SATURDAY, JANUARY 30, 2010
MODERATOR: DONNA MARIE MILLER ELLINGTON
HEALTHCARE REFORM INTERACTIVE EXERCISE
I was excited to be moderating the lively discussion that took place at Democratic Headquarters in North Charleston. It was a Congressional Healthcare Reform Fire Drill! All of us in that room WOULD PASS A HEALTHCARE REFORM BILL ON THAT DAY IN THAT ROOM! This WAS a very participative exercise: fun, energizing, exasperating, and will gave us all some insight into the process our elected officials are going through as they try and push the elephant out of the way, and herd the wayward donkeys along the path to a bill for the President's desk!
Republicans and Independents were welcome and were assigned to the House or Senate.
The Executive Branch, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid were allowed contact their members with proposals for merging the Senate and House Bills ahead of Saturday's date. All options for Passing Healthcare Reform were on the table, EXCEPT FOR NOT PASSING IT!
The Final Healthcare Reform Bill had to be passed before the end of the one hour session. Everyone came prepared to participate and have a good time! FIRED UP! YES WE DID!
PROPOSED SCHEDULE
2:00 Introduction
2:15 Senate and House will convene separately to strategize
2:30 Senate and House will hold joint session and make a decision to A1-A3, B, C, D, E
2:55 BILL READY FOR SIGNATURE AND CONCLUDING COMMENTS
3:00 ADJOURN WITH READY TO SIGN BILL
ASSUMPTIONS FOR THE EXERCISE:
Senator Scott Brown has not yet been seated
Simple majorities will be required in both houses to pass legislation
1.Be careful not to monkey around too much with the monetary parts so we can assume that the CBO will continue to find the plan budget neutral, because we don't have time to actually mock the CBO process. In other words, you may pass monetary issues thru reconciliation, but please make every effort to intuitively guesstimate that any changes you make in these areas will be approximately equal to whatever you have changed.
All options for Passing Healthcare Reform are on the table, EXCEPT FOR NOT PASSING IT!
A. Merge the bills and repass in both the Senate and House
1)with 60 votes required
2)with nuclear fillibuster reduction to require only a simple majority.
3)With a change in the number of votes required to fillibuster.
B. Pass the Senate version of the Bill in the House, with some fix it later agreements
C. Quickly pass a simple, clean, and easy to explain expansion of Medicaid/SCHIP/Medicare using reconciliation. Tell voters you’ve heard them and made the bill simpler while still helping 30 million Americans.
D. Create a sugary sweet reconciliation sidecar measure with as many popular ideas as possible to fix the Senate bill (include a public option, Medicare buy-in, and drug re-importation, eliminate Nebraska’s special deal, and fix or eliminate the excise tax).
E. Pass both bills on the same day. Finally, run against Joe Lieberman and the Senate for messing things up, while pointing to how you did everything you could to stand up to the evil insurance companies, and managed, with hard work, to salvage a very decent health care reform package.
The Final Healthcare Reform Bill must be presented and passed by 3:00. Everyone come prepared to participate and have a good time! YES WE CAN! FIRED UP! YES WE WILL!
Thus, the exercise was set up. The day was a rainy one, and the prior sessions of the day's “Say Yes to Rational Discussions, Say No To Fear” events , had been well attended, and discussion had been productive, and thus the day was running longer than expected. Our exercise began about the time we had been scheduled to end. The moderator (me) had preassigned roles to the people on the RSVP list who said they either would be coming or might be coming to the event. Well, you know how the RSVP business goes....people don't always RSVP, and when they do, they don't always show up. Additionally, sometimes they show up, and don't like their assigned roles. All of the above happened. Being the flexible and good-humored person that I am, accomodations were quickly made so we could get on with the exercise.
Shawn Mitchell and I represented the Executive Branch of government for the purpose of the exercise. Other participants were assigned or chose roles in either the Senate or the House. One brave member chose the role of Olympia Snowe. Another refused the role of Joe Lieberman, was given another identity, and then ultimately decided not to participate. It had been 25 or more years since I last taught Human Relations at Trident Technical College, and I had forgotten just how much some adults dislike this sort of participative exercise. Others, thankfully, relish the opportunity.
Two notebooks contained the President's Healthcare Plan, a short summary of the House Bill, and a short summary of the Senate Bill. One notebook was available for the use of the Senators and one notebook was available for the use of the House. Additionally, all participants were provided with paper copies of the aforementioned documents. The participants chose paper and pencil over the use of the notebooks, given the time constraints. For anyone who might like to set up a similar exercise, I'd certainly recommend letting participants choose their own roles, and also allowing about 2 and a half hours for the exercise.
The Senate and the House were each called to order. They both opened this session of Congress by setting the rules of the Senate and House to allow a simple majority to be required for passing legislation and removing filibuster. Each chamber discussed a way to reconcile the Bills in the hour allotted. Reconciliation with Amendments proposed by the House to the Senate Bill were chosen as the method to get the job done. The Senate was concerned about the possibility of a challenge of legislation to the Supreme Court, if States' Rights were not considered in the passage of the legislation. The Senate therefore chose to include an opt-out provision for the states after a mandatory period of two years of participation in the plan. The House crafted provisions for the Senate to add to their bill through reconciliation amendments which: required that 90% of any insurance company premiums be dedicated to patient care, and allowed only 10% of premiums to be used for profits, added a “people's plan” which would incrementally extend medicare coverage to people lowering the age at which people could buy in, until in 2030, eligibility would be extended to people of all ages who choose to buy-in. Additionally, tort reform was added to help bring down medical costs. The Senate passed the revised Bill and passed it on to the House. The House considered asking the Senate to change the 2 year mandatory participation to 5 years. After negotiations, the House passed the Senate's Bill with the Amendments (including a 2 year mandatory participation period by the states before they could opt-out).
I was extremely pleased with the outcome of the exercise. It was not a resolution that I could have predicted. Our Senator who chose the role of Olympia Snowe voted with the democratic majority to pass the bill, even though under the rules of the day, her vote was not required for passage. I did not imagine that the House would craft such an ingenious “people's plan” that dove-tailed well with the mandatory 2 year mandatory participation requirement prior to opt-out crafted by the Senate to preclude a possible appeal of the legislation to the Supreme Court. I was happy to see the provision of tort reforms.
http://tinyurl.com/ykjmgjg Google Doc of Obama's Healthcare Plan
http://tinyurl.com/yjmcmu7 Google Doc of House Healthcare Bill
http://tinyurl.com/ykl3f7e Google Doc of Senate Healthcare Bill
YES WE CAN! FIRED UP! YES WE DID! PASS HEALTHCARE REFORM!
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