wednesday night, and conceded that Ways and Means has jurisdiction over several key elements of climate-change legislation, such as offsets for increased gas prices.

"We need them to be involved," Waxman said of Ways and Means. "But I think we've got a formidable coalition behind our legislation and I think they will see the wisdom of some of our decisions, and then we're going to talk through where we have differences and try and resolve them."

While the current climate-change bill is based on a cap-and-trade system, Rangel said a carbon-tax system is still on the table.

For the moment, though, Waxman said he will continue to focus on an end to debate within his own committee, as he expects Energy and Commerce will also be pressed for time this summer.

"We have to do health care in our committee," Waxman said. "We want to do the FDA food safety bill in our committee in June. John Dingell asked me the other day, 'Do you think we have enough time to do health care and FDA in June when we get back?' and I said, 'No, but we're going to do it anyway.'"

Reporting contributed by Ryan Grim.

Comments

[notAMoron]

10:27 AM on 05/21/2009

Don't we need a habitable planet before in order to receive healthcare?

[connorin]

09:50 AM on 05/21/2009

Relax boys!

You'll all get your turn to try to bankrupt and destroy the country!

[Iceusa]

09:20 AM on 05/21/2009

I understand that the person heading the health care talks Sen. Max Baucus has taken an enormous amount of campaign contributions from health care industry. I also understand that "single payer health care is off the table". I am very disappointed that with a Democratic majority, we are not even fighting for single payer health care. We will continue to add to the profits of the existing health care system that has run this country into the ground and the government will pick up the people the industry won't, instead of creating one large pool in a single payer health care system.

[MadOzbo]

08:16 AM on 05/21/2009

Is this the same Rangel who uses rent subsidy buildings for his personal gain?

Is this the same Rangel who has managed to stymie the investigation into his ethics lapses by remaining the chair of the Ways and Means Committee, which writes the tax laws the rest of us have to follow, but Rep. Rangel does not?

Who CARES what he thinks! Bad enough we have to deal with it.

[dwright]

07:11 AM on 05/21/2009

I don't understand why we can't do both. I have been multi-tasking for years. We pay them to do a job and they are supposed to do it, if they can't they need to be fired, just like we would. End of Story.

[Solja]

03:26 AM on 05/21/2009

I used to like Rangel, but it seems that he has gotten too big for his britches as of late. First he was on the wrong side, talking against our POTUS, now he is saying he will hold up the President's top priority? Oh hell nah! He can get voted out of office just like any Republican or corrupt official, of which he is the latter!

[Cacaoatl]

02:47 AM on 05/21/2009

The number one thing we can do to reform health care is to understand the link between human evolution and health. Some of our major health problems such as high blood pressure, obesity, and diabetes can be linked to evolution. Forty thousand years ago humans were hunter gatherers and in those days preserving salt, sugar, and fat in the body were beneficial during times of drought and famine. Today Americans have plenty of food, drive everywhere, and go to jobs where they sit on their ass. If people drove less,lived walking distance to work, and did some mild exercise during break and lunch periods we could kill two birds with one stone. We could cut back greenhouse gas emissions, cut back pollution, conserve fuel, and improve our health all at once.

[TJCole]

11:40 PM on 05/20/2009

Rangel is right Health Care First, SINGLE PAYER HEALTH CARE...!

[Tulka2]

01:03 AM on 05/21/2009

Dudes. Walk and chew gum. Get 'em both done.

[Tulka2]

02:11 AM on 05/21/2009

Sorry, TJCole, the comment above was meant to be entered as an individual comment and was addressed to Waxman and Rangle.

[Tulka2]

01:05 AM on 05/21/2009

Oops, sorry TJCole, i meant to enter the above as a single comment and it is addressed to Rangle and Waxman.

[everychildsnana]

10:53 PM on 05/20/2009

Health Reform,Mssrs Dingell & Waxman! What health reform? We believed this president would order Supermen to do daily super-auditing & oversight-upon-oversight, sitting on auditors who sit on bean counters to save 50% of our money that is stolen by the politico-corporate complex daily every year for decades. Budget costs??? None if there 's will & courage to name names, enforce policing, wholesale prosecutions .But that takes a heroic, brave president who sees his history if he reforms the most corrupt industry in the USA, the industry that spent more than any other segment of ' Corporate thievery in lobbying, contributing to politicians' campaigns, gifting,& gifting & gifting. It takes the guts to fight in their streets,as they do: Exhume bodies they buried, show them what they have to lose;we mean the Congress. As for the Titans: if Congress is too afraid to carry the Titan's bags anymore,Titans become Lilliputs. Don't tell us that our president & his close advisors & supporters don't know where enough bodies are to put fear of Federal prison in enough old old boys & gals in our Capitol Bldg.,& using the Budget Reconciliation Act, only 50 are needed,so there's less effort needed because there's less digging to be done.This is the only way & the right thing to do. Will he do it ? Not the way he's moving & talking this past month.

[everychildsnana]

10:50 PM on 05/20/2009

John Dingell had better have the clout & the goods on enough of the medical industry-owned congress to give us what we voted for when we voted for Barack Obama, we who are moderate Rs,Ind's & made the big difference in his winning, more than any special interest or ethnocentric groups.The president is still the charming, down to earth, loveable guy so many of us still feel warmth towards & still watch every speech or tv announcement he makes. That won't stand in the way of our rejection of him as a young man of principle & committment to anything or anyone other than to some idealistic or windmill-tilting in the name of Bipartisanship, big money unions & Lunatic -Left living for tortured terrorists. We were supposed to be voting for a People-First kid,a super-bright ,from the middle class whose mum had battles with profiteers managing her medical existence, not her physicians. We voted for him to Change the health we don't have at the prices we can't pay & still eat in the same month. We actually believed he'd deliver universal, single-payer, non-profit, across-the-board quality care, greatly reduced costs, a prescription program that pays for RXs we get from England,Japan Germany Internet 's certified suppliers who charge $ 20.00 for a name brand RX , same as Titans of Thievery here charge $135.00.We can't do that because "government' has enacted & enforced Welfare for Titans,instead of this enormous savings found in every developed country .

[Solja]

03:24 AM on 05/21/2009

You are rambling... a lot. Oy!

[VikingQuest]

10:26 PM on 05/20/2009

Lets see here:

Plans laid out to improve health care would benefit people and have results . . .

Plans laid out to stop "climate change" have no certain outcome because one thing we can all agree on is that we cannot control our own climate, control other country's emissions and know that the Earth's climate always changes.

[maxfax]

10:23 PM on 05/20/2009

Single payer.

[theone718]

09:43 PM on 05/20/2009

I like Henry Waxman. There are some guys that you think actually have our best intentions in mind and he definitely fits that bill.

[jordan3189]

09:36 PM on 05/20/2009

Wow, everybody whining and complaining. I want to screw the people first, no, I want to, no me.