Waxman sets private, Dems-only healthcare meeting

House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) has scheduled a meeting of the Democrats on his panel Wednesday to go over his approach to healthcare reform.

In addition to being a sign that Waxman and his counterparts on two other House committees think they are making progress toward marking up legislation next month, Waxman’s announcement Tuesday comes after 45 Blue Dog Democrats complained last week they were being shut out of the process.

{mosads}As the White House and senior lawmakers continue the work of trying to figure out how to reduce the rate of growth in healthcare spending, improve the quality of medical care in the United States and expand coverage to the 46 million without health insurance, contingents of their fellow Democrats are beginning to assert themselves.

Waxman, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.), House Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller (D-Calif.), Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chairman Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) have all set August recess as a target to pass their healthcare bills and year-end as a target to present legislation to President Obama.

On Tuesday, the Blue Dogs — many of whom are members of those House committees — issued a statement of principles on healthcare reform.

As they have throughout the discussion on health reform this year, the Blue Dogs reiterate that the legislation must be deficit-neutral. Despite their complaints that the committee chairmen have not been open to their ideas on reform, the Blue Dogs and their centrist Democratic colleagues in the Senate already won a major concession from congressional leaders: The budget requires the healthcare bill to be completely paid for.

The Blue Dogs also stress notions such as healthcare cost containment, payment reforms, prevention, health insurance market reforms and tax credits for individuals and small businesses who buy coverage.

The principles do not, however, touch on several of the most controversial elements of healthcare reform being considered by Waxman and his fellow committee chairmen in both chambers, and by the White House. The Blue Dogs do not take positions on whether to create a public plan to compete for private insurers; whether employers should be required to provide insurance; and/or whether individuals should be required to obtain it.

The document issued by the Blue Dogs closely resembles the principles issued last week by another centrist House cause, the New Democrat Coalition.

On the other side of the party’s ideological spectrum, the Progressive, Black, Hispanic and Asian-Pacific Islander caucuses have written congressional leaders demanding that the public plan option be included in healthcare reform, as have 21 senators, mostly liberals, led by Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.).