Gang Of Six Centrist Senators Demands Delay On Health Care Reform

A bipartisan group of centrist and conservative senators sent a letter to the Democratic and Republican leaders on Friday urging delay in consideration of health care reform.

The letter, obtained by the Huffington Post, was drafted by Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) and is also signed by Democratic Sens. Mary Landrieu (La.) and Ron Wyden (Ore.). Independent Joe Lieberman (Conn.), who caucuses with Democrats, signed on, as did Maine Republican Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins -- moderates heavily courted by President Obama.

The organized effort to slow down the process is a blow to the reform effort. Obama has pushed hard for a final vote before the August recess, arguing that delaying until September could slow momentum and risk missing a historic opportunity.

The letter, sent to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) stresses that while the senators still want health care reform done this year, they don't feel comfortable voting for it until they've had more time to study its costs and benefits.

Read the letter here.

Reid had said on Thursday that senators always want more time, no matter when a vote comes.

Any of those individual senators calling for delay by themselves would be a surmountable obstacle; but together, they make a formidable force and throw the possibility of an August vote in serious doubt.

"If we fail to act, and act now, working families will continue to see their premiums skyrocket, their benefits will erode even further, the number of uninsured will keep exploding and the deficit will grow uncontrollably," said Andy Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union, in response to the news of the letter.

Jake Thompson, Nelson's spokesman, said the message of the letter is to show support for the reform effort, not oppose it. "Sen. Nelson is firmly committed to comprehensive health reform this year and wants to take the time to get this historic legislation right," Thompson said.

The gang of senators say in their letter that the testimony of the Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Elmendorf on Thursday persuaded them that delay is needed. At that time, Elmendorf said that the current health care plans under consideration would not considerably reduce costs and would add to the debt burden, an analysis that omits cost savings from prevention or negotiating lower prices.

But the timeline doesn't add up. Reid told the Huffington Post on Thursday that he had spoken to Nelson Wednesday night and Nelson told him he would be sending him a letter. The conversation took place before the budget director's testimony. Elmendorf's remarks, however, may have persuaded uncertain senators to sign on to the letter.

"We appreciate the work that has been done by senators on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions and Finance committees, but in view of the Budget Director's statement, there is much heavy lifting ahead," write the senators in their letter.

The CBO analysis is is a "devastating blow" to the bill, Nelson said Friday on CNN radio. He also spoke derisively of the House health care reform effort, which taxes the wealthy to subsidize coverage, calling it "class warfare."

UPDATE: Opponents of health care reform are using the stall tactic as a means to kill it. Ben Smith has details of a conservative strategy call from Friday morning in which they lay out just that strategy:

"I can almost guarantee you this thing won't pass before August, and if we can hold it back until we go home for a month's break in August," members of Congress will hear from "outraged" constituents, South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint said on the call, which was organized by the group Conservatives for Patients Rights.

"Senators and Congressmen will come back in September afraid to vote against the American people," DeMint predicted, adding that "this health care issue Is D-Day for freedom in America."

"If we're able to stop Obama on this it will be his Waterloo. It will break him," he said.

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Comments

[Andrea Castillo]

01:00 PM on 07/30/2009

Great success.

[fal]

10:45 AM on 07/26/2009

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jul/26/us-healthcare-obama-barack-change

posted by another Huffington poster (thinkagain2- I think)

re: industry insider of the health care insurance industry

[mheister]

02:51 AM on 07/26/2009

Can we do to this "Gang of Six" what China did to the "Gang of Four"?

[fal]

03:24 PM on 07/22/2009

Are HHayden and Mike42nola representatives/employees of insurance companies?

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/07102009/watch2.html

http://www.prwatch.org/cmd/bios.php/Wendell_Potter

[SayLessDoMore]

05:46 PM on 07/22/2009

Excellent information ... and a very good question.

Let's invite them to answer it. They can lie, of course, but would be interesting to hear from them. Still out there, boys? (Or girls)

[SayLessDoMore]

05:56 PM on 07/22/2009

In fact, for hhayden, almost 1300 posts in a month ... predominantly on health care issues. Makes you wonder, huh?

[fal]

08:36 AM on 07/23/2009

Good catch.

-Same question for GeorgeJ- Are HHayden, Mike42nola and GeorgeJ representatives/employees/private contractors of insurance companies or lobbyists for insurance companies?

-A familiar tell when a question hits home- Reply: "Don't be silly."

[cinderrelic]

01:17 PM on 07/22/2009

It is a shame that we have legislators who are more interested in breaking Obama than ensuring that all Americans get good quality and affordable healthcare. Contact your legislators and tell them DON'T LET THEM STEAL OUR PUBLIC OPTION! If they can't put the wishes of 72 percent of our citizens above trying to crush Obama they need to go home with the next election. They are only listening to a handful of misinformed or politically motivated constituents who don't have the best interest of this country or its citizens at heart.

[hhayden]

02:04 PM on 07/22/2009

If good quality and affordable health care would be what we were getting that would be one thing, but some of us doub't that this would be the out come. This is the government you know. So far the Obama administration has been a trail of lies and broken promises. Why shold I think this would be different? If this scheme is so wonderful, what's the hurry? And it's not that someone might be passing away this afternoon, even if Obama gets his way this scam won't go into effect for years.

[fal]

09:59 AM on 07/22/2009

Are HHayden and Mike42nola lobbyists?

[hhayden]

02:06 PM on 07/22/2009

Don't be silly. Who'd pay us to chat with you lot? Some people just think we should abide by the Constitution. Silly old rag I know, but some of us still like it

[fal]

03:15 PM on 07/22/2009

Exactly.

[SayLessDoMore]

05:49 PM on 07/22/2009

Who'd pay? Insurance companies, that's who. In a money fight this big, all tactics are being funded.

And, BTW, how can you like a document you don't know anything about?

[tandrmcdonald]

10:02 AM on 07/21/2009

The best health care system is the one enjoyed by our legislators; it pays for everything, someone else pays for it (us), and they don't lose it if and when they lose their job. Can't get much better than that. I think the media should start including one factoid with every article they publish about the legislators who oppose health care reform. List, in great big letters, how much money these shills are raking in from the industry. More than anything else that will demonstrate exactly where their "heart" lies.

[Tyler-Durden]

01:33 PM on 07/21/2009

the media? which media? the MSM is run by their friends. all the elitists are in "cahoots". come on! we are the sheep who provide the labor, pay the bill, while they take trips, live in mansions, party with call girls, etc.

WE MUST TAKE CONTROL BACK FROM THE ELITISTS by electing honest, working class people to office. they're out there, and we have to find them, endorse them, and make them popular enough to overcome the lobbyist machine. IT CAN BE DONE.

[hhayden]

04:38 PM on 07/21/2009

Golly, just call in an airstrike on Cahoots and your problems will be over.

Trouble is, the folks who determine who the candidates are will never offer up those candidates. Real honest people can't get the funding to compete. And many potentially good people don't want to put themselves in to the political wringer. Look what they have done to Palin for having the nerve to answer her parties call. So what we get is scallywags and opportunists.

[hhayden]

03:12 PM on 07/21/2009

How about the congress people who are backing Obamacare because they will not suffer under it?

[quisp65]

08:05 AM on 07/21/2009

Probably couldn't happen but the best health system is the US Vet health care system. Inexpensive, safe, and the middle class can afford for the most expensive surgeries if they had too. It was created by no insurance, little government intrusion and capitalism!

[helpusa]

01:48 AM on 07/21/2009

I can't believe all the negative wrenches being thrown out into this issue. I'm getting really worried that we are not going to get this plan passed. You Blue Dogs, you Republicans, you haters of the poor and lovers of the rich insurance companies should be ashamed of yourselves. I cannot tell you how much I resent you believing that we can't have a public option health plan that doesn't profit CEO's making millions of dollars a year. HELP, HELP, HELP. This country has lost its way and we are all going to lose.
DO NOT ALLOW THE HEALTH CARE REFORM NOT TO PASS, PLEASE. We are all so stressed out over worrying about our health and possibly losing the roof over our heads if we get sick, while many other countries by a huge percentage love their national health care. We are so 20th century in comparison.

[mike42nola]

11:41 AM on 07/21/2009

Answer a few questions about this so called health care reform and you may be able to sway me to support it.
1) How much will it cost per year and what is the annual adjustment for inflation?
2) How will we pay for this program?
3) What benefits will it provide?
4) What savings over the current system will be realized?
5) Will it keep senior citizens on their current Medicare and Medicaid plans?

I am sure that lots of people would like to see some type of overall government reform. The only problem is that everytime the government tries to reform itself they end up taking more control, spending more money, giving fewer benefits of the programs to the people and raising taxes.
The people keep getting less and less and the government keep taking more and more control.

Answer these simple questions and I will write my Senator for the passage of the bill if it makes sense.

[Elle Bach]

02:05 PM on 07/21/2009

Your questions are arrogant time-wasters.

1) It will cost about the same as the Iraq and Afghanistan wars (@1 trillion) and the bailouts of all the excessively greedy financial leviathans the Repugs lost control of, which will cost us our hard-earned tax dollars for years to come. If we can waste money fighting wars just to feed the egos of stupid, arrogant, cowboy neocons, and save the financial butts of WS gamblers, surely we can find a way to pay for decent healthcare for all the citizens of the ONLY industrialized country in the world still slaving away to make insurance company exec’s rich..
2) Everyone will have to sacrifice. Especially the uber-wealthy who’ve been living the life of Riley as beneficiaries of obscene tax cuts while the middle class has carried the water for the entire country.
3) Nothing about Medicare is “scary.” I’ve had excellent care (for MS) for 10 years, the best doctors, specialists– including two major back surgeries -- and an on-going monthly expense for medical supplies that runs $800 mo….all paid for. The fear-mongering is a shallow appeal to ignorance.
4) Medicare and Medicaid, VA and CHIP provide adequate templates for excellent, affordable healthcare.
5) You’re kidding, right? Cutting out the “for-profit” shenanigans increasing the cost of healthcare ecponentially will be savings enough.
6) Yes.

It’s easy to engender distrust in government because America’s had so little experience with smart ones. But, times they are a-changing.

[hhayden]

03:20 PM on 07/21/2009

Those are good questions and there are many more, like what products and activities will the government want to ban because they say it will drive up health costs?

Don't expect any answers from Obamacare's Don't ask, don't tell policy.

[mollyjackson]

03:21 PM on 07/21/2009

Responsibility -- is a key word. As you may know, almost half of those un-insured can affore health care .... they just choose not to pay for any, that called lack-of-responsibility. A large number of the other half is non-citizens, and they are ther responsibility of their country, not ours. That leaves a few million of our citizens without coverage, but we take care of them with welfare.

[SayLessDoMore]

08:57 PM on 07/20/2009

FWIW, the sentiment that we all should share is that it is more important to get it right than to get it over with. The problem is that the evolution of complex legislation is a whole lot worse than making sausage. What we are ending up with is a couple of good ideas adulterated with pork fat amendments.

Face it. Defenders of the corporate welfare state -- including all of you misguided "libertarians" who, if sincere, need some help in re-learning the history of America's robber barons -- are never going to support anything that would force private companies to give up the power to decide what health care patients get, let alone lower administrative costs and compete for premium dollars. And all the truly-enlightened-champions-of-everything-that-is-best-about-America know that a single-payer universal plan ultimately will restore American capital industries and shift the burden of taxation off of state and local government.

So, we frankly should take 3 steps back, and fight the fight that really counts. Quit pretending that this issue can be suitably resolved by trying to satisfy everybody up front, and pass a bill that implements the best of a government-supported system. And then step back and watch how fast everybody who said they were against it sign on to the program.

[hhayden]

09:43 PM on 07/20/2009

Regardlees of any compelling arguments that the left can devise, I can't get passed the feeling that the government has a hidden agenda like it often does and somewhere down the line we will find out what it is to our discomfort. What will they say? We read the numbers wrong? We were misled by who knows who? Well, we had to do "something". The situation was worse than we thought? But we will be stuck then. This is the party of excuses promoting this.

[SayLessDoMore]

01:35 AM on 07/21/2009

C'mon. One can't pontificate about "we the people" and personal liberty in one breath; praise the spirit of the founding fathers and our American constitution in another; and, then reject "the government" and politics in the very next and claim virtuous citizenship.

Us vs. them? The idea that every situation can be reduced to the people who agree with you vs. the bad people should have been left behind in junior high school. Newsflash ... we ARE them.

"We Have Met The Enemy and He Is Us." -Pogo.

[hhayden]

07:29 PM on 07/20/2009

I would like to compliment most of the recent postees on this issue here. Even the ones I don't agree with. Most posts have been thoughtful and without much name calling. Keep it up.

[mike42nola]

02:30 PM on 07/20/2009

Everybody that is for this massive control of our healthcare by the government is saying that the CBO isn't taking into account the savings that will be realized by implementation of this bill.
Please provide me with solid factual evidence of where we will save over one hundred and fifty billion a year by passing this piece of legislation.
I am open to meaningful discussion on this but so far I have only seen partial cost estimates and nothing on what it will actually do for us and how we will pay for it.
If someone can provide that for me I would appreciate it.

[hhayden]

04:02 PM on 07/20/2009

It should be clear that those backing socialized medicine don't want these questions asked because the answers either arn't there, or hurt their argument.

[mike42nola]

04:05 PM on 07/20/2009

I am serious about investigating and reading up on the cost savings that are talked about but I have not seen anything that comes close to being factually based. All I hear is that there will be cost savings. I would love for someone to point me in the right direction so I can make this determination for myself.
If the program is so good and will save so much money it can pay for itself I wouldn't be opposed to it but right now all I see is an expansion of government control into our lives for the sake of control.

[missdk]

05:00 PM on 07/20/2009

Socialized medicine? I'm unaware of any movement that supports that.

[yorkmapper]

02:00 PM on 07/20/2009

We need health care reform now. We need a portable health care plan and one where my care is not dictated by some corporate bean counter whose only concern is corporate profit rather than the health of my family.
I am willing to pay my share. Like when my premiums increased by 30% in one year to $700 per month. There is no reason to have the insurance companies - they are just greedy middlemen.
Where did all of my premiums go when I did not use health care services? It went to other people of that insurance plan - thats socialism too. And most of it went to line the pockets of CEOs who get $25 million salaries.

[mike42nola]

02:15 PM on 07/20/2009

All of the analysts say that the health insurance companies stand to make the biggest gains out of any type of universal health care. Wise up. They are not talking about getting rid of the big insurance companies, only making them bigger.

[hhayden]

04:07 PM on 07/20/2009

So, why not reform private health care rather than turn our fate over to government bean counters who's only concern is their own power and control?

[mike42nola]

04:16 PM on 07/20/2009

I believe that was pretty much what was promised by the President during his campaign along with allowing people to BUY into the public option of federal health care.
Do the Senators get free healthcare or do they make a copay like all most private corporate group health coverages do?
I am really not sure what would be reformed in the private health care sector except to remove government regulations and allow health insurance carriers to compete in a free market.
There have already been laws passed that don't allow insurance company's to exclude pre-existing conditions. There are laws that don't allow corporate executives to have a better benefit than what is offered to all of the rest of the workers.
Maybe allow part time employees to buy into the company group health plan would be the only area of reform that I know of that would benefit.
Again, how do you make 20 million people that refuse to buy into the company's group health plan get coverage?

[uvymopka]

08:55 AM on 07/20/2009

If you want health care pay for it yourself, don't ask others to do it for you. And remember .....no one owes you anything.

[hhayden]

11:13 AM on 07/20/2009

True. Is there anything Liberals want to be responsible for themselves?

[mike42nola]

04:08 PM on 07/20/2009

I couldn't agree with you more. Nobody owes anybody else anything. I contribute to charity by choice. The government taking my money to do whatever it wants with it is confiscation and redistribution of wealth and we all should be opposed to that ideology.
Where will it stop? Why do we punish over achievers? Where do people get this idea that a bigger federal government is going to be good for us when a smaller government has failed at almost everything they have done?
Let's be real about all of this.

[hhayden]

04:47 PM on 07/20/2009

Some people have utopian dreams and don't care or realize that the government will not live up to them. Some who can't do for themselves want the government to do everything for them - and they want to drag the rest of us along with them.

[missdk]

05:08 PM on 07/20/2009

Overachievers? Rich =/= hard working and poor =/= lazy.

Either way it doesn't matter, you end up paying for the uninsured out of pocket because it is against federal law to turn people away from hospitals. They can be lazy, alcoholic, crack head, welfare mothers. It doesn't matter - they will never be turned away from care because we are not a cruel and sadistic country. So why not create a public option that will diminish that cost to you and create a healthier environment? Healthier people = better economy. It's win win.

[ReedYoung]

01:02 AM on 07/20/2009

Ron Wyden won't have another term in Oregon.

[hhayden]

01:47 AM on 07/20/2009

Great. Time we had a Libertarian there.