I'll fill in more blanks as I get more information, but here's my immediate read on the situation: Substantively, leadership seems to have given up very little, but, Blue Dogs succeeded at slow walking the bill, which won't get a vote until after the August recess.
After a week or so of canceled hearings, the Energy and Commerce Committee will continue to mark up House health care legislation this afternoon, and pass a bill by the end of the week. On substance, the exemption from penalties for small businesses that do not provide health care to workers has been raised to include small businesses with payrolls of $500,000 per year or less. Originally the bill called for the exemption to apply only to businesses with payrolls half that size.
The public option hasn't gone away, and remains in tact. Now, though, instead of being directly tied to Medicare, the rates will be negotiated by the Health and Human Services secretary--a provision which at a glance seems similar to the public option the Senate HELP Committee endorsed. States will be able to erect health care co-operatives if they choose, but that would be in addition to the public option.
That last compromise seems like nothin' to me, since there's nothing to stop states from starting co-ops now. If it were such an awesome idea, you'd think states would already be doing it. I guess you take your "wins" where you can get them and this is the Blue Dogs'. But the big news is that the public option is still in there.
I didn't read through all the comments to the post, but the first one -- from "mike from Arlington" -- seems to sum things up pretty nicely:
This health care debate is kinda like Bass fishing. When you've just about given up and are about ready to turn around and go home, you get another bite and things turn around again.
What a roller coaster.
Except rollercoasters are fun. Still, if we get a decent bill after the smoke clears, I'm willing to pretend the whole thing was a lot of fun.
