President Barack Obama will return from his trip to Asia just in time to see the Senate cast a procedural vote to begin debate on a sweeping health care reform bill. It may take quite a while before the world’s most deliberative body gets around to final passage.
Earlier in the year, Obama signaled that he wanted to sign a health care measure by October. Then the goalpost was moved to the end of the year. Now it looks as if he might not put ink to legislative parchment until January.
Health care reform’s momentum has been sapped in large part by doubts about its price tag. The gross cost of the bill the House narrowly passed November 7 is more than $1 trillion. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi could only cobble together a 220-215 victory for the nearly 2,000-page bill, losing 39 Democrats along the way.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, faces a monumental challenge in coming up with 60 Senate votes to pass health care reform despite the fact that his caucus totals 60. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the Senate bill will cost $849 billion over 10 years.
Although Congress has extended unemployment payments several times and enhanced COBRA benefits, it is now considering doing more, like increasing spending on infrastructure projects, extending unemployment benefits again and helping small businesses.
The jobs rhetoric also is set to ramp up. Obama will host a Forum on Jobs and Economic Growth on December 3 at the White House.
“We’ll gather CEOs and small-business owners, economists and financial experts, as well as representatives from labor unions and nonprofit groups, to talk about how we can work together to create jobs and get this economy moving again,” Obama said in a statement before he left on his trip to Asia.
What Obama may hear on his road trip is that most Americans are either looking for a job or are concerned about keeping the one they have. The problem that he and other Democrats face is that those worries are not directly addressed in health care reform, the centerpiece of Obama’s first-term agenda.
In all of the praise and scorn of the health care bills that have emerged on Capitol Hill in the past several months, no one has claimed that the measures would create enough jobs to make any discernible difference in the unemployment rate. They usher in a massive overhaul of nearly 20 percent of the economy, but they don’t directly add to the economy.
But jobs are directly linked to health care. In our system, the best route to getting health insurance is through your employer. The more people are working, the fewer of them lack coverage. So, when you lose your job, you also put your health at risk, as friends of mine are discovering.
Even if the health care reform bill that finally hits Obama’s desk in January does increase health care coverage for the unemployed, the provisions won’t take effect until Obama’s second term, if he gets one. There won’t be any particular comfort in the bill for the currently unemployed.
It’s too late now, because Obama has already put all his chips on health care. But maybe he should have made jobs his priority for his first year. Instead, Democrats are trying to make massive policy changes—health care, energy—while they have large Senate and House majorities.
Americans may be getting confused. Here’s how Pelosi explained it at a press conference on Thursday, November 19: “When the [health care] bill emerges from the Senate, we’ll be prepared to go to the table as soon as possible to pass this important legislation. As I say, simultaneous with all of this, the issue of jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, has been our mantra. Jobs and deficit reduction.
How do we grow the economy, increase revenues coming in to reduce the deficit?”
Got it? The Democrats are doing everything at once—and taking a huge risk. They’ll either achieve a spectacular success or spectacular failure by Election Day 2010.
Late in the evening on November 7, I was driving through McLean, Virginia, listening to C-SPAN Radio coverage of a press conference by House Democratic leaders following the chamber’s narrow approval of a comprehensive health care bill.
At the time, it’s likely that I was passing the large homes of at least a couple business lobbyists who live in the tony Washington suburb.
No doubt they were still up and following closely the House vote that occurred during the 24th hour of that fall Saturday. They must have been relieved by the outcome.
Despite having 258 members, the House Democratic majority garnered only two votes more than the minimum to pass the bill—and one of those was from a Republican representing a liberal district. The employer mandates contained in the measure, along with its other provisions, are on somewhat shaky ground.
Business community criticism of the House health care measure is similar to what I heard at recent hearings on bills that would provide workers with paid sick days and prohibit sexual-orientation discrimination in the workplace.
Employers are leery of Washington telling them how to run their businesses and manage their employees. They want the flexibility to design health care and leave policies that best fit their workforces.
“SHRM has strong concerns with the one-size-fits-all mandate encompassed in the Healthy Families Act [the sick leave bill],” said Elissa O’Brien, vice president of human resources at Wingate Healthcare, who testified at a November 10 hearing on behalf of SHRM. “At a time when employers are facing unprecedented challenges, imposing a costly paid leave mandate on employers could easily result in additional job loss or cuts in other important employee benefits.”
O’Brien outlined her Needham, Massachusetts-based company’s generous paid-time-off policies. SHRM asserts that employers like Wingate should be exempt from federal leave directives.
Most Democrats in the House and Senate majorities, however, don’t want to depend solely on the market to provide sick days to employees and protect them from discrimination. They believe that achieving those social gains requires the intervention of Congress and the courts.
In some cases, they may be right. In other cases, they may be imposing overbearing government.
But it’s hard to deny one of their ripostes to employer criticism of the legislation: The economy has consistently prospered even after companies have warned that particular bills would undermine their ability to turn a profit.
At the hearing on paid sick days, Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Connecticut, noted that business was in a lather about the Family and Medical Leave Act before it was signed into law in 1993. There were predictions of job losses and other setbacks.
“We haven’t seen that to be the case with FMLA,” DeLauro said.
Another frequent argument against employment legislation is that it will open the floodgates to lawsuits. Sen. Al Franken, D-Minnesota, pushed back against that trope, noting that Minnesota has had a sexual-orientation discrimination law in place since 1993 and has not had its courts filled with related cases.
“Minnesota’s sky has not fallen,” Franken said at the November 5 hearing.
Employers sound convincing when they say that FMLA causes administrative nightmares. Heads nod when they maintain that some employment laws generate costly lawsuits.
But if their arguments are going to resonate in a Congress with strong Democratic majorities, they have to show examples of real job losses or investment that was spiked because of Washington mandates.
Otherwise, the natural skill, resilience and ingenuity of American corporations fosters the notion that they can survive any bill that comes out of Washington.
President Barack Obama won Virginia and New Jersey last year on his way to capturing the White House. But on Tuesday, November 3, voters in those states put Republicans in their respective governors’ mansions.
The meaning of Election Day 2009 may not be determined for a while. But one thing is clear. Democratic losses in two Obama states increase the “fierce urgency of now” for the party on health care reform.
Certainly health care advocates see overhaul as good policy and even a moral imperative. Remember that there also is a strong political catalyst for the effort. Democrats control the White House and both chambers of Congress by large margins. But their sway will hold in its current form until next November.
When voters go to the polls in 2010, they only have to increase the number of Republicans in the Senate by a couple to completely change the political calculus. Right now the GOP has 40 seats while the Democratic caucus numbers 60, just enough to stop a filibuster.
Democrats enjoy a commanding majority of 256 on the House side. But a loss of 20 or so seats could force House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to slow the breakneck speed at which bills can move through the chamber thanks to rules favoring the party in power. She and her Democratic colleagues have to get health care reform done now.
It’s a melding of the three bills passed over the summer by various House committees and costs either $894 billion or $1.2 trillion over 10 years, depending on which Congressional Budget Office numbers you use.
As the House leaders approached the assembled crowd—composed most of advocacy groups and interns—strains of a U2 song blared over the loud speakers: “You make me feel like I can fly so high,” Bono sang in the refrain.
They have descended closer to earth as they move toward a debate in the full House late this week. The bill text (H.R. 3962) and has been posted on the Web. Good luck wading through that 1,990-page behemoth.
As they build up to floor action, House leaders must deal with recalcitrant Democrats who have concerns about federal funding of abortions in medical plans, coverage of illegal immigrants and a government-run insurance program.
So far, liberals are holding their fire on the so-called public option. They favored the “robust” version that would use Medicare reimbursement rates. Instead, the final bill lets hospitals and doctors negotiate rates with the government.
The revision likely will put many conservative Blue Dog Democrats on board and help ensure approval. “This change now gets us over the top,” said Rep. Earl Pomeroy, D-North Dakota.
Over in the Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, has melded the two Senate bills and included a public option that allows states to “opt out.” It’s not clear yet whether he has the 60 votes needed to move the bill to the Senate floor and the 60 required to bring it to a final vote.
The Senate is waiting on a CBO cost estimate before proceeding to floor debate, which could drag into next year.
But don’t hold your breath. In the end, Democrats will approve some kind of health care bill. They must for the sake of the Democratic president. It’s debatable whether gubernatorial losses in Virginia and New Jersey reflect poorly on Obama.
If his signature domestic issue—health care reform—fails, it will be tantamount to a vote of no confidence. The administration won’t be brought down, as it would in a parliamentary system, but it could suffer lasting damage.
On Monday, October 26, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid may have initiated a turning point in health care reform.
He indicated that a government-run insurance program for people under 65, a so-called public option, would be included in the measure that goes to the Senate floor next month.
Now Washington pundits are furiously doing the math, trying to figure out whether Reid, D-Nevada, has 60 votes to overcome a filibuster and send a sweeping health care bill to President Barack Obama’s desk. Of course the House will play some role as well.
This routine has been a staple of capital life since last November. That’s when Democrats took control of the White House and increased their margins in the House and the Senate, where their caucus has reached a filibuster-proof 60 members.
Every time a major piece of legislation comes along, there is the mandatory calculation to figure out whether Democrats can come up with 60 votes, either by holding their own ranks together or drawing in a couple Republicans.
But winning elections has another—and perhaps more profound—effect on governance when one party controls both the Senate and White House. Its nominees for administration positions are almost certain to be confirmed.
Personnel is policy, goes the Washington saying. The reason that aphorism has been repeated to the point of becoming a cliché is because it’s true. One of the most cherished spoils of political victory is determining who serves at government’s highest levels.
In the polite society of the Senate, the rule in the past has been that a president pretty much gets to appoint the nominees of his (one day “her”) choice unless they have a criminal background or are otherwise egregiously unfit for office.
But Obama’s rival for the White House, Sen. John McCain, has halted the confirmation process for one of the president’s nominees for the National Labor Relations Board because of policy differences.
Echoing Becker criticisms from the business community, McCain expressed qualms about some of Becker’s articles about labor-management relations. The Yale Law School graduate doesn’t mince words when it comes to organizing in the workplace.
In an excerpt from a 1993 University of Minnesota Law Review article highlighted in a U.S. Chamber of Commerce letter to the HELP Committee, Becker writes that “employers should be stripped of any legally cognizable interest in their employees’ election of representatives.” With his trademark irascibility, McCain first insisted on a roll-call vote on Becker. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa and HELP Committee chairman, said that NLRB nominees are typically voted on as a bloc. Becker was being considered along with two others.
But Harkin acquiesced and allowed a separate vote on Becker. “How generous of you,” McCain sneered through a smile.
Becker was approved by a 15-8 vote, but McCain vowed to block a Senate floor vote by placing a “hold” on him. It is the prerogative of each senator to put a hold on any nominee for any reason.
McCain said that all the commotion could have been avoided if Harkin had agreed to a hearing for Becker. Harkin responded that it is Senate tradition not to conduct hearings for members of the NLRB other than the chair.
Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyoming, also voted to uphold Senate tradition. He approved Becker along with all the other nominees in the package that was presented to the HELP Committee on October 21.
It may be true that Becker deserves more scrutiny than the usual NLRB nominee. Several senators would like to know whether he still holds what some call “radical” views of labor-management relations. Others want to know what role Becker may have played in the vote-buying scandal that drove former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich out of office.
But there was a more straightforward way for McCain to put the kibosh on Becker. He wouldn’t be hassling with this nominee if he had won the White House in November. It’s one more reason why elections matter.
Before casting the only Republican vote in Congress so far for a health care reform proposal on October 13, Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine cautioned that the journey toward final legislation has “miles to go.”
Now the two Senate bills and three in the House have to be combined into one in each chamber. The bills that the Senate and House approve are likely to be divergent and require potentially tense bicameral negotiations. Then each chamber votes again on the product that comes out of conference.
If you need evidence that this process is likely to take weeks, look at the situation with legislation to extend unemployment benefits.
The urgency of the matter is not in question. Congress has acted twice so far during the recession to add up to 53 weeks of unemployment benefits to the normal 26 weeks.
But now unemployment has reached 9.8 percent, and most experts believe it will continue to climb. At a hearing of the Senate Finance Committee last month, witnesses testified that there are about 3 million job openings for 15 million people seeking work.
As of September, nearly 5.4 million people have been unemployed for 27 weeks or longer, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-New Hampshire, said in an October 15 speech on the Senate floor. Nearly 2 million will exhaust unemployment benefits by the end of the year.
But when the bill got to the Senate, Shaheen was one of the senators who held it up in order to expand it. New Hampshire’s unemployment rate is lower than 8.5 percent, and Shaheen didn’t want her jobless constituents to be left out.
Shaheen joined Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, and Sens. Max Baucus, D-Montana, and Jack Reed, D-Rhode Island, to introduce a bill October 8 that would extend unemployment benefits for 14 weeks for workers in all 50 states. They would fund for the bill by extending a surtax on employers through June 2011.
They wanted to push the bill through the Senate that day, but Republicans slowed down the process. They said that they hadn’t had a chance to study the measure and wanted an opportunity to introduce amendments.
It looks as if the Senate will act on an unemployment extension during the week of October 19. Among the amendments that Republicans are likely to offer would be one to finance the unemployment extension with money from the $787 billion stimulus package Congress passed earlier this year rather than by increasing taxes on employers.
It’s not certain whether the Republican amendments will succeed, but Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Arizona, said that prospects for action on unemployment extension are “very good.”
Republicans want to have their say in shaping the bill, but it doesn’t look as if they will filibuster it. The political price—when so many Americans are facing long-term unemployment—is too high.
But even an issue that seems to be a slam-dunk has nuances. It’s inaccurate—and heartless—to say that more benefits will enervate the motivation of a jobless person, according to Gary Burtless, the Whitehead Chair in Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution in Washington.
Instead, an extension will make the labor market more efficient by allowing the unemployed to “look longer and harder for a job in which their skills will be fully utilized,” Burtless testified at a Senate Finance Committee hearing in September.
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