House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. (WDCpix)

Although the two Democratic bills share the central goals of controlling health care costs and covering millions of uninsured Americans, they diverge, in key places, over how to go about it. Some of the differences concern the very topics that have been most contentious throughout the debate, including whether to create a public insurance option, what to do with illegal immigrants and how to ensure that federal funds don’t subsidize abortions. The disparities leave Democratic leaders with the unenviable task of merging the proposals while preserving the backing of the fragile coalitions that ushered the bills to passage in November and December. As difficult as it was for Democratic leaders then to unite their party behind the most sweeping health care reforms since the 1960s, the final step may prove the slipperiest yet.

The Money Must Come From Somewhere

Unlike the Republicans’ sweeping health reforms of 2003, which were unfunded, the Democrats have proposed to pay for the cost of their health care overhaul. But the two chambers would do it differently. House leaders are pushing a 5.4 percent payroll tax hike on the nation’s wealthiest people — individuals making more than $500,000 per year and families earning more than $1 million. Senate Democrats have proposed a similar mechanism, hiking Medicare’s payroll tax by 0.5 percent on individuals pulling in more than $200,000 and families earning more than $250,000. But a larger chunk of funding under the Senate bill would come from an excise tax on high-cost insurance plans — a provision that’s wildly unpopular among a key Democratic constituency: organized labor.

Kids’ Care

Few federal programs have been as successful as the Children’s Health Insurance Program, or CHIP, which was enacted 12 years ago and now covers roughly 10 million people. Yet House Democrats have proposed to terminate the program at the end of 2013, shifting those kids into either Medicaid or private plans found on a proposed insurance marketplace, dubbed the exchange. The Senate bill, on the other hand, would reauthorize CHIP through 2019 and provide funding for it through 2015.

Many children’s welfare advocates have put their weight squarely behind the Senate approach, fearing that the move to exchange plans will lead to higher out-of-pocket costs for some of the country’s lowest-income families — a barrier discouraging those parents from buying their kids insurance at all, thereby threatening to reduce kids’ coverage in the name of expanding it.

Closing the Doughnut Hole

Democratic leaders in both chambers have vowed to close the coverage gap in Medicare’s prescription drug benefit — known as the doughnut hole — but only the House bill actually does it. The trouble is that the lower chamber would fund that provision by allowing states to haggle directly with drug makers on behalf of their lowest-income seniors — a proposal that Senate leaders and the White House have promised not to support as part of an $80 billion deal cut with the pharmaceutical industry earlier in the year.

That leaves conference negotiators with two choices: Break the deal with Big Pharma or find some other way to fund the elimination of the doughnut hole. A third choice — not to close the coverage gap fully — seems unlikely from a Democratic Party hoping to win over a skeptical senior population in the run-up to the 2010 elections.

Anti-Trust

Democrats have long eyed a repeal of the anti-trust exemption enjoyed by the insurance industry, and the House bill would do just that, overturning a 64-year-old law that allows companies to share cost and coverage information without federal scrutiny. The provision didn’t fly in the Senate, however, due to the opposition of Sen. Ben Nelson (Neb.), the moderate Democrat whose close ties to the insurance industry include a stint as CEO of the Omaha-based Central National Insurance Group. Although an earlier version of the Senate bill would have eliminated the anti-trust exemption, Senate leaders later bowed to Nelson by plucking that language from the bill.

Abortion Coverage

Concerned that taxpayer dollars would be used to subsidize abortion coverage on the exchange, Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) led a group of moderate Democrats in threatening to kill the House bill unless it explicitly prohibited exchange plans from covering abortion. And they won.

The Senate restrictions aren’t quite so severe, allowing women to buy abortion coverage from exchange plans if they write two separate premium checks — one for abortion services and one for all other treatments. Though it was seen as a less stringent form of the Stupak amendment, the Senate language has still alienated many liberals who say it goes too far to restrict women from getting comprehensive care. Stupak, meanwhile, says it doesn’t go far enough. Satisfying both camps will require some delicate wording.

Illegal Immigration

Both the House and Senate bills would prevent illegal immigrants from getting taxpayer subsidies for insurance coverage on the exchange. But the Senate bill is the more restrictive of the two, prohibiting undocumented folks from buying exchange plans even if they pay full price. That provision has angered a number of liberal and Hispanic lawmakers, who have questioned how letting workers buy a product from U.S. companies with U.S. dollars could be a threat to the country’s well-being. The Senate provision, critics point out, would also encourage illegal immigrants to use emergency rooms for primary care services. Still, with the 2010 elections looming, Democrats will be tempted to go with the Senate provision for simple fear of lending campaign ammunition to Republican challengers.

Public Option

It’s been the most prominent of the hot-button issues surrounding health care reform from the start, and observers of the conference negotiations will be watching closely to see what Democrats will finally do with the proposal to create a public insurance option to compete with private companies. The House bill includes such a provision, but Senate leaders were forced to yank a similar proposal when Sens. Nelson and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) threatened to withhold their support. Many liberal lawmakers have said that the public plan is vital to reforming a health care system made more dysfunctional by for-profit insurance companies whose incentive is to deny care rather than pay for it. But with no sign that either Nelson or Lieberman will have a change of heart, negotiators will have little choice but to pluck the House provision for the sake of passing the larger bill.

“I expect the final bill will be pretty much the Senate bill,” Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., told The Charleston Gazette last week, “simply because we have to get the 60 votes.”

With his mother, Karen Koch, he traveled a half-hour to see Illinois Sen. Barack Obama in Washington, Iowa last week and listen to the presidential candidate give an address entitled, “Reclaiming the American Dream.” 

Calling Obama “a great man,” he said:

“He says what he thinks and what other people don’t want to hear but what he wants them to hear … he’ll bring all the people from the war back and we can trust him.”

Koch also told the Iowa Independent that he wasn’t going to sell his recently acquired Barack Obama autograph, he was keeping it.

More Iowa Independent reporting from this event can be found at: Obama, Loebsack Campaign in Washington, IA.

More videos, including Obama’s comparison of his and Clinton’s health care reform transparency and an outline of his education plan are at: Obama’s Health Care Plan: ‘Not Behind Closed Doors.’

And I.I. reporter Dien Judge has a video, Obama Criticizes Edwards’ Senate Record, from a campaign stop in Oskaloosa, Iowa.

Ralston-based Renewable Energy Group, Ltd. (REG), believed to be the largest marketer and distributor of biodiesel in the United States, also has filed a 259-page document with the Securities and Exchange Commission to take its business public with an initial public offering of stocks.

The company is seeking to be traded on the NYSE under the symbol “RWE.” Financial documents do not reveal a range for the initial share price.

As it stands REG is a private company in which West Central Cooperative has controlling interest. WCC and its affiliates formed REG in August 2006.

The filing spells out in great detail the company’s operation and future goals.

That said, because of strict SEC regulations, company officials cannot speak publicly about the filing.

Here is Business 2.0 (the story is not published online):

“Biodiesel delivers around 50 percent more miles per gallon than ethanol. REG, an offshoot of an Iowa farm co-op, makes biodiesel from soybeans. It has 40 percent of the market and a distribution deal with Safeway.”

For its part, in the recent filing, REG reports total revenues of $211 million in 2006 with a net income of $5.2 million. First quarter figures in 2007 show revenues of $55.5 million with a loss of $1.6 million, according to the SEC filing.

The company has five biodiesel production facilities in operation, four under construction and four in development.

“We have played a leading role in defining the U.S. biodiesel industry for the past ten years,” REG says in its filing. “This experience has enabled us to develop expertise in operations, procurement, marketing, production, logistics, risk management and biodiesel facility construction management.”

According to the SEC filing, during 2006 REG marketed 78 million gallons of biodiesel, representing approximately 27 percent of U.S. biodiesel sales.

The company operates a 132-million gallon network of biodiesel production facilities, currently consisting of one facility wholly owned and four facilities owned by third parties, for which REG manages facility operations, input procurement, quality control, marketing and distribution logistics, as well as assist with risk management.

“We believe the network of biodiesel production facilities that we operate is the largest producer of biodiesel in the U.S.,” REG says in the filing. “We also provide new facility construction management services to third parties and have used our construction expertise and design technology to become a leading builder of biodiesel facilities in the U.S.”

The company reports in the filing that it is in the process of developing an expanded network of biodiesel production facilities.

The company recently started construction of facilities in St. Rose, La., an operation known as the New Orleans facility, and in Emporia, Kan. REG expects to start construction on another operation in Cairo, Ill.

In interviews within the last year, local renewable energy leaders said western Iowa is becoming a player in the global renewable energy scene – thanks in large part to West Central and REG.

If REG has success in international markets and with its stock offering, it will mean good news for the local economy as many West Central members are REG investors.

REG already has linked with two major players in the global economy, Bunge North America, and the England-based ED&F Man, a trading company with roots stretching back to the 18th century.

“When you have a child in the military you expect them to be gone during family celebrations, birthdays and Christmas,” Dinsdale said when asked about her son’s two tours in Iraq. “I come from a military family, but it still killed us when he was there. It’s such a reckless and senseless war.”

Jesse Dinsdale, who received his separation papers from the military this past February, joined the Army National Guard while he was still in high school.

“This is what he wanted to do and we talked to him about it, but didn’t consider it a bad thing,” she said. “Because of his age, we had to sign papers to allow him to enlist.”

Jesse completed basic training between his junior and senior years of high school. Once his time in the National Guard was complete, he switched to regular Army duty and served in Kosovo before being deployed to Kuwait in early 2003.

“I still remember the night we invaded Iraq,” she said. “We were watching television because we just felt something was going to be happening soon. There was some Bob Barker special on and when it ended I felt relieved like maybe nothing was going to happen. I went upstairs and had the television on up there when programming was broken into with a special report.”

Dinsdale says she picked up the phone and called her son who was stationed along the Iraq-Kuwait border. He and the soldiers with him had no idea the invasion had started.

From the beginning, she says, she didn’t think this conflict was one our nation should be pursuing.

“At that time, I didn’t really speak out against the war,” she confided. “I was more concerned about him being deployed there, getting myself through the next day and keeping our family stable.”

Once her son had completed his second tour of duty and was closing in on his last days in the military, she found her voice.

“I was watching television and saw a breaking report about Ana Nicole Smith’s death,” she said. “That was right before the anniversary of the invasion of Iraq and it really set me off. I looked at all of what was going on in Iraq and was very upset a celebrity’s death was breaking news.”

Active in the Story County peace community, Dinsdale helped plan their recent large peace rally and served as one of the speakers. She met Iowa Citizen Action Network Program Director Phillip Cryan and he asked her to speak at U.S. Rep. Tom Latham’s office. From there she was contacted by AAEI organizers and eventually invited to sit down with U.S. Sen. Harry Reid and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi to offer her first-hand perspective.

While she’s still shocked that she sat down with “two of the most powerful people in our nation,” Dinsdale says another meeting is keeping her focused.

“I came home this past Thursday and there was a vehicle I didn’t recognize in the driveway,” she said. “I came in and Jesse introduced me to a soldier he had served with while in Iraq. That soldier came over and hugged me and thanked me for all I was doing. There are some people who believe that when we hold vigils and peace rallies here that we are demoralizing our troops there. I asked this soldier about that and was told the soldiers over there talk and ask each other if the people back home really care about them and wonder why we aren’t working to bring them home.”

The AAEI is a non-partisan national campaign currently focused on the upcoming national debates on troop escalation — a project dubbed “Iraq Summer.” Iowa partners include ICAN, Iowans for Sensible Priorities and AFSCME.

“The organization nationally has targeted over 40 members of Congress in about 15 states,” she said. “We want to let those legislators know the American people are watching them and will know if they vote with Pres. [George W.] Bush against the will of the people.”

Roughly 100 organizers have been hired and sent to hot spots throughout the U.S. In Iowa, there are five organizers on the ground with U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley and Rep. Tom Latham in their sights.

The state launch takes place tonight, June 30, at Old Fire Station No. 4 in Des Moines. They event will begin at 7:30 p.m. and will coincide with a birthday party for the facility. The group hopes this will be the start of a very hot summer for Grassley and Latham.

“When September comes — the time when Congress is expected to decided whether or not Pres. Bush’s escalation strategy has worked, and vote to change course — Sen. Grassley and Rep. Latham will have little doubt about how Iowans view their continued votes to authorize the president’s endless war,” Dinsdale concluded.