House leaders return, with health overhaul back on front burner

House Democratic lawmakers return to town on Tuesday after nearly a month in their districts to talk about health care this evening and give leaders an idea of where to focus as they continue negotiations with the Senate.

Leaders will meet Tuesday afternoon as well and have laid out a handful of priorities. But the order of importance and just how hard they will push for some provisions in their bill is expected to become clearer after Tuesday's meetings, a senior leadership aide said.

The caucus will serve to further reassure members the House will not rubber-stamp a Senate-passed version of the healthcare overhaul bill.

House leadership staffers have focused on the differences in how the two bills finance provisions, including House language that would ban insurers from antitrust exemptions, create a national exchange rather than state-based ones and move up by a year the implementation date of major changes to 2013.

Labor leaders visited the White House on Monday to make their case -- and side with the House -- against the Senate's tax on high-cost health plans to help raise revenue for the overhaul.

"The pharmaceutical industry gets a sweetheart deal and millions of middle-class families get their healthcare benefits taxed for the first time -- no wonder the president no longer wants C-SPAN covering the healthcare debate," said Sage Eastman, a spokesman for House Ways and Means ranking member Dave Camp, R-Mich.

House Democrats prefer to use their 5.4 percent surcharge on those earning $500,000 and joint filers bringing in $1 million to raise revenue.

The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers broke with AFL-CIO on Monday by threatening to oppose any bill that includes an excise tax on "Cadillac" plans.

"For decades, IAM members exchanged substantial wage increases for the best possible health insurance," Tom Buffenbarger, the union's president, said. "Now, in a bizarre turn of events, their insurance premiums will be subject to a 40 percent excise tax if the Senate version of healthcare reform becomes law."

The machinists' union represents 700,000 active and retired members.

As the tug-of-war continues, Sens. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., on Monday supported a provision in the House bill calling on negotiators to grant HHS the ability to negotiate Medicare drug prices in the final bill.

Schumer and Klobuchar pointed to a GAO study they released that found that more than 400 prescription drugs had "extraordinary price increases" ranging from 100 percent to as much as 500 percent between 2000 and 2008. The median increase was 158 percent, though 26 drugs saw increases greater than 1,000 percent.

GAO blamed the spike on a lack of cheaper generic versions and little competition.

Negotiating drug prices would break an $80 billion cost-cutting deal the pharmaceutical industry cut with Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., and the White House, but the House bill already includes such a provision.