Final House Health Care Bill Unveiled

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) unveiled a revised health care reform bill -- known as a manager's amendment -- Tuesday evening after taking the concerns of her caucus into account.

Pelosi said late last week that she was leaning against allowing individual floor amendments, so what you see here is likely what you get.

If it passes the House, it'll be merged with the Senate version in conference committee and then will come back for one final vote before heading to the president's desk.

Rival factions within the party still differ on how far the bill should go to prevent any money that has somehow come into contact with federal money from then funding abortions, whether undocumented workers can somehow participate in the health care system short of getting treated for free in hospital emergency rooms, and whether states should be allowed to choose to move to a single-payer system if they decide to, among other differences.

The House health care bill unveiled Thursday was stripped of a provision that would allow individual states to implement single-payer health care if they elected to. HuffPost readers read through it and found that it also requires chain restaurants with more than 20 locations to post calorie information on the menu. It bars the federal government from bailing out the public option and adds that there "shall be no administrative or judicial review of a payment rate or methodology" established by the head of the public insurance plan. And it addresses health disparities while making specific reference to protecting populations discriminated against due to sexual orientation or gender identity.

The stripping of the single-payer provision, which Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) originally moved through the Education and Labor Committee, particularly galled HuffPost readers as well as Kucinich himself. Kucinich tells HuffPost that the Congressional Budget Office scored his amendment as having zero effect on the federal budget, a sign that it was at least considered to be included in the manager's amendment.

Kevin McKeown, a city councilmember from Santa Monica, California, wrote in to protest the removal, arguing that if California passes single-payer legislation, it ought to be allowed to become law. "This year I had our city finance department calculate how much money single-payer would save just our city, just on health care for our own employees," said McKeown. "States poised to enact their own single-payer should not be disempowered by this bill."

Another reader, Jake Orlando, noted that the bill specifically mentions gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people in a section dedicated to addressing health disparities. "It's a quite small mention, but at least worth noting in the LGBT community," Orlando writes. "We know the Republicans would have gone out of their way to exclude us from mention of existence."

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Fernando Castro noticed that the bill will require chain restaurants to publish calorie content on the menus. It'll be tough to reduce health care costs, after all, if the obesity epidemic continues apace.

Section 2572 requires that restaurants with more than 20 locations "shall disclose in a clear and conspicuous manner in a nutrient content disclosure statement adjacent to the name of the standard menu item, so as to be clearly associated with the standard menu item, on the menu listing the item for sale, the number of calories contained in the standard menu item, as usually prepared and offered for sale."

Reader Zen Tiger noted that while the government freely bails out Wall Street when it runs into trouble, no such help would be forthcoming for the public health insurance option.

"In no case shall the public health insurance option receive any Federal funds for purposes of insolvency in any manner similar to the manner in which entities receive Federal funding under the Troubled Assets Relief Program of the Secretary of the Treasury," reads the bill.

A high number of readers wrote in surprised that the public option was as limited as it is in the bill. That surprise is partly the fault of reporters - including myself - who haven't been clear that only certain people would be eligible for it. If you have employer coverage, for instance, you're not eligible. However, this FDL post from Jon Walker explains how the number of people eligible for it is liable to expand over time.

Thanks to the many people who read parts of the nearly 2,000 page health care bill last week. If you give this one a look and find anything interesting, let me know at [e-mail]. If you don't want your name published, please say so. We'll post the bill as soon as it's out.

UPDATE: It's out. The manager's amendment is a scant 42 pages long and amends the bill as introduced.

Comments

[KEATSnSKYESMOM]

I have been a life long democrat and a progressive one at that but think I am going to switch to the green party. This bill (in whatever form other than HR 676) is not going to do me any good. I have employee benefits which require me to pay up to 5K per year for Medical and 770 a year for prescriptions and lets not talk about vision and dental plans. I have pleaded with my officials to not vote for these 'bills'. I started to read the last bill but got thrown off by all of the legal speak. My tax dollars are paying off the corporate terrorists . . . but are not available for a public option; why not? I would much rather pay higher taxes to ensure me, my family and everyone else has medical benefits. Who gives a crap about calorie counts on fast food?! How about making healthy food more affordable. Ugh this is making me sad and breaking my heart for this country.

[Chili4me]

Looks like Nancy snapped her face on different this morning.

[Coinyer101]

What a travesty this has become......,I would not blame any progressive for voting 'nay'......,

[Chili4me]

Oh it's all in now baby.

Now we get a POS nobody wants!!!

Congrats Libs!!!!!!!

[Coinyer101]

'Libs' may not be yer 'enemy' , here, Chili4me. Many libs may not support this, now.....,

[1010TRAVIS]

we need reform not a single payer health care system, after the 2000 pages of legislation 15 to 30 million are still left out.....what is this

[Coinyer101]

Well, this dammed sure isn't single-payer, if that's what ya think....., Single-payer would cover everyone, and cost the least to implement, and reduce overall costs the most, and be fair and equal for everyone......,

[oliv0128]

I am really disappointed in the House. I was hopeful that they would come up with something better than this!

[freelyb]

Scrap the whole issue until we can change the moral nature of our Congress and our administration.

[Chili4me]

Now you libs are starting to get it.

[Marcospinelli]

Do you know what's in the Senate health care bill (S. 1679)?

Money for prayer treatment.

http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-na-health-religion3-2009nov03,0,2239900.story?track=rss

Reproductive care, like abortion, no, but we'll be paying for prayer treatments as if they were legitimate medical expenses.

[themainpoint]

As one of our founders wrote in the Federalist no. 62:

"It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man who knows what the law is today can guess what it will be tomorrow. Law is defined to be a rule of action; but how can that be a rule which is little known, and less fixed?"

[Coinyer101]

I don't expect much liberal support for this, anymore.....,

[dbailey]

in answer to tax man 92571, liberals are not blasting the airwaves about moderates who are voting common sense. We are blasting moderate blue dog dems who are not voting their constituency. If they were truly in states that did not support the public option then we would expect them to vote accordingly regardless of Party. They are in states overwhelminly supportive of the public option and were elected by the people to support that agenda. they are elected officials. public servants. and they forget that. They are the highest receivers of ins lobby monies. The public option is common sense. What doesn't make sense if that people like you think they have a right to put a price tag on peoples health. Everything in life can't be about money all the time. There's such a thing as fairness, justice,, integrity and morality and myself, my children and grandchildren would willingly pay the price or years to come if it will help those that are the least of us. I'm a christian and want to stand on judgement day and be able to say more than I was fiscally responsible.

[Jayk4444]

Would you burn the house to stay warm? Emotional and ideological issues are good for rallying support for reform, however costs of any program cannot be ignored or there will be dire consequences for the rest of the economy.

[Samalabear]

Here is another, IMHO, excellent article from BAR entitled If Democrats Don't Pass Health Insurance Reform This Year What Do We Lose and What Do We Gain?

http://www.blackagendareport.com/?q=content/if-democrats-dont-pass-health-insurance-reform-year-what-do-we-lose-and-what-do-we-gain

[saveal]

We must ask ourselves what our government trying to do, what end are they after. Sometimes they slip up and give us a hint.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niJAkR_6tKQ

[Fotios]

Your link has nothing to do with the healthcare debate. Please don't spam this comment section. We don't care about your McCarthyism red scare tactics.

[saveal]

Yes Mam.

A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.
Thomas Jefferson

[saveal]

Barack Obama and the Strategy of Manufactured Crisis

http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/09/barack_obama_and_the_strategy.html

[Marcospinelli]

Do you realize that the American people are the government?

[tran23]

This amounts to another corporate bailout, this time for the insurance industry. This bailout is unusual since Congress is not stealing our tax dollars, they're mandating we pay the insurance cartel directly. Let's see, the insurance industry gets about 40 million new customers at an average of $400 per month. That's a bailout of about 192 billion dollars per year, resting on the backs of the middle class. That's more than the total bailout for AIG, only this one's yearly.

[Patriot86]

I can not support a bill this bad...and I really want health insurance.

[Marcospinelli]

No, you don't want health INSURANCE; you want medical care that you can afford.

Obama (and both sides of the aisle of Congress) are trying to institutionalize the privatized insurance industry into our healthcare delivery system.

That chit's gotta end.

[saveal]

One of two things must be true. Either the Democrats are unfathomable idiots, who ignorantly pursue ever more destructive policies despite decades of contrary evidence, or they understand the consequences of their actions and relentlessly carry on anyway because they somehow benefit.


I submit to you they understand the consequences. For many it is simply a practical matter of eliciting votes from a targeted constituency at taxpayer expense; we lose a little, they gain a lot, and the politician keeps his job. But for others, the goal is more malevolent - the failure is deliberate. Don't laugh. This method not only has its proponents, it has a name: the Cloward-Piven Strategy. It describes their agenda, tactics, and long-term strategy.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/09/barack_obama_and_the_strategy.html

The Strategy was first elucidated in the May 2, 1966 issue of The Nation magazine by a pair of radical socialist Columbia University professors, Richard Andrew Cloward and Frances Fox Piven. David Horowitz summarizes it as:


The strategy of forcing political change through orchestrated crisis. The "Cloward-Piven Strategy" seeks to hasten the fall of capitalism by overloading the government bureaucracy with a flood of impossible demands, thus pushing society into crisis and economic collapse

[Patriot86]

I do not buy this... the Dems get money from the insurance industry and from Wall Street and it shows.

[lifeagain]

So Pelosi is going to mandate the states take on Health Care. If they go in the red, they will have to pay for it. The Federal Government will have no financial obligation. If this fails, your taxes will go sky high

[Patriot86]

States will opt out and then insurance companies get what they want...new customers forced to buy health insurance at whatever rates the insurance companies want. This is a bad bail and should fail Shame on you Dems.