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Democrats’ Unity on Healthcare Collapsing

Alex Rivers — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 20:14:30 +0000

Sunday, November 29, 2009 5:21 AM

WASHINGTON – The 60 votes aren’t there any longer.

With the Senate set to begin debate Monday on healthcare overhaul, the all-hands-on-deck Democratic coalition that allowed the bill to advance is fracturing already. Yet majority Democrats will need 60 votes again to finish.

Some Democratic senators say they’ll jump ship from the bill without tighter restrictions on abortion coverage. Others say they’ll go unless a government plan to compete with private insurance companies gets tossed overboard. Such concessions would enrage liberals, the heart and soul of the party.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) speaks at a news conference on Capitol Hill on November 3, 2009 in Washington, DC.

There’s no clear course for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., to steer legislation through Congress to President Barack Obama. You can’t make history unless you reach 60 votes, and don’t count on Republicans helping him.

But Reid is determined to avoid being remembered as another Democrat who tried and failed to make healthcare access for the middle class a part of America’s social safety net.

“Generation after generation has called on us to fix this broken system,” he said at a recent Capitol Hill rally. “We’re now closer than ever to getting it done.”

His bill includes $848 billion over 10 years to gradually expand coverage to most of those now uninsured. It would ban onerous insurance industry practices such as denying coverage or charging higher premiums because of someone’s poor health. Those who now have the hardest time getting coverage — the self-employed and small businesses — could buy a policy in a new insurance market, with government subsidies for many. Older people would get better prescription coverage.

Most people covered by big employers would gain more protections without major changes. One exception would be those with high-cost insurance plans, whose premiums could rise as a result of a tax on insurers issue the coverage.

The public is ambivalent about the Democrats’ legislation. While 58 percent want elected officials to tackle healthcare now, about half of those supporters say they don’t like what they’re hearing about the plans, according to a new Kaiser Family Foundation poll.

The Senate debate risks alienating more people because much of the discussion probably will revolve around divisive issues that preoccupy lawmakers.

“A large portion of the debate will be spent on issues that aren’t important to the workability of health reform,” said Paul Ginsburg, president of the Center for Studying Health System Change.

The debate should start off modestly, with each side offering one amendment. No votes are scheduled Monday.

But with more than 40 senators on the two committees that originated the bill, many more amendments are expected. Some likely subjects are limits on malpractice lawsuits, consumer choice, affordability, minority health and drug prices.

Reid wants to finish by Christmas; he may not get to.

He’s hoping that Democrats will stick together on procedural matters, where Senate rules require 60 votes to advance. That would allow for different views to be heard on the underlying questions. But such an accommodation might not always be possible.

For example, the National Right to Life to Committee says unless there are big changes, it will count the procedural motion to allow a final up-or-down vote on the legislation as tantamount to a vote on abortion.

Of the many issues senators have to weigh, abortion funding and the option of a government insurance plan promise to be the most difficult.

On abortion, no compromise seems possible. On the public plan, a deal may yet be had.

The House adopted strict limits on abortion funding as the price for the support of anti-abortion Democrats. Abortion rights supporters are now backing Reid’s approach, which tries to preserve coverage for abortion while stipulating that federal dollars may not be used except in cases of rape, incest or to save the life of the mother. Catholic bishops say they can’t accept that because it would let federally subsidized plans cover abortion.

It might be easier to find a middle ground on the issue of a public health plan to compete against private insurers, though Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent, said Sunday he would be “very reluctant” to support legislation without “a strong public option.”

Reid’s bill would create a national plan, but give states the choice of opting out. In any event, the Congressional Budget Office now estimates that the government would not be the bare-knuckles competitor insurers had feared, but a relatively minor player in the market.

Several moderate Democrats have served notice they can’t support Reid’s approach. The lone Republican to vote for the Senate bill in committee, Olympia Snowe of Maine, has said she could accept a public plan if insurers are given one last chance to deliver lower premiums in a competitive market. Combining Snowe’s “trigger” with Reid’s “opt-out” might be the answer.

If that’s the case, it still would have to pass a final test: 60 votes.

HOLDER: Justice Dept. Says Acorn Can Be Paid

Alex Rivers — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 03:46:33 +0000

Justice Dept. Says Acorn Can Be Paid

By CHARLIE SAVAGE

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department has concluded that the Obama administration can lawfully pay the community group Acorn for services provided under contracts signed before Congress banned the government from providing money to the group.

The department’s conclusion, laid out in a recently disclosed five-page memorandum from David Barron, the acting assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel, adds a new wrinkle to a sharp political debate over the antipoverty group’s activities and recent efforts to distance the government from it.

Since 1994, Acorn, which stands for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, has received about $53 million in federal aid, much of it grants from the Department of Housing and Urban Development for providing various services related to affordable housing.

But the group has become a prime target for conservative critics, and on Oct. 1, President Obama signed into law a spending bill that included a provision that said no taxpayer money — including money authorized by previous legislation — could be “provided to” the group or its affiliates.

A Housing and Urban Development Department lawyer asked the Justice Department whether the new law meant that pre-existing contracts with Acorn should be broken. And in a memorandum signed Oct. 23 and posted online this week, Mr. Barron said the government should continue to make payments to Acorn as required by such contracts.

The new law “should not be read as directing or authorizing HUD to breach a pre-existing binding contractual obligation to make payments to Acorn or its affiliates, subsidiaries or allied organizations where doing so would give rise to contractual liability,” Mr. Barron wrote.

The deputy director of national operations for Acorn, Brian Kettenring, praised Mr. Barron’s decision.

“We are pleased that commitments will be honored relative to Acorn’s work to help keep America’s working families facing foreclosure in their homes,” Mr. Kettenring said.

Mr. Barron said he had based his conclusion on the statute’s phrase “provided to.” This phrase, he said, has no clearly defined meaning in the realm of government spending — unlike words like “obligate” and “expend.”

Citing dictionary and thesaurus entries, he said “provided to” could be interpreted as meaning only instances in which an official was making “discretionary choices” about whether to give the group money, rather than instances in which the transfer of money to Acorn was required to satisfy contractual obligations.

Since there are two possible ways to construe the term “provided to,” Mr. Barron wrote, it makes sense to pick the interpretation that allows the government to avoid breaching contracts.

Moreover, he argued, requiring the government to cancel contracts with a specifically named entity — “including even in cases where performance has already been completed but payment has not been rendered” — would raise constitutional concerns best avoided by interpreting the law differently.

The Constitution prohibits “bills of attainder” — legislation intended to punish specific people or groups. Acorn has filed a lawsuit arguing that the statute banning the government from providing it money amounts to a bill of attainder.

Founded in Arkansas in 1970, Acorn describes itself as the nation’s largest grass-roots community organizing group. It provides financial services to poor and middle-income families, conducts voter registration drives, and advocates for higher minimum wages and more affordable housing.

Conservatives have long complained about Acorn’s voter drives in poor neighborhoods, citing instances in which workers fraudulently registered imaginary voters like Mickey Mouse. Acorn has argued that it is the real victim of such incidents, which its employees have often brought to the attention of the authorities.

Criticism of Acorn escalated in September, when two conservative activists released videos they had recorded using secret cameras of Acorn workers in several cities. The activists had posed as a pimp and a prostitute seeking financial advice. Instead of raising objections, the Acorn employees counseled the couple on how to hide their illicit activities and avoid paying taxes.

Conservatives seized on the videos to criticize the group further, highlighting that the Obama campaign had paid an Acorn affiliate for get-out-the-vote efforts. Congress then enacted the ban on providing money to it.

Acorn has fired several of the employees depicted in the videos.