“Things were a lot better for the average person in this country when we had usury caps,” Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.), head of the House Rules Committee, said in a statement announcing her bill. “Watching how credit card companies have exploited people by increasing rates up to 30 percent and more is criminal and this bill will allow us to put an end to this practice.”

Massachusetts Democratic Reps. John Tierney  and Michael Capuano will co-sponsor the bill.

They have a tough road ahead, for several reasons. (1) Even though it was the finance industry that was primarily responsible for the recent global economic meltdown, there’s a growing reluctance on Capitol Hill to apply strict new regulations just as the banks are re-stabilizing — a circumstance the banks are already celebrating. (2) Although Congress was successful in passing sweeping credit card reforms in May, an amendment to cap interest rates at 15 percent was killed in the Senate. And (3) the banks aren’t going to allow Congress to squeeze a profit source without coming up with creative ways to make up the difference elsewhere. This, The New York Times reported yesterday, is what’s happening in Australia, where card issuers have responded to new regulations by attaching new fees to airline tickets, among other purchases.

“[I]f regulators limit one fee or rate, banks are likely to find another way to keep revenue flowing,” The Times wrote.

If the proposal sounds familiar, it’s because the Senate considered a nearly identical bill just a month ago. That legislation was shot down, not because lawmakers oppose the underlying concept (nearly everyone on Capitol Hill agrees that Medicare’s physician payment formula doesn’t work), but because Democratic leaders didn’t offset the substantial costs with revenue increases or federal spending cuts. That is, the new spending would have been piled onto the country’s already considerable debt.

Fast forward a month and you might think that House Democrats would take a lesson from the failed Senate bill by offering to cover the costs. But you’d be wrong; the bill is unfunded.

Here’s House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) tying himself in rhetorical knots yesterday as he tried to explain to reporters why the Democrats aren’t even trying to pay for their proposal.

In our budget we contemplated that the [cost] … would not be paid for. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t have to be paid for – clearly it does. We need to address the fiscal issues confronting us. On the other hand, [the doc fix] has been passed on a regular basis not being paid for.

Here’s what he was talking about. Earlier in the year, House leaders passed pay-as-you-go budget rules, but exempted four big-ticket (and enormously expensive) items that are deemed must-pass bills. The doc-fix was among them.

As a part of the pay-go exemptions, though, the Democrats said one of three things had to happen. Either statutory pay-go has to be law (it isn’t, because the Senate hasn’t passed it); the doc-fix proposal has to be paid for (it’s not); or statutory pay-go has to be attached to the bill as a rider (the House doc-fix bill does this, with the intention that the Senate would pass the requirement that everything other than those four items be paid for through the rest of the fiscal year).

Hoyer explains:

We think it is critical to combine this with a fiscally responsible policy of providing for all but the four specific items we exempted. All other items of spending on entitlements or reductions in revenues would be covered by statutory pay-go. … We think that fiscal discipline is critically important.

This, of course, is a cop out. That is, Congress created Medicare’s flawed pay formula, but no leader of either party seems to want the responsibility of finding ways to pay to fix it.

Also unmentioned here is the political strategy behind tomorrow’s House vote. For years, the American Medical Association, the nation’s largest doctor lobby, has pushed lawmakers to eliminate the doc-payment formula, which is indexed to GDP growth rather than to faster-rising medical inflation. AMA has announced its intention to support the Democrats’ health reforms this year, but they haven’t said they’d do so without the doc-fix accompanying the larger (and very separate) bill.

The House is expected to pass its doc-fix bill tomorrow. But there’s no good reason to think that that the budget hawks in the Senate would have had a change a heart about its cost over the past month. The question is, will the mere effort to pass the bill be enough to win the AMA’s support for the larger reforms? Some are already saying no.

“I don’t think we need to do another stimulus package,” he said. “All we need to do is move in regular order and do what we need to do for the country.”

Clyburn’s comments put him at odds** with other Democratic leaders — including House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) — who see a new jobs bill as a necessary step toward curbing unemployment rates.

With those rates topping 10 percent last month — and with tough elections looming in 2010 — the smart money here is on Hoyer and Reid.

H/t: The Hill.

**Or not. Clyburn spokeswoman Kristie Greco emails to clarify that the congressman does in fact support job-creating legislation, including an extension of unemployment benefits, more COBRA subsidies and a fully funded, six year transportation bill, “which would create six million jobs,” Greco said. “I don’t see a difference between the Hoyer/Clyburn positions,” she added. It seems that Clyburn doesn’t view these items as “anything new.”

In a letter yesterday to GAO, Reps. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.), Pete Stark (D-Calif.) and John Lewis (D-Ga.) voiced concerns that the companies are “artificially raising prices for certain pharmaceutical products in expectation of new reforms that could otherwise reduce prescription drug prices or price growth by encouraging patients and the government to be more efficient purchasers.”

Any price gouging is unacceptable, but anticipatory price gouging is especially offensive. We request that the GAO prepare on an expedited basis a report that analyzes recent trends in prescription drug pricing. In addition, we request that you prepare a proposal to ensure ongoing monitoring of pharmaceutical manufacturer pricing practices, and periodically report to the Congress on your findings.

Not that the pharmaceutical industry is taking the Times’ report sitting down. In a statement released Monday, Ken Johnson, senior vice president of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, said the price increases represent “the natural result of market forces.”

I think clearly we need to move on unemployment insurance and COBRA. Beyond that, you mentioned a couple: public jobs, job tax credits, infrastructure. There are a lot of options available; we are discussing those. We are discussing with economic advisors as to what is the most effective. And, frankly, there are differences of opinion on that.

Asked about the size of the jobs package, Hoyer offered no hints. “I don’t have a figure,” he said tersely.

Obviously, there may be different figures for different things that you do. But it is clear that we need to act in a way that does get to the creation of job opportunities for people in the short term. That is what we are trying for.

Of course, that’s also what Democrats were trying for when they passed their $787 billion stimulus bill in February, when unemployment was 8.1 percent. How many more business tax breaks does Congress have to pass before recognizing that well-targeted infrastructure spending — including money for public transit – just might offer more bang-for-the-buck?

“These are very disturbing recommendations,” Wasserman Schultz told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer yesterday.

As someone who found my own breast cancer through a breast self-exam and had a mammogram — and knowing that there are tens of thousands of women from 40 to 49 years old in this country that are diagnosed with breast cancer every year and that it’s often diagnosed at a later stage and is more aggressive — to say that women in that 10 year age gap should not get mammograms is just totally inappropriate….

The bottom line is that instead of making things more clear for women, this task force’s recommendations are making things clear as mud — totally confusing women.

The new recommendations, released Monday by the United States Preventive Services Task Force, suggest that women don’t begin getting mammograms until they hit 50 — 10 years later than the same panel recommended in 2002.

Wasserman Schultz has a reason to be indignant. Her cancer was diagnosed when she was 41.

The $787 billion economic stimulus bill addressed the issue, providing additional federal funding for the state-federal Medicaid program. But that extra help expires at the end of next year, when unemployment rates are expected to remain near double digits. The looming expiration has left state health officials and children’s welfare advocates anxious about the effects on kids’ health care.

Enter the House health reform bill, which would provide more than $23 billion to continue the additional federal funding for six months. The Washington Post explains:

Under the Affordable Health Care for America Act, the federal government would continue to pay a higher share of all Medicaid costs — 66 percent on average, up from 57 percent before the stimulus — for an additional six months, and erase in one fell swoop a major chunk of states’ projected shortfalls for the coming year.

“It would be a huge help — critical,” said Cindi Jones, chief deputy director of Virginia’s Medicaid program, which quickly estimated last week that it would receive an extra $360 million to $380 million next year under the bill. At a meeting last week of the nation’s Medicaid directors, Jones said the group is unanimously in favor of the provision.

That provision isn’t included in the Senate’s health reform bill, but states are hoping that it will work its way into the final bill. Of course, the temporary help is no remedy to the flawed Medicaid funding formula. It’s worth asking when Democratic leaders plan to tackle that larger problem, if not in the context of the most sweeping health reforms since the program was created.

In an interview with Detroit News, the 57-year-old Catholic warned that “the other side is playing with fire,” if they try to remove his amendment during later negotiations with the Senate.

If they are going to summarily dismiss us by taking the pen to that language, there will be hell to pay. I don’t say it as a threat, but if they double-cross us, there will be 40 people who won’t vote with them the next time they need us—and that could be the final version of this bill.

Of course, there are about 40 abortion-rights supporters in the House who are vowing to kill the bill if the Stupak language stays.

There are countless perks that come with being part of the congressional leadership. Resolving stalemates like this is not one of them.

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), the Democrats’ chief deputy whip in the House, said that she and other pro-abortion rights lawmakers would work to strip the amendment included in the House health bill that bars federal funding from subsidizing abortions.

“I am confident that when it comes back from the conference committee that that language won’t be there,” Wasserman Schultz said during an appearance on MSNBC. “And I think we’re all going to be working very hard, particularly the pro-choice members, to make sure that’s the case.”

House Democrats put themselves into a pickle over the weekend when they accepted an amendment, sponsored by Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), prohibiting abortion coverage, not only in the public plan being proposed in the House health reform bill, but also in the subsidized private plans found on the newly proposed insurance exchange. Stupak and other moderate Democrats want assurances that no federal funds will go to provide abortions, and they’ve hinged their support for the overall bill on the inclusion of that ban.

Liberal lawmakers in support of abortion rights, however, are also vowing to kill the overall bill unless the Stupak language is removed. One side will have to give, or the entire health reform effort goes up in flames.

Although House liberals voted for the bill with the amendment to keep the process moving forward, Rep. Diana DeGette (Colo.) said she has collected more than 40 signatures from House Democrats vowing to oppose any final bill that includes the amendment — enough to block passage.

“There’s going to be a firestorm here,” DeGette said. “Women are going to realize that a Democratic-controlled House has passed legislation that would prohibit women paying for abortions with their own funds. . . . We’re not going to let this into law.”

And the White House thought the public option was going to be the highest hurdle …