HAI reports House Speaker Pelosi (D-California) has chosen to pub the public option favored by the liberal wing of her party in the healthcare bill that goes to the House floor, pending agreement by the full caucus.  The bill will be rolled out next week with a vote the first week in November.  The plan, called the ‘robust’ option or ‘Medicare Plus 5’ in the jargon that has emerged on Capitol Hill, tied provider reimbursement rates to Medicare, adding 5 percent.  The decision is likely to anger rural Democrats and centrists, including many Blue Dog Democrats.  Speaker Pelosi “said she is close to counting 218 votes for a public plan linked to Medicare rates, the version preferred by liberals in both chambers.”

Senate Majority Leader Reid (D-Nevada) today, Wednesday, October, 21, blamed the American Medical Association for false information on GOP support for a permanent Medicare physician payment fix.  A cloture vote on the bill failed this afternoon, when it got just 47 votes.

House Judiciary Committee leaders introduced a bill this week to place new restrictions on government surveillance and seizures in anti-terrorism investigations, while allowing the Obama administration to continue some tactics used by its predecessor.  The bill would renew two of the three expiring Patriot Act measures.  It would eliminate the government’s authority to spy on a “lone wolf,” which the Department of Justice has said “the government has never used…but wants to keep it available.”  Roving wiretaps still would be allowed, although “the bill would restrict surveillance to a single, identifiable target.  The government still could obtain a court order to seize documents and other tangible items, but the House measure would require the government to produce specific facts, to show the items are relevant to an authorized investigation.”

Healthcare overhaul is still far from enactment as lawmakers get back to work this week on Capitol Hill.  In addition to healthcare, other big items remain on the agenda:  climate change and financial service overhauls, FAA and highway transportation reauthorizations as well as revamping the estate tax, which if nothing is done, will disappear next year, then in 2011 revert to the lower exemptions and higher rates that existed before 2001.

A planned White House meeting to discuss immigration has already been postponed twice, and HAI has now learned the White House is expected to hold the highly anticipated meeting Thursday to discuss the prospects of overhauling the nation's immigration laws and giving millions of undocumented workers in the country some legal status.

Senators failed to agree last week on amendments to the tourism-promotion bill (S. 1023) being pushed by Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada).  Reid has now said he wants to limit debate on the bill with a cloture vote possibly scheduled for later today, Monday, June 22. Reid said he hoped to avoid the cloture vote by reaching an agreement on amendments with Republicans.