"Finish the Job for the American People"

"Do not walk away from [health care] reform. Not now. Not when we are so close. Let us find a way to come together and finish the job for the American people. Let's get it done. Let's get it done."
-President Obama, State of the Union Address, 1/27/2009

Last night, the President called for Congress to finish the job. We're now on the 2 yard line, we just need a final push to score a win for the American people.

Separately, Speaker Nancy Pelosi indicated she has the votes for the Senate's health care bill if the Senate pursues reconciliation to pass a clean up bill.

It's important to ensure that members from Texas and in the leadership hear our message: Pass the bill and get it done.

If any of the below members of Congress represent you, call their offices and tell them you support swift passage of the bill. If you don't live in their districts, call the offices of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Speaker Nancy Pelosi to tell them that this legislation would improve the lives of all Americans, and ask them to move forward and pass the bill.

Contact:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi	(202) 225-0100
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid	(202) 224-3542
Representative Henry Cuellar	(202) 225-1640
Representative Lloyd Doggett	(202) 225-4865
Representative Chet Edwards	(202) 225-6105
Representative Charles A. Gonzalez	(202) 225-3236
Representative Al Green	(202) 225-7508
Representative Gene Green	(202) 225-1688
Representative Ruben Hinojosa	(202) 225-2531
Representative Sheila Jackson-Lee	(202) 225-3816
Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson	(202) 225-8885
Representative Solomon Ortiz	(202) 225-7742
Representative Silvestre Reyes	(202) 225-4831
Representative Ciro D. Rodriguez	(202) 225-4511

No Surrender

With the Republican victory in the Massachusetts special election last week, many politicians and pundits have begun to preemptively write the obituary for health care reform.

After a year of legislative wrangling, it's frustrating to watch as momentum for health care reform seems to wane. At times this whole sisyphean endeavor can seem dismaying. Seven different times, seven different Presidents have pushed this huge boulder to the top of a steep hill, only to see it roll back down again, sending us back to the beginning. I'm determined to not let this be the eighth time. As a black man, I don't want President Obama's only legacy to be that he was just the first black president.

It's necessary to pull our heads out of the daily grindings of legislative minutiae and remember why we're in this fight. There are six million uninsured Texans, living each day in fear of getting sick. There are millions more underinsured Texans that are one catastrophic illness away from being shoved off their insurance. Runaway health insurance costs are putting the hurt on budgets of families, businesses, and local and state governments.

It's beyond clear that the status quo, the system we deal with, has run amok. This is no time to shirk from the fight and kick the can down the road.

This month in Texas, enrollment in the Children's Health Insurance Program finally reached back to 500,000 after hundreds of thousands of children were slashed from the rolls by Republican lawmakers. This is the same level of enrollment that our state was at in 2003. If we're fighting in Texas to remain competitive with 2003 levels, it's clear that the governing philosophy of Governor Perry and his allies is to place the lowest possible priority on the health of their constituents.

Texas needs federal health care reform. We'll continue to fight on a state level regardless of the outcome, but we can't really win the fight against the worst practices of the insurance industry without the help of the federal government.

I'm reaching out to our members of Congress, Senators, and the White House, to urge them to press on. I encourage you to do the same. Surrender is not an option, we need to fight on.

Click here to look up your member of Congress and get their contact information.

For your reference, below is an article on the options available to Congress and the President to move forward.

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New York Times

January 26, 2010

Decision Looms on Advancing Health Care Bill

By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN and ROBERT PEAR

WASHINGTON — Seeking to avert the collapse of major health care legislation, the White House and Democratic leaders in Congress face a crucial decision about whether to use a procedural maneuver that would allow them to advance the bill despite the loss of their 60-vote majority in the Senate.

The maneuver, known as budget reconciliation, could allow President Obama and his party to muscle the legislation through Congress with a simple majority vote in the Senate. But it carries numerous risks, including the possibility of a political backlash against what Republicans would be sure to cast as parliamentary trickery.

The procedure is also subject to complex rules that could make it difficult for Democrats to include all the provisions needed to win approval of the bill, especially among rank-and-file House Democrats. For instance, it might be difficult to include provisions related to insurance coverage for abortions.

Still, for Mr. Obama, it may be the only route available to win passage of the sort of ambitious overhaul that he has pressed as his top domestic priority. And the White House and Congressional leaders have known all along that they might need to employ the tactic to finish a health bill.

“The idea that at any given time the Senate would have 60 votes was not what we would call the most ironclad assumption,” the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, said at a news conference on Thursday. “We have always thought, what if? You know, what if the policy decisions are such that they can’t get 60 votes for it?”

Senior Congressional aides said that lawmakers and the White House were increasingly focused on a plan by which the House would adopt the health care bill approved by the Senate on Dec. 24, with any changes made in a separate bill using the budget reconciliation maneuver.

But Democratic leaders are no longer confident that rank-and-file House Democrats would be willing to go along. The victory by the Republican, Scott Brown, in Massachusetts last Tuesday not only denied Democrats their 60th vote, but raised a specter of fear for Democrats over the midterm elections.

Some Democrats said that regaining the support of the caucus could depend heavily on what Mr. Obama says in his State of the Union speech on Wednesday.

Republicans, however, have made clear that they will portray Mr. Obama and Democrats as trying to use a hardball tactic to win passage of the health care legislation.

“Less than a week after the Massachusetts special election, the Obama administration is vowing to ‘stay the course’ and double down on the same costly, job-killing policies that are leaving America’s middle-class families and small businesses high and dry,” said the House Republican leader, Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio.

Some Democrats seem prepared to give up on a health care bill or to put it off for several weeks. Others have begun calling for a sharply scaled-back measure that they hope could win bipartisan support. But it is unclear if Republicans would cooperate even on a modest bill.

In the meantime, aides have been trying to devise a process by which the Senate could make changes to its health bill on a reconciliation measure even before the House voted on the Senate-passed health bill. Some lawmakers said House Democrats might have to vote first.

The House could approve the Senate bill and send it directly to Mr. Obama, eliminating the need for any more votes. But House Democrats have refused to do so because they oppose numerous provisions in the Senate measure, including one that provided extra federal aid solely for Nebraska.

Some House Democrats have also voiced opposition to an deal that the White House and labor unions reached on a proposed tax on high-cost, employer-sponsored insurance plans.

Passing even a modest reconciliation bill to make changes to the Senate health measure would not be easy. The mere mention of reconciliation infuriates many Republicans, even though they occasionally used the tactic when they were in the majority.

At least one Democrat who opposed the maneuver earlier in the heath care debate, Senator Kent Conrad, Democrat of North Dakota and chairman of the Budget Committee, said he could go along with its limited use, depending on the specific changes to the health bill.

“If you had another one of the bills that’s in play pass and then you used reconciliation to improve it, to fix it, that’s certainly possible,” Mr. Conrad said. “But it’s important to understand the limitations of reconciliation.”

Mr. Conrad said provisions could be stricken from the measure if they were judged not to have direct budgetary impact, potentially limiting the scope of the legislation.

Mr. Conrad said he was not concerned about the likely Republican accusations of trickery. “They are going to say that, whatever,” he said.

The senior Republican on the Budget Committee, Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, said Democrats would have trouble executing their strategy. “It would be a very hard lift,” Mr. Gregg said. “We would make it an extraordinarily difficult exercise.”

Democrats positioned themselves to potentially use reconciliation by including a provision for it in last year’s budget.

Under the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, reconciliation bills were given special Senate protection and allowed to pass by simple majority votes, after limited debate, to let senators make the tough decisions required to cut the deficit.

But Senator Robert C. Byrd, Democrat of West Virginia and a longtime defender of Senate precedents, created complex rules to deter lawmakers from using reconciliation to make new policy rather than to achieve budget savings.

Sheryl Gay Stolberg contributed reporting.

Special Election Changes Route for Health Care Reform

Tuesday night, Republican Scott Brown won the Massachusetts Senate seat formerly held by Ted Kennedy, making him the 41st Republican in the U.S. Senate. The special election means that the health care bill no longer has the 60 votes needed in the Senate, and that Democratic leaders need to reexamine their options to pass health care reform. Below, I've included a New York Times article that outlines those options.

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January 21, 2010
Obama Weighs Paring Goals for Health Bill
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG and DAVID M. HERSZENHORN

WASHINGTON — President Obama signaled on Wednesday that he might be willing to scale back his proposed health care overhaul to a version that could attract bipartisan support, as the White House and Congressional Democrats grappled with a political landscape transformed by the Republican victory in the Massachusetts Senate race.

“I would advise that we try to move quickly to coalesce around those elements of the package that people agree on,” Mr. Obama said in an interview on ABC News, notably leaving near-universal insurance coverage off his list of core goals.

But it was not clear that even a stripped-down bill could get through Congress anytime soon. Throughout the day, White House officials and Democratic Congressional leaders struggled to find a viable way forward for the health care bill and to digest the reality that much of their agenda, including an energy measure and an overhaul of banking regulations, had been derailed by the outcome in Massachusetts.

Inside the White House, top aides to the president said Mr. Obama had made no decision on how to proceed, and insisted that his preference was still to win passage of a far-reaching health care measure, like the House and Senate bills, which would extend coverage to more than 30 million people by 2019.

On Capitol Hill, Democratic leaders said they were weighing several options. But some lawmakers in both parties began calling for a scaled-back bill that could be adopted quickly with bipartisan support, and Mr. Obama seemed to suggest that if he could not pass an ambitious health care bill, he would be willing to settle for what he could get. In the interview with ABC, he cited two specific goals: cracking down on insurance industry practices that hurt consumers and reining in health costs.

“We know that we need insurance reform, that the health insurance companies are taking advantage of people,” Mr. Obama said. “We know that we have to have some form of cost containment because if we don’t, then our budgets are going to blow up, and we know that small businesses are going to need help so that they can provide health insurance to their families. Those are the core, some of the core elements to this bill.”

Republican Congressional aides said a compromise bill could include new insurance industry regulations, including a ban on denying coverage based on pre-existing medical conditions, as well as aid for small businesses for health costs and possible steps to restrict malpractice lawsuits. But as Mr. Obama noted on ABC, a pared-down package imposing restrictions on insurers might make coverage unaffordable, which is one reason he prefers a broad overhaul.

As the full Congress returned to Washington to start a new legislative year on the first anniversary of Mr. Obama’s inauguration options were limited and there were signs of a divide between the White House and Democrats on Capitol Hill. House leaders signaled that they had effectively ruled out the idea of adopting the Senate bill, which would send it directly to the president for his signature. Yet close advisers to the president said such a move was still on the table.

Mr. Brown’s victory in Massachusetts on Tuesday denies Democrats the 60th vote that they need to surmount filibusters and advance a revised health measure. Senate leaders said they would not risk antagonizing voters by trying to rush a bill through before Mr. Brown could be sworn in, and Mr. Obama agreed.

“People in Massachusetts spoke,” the president told ABC. “He’s got to be part of that process.”

Another option considered by Democrats would be to use the procedural maneuver known as reconciliation to pass chunks of the health care bill attached to a budget measure, which requires only a simple majority. But there appeared to be little appetite for such a move on Capitol Hill.

Democrats also wrestled with the implications of losing their 60-vote majority for their wider legislative agenda, including efforts to tighten regulation of the financial system and combat global warming, even as they sensed new urgency to turn their attention to creating jobs and improving the economy.

Democratic efforts to pass a bill on energy and global warming were in trouble even before the special election; administration officials and Senate Democratic leaders have been quietly negotiating a scaled-back package focusing more on job-creating technologies than on limits for climate-altering pollution.

Even the president’s new proposal to tax big banks for the government’s bailout losses, which Republicans privately conceded was a political winner given widespread anti-Wall Street sentiment, suddenly did not look like such a sure thing. Industry lobbyists noted that Mr. Brown publicly opposed the bank tax and that Mr. Obama had spotlighted that opposition during a campaign appearance in Massachusetts on Sunday — to no avail.

But the outcome might put further impetus behind efforts to bring down the budget deficit, a topic the White House has addressed more visibly in recent days. On Tuesday, the administration and Congressional Democrats agreed to create a commission to attack the deficit and the national debt.

At a news conference at the Capitol, the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, sought to minimize health care as compared with jobs and the economy. But he made clear that Democrats did not see a clear path forward.

“The election in Massachusetts changes the math in the Senate,” Mr. Reid said. “But it doesn’t change the fact that people are hurting.” Pressed about the health care legislation, Mr. Reid said, “The problems out there — it’s certainly more than health care.” Pressed again, he said: “No decision has been made.”

Senior Republicans showed little new willingness to collaborate with the Democrats. Asked where he might be willing to work across the aisle, the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, offered praise for Mr. Obama’s strategy in Afghanistan but not a single example on domestic policy.

Mr. McConnell was asked if the health care bill was dead. “I sure hope so,” he said.

Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, said she was eager to work with Democrats in devising an alternative to the health care bill passed four weeks ago by the Senate on a party-line vote.

“What I hope the White House will do is start from scratch and, instead of pushing this bill through the House, work with a bipartisan group of senators to achieve a consensus bill that would have widespread support,” Ms. Collins said. “There are many provisions of the bill that have bipartisan support. And I believe the president would be wise to draft a new bill that he could get through both the House and the Senate with supermajority votes.”

Robert Pear contributed reporting.

MLK Dedicated His Life to Make America Better

Today, we pay tribute to a significant figure in the history of our country. Having grown up during segregation, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. refused to accept the notion of an unequal America. He chose not to merely wait and hope for America's promises of equality and justice to fulfill themselves, and instead dedicated his life to making these promises a reality.

Dr. King taught us to reach out and work together for the common good of our nation. He advocated and practiced tolerance and non-violence, despite the tumultuous times in which he lived and the horrendous obstacles which he encountered.

Dr. King, and what he accomplished, has left a legacy that continues to inspire us today. We can keep his memory alive, not just with our words but with our actions.

For 12 years we have hosted, with the Children's Museum of Houston, a Martin Luther King Jr. Day Celebration that has allowed children and their families to honor the legacy of Dr. King, while inspiring children to dream big. The Children's Museum encourages our children to engage in service that will continue to improve the world we live in. I am extremely proud of being a part of this event since its inception, and today, I had the privilege of introducing this year's Martin Luther King Oratorical Competition winner.

We must work together and take the lessons Dr. King taught us to continue to advance our country.

Speaker Creates New Committee - I'm Vice Chair

Texas House Speaker Joe Straus has just appointed me Vice Chair of the newly created House Select Committee on Federal Legislation, which will have a specific emphasis on health care reform efforts. I am honored by the Speaker's confidence in my work and abilities, and look forward to working with my colleagues to ensure Texas comes out a winner with federal health care reform and other legislation. My friend and colleague, Representative John Zerwas was appointed Chair of the Select Committee.

As part of the Progressive States Network and President Obama's State Legislators for Health Care Reform, I've been very involved with and closely following developments in Washington, D.C. This new committee will help to ensure that wise and prudent counsel from Texas is heard by federal policymakers.

In that vein, you may have heard that Governor Perry is calling for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would bind the hands of our President and Congress as they work to clean up the economic mess created by the previous administration. The Governor requested I support his efforts; today I sent him a response respectfully declining his invitation. You can read my letter to him here (*.pdf). Embracing knee-jerk policy positions in an effort to score political points harms our state. Instead, we should be partnering with Congress and the President to craft wise public policy.

You can read the press release from Speaker Straus on the creation of the committee below. My appreciation and gratitude goes out to Speaker Straus for his vote of confidence, and I congratulate the new members of the committee. I look forward to our work in the coming months.

I will keep you updated on the work of the House Select Committee on Federal Legislation and continue to keep you informed on how federal health insurance reform legislation will impact you.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, January 12, 2010

SPEAKER JOE STRAUS ANNOUNCES HOUSE SELECT COMMITTEE ON FEDERAL LEGISLATION

AUSTIN--- Today, Speaker Joe Straus (R-San Antonio) announced the formation of the House Select Committee on Federal Legislation. The committee will closely monitor significant pending federal legislation with specific emphasis on health care reform efforts. The committee will also work to improve the exchange of information between Texas and Washington, D.C., by communicating the impact of pending federal legislation to the state economy and citizens.

"Like many Texans, I have serious concerns regarding the impact of federal legislation on the state," said Speaker Straus. "The committee will help the House respond in a fiscally appropriate manner regarding Texas' specific needs and challenges."

Speaker Straus has appointed Representative John Zerwas (R-Richmond) to chair the committee and Representative Garnet Coleman (D-Houston) to serve as vice chair.

The committee members include Representatives Dan Branch (R-Dallas), Warren Chisum (R-Pampa), Ellen Cohen (D-Houston), Donna Howard (D-Austin), Susan King (R-Abilene), Lois Kolkhorst (R-Brenham), Trey Martinez Fischer (D-San Antonio), Tommy Merritt (R-Longview), Geanie Morrison (R-Victoria), Elliott Naishtat (D-Austin), Solomon Ortiz, Jr. (D-Corpus Christi), Tara Rios Ybarra (D-South Padre Island), and Mark Shelton (R-Fort Worth).

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State Level Changes in Medicaid: How It Works

The New York Times has prepared an excellent primer on the expansion of Medicaid under the federal health reform bills being considered in Congress. I've included it below. Texas will be one of the leaders of the pack when it comes to dollars from the federal government for Medicaid. Texas currently covers select individuals earning up to 26% of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL). The Senate bill would increase that percentage to 133%, while picking up most of the tab. This would provide low cost coverage with a rich benefits package to almost a million Texans living at the poverty level.

The Center for Public Policy Priorities published a cost-benefit analysis of the proposed Medicaid changes in the bills. The NYTimes editorial specifically mentions a cost to Texas that was prepared by Texas' health agency. To elaborate, the same analysis shows Texas benefiting from a net gain of $124 billion in increased federal funds, meaning spending one state dollar would bring Texas six federal dollars.

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Health Reform, the States and Medicaid

The country needs health care reform, and Congress should move quickly to pass legislation. But as House and Senate leaders work to forge a consensus bill for final approval, they should look for ways to lessen the Medicaid burden on hard-pressed state budgets — and ensure that relief is fairly apportioned.

One of the important goals is to extend coverage to more low-income Americans. The bills quite sensibly require the states to expand Medicaid and offer them generous federal support to do so. Even then, the states — whose Medicaid budgets are already badly stretched — will have to put up substantial money of their own.

Ideally, Congress should find some way to get more money to state Medicaid programs. But if that proves politically impossible, as seems likely, the states will have to bear part of the additional burden in what is, after all, a shared national enterprise. Their poorer citizens will benefit greatly.

HOW DOES MEDICAID WORK? The program currently pays for health care and nursing home care for 50 million poor Americans. In fiscal year 2008, the federal government paid about 57 percent of the total $354 billion cost, with the states picking up the rest. Both bills would broaden eligibility, and their requirement that everyone obtain insurance should also push more currently eligible people to sign up. That is a good thing.

It is important to remember that under the reform bills, all of these people would gain access to health insurance — either through Medicaid or through federally subsidized private insurance plans. Medicaid is a better deal for poor people because it typically charges much less in co-payments and premiums for a better package of benefits than private insurers are apt to provide. From an overall budgetary standpoint, Medicaid is also the cheapest way to insure people since it reimburses hospitals, doctors and other providers at a lower rate than private insurers do.

The issue here is how much the states can and should pay for expanding Medicaid rolls.

HOW WOULD IT CHANGE? Right now the states differ considerably on who is eligible for Medicaid. (Only a few states extend much coverage to poor, childless adults.) Both the House and the Senate versions would require the states to cover all poor people under age 65. The House version would set an income ceiling of 150 percent of the federal poverty level, or $33,000 for a family of four. The Senate bill would expand coverage only up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level, or $29,300 for a family of four. Our own preference would be to choose the higher ceiling for the benefit of more people.

WHO PAYS? AND HOW MUCH? To ease the additional burden on the states, under both bills the federal government would pick up the entire tab for newly eligible enrollees for the first two or three years. After that the states would have to pick up part of the cost.

The amount of federal support would differ for two categories of people. For those new enrollees who could have been covered under the state’s existing rules — but never enrolled — the federal government would pay its usual share, which varies depending on a state’s per capita income. In fiscal year 2008, the federal government paid three-quarters of the program’s costs in Mississippi but only half the cost in New York and California.

But for all “newly eligible” enrollees — those who were not covered by a state’s previous rules — the states would get a greatly enhanced match. That is appropriate since the goal is to enroll a lot more people. The House would have the federal government pay 91 percent of the costs of these newly eligible in every state. The Senate would pay 82 to 95 percent of the cost, depending on a state’s per capita income. We believe that per capita income is a poor measure of how much help a state needs, especially in states like New York and California, where a veneer of very-high-income people can skew the average income upward. The House approach seems fairer.

A BIGGER DISPARITY. While both bills would provide enhanced matches for “newly eligible” Medicaid recipients, they have very different definitions of “new.” The House would count people who are already covered by Medicaid under so-called waiver programs, which are considered demonstration projects. The Senate bill would not.

That may sound arcane, but it could make a huge difference. New York, which has large numbers of people in waiver programs, estimates that the Senate bill would cost it an additional $1 billion a year, while the House bill could actually save the state close to $4 billion a year. While good news for New York, that seems unfair.

California, a state in comparable if not worse budgetary distress, would get no such relief for its previous expansions of Medicaid because they were mostly achieved through amendments to its state Medicaid plan, not the waiver process. State officials calculate that the reform bills would require it to put up $3 billion to $4 billion a year to cover additional enrollees.

Instead of paying more for people already on the rolls, Congress should try to provide an enhanced share to all states for all new Medicaid enrollees, whether or not they were previously eligible.

WHAT ABOUT THE LAGGARDS? Texas, a state that currently has far less generous Medicaid coverage, illustrates the problems that can confront even a laggard state. While it will get substantial federal help to pay for its “newly eligible” citizens, it estimates that it would still have to spend $20 billion to $24 billion over a decade to expand its Medicaid rolls.

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There is no perfect answer to these problems other than providing a lot more federal money for Medicaid expansion. So far the Senate has provided extra money to win the votes of key senators, most notoriously by granting Nebraska full federal funding in perpetuity for all newly eligible people it enrolls. Ideally, that should be done for all states, as Senator Ben Nelson, under fire for his special deal, has recently suggested.

That is not apt to happen. But surely Congress could find at least a little more money to ease the problems of California and other states that have already expanded their Medicaid rolls and now face crushing deficits.

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This editorial is a part of a continuing series by The New York Times that is providing a comprehensive examination of the policy changes and politics behind the debate over health care reform.

Health Insurance Assistance: Do You Qualify?

Health insurance reform will make coverage more affordable for working Americans through refundable tax credits that will be calculated on a sliding scale. These subsidies will be available for Americans who do not get coverage through their employer and earn between 100 and 400 percent of the federal poverty level (FPL), or between $22,000 and $88,000 for a family of four. If an employer offers coverage exceeding 9.8 percent of a worker's family income, or the employer pays less than 60 percent of the premium, the worker may also be eligible for subsidies. Annual out-of-pocket expenses will be capped for lower income individuals as well. Small businesses with less than 25 employees will be eligible for a new tax credit that could pay for up to 50 percent of their total health premium costs.

The Kaiser Health Foundation has an interactive tool to determine premiums and government subsidies for individuals and families under the U.S. Senate and U.S. House plans. Click here to see if you qualify for a subsidy.

In negotiations with U.S. Senate leaders, House Democrats, with the support of President Obama, are hoping to increase the subsidies for working Americans.

Currently, in Texas, only adults who have children and make less than 26 percent FPL are eligible for Medicaid. This sad fact demonstrates the difficulty that low-income individuals have accessing health care in our state. Alabama is the lowest in the nation at 24 percent FPL. Texas should be beating Alabama by much more than just two points.

The U.S. Senate health insurance reform bill will expand Medicaid eligibility to all children, parents, and childless adults with incomes under 133 percent FPL. This provision alone will vastly increase access to a million low income Texas adults who account for a significant percentage of uninsured individuals.

All Americans will immediately benefit from health insurance reform. The following are some of the immediate improvements, which will be implemented in 2010:

• Eliminate lifetime and unreasonable annual limits on benefits;
• Prohibit rescissions of health insurance policies;
• Provide assistance for those who are uninsured because of pre-existing conditions;
• Require coverage of preventive services and immunizations;
• Extend dependant coverage up to age 26;
• Develop uniform coverage documents so consumers can make apples-to-apples comparisons when shopping for health insurance;
• Cap insurance company non-medical, administrative expenditures;
• Ensure consumers have access to an effective appeals process and provide consumers a place to turn for assistance navigating the appeals process and accessing their coverage;
• Create a temporary re-insurance program to support coverage for early retirees;
• Establish an Internet portal to assist Americans in identifying coverage options; and
• Facilitate administrative simplifications to lower health system costs.

Below is a visual, user friendly guide from Newsweek that highlights how the health insurance reform bill will affect you.

Health Care Reform: Next Steps

The word from Washington D.C. is that the U.S. House and Senate will not go through a formal conference committee to merge the differences between their respective health care bills. U.S. House and Senate leaders have elected to host informal negotiations to draft a compromise bill and go through what is known as a "ping-pong" process. The health care bill will go to the floor of the U.S. House for a vote, where members could amend the Senate bill and send it back to the U.S. Senate for a vote. Democratic leaders are leaning towards this informal process over a conference committee in order to prevent Republicans from further delaying the bill with procedural maneuvers.

Given the margin by which the health care bill passed in the U.S. Senate, it is unlikely that the U.S. House will make drastic changes to the health care bill, and the final bill is more likely to resemble the version passed by the U.S. Senate. You can see a comparison of the two bills from the Kaiser Family Foundation here.

Today, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi met with Chairmen George Miller (D-California), Henry Waxman (D-California), Charlie Rangel (D-New York), and Chairwoman Louise Slaugher (D-New York) to establish loose rules for the upcoming negotiations.

The final health care bill could reach the President's desk at the end of January or early February.

We are on the precipice of a historic accomplishment that will make a real difference in the lives of American families. While difficult work remains, the reality is that the two versions of reform legislation are vastly similar – built upon a shared foundation that will provide stability and security for Americans with insurance, affordable options for those without, and lower costs for families, businesses, and the government.

We must remain vigilant and supportive to ensure that health reform passes. We're in the 4th quarter and in need of a strong push to finish the game.

We will keep you updated with new developments.

Congratulations to City of Houston Leaders!

Photo from Karen Warren at the Houston Chronicle

Congratulations to the City of Houston's elected officials. Mayor Annise Parker, City Controller Ronald Green, and Houston's City Council Members were formally sworn in for their terms this morning. I am confident that our leaders will serve our city and their constituents admirably. You can watch Mayor Parker's inaugural address here.

It has been a privilege to work on the transition to Mayor Parker's administration alongside Gilbert Garcia and Nancy Kinder.

Congratulations and best of luck to our city leaders! Together, we will continue to move our city forward.

Annise Parker, Mayor
Ronald Green, City Controller
Brenda Stardig, City Council District A
Jarvis Johnson, City Council District B
Anne Clutterbuck, City Council District C
Wanda Adams, City Council District D
Michael Sullivan, City Council District E
Al Hoang, City Council District F
Oliver Pennington, City Council District G
Ed Gonzalez, City Council District H
James Rodriguez, City Council District I
Stephen Costello, City Council at Large Position 1
Sue Lovell, City Council at Large Position 2
Melissa Noriega, City Council at Large Position 3
Clarence Bradford, City Council at Large Position 4
Jolanda Jones, City Council at Large Position 5