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Democrats Push Parcel of Bills That Could Split Republicans    [

    Democrats Eye Veto-Proof Margin on Health Care Bill
    By Elana Schor
    The Hill

    Thursday 26 July 2007

    Confident Senate Democrats are attempting to attract a veto-proof 67 votes for their politically popular children's healthcare bill.

    Six GOP senators supported the $35 billion reauthorization of the State Children's Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP, during committee consideration, adding to the bill's momentum. The measure is expected to be debated on the Senate floor before the August recess.

    GOP leaders plan to offer an alternative that keeps new SCHIP funding closer to President Bush's proposal, but the irresistible cause of healthcare for low-income children is proving difficult to strongly oppose.

    "Enrolling nearly 6.6 million children and lowering the uninsured rate by nearly 25 percent, SCHIP has been a success," five senior Republicans, led by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), wrote to the GOP conference on Tuesday. "We support the reauthorization of SCHIP."

    Conceding the success of the program, Republicans contend that the SCHIP reauthorization would open the door to eventual government-run healthcare, invoking the specter of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's (D-N.Y.) failed universal coverage effort in the 1990s.

    GOP leaders also point to what Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), ranking member of the Budget Committee and a cosponsor of the leadership's alternative, calls a "budget gimmick": the low estimate of SCHIP spending in the bill's final year, allowing the entire package to be offset under pay-as-you-go rules.

    Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) dismissed the GOP alternative, which also includes long-held Republican goals of tax-free health savings accounts and small business health plans, at a cost of about $9 billion.

    "This so-called alternative would leave a lot of low-income uninsured kids with no alternative at all for health care," Baucus said in a statement. "They shouldn't call their proposal CHIP. It's really 'CLIP' – a Children Losing Insurance Plan."

    Democrats have yet to openly predict vote counts for the SCHIP measure, but the 60-vote margin likely needed for passage appears well within reach.

    "The committee vote showed there is strong bipartisan support for the package," Baucus spokeswoman Carol Guthrie said. "Senators who care about kids are going to rally around this proposal."

    Republicans facing difficult reelections in 2008 are considered prime candidates to join the bipartisan SCHIP alliance. Two in that group, Sens. Pat Roberts (Kan.) and Gordon Smith (Ore.), have already come on board, and Sens. Susan Collins (Maine), Norm Coleman (Minn.), John Sununu (N.H.), John Warner (Va.) and others in cycle will be closely watched.

    One Finance aide expressed confidence - contingent upon the defeat of Democratic amendments to expand the bill and Republican amendments to shrink it.

    "We hope to get at least 67 votes, but it won't be easy," the aide said.

    Getting to 67 votes would send a strong signal to the White House, where Bush has vowed to veto the Senate measure despite Republican entreaties. Bush has promoted his plan for preferred tax treatment of certain health insurance plans as a companion to SCHIP, but the Senate GOP rebuffed that proposal in their alternative.

    A strong showing in the Senate also could lend momentum to the $75 billion House SCHIP bill, which includes cuts to private Medicare providers and has aroused hotter partisan tensions. House Republicans released their own SCHIP alternative yesterday, with Democrats offering condemnation similar to that in the Senate.

    The Senate bill offsets SCHIP expansion with a 61-cent hike in the tobacco tax, potentially alienating anti-tax conservatives in states that rely on the children's health program. Still, Democrats believe they can fend off Republican attempts to expand the debate beyond the popular program at hand.

    "This debate is about providing healthcare to children who are eligible and need that healthcare," one senior majority aide said. "They want to have a larger, overall healthcare debate because they know that SCHIP is a bipartisan program that's shown to work. If this is just a debate about SCHIP, they lose."

    Meanwhile, tobacco companies are continuing to encourage grassroots lobbying of lawmakers as floor debate approaches, said John Singleton, spokesman for Reynolds American. The industry also is pointing to what it believes is a contradiction between the SCHIP bill and Sen. Edward Kennedy's (D-Mass.) plan, now pending in the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, to regulate tobacco through the Food and Drug Administration.

    Kennedy's bill aims to cut down the number of American smokers, Singleton said, "and at the same time, we're looking at this SCHIP bill, which says they want 61 cents per pack to fund what is clearly going to be a growing healthcare program."

    Reynolds crystallized its strategy in a statement last week: "Does the Right Hand of the Senate Know What the Left Hand is Doing?"

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    Democrats Push Parcel of Bills That Could Split Republicans
    By Jonathan Weisman
    The Washington Post

    Thursday 26 July 2007

    With a final deal yesterday on major homeland security legislation, Democratic leaders in Congress believe they can begin to lift Congress's rock-bottom approval ratings while driving an ideological wedge through the Republican Party on domestic issues.

    House and Senate negotiators reached accord yesterday on legislation to implement most of the recommendations of the bipartisan commission that studied the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The deal could be enacted as early as this week. Agreement on a package of lobbying and ethics rules changes should be done by early next week. And congressional leaders hope to pass a significant expansion of the 10-year-old program to provide health insurance for children of the working poor.

    Democratic leaders hope the flurry of late accomplishments over the next 10 days will put to rest Republican charges that the new Democratic majority has presided over a "post office" Congress, which has raised the minimum wage and done little else but rename federal buildings.

    "We're sitting on the doorstep of a definitional moment," said Rep. Rahm Emanuel (Ill.), chairman of the House Democratic Caucus. He said legislation on health care, the minimum wage, homeland security and congressional ethics would respond to virtually all the pressure points of an anxious public.

    Republican leaders plan to stand in the way, arguing that Democrats are reviving big government programs that will intrude into the free market and taxpayers' wallets. They argue that a homeland security mandate that all maritime cargo be screened within five years will chill international trade. And the children's health insurance expansion amounts to "a giant tax increase in an effort to expand government-run health care," said House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio).

    But against such philosophical stands, there is a stark political problem: How many Republicans are really going to oppose legislation expanding insurance coverage for children, tightening ethics rules and bolstering homeland security?

    "They've had a pretty strong quarter," said Rep. Ray LaHood (R-Ill.), who praised the insurance bill as "creative" and suggested the homeland security bill would pass overwhelmingly. "The first quarter was not so good, and that's why they're not looking so good in the polls, but this quarter is looking very good for them. They can send their members home crowing about their accomplishments, and they've done it in a bipartisan way, which is exactly what they promised to do," LaHood said.

    House Republican Conference Chairman Adam H. Putnam (R-Fla.) conceded that his party has its public relations work cut out for it, battling what he called "the underlying warm and fuzzies" of the bills' titles - especially the Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act. But he said Republicans would be able to make the case that a multibillion-dollar expansion of a government-funded program runs counter to taxpayers' wishes.

    With only one significant accomplishment enacted on their watch - a hike in the minimum wage - Democratic leaders are anxious to get legislation to President Bush. The Sept. 11 commission deal would authorize significant increases in homeland security grants.

    Tackling a major recommendation of the commission, the bill would halve the amount of state grants allocated based on politics instead of risk, cutting from 40 percent to about 20 percent the share allocated based on population.

    It also dedicates a $400 million annual grant program to ensure interoperability of emergency radios at the local, state and federal levels. And it would require that within five years all U.S.-bound maritime cargo be scanned for radiation before it leaves foreign ports.

    But Democrats ducked issues that have prompted stern veto threats from the White House. They quickly dropped a provision to allow federal airport screeners to unionize. They maintained a measure that provides legal protection for citizens who report suspicious activity on airplanes, trains and buses.

    Even the port-screening provision has a loophole. The secretary of homeland security can extend the deadline for full cargo screening by two years at a time if he deems it necessary.

    A provision that declassifies the total annual intelligence budget was recommended by the Sept. 11 commission but is opposed by the White House. In a compromise with the administration, negotiators agreed to order a study that could allow the president to waive disclosure after two years if the report finds declassification has damaged national security, said Sen. Susan Collins (Maine), the ranking Republican on the Senate homeland security committee.

    "If he doesn't sign the 9/11 bill, I'll sleepwalk my way to 2008," Emanuel said. "It's game, set, match."

    White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said it is his understanding that the provisions most opposed by Bush had been removed, but the administration is still studying the accord.

    The ethics agreement is expected to include a ban on lobbyist-funded meals, gifts and travel; restrictions on the use of corporate jets; and a mandate that lobbyists publicly disclose money they spend on events, foundations, conferences and charities tied to lawmakers.

    The children's health bill presents a similar quandary for Republicans. The president has promised a veto, but Republicans are not convinced that he will follow through. The bills are designed to be paid for with a tax increase on tobacco. The House bill would also cut what Democrats call overpayments to managed care companies in the Medicare program in order to stave off cuts in physician reimbursement under Medicare, and it would increase funding for rural health care.

    LaHood predicted that at least 20 Republicans will buck their leaders and vote for the bill. "When you look at the way they put this package together, it's a pretty good way to do it," he said. "I think it will withstand the criticism."

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    Staff writer Spencer S. Hsu contributed to this report.