On the Hill: The week in Washington Steve Scalise's health law confrontation Just before Congress began its summer recess, there was another confrontation between Rep. Steve Scalise, R-Jefferson, and a member of the Obama administration. And once again that conflict was over the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which Scalise and other GOP critics refer to as ObamaCare....
On the Hill: The week in Washington
Steve Scalise's health law confrontation
Just before Congress began its summer recess, there was another confrontation between Rep. Steve Scalise, R-Jefferson, and a member of the Obama administration. And once again that conflict was over the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which Scalise and other GOP critics refer to as ObamaCare.
The setting was a House Energy Committee hearing featuring Marilyn Tavenner, administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. She testified that she's heard of only "isolated incidents" of employers cutting back hours so that they wouldn't have to provide health coverage.
The law requires benefits for all workers employed for 30 hours or more per week, though the administration put off the mandate, due to start in January, 2014, until 2015.
That response annoyed Scalise, who says he has heard multiple reports back home about employers planning to cut employees hours and that others, including union officials who supported the law, are also voicing these concerns.
"It seems like you're living in some cocoon," Scalise said.
Tavenna told Scalise that she's spent time in Baton Rouge and New Orleans meeting with hospital officials, physicians, and others. "That's one point I want to keep making over and over again, I am out there. I am listening. I do hear isolated incidents of individuals trying to cut back hours. I don't hear so much about reducing, first of all." Scalise interrupted her.
"Do you really think that's isolated?
Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., said GOP complaints shouldn't be taken too seriously. "The health care law has become the Republicans' great white whale. "They will stop at nothing to kill it."
Alexander tired of congressional partisanship joins Jindal administration
When Rep. Rodney Alexander, R-Quitman, resigned from Congress, he explained that he had grown weary of the growing partisanship and gridlock on Capitol Hill. "When one gets to Washington, the powers that be say we're got to be team players. Forgot about the people in the Fifth Congressional District. You've on the team now." That team, ever since Alexander left the Democratic Party in 2004, has been the House Republican leadership.
Alexander is taking a job as state veterans' secretary for Gov. Bobby Jindal, who recently gave up his spot in the bipartisan National Governors Association, skipping a national NGA meeting in Milwaukee hosted by fellow Republican Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin. Instead, Jindal spent some time at a meeting of the Republican Governors Association, which he heads.
A Jindal spokesman said the governor has stopped paying his dues to the NGA, considering it a "waste of taxpayers' money." Texas Gov. Rick Perry has also stopped paying NGA dues.
Where did all that power go?
Rep. Alexander's departure from Congress leaves the state without a member of the powerful House Appropriations Committee. Alexander had recently been elevated to "Cardinal status," the informal title given chairs of House Appropriations committee subcommittees. Alexander was head of the legislative funding subcommittee for the Appropriations Committee.
Louisiana's lost representation on the committee is just another hit on the state delegation's clout on Capitol Hill. It wasn't that long ago -- 1995-1998 -- when Metairie Republican Bob Livingston headed the panel.
Different fund-raising strategy
When it comes to fund-raising, the Mary Landrieu and Bill Cassidy Senate campaigns are employing different strategies.
Incumbent Landrieu's team fund-raising is limited, so far, to the 2014 open primary. If no candidate gets 50 percent plus one vote or more - there will be a runoff between the two top finishers. Cassidy's campaign is raising money for both the primary and runoff.
So, as a result, Landrieu's top individual donors, through June 30, gave a max of $5,200, the most allowed for the primary. Cassidy has received 39 contributions from the first two quarters of 2013 that exceed that $5,200. Most of those donations were for $7.800, the max allowed for both the primary and the runoff.
The downside. None of that extra cash can be spent on the primary. And if one of the candidate's win outright in the primary, that extra cash would have to be returned to donors.
There was a public relations benefit for Cassidy, though. He received $101,235 in runoff contributions for the second quarter of 2013, which enabled him to report nearly $1.1 million in donations. Without that runoff money, he would have had to report slightly less than $1 million. The extra donations aren't a big deal, but for maximum impact candidates like to report fund-raising hauls in nice round numbers -- like $1 million, not $995,000.
Landrieu raised $1.6 million during the same three-month period, ending June 30.
Vitter: President responded to bipartisan pressure on ObamaCare
Sen. David Vitter, R-La., recently joined by Rep. Bill Cassidy, R-Baton Rouge, complained that the Obama administration has taken steps to insure that members of Congress, and their staffs, will continue to get federal subsidies for health coverage. Back in 2010, as Democrats prepared to pass the Affordable Care Act, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, offered an amendment that required most congressional members and staff (members of leadership , their staff, and committee staff were excluded) to purchase their insurance coverage from the marketplaces being created under the law for people to purchase private insurance.
The exchanges were seen as a place for people not satisfied with their coverage, or without insurance, to choose policies among competing firms, and, if their income levels qualified, to get subsidies to defray the cost.
Last week, the Obama administration announced the federal government would supplement the cost of health insurance for members of congress and their staff at $5,000 for individuals and $10,000 for families, just as it does now.
Vitter said the president responded to bipartisan pressure from Congress.
"No ordinary American at that income level buying on the exchange would receive any government subsidy, much less one worth approximately $5,000 for an individual or $10,000 for a family, as under the rule for Congress only," Vitter wrote in The Washington Examiner.
Administration officials say they are simply following current law. Nothing in the Affordable Care Act says anything about the federal government stopping to subsidize health insurance costs, as do most large employers.
Cassidy said the president and his cabinet should also buy their coverage from the exchanges, something the Affordable Care Act does not require.
"My staff and I are prepared to go on the exchanges and I also introduced the In It All Together Act, which would force President Obama and his Cabinet, the people who created ObamaCare, to enter the exchanges as well." Cassidy said.
If you think we should be covering something in Washington, or just want to vent, email me at balpert@nola.com