Today in Washington D. C. - July 28, 2009

The Senate will resume consideration of H.R. 3183, the fiscal year 2010 Energy and Water appropriations bill. The $34.3 billion bill provides money to the Energy Department, including $10 billion for the National Nuclear Security Administration, and water infrastructure projects around the country. Also this morning, the Senate Judiciary Committee began a meeting to vote on the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court.

Bloomberg identifies that House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) said lawmakers won’t meet their goal of voting on health legislation by July 31, in what may be another setback for President Barack Obama’s timetable. Hayer said,“We’re not going to do it by Friday,” after he emerged last night from a meeting on Capitol Hill among Democrats wrangling over the legislation to overhaul the nation’s health-care system. The House is scheduled to adjourn on July 31 for a recess until Sept. 8. Hoyer left open the possibility the leaders may delay the break or postpone the vote until September when the lawmakers return.

Reuters is reporting that Senate Finance Committee member Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) said he was confident the panel's negotiators would reach a bipartisan agreement on a health care overhaul proposal. Kerry added that the issue of whether employers would be required by law to provide health insurance for their workers was still being discussed. On Monday, Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) said the committee's plan would not include such an employer mandate.

The Washington Post writes today, “With the Obama administration's top domestic priority struggling in Congress, supporters and opponents of the health-care proposals are focusing on the constituency that both sides agree has become pivotal to the debate: the majority of Americans who have health insurance and are generally satisfied with their care. . . . ‘It’s a huge barrier,’ said Robert J. Blendon, a professor of health-care policy and political analysis at Harvard University. He cited a Washington Post-ABC News poll of 1,001 adults in June that found that 83% were either ‘somewhat’ or ‘very’ satisfied with the care they receive and 81% felt the same way about their insurance.”

The Post noted the key results of the poll detailing Americans’ concerns about health care reform initiated from Washington that could affect the care they currently have. “In the Post-ABC poll, 84% of respondents said they were very or somewhat concerned that reform would increase their health-care costs, 82% worried that it would reduce their health insurance coverage, and 81% fretted about it hurting the quality of their care.”

Harvard economist Marty Feldstein explains why this is a problem for the Democrats’ health reform plans in a Washington Post op-ed today: “For the 85% of Americans who already have health insurance, the Obama health plan is bad news. It means higher taxes, less health care and no protection if they lose their current insurance because of unemployment or early retirement.”

“At a time when medical science offers the hope of major improvements in the treatment of a wide range of dread diseases,” Feldstein asks, “should Washington be limiting the available care and, in the process, discouraging medical researchers from developing new procedures and products? Although health care is much more expensive than it was 30 years ago, who today would settle for the health care of the 1970s?”

Surely some of this must be weighing on the reluctant Blue Dog Democrats, who The Wall Street Journal reports “continued to resist key aspects of their party's health-care overhaul Sunday, despite pressure from party leaders who fear they will endanger President Barack Obama's most ambitious legislative effort.” With members of their own party holding up their health bills, it’s little wonder, then, that Democrat leaders “are casting about for somebody to blame,” according to Politico. So they’ve alternately blamed Republicans and allegedly greedy insurance companies. “But,” Politico writes, “even if they won’t acknowledge it publicly, most Democrats in Congress know the truth: It’s their own colleagues who are slowing down progress in both the House and the Senate.”

Speaking on the floor this morning, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said, “Some are trying to portray this debate as a debate between Republicans and Democrats. This is a distortion of the facts, and it’s a disservice to the millions of Americans who want us to get this reform right. As I and others have said, the only thing that’s bipartisan about the reforms we’ve seen so far is the opposition. And the reason is clear: they cost too much; they don’t address the long-term challenges in our health care system; they don’t reduce long-term costs; they’d add hundreds of billions to the national debt; and there’s no way the American people will embrace them — because all of them fall well outside the boundaries of the middle path that the American people are asking us to take.” McConnell argued, because “Americans don’t want to lose the quality of care that our current system provides,” it’s time to “hit the reset button” and begin looking at real reforms that will seriously address the problems in our health system, rather than spending trillions on government programs that will only exacerbate current problems.

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