Politics Today: A Critical Health Care Vote
Politics Today is CBSNews.com's inside look at the key stories driving the day in politics, written by CBS News Political Director Steve Chaggaris:
** All eyes on Olympia Snowe in the health care vote...
** Clinton and Gates exert their influence over the war...
** The New Jersey race for governor heats up with a third party candidate...
"[W]hile virtually all 13 Democrats are expected to back the proposal, only one of the 10 Republicans, Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine, is viewed as a possible supporter," writes McClatchy Newspapers' David Lightman.
"Obama and a parade of GOP statesmen have urged bipartisan cooperation in recent days, but even last week's report from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office that the $829 billion plan will cut $81 billion from the federal deficit over 10 years didn't move most congressional Republicans. The report 'masks who pays the bills. This package includes hundreds of billions of dollars in new taxes and fees,' said Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, the committee's top Republican."
"With few, if any, Republicans expected to support the bill sponsored by Chairman Max Baucus (Mont.), Democrats have already begun their own internal negotiations aimed at reconciling the various measures passed by House and Senate committees. As part of that exercise, lawmakers are reviving ideas that had been discarded, including a new approach to a government insurance plan that appears to be gaining support with party moderates," add the Washington Post's Shailagh Murray and Lori Montgomery.
"The finance panel's vote marks a watershed in the quest to overhaul the country's health-care system. Not since Theodore Roosevelt proposed universal health care during the 1912 presidential campaign has any such bill come this far.
"As the action shifts to the House and Senate floors in the coming weeks, a handful of major issues -- and many smaller ones -- remain unresolved. The two chambers disagree on how to pay for the legislation, with the Senate preferring a tax on high-value insurance policies as the main revenue-producing measure, and the House a surcharge on millionaires. Liberal Democrats want to penalize companies that do not provide coverage to their employees; moderate Democrats would take a less punitive approach. And many lawmakers remain unconvinced that the insurance policies Congress would require people to buy would be affordable."
The Los Angeles Times' Noam N. Levey adds, "As a key Senate committee prepares today to pass its plan to overhaul the nation's healthcare system, senior Democrats are acknowledging that it may be impossible to provide coverage to all Americans -- a central goal of President Obama and his congressional allies. That is fueling growing alarm among hospitals and insurance companies, which have made universal coverage a condition of their support. ...
"Liberal lawmakers and consumer groups long have nurtured dreams of covering all Americans. More recently, universal coverage emerged as a key goal of insurance companies and healthcare providers, who would gain tens of millions of customers. And hospitals would benefit as the number of uninsured patients receiving free care diminished."
5349265"Tensions between the White House and insurers exploded into open warfare Monday, with the two sides arguing over what the financial impact of comprehensive health-care legislation moving through Congress would be for average Americans," writes the Washington Post's Ceci Connolly. "As the Senate Finance Committee prepared to vote Tuesday on a 10-year, $829 billion bill, the insurance lobby warned that under the legislation insurance premiums could rise faster and higher than projected.
"The Obama administration said the industry analysis was deeply flawed, and its allies lambasted the industry for hypocrisy and an '11th-hour attack' intended to rob President Obama of a victory on his top domestic priority...
"Until now, Obama had succeeded in keeping most of the major interest groups at the bargaining table with the lure of up to 50 million new customers. But insurers have grown increasingly critical of the Finance bill, saying it does not do enough to bring healthy young people into insurance risk pools."
"Even as insurance executives maintained an outward show of cooperation, they expressed concern about unintended consequences of the bills taking shape in Congress, including the one written by Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana and chairman of the Finance Committee," adds the New York Times' Robert Pear and David M. Herszenhorn.
"In July, Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California called insurers 'villains' and 'almost immoral.' Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, Democrat of West Virginia, said insurers were 'getting away with banditry,' and on Monday he called them 'the greatest impediment to real health care reform.' ... Mr. Baucus has been engaged in a yearlong effort to woo health care providers and insurers. His aides have told lobbyists that criticism of the bill would be viewed as a hostile act.
"The vehemence of the reaction from the White House and Congressional Democrats also reflects a concern about public opinion. If millions of people with insurance conclude that their premiums will go up, that could undermine chances for passage of comprehensive legislation."
Meantime, write the Times' Herszenhorn and Pear, "A proposed tax on high-cost, or 'Cadillac,' health insurance plans has touched off a fierce clash between the Senate and the House as they wrestle over how to pay for legislation that would provide health benefits to millions of uninsured Americans... The tax, a provision of the bill to be voted on Tuesday by the Senate Finance Committee, is one of the few remaining proposals under consideration by Congress that budget experts say could lead directly to a reduction in health care spending over the long term, by prompting employers and employees to buy cheaper insurance. Whether it remains in the bill is emerging as a test of the commitment by President Obama and his party to slowing the steep rise of medical expenses.
"It is also a prime example of the major differences still to be bridged by Democrats as health care legislation advances to floor debate in both houses."
Politico's Patrick O'Connor focuses on the House Democrats' problems getting agreement on how to fund health care reform, "Dems infight over health bill funding": "Speaker Nancy Pelosi has a tax problem: The so-called millionaire's tax that her fellow House Democrats want to use to pay for the bulk of their health care legislation won't keep pace with rising costs. For the California congresswoman, who's been echoing President Barack Obama's mantra that health care reform shouldn't add a dime to the federal deficit, the prospect could result in a sea of red ink. And it's giving moderates plenty to grumble about."
5374308AFGHANISTAN: The Washington Post's Ann Scott Tyson reports, "President Obama announced in March that he would be sending 21,000 additional troops to Afghanistan. But in an unannounced move, the White House has also authorized -- and the Pentagon is deploying -- at least 13,000 troops beyond that number, according to defense officials.
"The additional troops are primarily support forces, including engineers, medical personnel, intelligence experts and military police. Their deployment has received little mention by officials at the Pentagon and the White House, who have spoken more publicly about the combat troops who have been sent to Afghanistan.
"The deployment of the support troops to Afghanistan brings the total increase approved by Obama to 34,000. The buildup has raised the number of U.S. troops deployed to the war zones of Iraq and Afghanistan above the peak during the Iraq 'surge' that President George W. Bush ordered, officials said.
"The deployment does not change the maximum number of service members expected to soon be in Afghanistan: 68,000, more than double the number there when Bush left office. Still, it suggests that a significant number of support troops, in addition to combat forces, would be needed to meet commanders' demands. It also underscores the growing strain on U.S. ground troops, raising practical questions about how the Army and Marine Corps would meet a request from Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan."
Meantime, "The last time the Obama administration arrived at a moment of truth in the debate over what to do about Afghanistan, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Robert M. Gates delivered a one-two punch in favor of a more ambitious approach," write the New York Times' Mark Landler and Thom Shanker. "Now, as President Obama leads yet another debate on whether to deploy tens of thousands of additional troops there, the secretary of state and the secretary of defense will once again constitute a critical voting bloc, the likely leaders of an argument for a middle ground between a huge influx of soldiers and a narrow focus aimed at killing terrorists from Al Qaeda, according to several administration officials.
"That swing vote would put them at odds with the bare-bones approach still being pushed by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., as well as the most aggressive military buildup recommended by the American commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal.
"All of them have chosen to play their cards close to the vest, even holding back in the marathon meetings of recent weeks of the National Security Council, according to officials who attended the sessions. But as the Afghanistan assessment moves from a broad strategy review to a detailed and potentially contentious debate on how exactly to proceed, the two secretaries are expected to carry great weight as they begin to express specific advice."
CBS News' Katie Couric, "Afghan Vote Fraud: Whistleblower Speaks"
"McDonnell, who has sought to depict himself as a common-sense centrist despite his political origins as a religious, social and cultural conservative, attempted to deflect questions about such hot-button issues as discrimination against gay state employees. ... Deeds is ... looking to another possible appearance by Obama to energize some of the voters who allowed him to carry the state in 2008 -- the first Democrat to do so for president in 44 years."
Politico's Jonathan Martin adds, "Virginia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Creigh Deeds used a prime-time debate Monday to sharpen his portrayal of Republican Bob McDonnell as hostile to women and captive to the religious right. Deeds, opening up a fresh line of attack, brought up McDonnell's tenure on the board at Regent University, the Virginia Beach Christian conservative school where the Republican received his master's degree and wrote the controversial thesis which has dominated much of the campaign. ...
"Some top Democrats have said that Deeds should pivot to a more economic-oriented message and make his own case for why he should be elected governor, but the new commercial and the candidate's comments at the debate indicate that he intends to keep hammering McDonnell on the gender issue.
"Deeds aides believe that McDonnell's thesis and the Regent policy not only speaks to the Republicans social agenda but that such a hostile view toward working women also carries political peril among voters focused more on jobs."
The New York Times' Adam Nagourney reports with Deeds trailing in the polls, perhaps the Democrats nominated the wrong guy this year.
"When State Senator R. Creigh Deeds defeated Terry McAuliffe, the former Democratic Party chairman and confidante of Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton, to be the Democratic nominee for governor of Virginia, the argument among many Democrats was that Mr. Deeds — an easy-going, moderate Democrat from rural Virginia — would be the stronger candidate in a general election.
"But with this closely-watched election less than a month away, and Mr. Deeds struggling against Robert McDonnell, the Republican former attorney general, it is hard not to forgive some Virginia Democrats for thinking that they might have been better off with Mr. McAuliffe at the top of the ticket. This is no small thing since a defeat for Democrats in Virginia would be a decided setback for this White House, particularly after President Obama became the first Democratic presidential candidate to win the state last year since 1964. Democrats have held the Virginia governor's seat for eight years."
"Mr. Christie has led in the gubernatorial contest — often by a double-digit margin — throughout most of this year, but Mr. Corzine, a former Wall Street executive, has been using his vast personal fortune to pound his conservative opponent with negative TV ads that have shrunk the former federal prosecutor's lead to between two to four points, according to recent polls…
"The wild card in the race is independent Christopher Daggett, who was capturing around 12 percent of the vote in the three-way contest. The state's largest newspaper, the Newark-based Star-Ledger, on Saturday, endorsed the independent."
"After unveiling a plan to slash property taxes and garnering rave reviews for a recent debate performance, independent Chris Daggett has surged in the polls and is poised to determine the outcome of the New Jersey governor's race," adds Politico's Michael Falcone.
"While few political observers in either major party think he can win outright, in recent weeks online donations to his campaign have spiked from a paltry three a day to about 20; the number of calls to his office from news media outlets around the state have more than tripled ...
"Daggett's campaign aides believe that the combination of the tax plan, the first debate and months of nonstop attacks between Corzine and Christie has created 'a perfect storm' that has helped the campaign catch on."
***Daggett will be today's guest on CBSNews.com's "Washington Unplugged" at 12:30pm ET***
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