Details of Baucus health care plan coming to light

ABC News Senior Congressional Correspondent Jonathan Karl has seen a draft of Baucus' proposed health care bill in the Senate Finance Committee. Baucus was reportedly going to meet with the so-called "Gang of Six" this afternoon and give them a take-it-or-leave it proposition for the bill, according to George Stephanopoulos.

According to Karl, here are some of the key points in the bill:

- By 2013, Americans would be required to have health insurance or pay a fine. Depending on income level, the fines could be as high as $3800 per family.

- Native Americans, the very poor and those with religious objections are exempt from this new mandate.

- There’s no mandate on companies to provide insurance to their employees.

- Health insurance companies bear a big share of the costs with two new taxes:

• A $6 billion annual tax that will be divided among companies based on market share
• A tax on so-called Cadillac plans; insurance plans valued at more than $8,000 for individuals or $21,000 for a family of four.

- Expansion of Medicaid to those up to 133 percent of the poverty level.

- Federal subsidies to help those up to 300 percent of the poverty level buy insurance

- No new government-run insurance program, aka “public option”

- As an alternative to the public option, the bill creates and funds non-profit “cooperatives” that will provide insurance coverage

- New regulations on insurance companies: e.g. Bans denial of coverage or higher rates b/c of pre-existing conditions. Insurance companies would still be allowed, however, to charge higher rates for smokers.

Baucus' plan is already taking a heat from the left.

Meanwhile, according to the New York Times, President Obama was meeting with Democratic leaders on the eve of his major health care speech tomorrow to plot a strategy for pushing health care reform forward. The White House wouldn't comment on how Baucus' plan fits into the mix.

Administration officials have declined to discuss in depth either Mr. Baucus’s plan or the president’s speech, which Mr. Obama will deliver Wednesday night to a joint session of Congress. But the officials welcomed Mr. Baucus’s draft as important progress just as lawmakers are returning this week from their summer recess.

Stay tuned.

784 tickets snapped up in a hurry for Obama's Bozeman town hall

I just got back from Belgrade and Bozeman where hundreds of people lined up to get tickets to President Barack Obama’s health care town hall meeting tomorrow. Here are a few notes from the scene. (Their will be more in tomorrow’s Great Falls Tribune).

I arrived at the Belgrade City Hall at about 8:15 a.m. By the time I parked my car and walked the three blocks to City Hall, the hundreds of people who were in line were already dispersing. The media advisory said tickets would be made available at 9 a.m., but by 8:15 a.m. they were all snapped up.

The man who was informing people in line that the tickets were gone said there were only 150 tickets available at the Belgrade City Hall.

Most of the people who got the tickets had been in line since yesterday afternoon. Great Falls resident Walter Brown, 86, and his wheelchair-bound grandson, Patrick McCarthy, 21, were in line by 4 p.m. Wednesday. (More on Walter and Patrick in tomorrow’s Trib).

The vast majority of people in line—including those who got tickets—appeared to be Obama supporters. I did talk to a Helena couple opposed to the President’s health care plan who got tickets. I didn’t get the sense that there were many opponents—Tea Party members or otherwise—waiting in line for tickets.

By the time I got to Bozeman, at about 9:05 a.m., the line at city hall was gone. There were still a few people standing around signing petitions in favor of health care reform, but the tickets went fast. The police officers who were managing the scene said there were only 634 tickets available. Since each person could get two tickets, that means only 317 or so were lucky enough to get tickets in Bozeman, and 75 people scored tickets in Belgrade.

I called the White House press office to try to find out how many people in all will be invited to the event, but I haven’t heard back. Rumor has it there will be a lot more than 784 people at the event, but I haven’t confirmed that.

Keep checking The Lowdown for the latest information and be sure to read tomorrow’s Great Falls Tribune for news and analysis of President Barack Obama’s health care town hall. I'll bring the laptop and hopefully I'll be able to do a bit of blogging from the scene. No promises on that front though. It could get crazy.

Obama town hall details, ticket information released

Just in from White House press office:

First Family to Arrive in Montana, President Obama to Hold Health Care Town Hall

WASHINGTON – On Friday August 14, 2009, President Barack Obama and the First Family will arrive in Montana and President Obama will hold a town hall meeting in Belgrade. At the President’s town hall, he will discuss how under health insurance reform, insurance companies will be prohibited from dropping or watering down insurance coverage for those who become seriously ill. To read more about consumer protections under health insurance reform, click here: LINK.

After Montana, the First Family will travel to Yellowstone, WY and Grand Junction, CO where the President will hold a town hall on eliminating unlimited out of pocket costs such as co-pays and deductibles. They will also travel to the Grand Canyon and Phoenix, AZ before returning to Washington. Earlier this week, the President held a town hall in Portsmouth, NH that was focused on how under health insurance reform, there will be no discrimination for pre-existing conditions – that insurance companies will be prohibited from refusing you coverage because of your medical history.

[The event is at the Belgrade Airport]

Gates Open: 10:45 a.m. local time

Program Begins: 12:55 p.m. local time

Members of the general public: The event is free and open to the public. Tickets are required and will be available at the following ticket distribution location beginning at 9:00 a.m. Thursday, August 13. Tickets will be limited to two per person and will be distributed on a first-come, first-served basis.

Bozeman City Hall

121 N Rouse St.

Bozeman, MT 59715

Belgrade City Hall

91 E Central Ave.

Belgrade, MT

For security reasons, do not bring bags and limit personal items. No signs or banners permitted. All attendees will go through airport-like security. Due to limited space at the event the White House will only be able to fulfill a limited number of requests for tickets. Tickets are not for sale or re-sale.

General Public Parking: Limited, but on site.

Obama’s top targeter: “I’m very bullish on Montana” in 2012

Ken Strasma, founder of the microtargeting firm Strategic Telemetry, is the Democrats’ answer to Karl Rove. Strasma and his company provide microtargeting, data analysis, strategic consulting and other services to Democratic candidates.

Basically, Strasma uses a combination of telephone polling and marketing data to develop campaign messages that resonate with swing voters. Strasma was Barack Obama’s national targeting director and played a key role in Obama's success in 2008.

Strasma told Tom Schaller in an interview for FiveThirtyEight.com that Montana is his “number one pick to flip in 2012.”

“I'm very bullish on Montana. It is currently my number one pick to flip in 2012. Energy, land-management and environmental issues are key in Montana and the Dakotas. If, after four years, voters there see that Obama’s policies aren’t the caricatures that Republicans have claimed, we should do quite well.”

Some readers over at FiveThirdyEight weren’t buying Strasma’s analysis. Many readers said Missouri has a much better chance to flip for Obama 2012 than Montana. McCain won Missouri by the thinnest of margins: 49.4 percent to Obama’s 49.3 percent. Montana was a close race, with McCain garnering 49.7 percent and Obama picking up 47.2 percent, but it was a difference of 2.5 percent. Missouri was less than two tenths of a percent.

I found this analysis, by commenter e3323 particularly entertaining:

“…I can not imagine a realistic 2012 scenario where MONTANA makes the difference between winning and losing the whole election.

Like...I cant imagine being up at 2:30AM on November 7th 2012, watching CNN and looking at the magic map with every state in red or blue but Montana and hearing Wolf Blitzer say ‘We still can not make a projection for Montana but with 89 percent of the vote in President Obama trails Newt Gingrich by 1,283 votes, however *zooms in on map* Deer Lodge County, an obama stronghold with a high Native American population, only 76 percent of the vote counted, If these numbers hold up Obama could potentially catch up to Gingrich and win the state and thus the election. Again nether candidate has reached the magic number of 270 but the winner in Montana will be the winner of the election.’”

No i'm sorry...I cant imagine THAT."

Wouldn’t that be something?

e3323 probably has a point. After all, Montana has only three electoral votes to Missouri’s 11. Seems to me the Obama campaign would go after those two tenths of a percent and 11 electoral votes in Missouri before they’d make a hard run at Montana’s 3 electoral votes.

That said, we saw Obama in Montana, what?…three times during last year's campaing? Is his visit to Bozeman next week a sign that he is already taking aim at Montana for 2012? After all, midterm elections are only 452 days away and after that the 2012 presidential race begins.

I wonder if the days of presidential candidates flying over Montana on their way to bigger and better destinations are over. If Obama's 50-state strategy pays off again in 2012, could we be entering an era in which Montana gets to play ball in every presidential election? And what does that mean for Montana in the long run? Discuss...

Groups opposed to Democrats' health care reform proposals plan to attend Obama event in Bozeman

President Barack Obama’s reported visit to Bozeman next week could face the same kind of disruptions Democratic members of Congress are dealing with around the country as lawmakers head back to their districts for their August recess.

As Democrats and Republicans continue to battle over national health care reform, conservative groups are descending on "town hall” meetings and doing their best to heckle Democratic lawmakers and disrupt their listening sessions.

“I had felt they would be pointless,” Rep. Tim Bishop (D-N.Y.) told POLITICO, referring to his recent decision to temporarily suspend the events in his Long Island district. “There is no point in meeting with my constituents and [to] listen to them and have them listen to you if what is basically an unruly mob prevents you from having an intelligent conversation.”

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0709/25646.html#ixzz0NQPM8jYM

The White House won’t confirm Obama’s visit to Montana, but multiple sources are reporting that Obama plans to hold some kind of town hall meeting at an airport hanger in Bozeman on Aug. 14. Most observers believe Obama is coming to Montana to push his plan for health care reform. Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus is the Senate’s point man on reform, and so far bipartisan negotiations between three Democrats and three Republicans on the committee have failed to produce a bipartisan bill. Baucus reportedly set Sept. 15 as the deadline for the so-called “gang of six” to strike a deal on a reform bill.

Last night on NBC Nightly News, Obama indicated that if a bipartisan deal can’t be reached, then he’s willing to move forward on reform without the support of Republicans.

"I am glad that in the Senate Finance Committee there have been a couple of Republicans … who've been willing to negotiate with Democrats to try to produce a bill," Obama told NBC News on Wednesday. "But they haven't yet. And I think at some point, some time in September, we're just going to have to make an assessment."

"I would prefer Republicans working with us on that, because I think it's in the interest of everybody. It shouldn't be a partisan issue," he added in the interview. "The bottom line is the American people, the American economy, and the federal budget, have to have some sort of reforms in the health-care system. And failure is not an option this year."

You can watch the full interview with NBC’s Chuck Todd in the video lower down in this post.

Meanwhile, conservative groups opposed to Obama’s health care reform plans are now mobilizing in Montana. I just received this from “Americans for Prosperity,” a well-funded anti-reform group that also helped organize anti-tax “tea party” protests around the state and country earlier this year:

As Montana’s Congressional Delegation travels back home over the legislative recess to hear from their constituents, Americans for Prosperity’s Patients First Bus Tour will hit the road, too. The tour will urge grassroots activists to speak out on behalf of patients and against a government takeover of health care.

“Montanans are fired up about health care, and the bus tour gives more people the opportunity to come out and get involved,” said Abby Markham, spokesperson for Patients First’s Montana effort. “They’ve heard enough proposals from Washington that give government all the decision-making power. It is time for citizens to tell Congress to stop, turn around, and pursue real reforms that put patients first.”

The group plans to send a bus to the Obama event in Bozeman. You can read the full release along with bus stop dates and locations here.

According to Media Matters for America—a “Web-based, not-for-profit, 501(c)(3) progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media.”—the town hall disruptions are part of an organized campaign by conservative anti-reform groups.

Conservative organizations opposed to health care reform -- including FreedomWorks, Americans for Prosperity, and Conservatives for Patients' Rights -- are conducting a campaign to turn out their supporters to attend those events. CPR has reportedly "confirmed that it has undertaken a concerted effort to get people out to the town hall meetings to protest reform," while FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity have reportedly "organized" the town hall protestors and are "harnessing social networking Web sites to organize their supporters in much the same way Mr. Obama did during his election campaign." [Greg Sargent, The Plum Line, 8/4/09; The New York Times, 8/3/09]

I’ll keep updating The Lowdown as I learn more about Obama’s visit.

Here's the NBC interview with Obama:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Obama coming to Montana

Numerous blogs are reporting that President Barack Obama will be in Bozeman next week. (I believe Missoula blogger jhwygirl of 4and20blackbirds broke the news last night.)

According to the reports, Obama will be in Bozeman on August 14 for a town hall meeting. KECI in Missoula has confirmed the reports.

Details are fuzzy, but according to 4and20blackbirds, Obama and his wife Michelle will be taking part in a town hall meeting at an airport hangar. Then Obama is supposedly heading to Big Sky—or thereabouts—to meet with Montana Sens. Max Baucus and Jon Tester.

I haven’t been able to confirm any of this with Tester or Baucus’ people.

The purpose of Obama’s visit is unclear, but you could probably place a safe bet that health care reform will top the President’s agenda.

Baucus has been spearheading “bipartisan” negotiations on health care reform in the Senate Finance Committee and he’s been taking a lot of heat from the left in the process. The Hill recently reported that some liberal Democrats in Congress are threatening to implement a secret-ballot vote every two years on whether or not to strip committee chairmen of their gavels. The Hill said the move was a warning to Baucus to stop bending to GOP demands on health care legislation.

Yesterday the Washington Post reported that Obama and the Democrats are beginning to lose patience with the bipartisan negotiations.

Baucus said a bipartisan bill remains Obama's "predilection," but he said that at a White House lunch today with Democratic senators the president expressed concerns about whether the goal was attainable. A coalition of six Finance senators -- three from each party -- are seeking a deal that would produce the consensus version of health-care reform. Baucus has set a Sept. 15 deadline for the group to complete its work.

"There may come a time after some time later this year, we may have to make other decisions," Baucus said. He said Obama "wants results." "He's not going to just keep negotiating something that's not getting anywhere," Baucus said. "But that's a judgment call."

I’ll update The Lowdown as soon as I have more details about Obama’s visit to Montana.

UPDATE: Just got off the phone with the White House press office. "We don't have anything to report..." was the word from on high, but I got the sense that President Obama is planning something here in Montana. Baucus and Tester's staffers have not confirmed anything either at this point though I imagine we'll hear something this week.

This week in health care reform

Single-payer gets a hearing

Tomorrow morning the House Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions Subcommittee, chaired by Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., is holding a hearing to examine the single-payer health care option.

Single-payer advocates across the country are thrilled, because tomorrow’s hearing marks the first time Congress has opened the door and invited them to officially take part in the health care reform discussion.

Anyone who has followed this raging debate over the past couple months knows that Montana’s Sen. Max Baucus, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, has thus far refused to consider single-payer or even let single-payer advocates take part in Senate hearings.

Last month Baucus had 13 protesters arrested for disrupting two committee hearings and demanding that Baucus include single-payer in the discussion.

That incident, and Baucus' refusal to include single-payer, sparked protests across Montana last week:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Are Baucus and Obama parting ways on the "public option"?

In a letter sent to Baucus and Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy last week, Obama said he wants any bill that reaches his desk to include a strong public option. Baucus has previously said he supports the idea of a public option, in which the federal government would manage a health insurance plan that would compete alongside private insurance companies. But Baucus has also insisted that any bill that makes it out of the Senate Finance Committee has to be a "bi-partisan" bill. So far, conservatives in Congress are lining up to oppose that idea.

Now, according to this New York Times interview with Baucus and Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, the ranking Republican on the finance committee, Baucus appears to be backing off his support of a public plan. Here's what he had to say about it (it's at the 6:20 mark in the video):

"Now some suggest that maybe this so-called public option is necessary to keep insurance companies feet to the fire. That's an argument that we hear around here. My point is that there is less need for that...if we really do a good job reforming the health insurance industry."

Less need for public option? Is that Obama's position? Baucus should know what's on Obama's mind, because after all Baucus’ former chief of staff, Jim Messina, is now Obama's deputy chief of staff. And as New York Times Magazine Washington correspondent Matt Bai pointed out on the News Hour last night, the relationship between Baucus, Messina and Obama is not “incidental," especially when it comes to health care reform.

“Jim Messina is the deputy chief of staff in the White House. He's also not just a former chief of staff for Senator Baucus. Senator Baucus at one point has said this is like another son to him.

And so that's been, I think, critical, because, you know, the president and Senator Baucus do not have a strong relationship. They didn't know each other well in the Senate. But they've put a lot of effort into building that relationship in the last couple months, and a key part of that is him being able to call his former confidante and either vent, or get something across, or hear what's being thought on the other side.”

So is Baucus now indicating a split with the president, or is Obama feigning support for a public plan?

What happened to support for single-payer?

At one time, Obama was a "proponent of a single-payer universal health care program." At least that's what he told the crowd at a 2003 AFL-CIO convention when he was running for the U.S. Senate:

If you watch the video all the way through, you'll note that Obama tells the crowd that "we may not get there immediately, because first we have to take back the White House, and we've got to take back the Senate."

White House: Check.
Senate: Check.
Congress: Check.

So why is Obama, via Max Baucus, now running from an idea he once supported? Democrats control Washington, and if Al Franken is declared in the winner in the still-as-yet-to-be-decided Minnesota Senate Race, Obama—along with the help of two Democrat-leaning independents—will have a veto-proof majority in the Senate.

Hypothetically, if Congress were to somehow pass a single-payer bill, does anyone believe that Obama wouldn't sign it? I highly doubt that Obama would use his veto pen for the first time on a piece of legislation that he has vocally supported in the past, and one that, if you believe the polls (and here, and here, and here), is supported by the majority of Americans.