Legal Commentary

Ping Pong And The Health Insurance Premium Assistance Bill

By Big Tent Democrat

You've probably read about the idea of bypassing a House-Senate conference on the Health Insurance Premium Assistance Bill so that President Obama can tout it in his State of the Union address. apparently, House liberals are not pleased with the notion:

Two well respected House liberals — Jan Schakowsky and Jerrold Nadler — expressed skepticism about the current public option compromises emerging from the Senate, and vowed that House Dems would not be railroaded into swallowing the Senate bill. “It would be a mistake to think that the House leadership will go into any kind of conference committee with the expectation that we’re just gonna sign on to the Senate bill,” Schakowsky told me. “The House intends to negotiate with the Senate. We expect those deliberations to be vigorous. The House is not simply going to sign on the dotted line.” [. . .] “The House is not going to be dictated to,” Nadler told me.

We'll see. Giving Obama the chance to include "health care reform" as an "accomplishment" in his speech is one of the lousiest reasons I have ever heard for such a thing.

Speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on December 08, 2009 (boomark / email).