The lame-duck session could be the last chance for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to pass a number of bills. (Pete Marovich/ZUMApress.com)

The midterm hangover having finally worn off, the 111th Congress returns today to kick off the lame-duck session, its last hurrah before its successor takes over. And the 112th Congress will look radically different, with Republicans in control of the House and the Democratic majority in the Senate significantly reduced. These next few weeks, then, could be the last chance for major Democratic initiatives. But the hurdles are high, and Republicans see no reason to grant Democrats any victories after the populace voiced its discontent with the policies of the past two years.

[Congress1] The battle lines are drawn; here are the fields on which they’ll be fought:

Bush tax cuts:

The biggest question before the Senate — and the one that will likely receive the most attention — is the expiration of the 2001 tax cuts signed into law by President Bush. Facing Democratic resistance in the Senate at the time, Republicans set up the cuts to sunset after ten years. Now that they’re set to expire, however, GOP lawmakers have lined up shoulder to shoulder to make them permanent.

President Obama, on the other hand, ran for office on a pledge to extend the existing tax rates for families making less than $250,000 a year, while letting the tax cuts for those making over that number expire. But as the economy continued to falter and Democratic re-election prospects began looking bleak, Democrats in Congress put off addressing issues related to the tax code until after the midterm elections. Now that Republicans have made big gains in both chambers of Congress, Democrats find their confidence further weakened.

Following the midterms, the White House has signalled that Democrats might be willing to compromise on the idea of a permanent extension of tax cuts for middle-class families and a temporary extension of cuts for the two percent of Americans families making more than $250,000, but it won’t stomach the approximately $700 billion in additional debt that would be required to extend those cuts permanently. Republicans, on the other hand, haven’t deviated from their position that the tax cuts for all Americans be kept together as a package deal.

If neither side blinks, taxes are set to rise for all Americans effective January 1. Neither party wants to be seen as responsible for a tax hike during difficult economic times, but Democrats have appeared far more worried at the prospect of getting blamed should negotiations break down. Polls favor the Democrats’ position that the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans should be allowed to expire, but without the votes of at least two Republicans in the Senate, the proposal is likely to fail. Barring momentum in Congress for the creation of a new tax bracket — for people making half a million dollars or a million dollars per year — in order to better rhetorically define the class of folks for whom Republicans are advocating tax relief, the easiest and most likely outcome will be a bill that temporarily extends all the tax cuts, simply kicking the decision of what to do to some point farther down the road.

Unemployment insurance benefits

As Congress frets over whether the marginal tax rate for incomes over $200,000 should be raised three percentage points, the Senate is also on the verge of allowing federal unemployment benefits to lapse — again. Extending the benefits before they expire on November 30 might seem like a no-brainer: It would prevent somewhere between 1.2 and 2 million unemployed Americans from having their subsistence checks cut off just in time for Christmas and would reduce the risk of a drop in consumer spending and economic growth as high as 0.4 percentage points from December to February.

Republicans might have trouble arguing that deficit reduction trumps other priorities, including unemployment benefits, when the only major initiative the GOP is pushing — extending the Bush tax cuts for the upper 2 percent of wage earners — would increase the deficit by $700 billion over ten years. That said, Republicans in the Senate, along with Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), are likely to vote against any extension of unemployment insurance benefits unless Democrats can come up with ways to offset their cost.

The last time unemployment benefits were set to lapse, back in early June, the Senate was unable to muster enough votes to renew an extension for 51 days. With Republican Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine joining Democrats to vote for cloture, and Nelson joining with Republicans to vote against debate, Democrats had no choice but to wait for Sen. Carte Goodwin (D-W.Va.) to be sworn in as a replacement for the late Sen. Robert Byrd (D- W.Va.) in order to garner a 60th vote.

This time, assuming all the senators maintain their positions in the debate, the hurdle will be that much higher for Democrats after Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) takes the seat of Sen. Roland Burris (D-Ill.) on Nov. 29. With one fewer assured vote, Democrats would either have to come up with a package of equivalent spending cuts that satisfies Republicans’ demands or persuade one more Republican to join their cause. Neither scenario appears particularly likely, however, which is why many unemployed Americans are bracing for the worst come Nov. 30.

“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”

A long-awaited Pentagon study on ending the practice of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the 17-year-old law that requires military service members to keep their sexual orientation secret, isn’t due to President Obama until December 1, but early media reports indicate that it will buttress gay rights advocates’ arguments to repeal the law. More than 70 percent of the respondents in the Pentagon survey indicated that repeal would have either positive, mixed or nonexistent effects, leading the authors to conclude that the military can lift its ban on gay and lesbian Americans serving openly in uniform while incurring minimal risk in its current war efforts.

If the study brings good news to those hoping to repeal the law, however, the current situation in the Senate should not. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) attempted to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” before the midterm elections, tacking the provision onto a defense reauthorization bill that failed to overcome a Republican-led filibuster in the Senate. The bill was weighed down by many add-ons — including the DREAM Act, which seeks to extend a path to citizenship to some undocumented immigrants who attend college or serve in the military — giving too many senators excuses to vote against it, but advocates remained hopeful that repeal could pass along with the defense bill when Congress resumed for its lame-duck session.

Now Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), ranking member of the Armed Services Committee, is said to be negotiating with Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), the committee chairman, to remove the DADT repeal provision from the defense bill. McCain had previously voiced openness to authorizing a repeal of the law following the Pentagon’s review, but since that time his views have hardened. During his re-election battle earlier this year, McCain faced a primary challenger from the right and promised during his campaign to preserve the law.

In the absence of support from McCain, advocacy groups have identified 10 senators who have indicated in the past that they’d like to see the Pentagon’s study before deciding on whether to lift the military’s policy. The list includes Sens. Scott Brown (R-Mass.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), Mark Pryor (D-Ark.), Oympia Snowe (R-Maine), George Voinovich (R-Ohio) and Jim Webb (D-Va.). Once the results of the study are known, gay rights groups hope these senators will take them to heart and vote for repeal. If they follow McCain’s lead and renege on their previous openness to getting rid of the law, however, it may be a long time before Congress can muster sufficient votes to repeal the policy.

Campaign finance reform

Following an election season that saw record amounts of cash — including a fair chunk from undisclosed sources — spent on political advertising by outside groups, campaign finance reform advocates are still hoping that Democrats in Congress might take advantage of their remaining time in charge of both chambers to pass legislation to shore up the loophole-ridden landscape of campaign finance law. The most popular effort, by far, during the last year has been a bill called the DISCLOSE Act, which would require all groups spending money on electioneering activities in future elections to disclose their major donors.

While premised on a fairly bipartisan concept of full disclosure, the bill soon ran into trouble in the Senate over additional components that had been added on to it. Measures to prohibit campaign spending by companies holding government contracts or those exceeding a certain threshold of foreign ownership were read by Senate Republicans as an attempt to privilege union speech over that of corporations. Traditional campaign finance reform advocates like Sens. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) held onto such objections and voted against cloture for the bill when Democrats declined to take them out.

Now Democrats in the Senate are contemplating one last attempt to pass a stripped-down version of the DISCLOSE Act — one that sticks strictly to the principle of transparency that Republicans once advocated as their gold standard for effective campaign finance legislation. But Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), a staunch opponent of nearly all campaign finance legislation, might prove an even bigger obstacle to the bill’s passage than any single aspect of the legislation. While Snowe or Collins, or even Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) or Senator-elect Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), might prove receptive to the measure in principle, it appears highly unlikely that any of them are willing to buck their party leadership for the cause.

Energy/environment

Even if the lame-duck session likely represents the best opportunity for Democrats to pass key pieces of energy legislation before a more Republican Congress comes to town, it seems unlikely that anything significant will move.

The House, for its part, has already passed a cap-and-trade bill and an oil spill response bill, and all eyes are now on the Senate. But it looks like major energy action in the chamber will have to wait until next year, if it happens at all.

One clean energy advocate with close ties to Congress downplayed the likelihood that energy legislation will pass during the lame duck. “Little will happen, probably,” he said.

The only energy-related bill that is likely to see the light of day during the lame-duck session is a proposal to encourage the production of electric and natural gas vehicles. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has scheduled a cloture vote for Wednesday on the bill, the Promoting Natural Gas and Electric Vehicles Act of 2010. The bill has bipartisan support.

Asked about the prospects for energy legislation during the lame duck in the Senate, Regan Lachapelle, a spokeswoman for Reid, said, “We filed cloture on a motion to proceed to a natural gas bill before we left. Other than that, we have many items that are possible for consideration during the lame duck.” Lachapelle did not elaborate on the pieces of legislation to which she was referring.

Backers of a renewable energy standard, which would require that a certain percentage of the country’s electricity come from renewable sources like wind and solar, are keeping their fingers crossed that such a proposal can move in the lame-duck session. “We’re optimistic about the lame duck,” said one RES proponent who was not authorized to talk on the record.

Reid and Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) spoke on the phone Tuesday about the possibility of moving an RES during the lame duck. Bingaman’s spokesman, Bill Wicker, would not discuss the call. “This was a private conversation between two Members, so I have to respect that,” he said in an email. “But we all should know more about the lame duck before much longer.”

But a senior Senate aide with knowledge of the conversation downplayed the possibility that an RES would be brought up for a vote during the lame-duck session. “They had a good conversation and agreed it will be challenging to get 60 votes for expedited consideration of an RES during the limited time left in the session,” the aide said of discussion between Reid and Bingaman. Indeed, RES supporters would need to secure the support of two to four Republicans in addition to the four who already support the bill in order to get 60 votes.

An oil spill response bill and various pieces of legislation to promote energy efficiency and home weatherization are all pending in the Senate. But it looks like consideration of those bills will have to wait until next year.

DREAM Act

Reid and Pelosi have vowed to push for a lame-duck vote on the DREAM Act, a bill that would allow some undocumented young people who came to the United States as children to gain legal status for attending college or serving in the military.

In the House, the vote could come as early as this week, Democrat sources told Politico. Reps. George Miller (D-Calif.) and Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.) were reportedly tasked by Pelosi with determining whether the caucus would be able to pass the bill.

If the act does not pass in the lame-duck session, it has very little chance of passage before 2013. Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), who is expected to head the House subcommittee on immigration, refers to the DREAM Act as “amnesty” and promised he would use his authority in the GOP-led House to block the act. GOP gains in the Senate also lessen the likelihood of passing the bill next session.

Reid recently said he would need support from “a handful of Republicans” to pass the bill during the lame duck, echoing estimates by bill sponsor Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) that at least five Republicans would need to support the bill for it to pass. A spokesman for Reid confirmed last week that he plans to bring up the DREAM Act for a vote during the lame-duck session, although it is still unclear whether it would be as a standalone measure or as an attachment to another bill.

The problem is that Reid doesn’t have much time — or sure support for the DREAM Act from his caucus. The act last came up for a vote in 2007, and seven of the eight Democrats who voted against it then are still in the Senate. While a few might support the bill this time around, five told The Hill in September they are still undecided on the DREAM Act.

Complicating matters, Mark Kirk’s assumption of Roland Burris’ seat in the Senate turns a sure “yes” vote into a likely “no.” Kirk has been lobbied heavily by DREAM Act supporters, but said before the election that he would vote against the act unless border security measures were pushed first. “It’s not time for the DREAM Act right now,” he told reporters in October. “If the DREAM Act came up for a vote right now, I would vote ‘no.’”

All current Republican senators voted in September to filibuster the defense authorization bill after Reid announced plans to attach the DREAM Act. But given the additional controversy over that bill — it included a repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and would have allowed for only limited changes from Republicans — it’s tough to extrapolate much from it about how senators would vote on the DREAM Act as a standalone bill.

Sen. Robert Bennett (R-Utah) said he would support the bill if it were brought to the floor on its own, even though he opposed it as part of the defense authorization bill. Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), who co-sponsored the bill, would also almost certainly vote for it if it comes up in the lame-duck session.

Several other Republicans voted for the DREAM Act in 2007, but their support this year remains uncertain because of rightward shifts on immigration policy and the possibility of the bill again being attached to other legislation. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) was an original sponsor of the bill when it was first introduced in 2001 and voted for it in 2007. This year, he said the government should secure the borders before it focuses on the DREAM Act.

Written by Jesse Zwick, Andrew Restuccia and Elise Foley.

Reid claims his caucus is behind him on the act, which would give some undocumented students and military service members a change to gain legal status to remain in the country. “We all support the DREAM Act,” he said on Univision in an interview that aired Sunday. “I just need a handful of Republicans to help me.”

Kirk has said he wouldn’t, despite exhaustive efforts by DREAM Act supporters to convince him otherwise. “This is not the time to do that,” Kirk said in a debate.

How important is Kirk’s vote for passing the DREAM Act? It depends on who Reid means when he says “we all support the DREAM Act.” There are 59 senators who caucus with the Democrats and 41 Republicans. Kirk will change those numbers to 58 and 42. Reid needs 60 votes to overcome a filibuster if he hopes to pass the DREAM Act.

If Reid’s right about his caucus, he would only need two Republicans to vote “yes” on the DREAM Act. Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) co-sponsored the bill and would almost certainly vote for the it as a standalone measure, although he voted in September to filibuster the defense authorization bill that included it. Sen. Bob Bennett (R-Utah) has also said he would vote for the act as a standalone bill.

But if either of them or any Democrats fall through, other Republicans are tougher to pin down. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), who was one of the original sponsors of the DREAM Act, seems likely to vote against it now because he favors a borders-first approach to tackling immigration problems. “The American people want the government to secure our borders, create jobs and reduce the deficit.” Hatch said when he announced plans to vote against the DREAM Act’s inclusion in the defense authorization bill.

Lugar, Hatch and Bennett were two of twelve Republicans who voted for the DREAM Act in 2007. The others still in Senate — Sam Brownback (R-Kans.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) — have been vague about whether they would support the measure as a standalone this year.

When the bill came up as a possible addition to the defense authorization bill, a few Democrats said they were not sure they would support it this time around. Sens. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) and Mary Landrieu (D-La.) told The Hill in September they might vote “no” on the DREAM Act.

For the average worker who has lost her job since May 31, the cost of COBRA has tripled. (Flickr, Steve Rhodes)

In the first week of July, Andie Davis’ husband, who worked in manufacturing, lost his job, as hundreds of thousands of Michiganders have since the onset of the recession. Soon after, he started collecting unemployment insurance benefits that might last the family of four as long as 99 weeks. Davis hopes that the benefits will keep the family afloat — the mortgage paid, school lunches made, the electricity on — without forcing her to tap into the family’s savings.

[Economy1] But to keep the family financially stable while both she and her husband look for work, she has decided to forgo health insurance. The Davis family looked at how much COBRA would cost them, thinking the government would help pay for it. Had her husband lost his job just six weeks earlier, Washington would have footed about two-thirds of the premium bill. But since Davis’ husband lost his job after May 31, the young couple is on their own.

The change has gone little-noticed, both by the press and by the laid-off persons impacted by it. But a popular stimulus provision, the federal subsidy of COBRA benefits, expired for newly unemployed workers as of the first day of June. That means, for the average worker who has lost her job since May 31, the cost of COBRA has tripled.

COBRA — a provision created in the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985 — gives workers the option of buying into their old health-care plan when they lose their job. Before the recession, COBRA let workers who lost their job through no fault of their own pay the entire health-care premium plus a two-percent administrative fee to keep coverage, about $8,800 per year for the average enrollee. (Generally, COBRA lasted 18 months.)  As part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, or the 2009 stimulus, Congress subsidized this coverage, given the massive number and economic hardship of laid-off workers. The subsidy paid for 65 percent of health-care premiums for up to 15 months, meaning an average enrollee paid less than $3,000 a year.

For the Davises, under COBRA, coverage might have been a manageable $400 a month. When Davis looked into enrolling her husband and herself, she found it would cost more than $1,100 a month — leaving the family just a few hundred dollars for the mortgage, utilities, gas and food. She sought information on other private plans, but considered all of them too expensive. For now, the Davises are purchasing barebones coverage that will help pay hospital bills in case they are in an accident.

She rationalizes: “Me and the husband, we’re young enough that we can go without visits to the dentist and the [gynecologist] for a year,” and she argues, “I just do not see how it would be worth paying that much money for coverage, when we’re looking at a lot of other problems.” She argues that if the choice is between routine care and paying the electric bill, she will choose the latter. In the meantime, she is praying that her husband’s asthma does not flare up in the fall and hoping that they find jobs soon.

The Davises are one of hundreds of thousands of families doing the same. According to a study of 200 very large employers by Hewitt Associates, the COBRA provision doubled the proportion of laid-off workers enrolling in the program. In the fall of 2008, before the subsidy, about 19 percent of laid-off employees enrolled in COBRA. During the first six months of the subsidy, 38 percent of laid-off workers chose to. Now, with the subsidy’s end, enrollment rates are plummeting.

“Enrollment rates will likely decline over time as workers can’t, or aren’t willing to, afford the high premiums associated with COBRA coverage,” Hewitt’s Karen Frost said in a statement. “It’s possible these laid off workers are simply seeking coverage with a new employer or through their spouse’s employer. Unfortunately, it’s also likely that some are just foregoing health insurance altogether.” The National Employment Law Project estimates that 144,000 individuals and families per month have lost out on the subsidy.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way, but the extension of the COBRA subsidy became caught up in the tax extenders bill — also known as the jobs bill or H.R. 4213 — a large package of popular stimulus provisions that eventually died at the hands of a Republican filibuster. Senate Democrats managed to move unemployment insurance benefits, but few other portions of the popular bill made it through a Senate allergic to deficit spending.

The COBRA subsidy is highly popular: Hart Research found that 70 percent of Americans support extending it.  And many on the Hill fought to keep it in the tax extenders bill or to push it through other provisions. “Millions of Americans have been hard hit by the recession and lost their jobs through no fault of their own,” Sen. Robert Casey (D-Pa.) argued. “If Congress turns its back on them, they will have an even more difficult time making ends meet. With no premium assistance, COBRA health care benefits would consume 75 percent of the monthly unemployment payment for a Pennsylvania family.”

He offered an amendment to keep the subsidy within the jobs packages, and along with Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) has offered it as a standalone bill. The Extend COBRA Premium Assistance Program Act of 2010 provides a six-month subsidy for workers laid off between May 31 and Nov. 30. The provision is entirely deficit-neutral, eliminating a tax break on annuity trusts as a pay-for. (The bill is one of many that would extend COBRA. On the House side, Rep. Susan Davis (D-Calif.), for instance, introduced a bill doing so until relevant portions of Obama’s health care bill come into effect in 2014.)

Casey and Brown’s bill is popular — cosigned by Democratic Senators John Kerry (Mass.), Carl Levin (Mich.),  Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.), Debbie Stabenow (Mich.), Patrick Leahy (Vt.), Christopher Dodd (Ct.), Al Franken (Minn.), Roland Burris (Il.) and Daniel Akaka (Hi.) and supported by a slew of others. But it is caught in committee, and its likelihood of passage any time soon is small.

That means that the popular provision is likely dead, and for families like the Davises, health care coverage will remain an unaffordable luxury.

In the same statement, Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) said the policy was now “somewhat more humane” but urged Gates to go further and simply “suspend discharges based solely on sexual orientation” until a Pentagon-ordered study of how to repeal the ban is complete. Sen. Roland Burris (D-Ill.) was more sanguine in the statement, calling Gates’ move “a major shift in thinking, and tangible progress toward the elimination of this discriminatory policy.” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) added that the group “won’t rest until ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’ is repealed.”

In the House, a man who wants to join them, Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Pa.) — a Senate hopeful and retired three-star admiral — said in a separate statement that while he was encouraged by Gates’ revisions,

“it is my firm conviction that these new procedures do not go far enough.  If unfortunately we are to spend a year studying the impact of repeal, our military and troops cannot be left in limbo throughout this process. President Obama should sign an executive order — relying on the same ‘stop-loss’ authority used to extend tours of duty — to halt all dismissals under this policy.”

Should the winner of this special election be seated in the U.S. Senate immediately or should the Democrat leaders in Washington be allowed to delay seating the winner until after the health care reform bill has been voted on?

79%     Seated Immediately

10%     Allow Democrat Leaders To Delay Seating

9%       DK/Refused

Wording aside, there are the seeds of an aggressive campaign to make any delay in a Brown seating politically impossible. Past examples to look at–scandalized Sen. Roland Burris’s (D-Ill.) rain-soaked trip to the Senate to demand that he be seated, and the series of anti-health care reform rallies outside of Congress, put together on incredibly short notice.

RNC MA Statewide Pre-Election Survey 1-10 – Final With Results

Thus, the competitive activities of health insurers and medical malpractices insurers remain effectively unchecked.  While there are divergent views on the best way to introduce choice and competition into health insurance market, we can surely agree that health and medical malpractice insurers should not be allowed to collude to set prices and allocate markets.

They should have addressed their concerns to Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.). Why? Well, the House health-reform bill already includes a repeal of the anti-trust exemption, and the Senate bill would have, except that Reid was forced to scrap it to satisfy Nelson, a former insurance industry executive.

Thursday’s letter was signed by Democratic Sens. Pat Leahy (Vt.), John Kerry (Mass.), Jay Rockefeller (W.Va.), Joe Lieberman (Conn.), Dianne Feinstein (Calif.), Russ Feingold (Wis.), Ron Wyden (Ore.), Mary Landrieu (La.), Charles Schumer (N.Y.), Maria Cantwell (Wash.), Frank Lautenberg (N.J.), Bernie Sanders (Vt.), Claire McCaskill (Mo.), Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.), Roland Burris (Ill.), Ed Kaufman (Del.), Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.), Michael Bennet (Col.) and Al Franken (Minn.).

There are some powerful folks on that list, which represents nearly a third of the Democratic caucus. Cruelly, however, it just takes a single “no” vote from Nelson to sink the entire bill. That means that if Nelson insists that the provision is out, then the provision will be out.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) (The Washington Times/ZUMA Press)

Announcing the Democrats’ tentative deal on a public option, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said last night that the nascent proposal strikes a good balance between liberals, who say a federal plan will lower patient costs, and conservatives who want to limit the government’s hand in private markets.

“It has something that we think should satisfy everybody,” Reid said.

Well, maybe. But it also has something to rile everybody, which leaves the future of the still-vague proposal very much uncertain.

[Congress]Although Democratic leaders are keeping the details largely under wraps, the leaked elements include provisions that will be difficult to swallow for those on both sides of the nettlesome debate over the public insurance plan. Indeed, while the week-long negotiations were designed to win agreement between liberal and conservative Democrats, key figures representing both camps are still declining to endorse their supposed deal. Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.), for example, has expressed reservations, and Sens. Mary Landrieu (La.) and Blanche Lincoln (Ark.) said Wednesday that they won’t advocate for the proposal before they see a cost estimate.

Central to the Democrats’ compromise is reportedly a strategy to table the public option in favor of hybrid national plans to be regulated by the government but administered by private companies. If those companies failed to meet certain cost and coverage thresholds, it would trigger the creation of a full-scale public option to compete directly with private plans.

The “trigger” proposal is hardly new to the health reform debate, and it’s certain to meet with resistance. Although Sen. Olympia Snowe (Maine), the only Republican to support the Democrats’ health reforms, has endorsed the trigger, others have vowed to kill the overall bill if such a mechanism is included. Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Roland Burris (D-Ill.), for example, say the trigger doesn’t go far enough to encourage private companies to keep plans affordable, while Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) has said it goes too far to encroach on private markets.

Even Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), one of the 10 Democratic negotiators who crafted the compromise, has argued this year that the trigger proposal is a punt. “Historically, ‘trigger’ mechanisms have not been successful, and they are not a substitute for a strong public health insurance option,” Rockefeller said in an October statement, likely referring to the trigger in Medicare’s prescription drug benefit that was never pulled. “A ‘trigger’ simply delays price competition.”

Rockefeller’s office did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday.

Furthermore, the proposal to have the insurance companies administer the national plans leaves in place the same profit motive for denying claims that Democrats have attacked throughout the health reform debate.

“This legislation cannot simply be a huge subsidy to private insurance companies that will get millions of new customers and be able to raise their rates as high as they want,” Sanders said last month.

There are other red flags in the Democrats’ public-plan compromise. One provision, for example, would extend Medicare eligibility to include those aged 55 to 64. Liberals have long called for such an expansion of the single-payer Medicare program, but concerns have swirled around the level of reimbursement for health care providers, many of whom complain that rates are too low to see Medicare patients. A September study conducted by the Center for Studying Health System Change found that just over half of the nation’s doctors accept all new Medicare patients, while almost 14 percent will see none at all.

“Are providers going to be reimbursed at Medicare rates? That’s certainly going to be the issue,” said Julius Hobson, former lobbyist for the American Medical Association and now health policy analyst with the Washington-based law firm Bryan Cave.

Still another element of the Democrats’ deal would reportedly force private insurers to spend no less than 90 cents of each premium dollar on health-care services, as opposed to ads, salaries and other administrative costs. That proposal, however, is sure to rouse the opposition of the powerful insurance lobby and conservative lawmakers already critical of the degree to which the Democrats’ health reform bill intervenes in the private marketplace.

And it’s not only conservatives who might be wary. Indeed, when Rockefeller proposed a similar provision during the Senate Finance Committee’s debate on health reform, liberal Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M) emerged as one of the vocal opponents. Bingaman said the amendment, which would have set the floor at 85 cents on the dollar, was inappropriate “without more understanding of … what it will do to the insurance markets.”

These sticking points do nothing to mention the opposition that will likely surface in the House, where Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has made the public option a centerpiece of the chamber’s health reform legislation.

The Democrats’ proposal is still young, of course, and by declining to release the details, Democrats have left themselves plenty of room to tweak the compromise in order to lure broader support. Still, with so many constituencies to satisfy at once, the bill’s success might just hinge on whether or not lawmakers are willing to hold their noses and vote in favor of major provisions they adamantly oppose. If Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) is any indication, that tendency might already be happening.

“Do I like it?” Harkin said Tuesday when asked about the compromise. “No, but I’m going to support it to the hilt.”

The Committee found that you should have known that you were providing incorrect, inconsistent, misleading or incomplete information to the public, the Senate and those  conducting legitimate inquiries into your appointment to the Sentate. [...]

The Committee has found that your actions and statements reflected unfavorably on the Senate and issues this Public Letter of Qualified Admonition.

Translation: We know you lied under oath; here’s your slap on the wrist.

Is it any wonder that watchdog groups don’t trust the system of Congress policing itself?

Under the proposed 50/50 formula, utilities that are more coal dependent will need to purchase even more allowances than they would have if all allowances were allocated based on emissions.

Well, yeah. And under the current proposed 50/50 formula, the coal burners would also have to purchase more allowances than if Congress did nothing at all. But the whole point of the bill is to discourage the use of high-emission energies like coal by making them less affordable than cleaner alternatives. Sheppard explains further why the lawmakers’ argument makes little sense in the context of the global warming debate:

Of course, this would work against the entire logic of the proposed scheme, which is to offer utilities financial incentives to switch to lower-carbon fuel sources. [...]

Right now, the climate bill needs all the votes it can get from Democrats. So enviros worry that concessions to this bloc could ultimately result in a deal in which coal plants suffer no real penalties for the carbon they pump into the atmosphere. “Dirty coal polluters know their days are numbered and are lobbying for the largest piece of the pie they can get,” said Jason Kowalski, policy coordinator at 1Sky. “It goes against the spirit of this legislation to reward the polluters that caused this problem in the first place.”

Signing on to the letter were Democratic Sens. Carl Levin (Mich.), Debbie Stabenow (Mich.), Russ Feingold (Wis.), Herb Kohl (Wis.), Tom Harkin (Iowa), Al Franken (Minn.), Amy Klobuchar (Minn.), Byron Dorgan (N.D.), Kent Conrad (N.D.), Roland Burris (Ill.), Sherrod Brown (Ohio), Michael Bennet (Colo.), Mark Udall (Colo.) and Robert Byrd (W.Va.).

By appointing Burris to inject racial politics into the battle to save his job, former Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D-Ill.) saddled Senate Democrats with one of the most dizzingly incoherent politicians in America, and threw the incredibly safe Illinois Senate seat open for a possible Republican takeover. Burris’s service in the Senate may one day be summed up by this accidental poem:

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, this is — this is — I mean this is. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’m done.

Read the full horror:

BURRIS: This has — being a constitutional and political science student, I mean, this is Political Science 101 or Political Science, maybe, 1000. The panel’s just been terrific.

And I have so many thoughts just rolling through my head, I don’t even know where to start. I mean, this is — this is the meat that caused us political scientists to even exist, because you’re dealing with these major issues of the separation of powers and the creation of this country and whether or not you want your president to really have the powers that you granted it, and whether or not the Congress, which is on similar or equal footing, can then control or muscle in on those powers of the president.

Based on the fact that — especially the House of Representatives, since they stand for re-election every two years and senators much longer, you — you have this constant power struggle as who is really representing the people and what that representation is going to mean when it gets to the — the policy decision that’s going to impact the public.

And I don’t know whether or not — I don’t think you can come up with a definition dealing with this. Having served in a governor’s cabinet and having dealt with those staffers, it almost depends on how strong the cabinet member is as to just what and how he’s going to deal with those situations and those circumstances.

Because having experienced that on the state level, and knowledgeable to some extent on the federal level — I was very close to the — to the Carter administration and had good insights into the workings of the White House and all of those decisions that were being made and how the gatekeepers really sought to filter the information that got to the president.

Every president’s going to go through it. I don’t even know how we in the Congress can legally — I mean, I heard the distinguished ranking member say that we passed a law. We can pass a law and say there’s going to be a position in there, but I don’t think the Congress can tell the president who to put in that position.

I mean, if we do that, then I think that we’re violating the separation of powers. I mean, this is what we get into. And you can create a position. What happens if — what happens if the president says, “I don’t want to appoint anybody as secretary of state. I’m going to use the undersecretary as an acting secretary”?

Is there a law that would require us or require the president to appoint a secretary of state? Is there? Is there?

CASEY: A law that requires the president to appoint a secretary of state?

BURRIS: Yes.

CASEY: Specifically, there would not be a law requiring him to do that. Now, of course, if he wants the functions that you vested in a secretary of state performed, he — he probably has to do…

(CROSSTALK)

BURRIS: But there is no law that says he has to even appoint a secretary of state, is that — am I correct?

(CROSSTALK)

BURRIS: There’s a statute that says there’s a position — a secretary of state position…

CASEY: Right, right — shall be appointed in the following — yes — I’m unaware of any…

(CROSSTALK)

BURRIS: But is there a law that says the president has to make that appointment?

CASEY: Not that I’m aware of.

BURRIS: That’s the difficulty that we’re dealing with here. Is there a law that says that the president can appoint an acting person and how long can that person act?

CASEY: Yes. There is actually a law that governs…

(CROSSTALK)

BURRIS: OK. How long can that person act?

CASEY: It is — I would actually have to look at the statute but it’s a matter of months, it’s not…

BURRIS: A matter of months, so that person…

(CROSSTALK)

BURRIS: Otherwise, then, does the authority then leave that…

(UNKNOWN): (OFF-MIKE)

BURRIS: … that position?

(CROSSTALK)

BURRIS: And who then assumes that authority in that position if the president refuses to send the name up for confirmation to us?

CASEY: Well, yes, there — there are various — many circumstances in which an acting official can continue to serve, especially if they are the — the normal principal deputy of the office that — that you’re talking about.

BURRIS: And what about these midnight appointments, as we hear? You know, the judges in the interim time, or Congress in — in recess…

CASEY: Recess appointments.

BURRIS: The recess appointments. And they serve for only a certain period of time, and — and otherwise…

CASEY: Right.

BURRIS: … that person would have to leave the position and — I mean, you can see all the questions that are just flowing through my process here, as we try to talk about czars and policy-makers. This is even bigger than — than czars.

I mean — you’re — you’re wrestling with this — this just wonderful document that’s created 200 and plus years ago that created our entity and this thing called separation of powers.

We haven’t even gotten into the judiciary side of this, which could also raise a whole lot of other questions.

So, Mr. President (sic), I really don’t have many questions, I just — I got more questions than I have answers, Mr. Chairman, in reference to this, because I — I just sit here and listen to the experts talk, and every time there was a statement made, there’s a — there’s a new question come to my mind, well, what about this? What ifs — What if? What if? And — and so, I find this so fascinating, and I’m — I’m certainly going read each and every one of you all’s testimony.

I don’t know how I’m going to get back to — to, you know, the hearing again to try to follow up on this but, Mr. Chairman, I would imagine that our grandchildren are going to be still wrestling with this same problem.

I don’t know whether or not — given us wanting to have a weak president who’s going to kowtow to Congress or us having this — a weak Congress who’s going to let a president run all over us, which you see in some of these cases.

I mean if, you know, if — if you say that we’re going to appropriate some money, then they don’t want to spend it, you know, they don’t spend it.

And you just heard what my distinguished senator from Utah says, that who the gatekeeper is to stop the information from getting to the president. So, you know, I’m more frustrated than I am — with questions.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, this is — this is — I mean this is. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’m done.