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COPYRIGHT 2003 Thomson Financial Inc.
As negotiations begin to produce a Medicare bill that can get majority approval in both of the two divided chambers--including a three-fifths majority in the Senate--and win the signature of President George Bush, there's no shortage of opinions being offered about negotiators' best course of action.
The 17 members who'll be buffeted by the winds of dissent are the following: House Republicans Majority Leader Tom DeLay (TX), Ways and Means Chair Bill Thomas (CA), Energy and Commerce Chair Billy Tauzin (LA),Ways and Means health Chair Nancy Johnson (CT), and Commerce health Chair Mike Bilirakis (FL); House Democrats Ways and Means ranking member Charles Rangel (NY), Commerce ranking member John Dingell (MI), and Marion Berry (AR), a member of the Democrats' moderate Blue-Dog coalition who is Congress' only licensed pharmacist; Senate Republican Majority Leader Bill Frist (TN), Don Nickles (OK), Finance Committee Chair Chuck Grassley (IA), Orrin Hatch (UT), and Jon Kyi (AZ); and Senate Democrats Minority Leader Tom Daschle (SD), Finance ranking member Max Baucus (MT), Jay Rockefeller (WV), and John Breaux (LA), a longtime champion of certain market-based changes for Medicare, including competition between the government-run program and private health plans.
Following are some of the points of view being aired around Washington as the conferees' work begins.
* The Rural Bribe. Conventional wisdom has been that the conference committee would end up endorsing a product more like the Senate bill than the House bill. However, at a July 15 American Enterprise Institute forum, Norman Ornstein, AEI Congress watcher nonpareil, said he expected deliberations to go the other way.
Getting the Senate bill through the House would require House leaders to...
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