Good news today from the backstage maneuverings on the Senate Democrats' healthcare reform bill. As The New Republic reported, Democratic leaders have agreed to give more flexibility to millions of Americans who get their health insurance today through their workplace.

First, a little background. My favorite healthcare reform proposal was the Healthy Americans Act by Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Robert Bennett (R-Utah). In addition to being a genuinely bipartisan approach to the issue, it was smart about bringing market forces to bear on the industry. But it also was the most radical departure from the current system, because it would have decoupled health insurance from employment. Instead of continuing to have employers cut deals with insurers and then pay part of the cost of coverage on their workers' behalf, it would have given employees the subsidies and tax benefits directly, grouped them into statewide risk pools and created new markets for them to shop for policies. In addition to giving workers far more choice of insurer and plan -- most employers have a take-it-or-leave-it approach to health benefits -- it would encourage them to spend their healthcare dollars more wisely. That's because, for the first time, they'd see the total cost of their insurance and all the options for managing it.

Wyden tried in vain add a variation of that plan to the Senate Finance Committee's healthcare bill -- his amendment would have let workers take vouchers from their employers in lieu of health benefits, then use those vouchers to help buy individual policies through new state insurance exchanges. Now, finally, he has persuaded Senate Democratic leaders to give his vision of employee choice a foot in the door. Wyden announced a deal this afternoon with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) to add a slimmed-down version of his plan to the healthcare reform bill the Senate may take up Saturday.

As with his earlier amendment, the proposal would give workers the option of converting the money their employer spends on health benefits into vouchers they could use to buy policies through the state exchanges. The main difference is that this capability would be available only to certain workers who would be exempt from the bill's requirement to obtain insurance. Specifically, it would apply only to those earning less than four times the federal poverty threshold (e.g., $88,200 for a family of four) whose employer-sponsored insurance premiums would consume 8% to 9.8% of their total income.

It's not much, but it's a start. Now let's see if Reid can get the 60 votes needed to start debate on the bill....

Photo: Sen. Ron Wyden. Credit: Alex Wong / Getty Images

-- Jon Healey

A new Associated Press poll, done by Stanford University and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, provides more evidence that the public wants comprehensive healthcare reform but rejects just about everything that implies. Although you should take a moment to look at all the results -- and comment on them below! -- here's a quick summary.

As shown in the screen shot to the right, people are eager for major improvements to the healthcare system. They want someone else to pay for the changes, however.

In particular, they strongly oppose raising income taxes or taxing health insurance benefits, but almost 60% favor dunning the rich. They like the idea of requiring everyone to obtain insurance, but they hate the idea of financial penalties on those who don't. Similarly, they want a mandate on businesses to provide insurance, but are lukewarm about enforcing it. Finally, more than 70% said insurers are too profitable and medicines too expensive, but most opposed raising taxes on them, drug companies or medical device makers.

My interpretation: the survey is yet another indication that the Obama administration and congressional Democrats haven't persuaded Americans, most of whom have health insurance and aren't seriously ill, that the proposed reform will benefit them, too. Not convinced that they have much to gain personally, they're not willing to pay more to achieve it.

About 1,500 randomly selected adults were surveyed, giving the poll a margin of error of  plus/minus 2.5%.

-- Jon Healey

So Californians may yet again endure the letdown of an electoral battle royal that never was. In 2002, it was supposed to be Riordan-Davis; in 2010, the "what if" may be Fiorina-Boxer. The outcome of a Boxer-DeVore match (the latter, as Weigel reports in his article, has expressed Obama birther sympathies) would seem a foregone conclusion. After all, when asked to choose between a far-from-the-mainstream partisan and an incumbent with limited legislative accomplishments, Californians in the past have sided with the bland over the bracing.

-- Paul Thornton

Left photo: U.S. Sen. Barabara Boxer. Credit: Michael Reynolds / European Pressphoto Agency.
Right photo: GOP Senate hopeful Carly Fiorina. Credit: Michal Czerwonka / Getty Images.

I've encountered a fair amount of confusion about the abortion language the House actually adopted on Saturday. Read it for yourself here -- it's a little more than three pages in large type, much of it spent removing abortion-related provisions in the underlying bill. The amendment by Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) and Joe Pitts (R-Pa.) would restrict only the new insurance marketplace (a.k.a. the "exchange") that the bill would create for uninsured individuals and small businesses. It would have no direct effect on the group insurance policies that cover many American workers and their families. Whether it would have an indirect effect on those policies, however, is an open question. Feel free to offer your speculation in the comment section below.

Specifically, the Stupak amendment would prohibit federal dollars from being used to buy any policy offered through the exchange that covered abortions other than those related to rape, incest or danger to the mother's life. It also would require insurers that offered elective abortion coverage through the exchange to also offer policies "identical in every respect" except that they did not cover such abortions.

The main effects of the amendment would be to stop anyone receiving a federal subsidy from buying a comprehensive health insurance policy that covered elective abortions, and to bar the proposed government-run insurance plan (a.k.a. the "public option") from covering such procedures. The amendment would allow insurers to offer "supplemental" policies that covered abortions, but their customers could not use federal subsidies to buy them.

Prior to the Stupak amendment, the House bill would have required insurers to jump through some accounting hoops to segregate the money collected for coverage that was mandated by the bill -- and eligible for subsidies -- from coverage for elective abortions. But abortion opponents argued that this arrangement didn't go far enough. Money is fungible, after all, and making the mandatory coverage more affordable with subsidies would also make any additional coverage more affordable.

The same argument applies to the Stupak amendment. The Stupak language would require women seeking coverage of elective abortions through the exchange to sign up for a separate policy, potentially (but not necessarily) forcing them to spend more for the two than they would have spent on a single plan that included the coverage. Of course, their ability to afford the supplemental coverage would be greatly enhanced by the federal subsidies that shrink the cost of the main plan.

So why is the pro-life camp so enthusiastic about the amendment? Maybe they expect it to lead insurers to stop offering any kind of coverage for elective abortions through the exchange. That's what Planned Parenthood and its allies fear. These advocates complain that insurers wouldn't offer the supplemental coverage because there wouldn't be enough demand, given that abortions result from unplanned pregnancies. I'm not so sure about that -- no one plans to get sick or break a bone either, and yet everyone who buys health insurance wants to be covered for such things.

It's also worth noting that although many insurance policies cover elective abortions today, a high percentage of them aren't paid for by insurers. In addition, 17 states use their own Medicaid budgets to pay for "medically necessary" abortions for poor women.

So the Stupak amendment may not have much effect on the poorest women in states such as California, women covered by group insurance policies, or women of means. But it's undeniable that the amendment threatens the availability of insurance coverage for elective abortions for the working poor and lower middle class -- the ones who would receive subsidies under the House bill to buy insurance through the exchange. That category includes those making 150% to 400% of the federal poverty line -- up to $43,000 for a single woman.

Updated, Wednesday at 3:27 p.m.: I see from the comments left by Karen, Nate and a few others that I shouldn't have referred to abortions not covered by the so-called Hyde amendment restrictions (i.e., to terminate pregnancies not caused by rape or incest and not needed to save the mother's life) as "elective." My bad. The non-Hyde category includes abortions that would be deemed "medically necessary," which is a very broad classification. In fact, some abortion opponents view "medically necessary" as a loophole so wide, it opens the door to abortions for practically any reason.

-- Jon Healey

The Times editorial board and columnist Tim Rutten both throw their support behind Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's choice of Charlie Beck to lead the Los Angeles Police Department. The board likes Beck's credentials as a reformer, but notes the work still to be done on that front. Rutten echoes that sentiment, and throws in a few more issues that matter to the City Council.

On a less sanguine note, Edward H. Crane, founder and president of the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, argues that neoconservatives transformed the Republican Party into an interventionist, big-government operation with no conservative policy agenda. Them's fighting words! Good thing they came out of Crane's word processor and not, say, Rutten's.

And Jeff Bleich, chairman of the Cal State University Board of Trustees, laments the slow death of the California dream. No, not the one about having a house on the beach. That died a long time ago. He's referring to "the promise of low-cost education that brought so many here, and kept so many here":

Speaking of schools, the editorial board criticizes a bill by Sen. Gloria Romero (D-Los Angeles) that combines some common-sense reforms to the public system with ill-considered ones. And, although it agrees that colleges and universities could do a better job controlling costs, it defends the decision by some to pay top dollar for top-drawer presidents.

-- Jon Healey

Illustration: Ted Rall / For The Times

Columnist Jonah Goldberg foresees clouds ahead for the Democrats -- in fact, a coming storm so severe that it could end Democratic control of Congress. It's building from the Tea Party movement, which Goldberg sees as an heir to the Ross Perot third-party movement of the 1990s. "If the GOP can convincingly align with and exploit the growing Perotista discontent, it very well might ride to victory on a tsunami the Democrats can't even see."

Also on today's Op-Ed page, scholar Giles Dorronsoro explains why U.S. attempts to win hearts and minds in Afghanistan's Pashtun areas in the south and east are probably doomed to fail. And ACLU National Security Project chief Jameel Jaffer decries an attempt by Congress to circumvent the courts by giving the secretary of Defense the power to withhold photographs of combatants "engaged, captured or detained" by the U.S. during the Bush administration.

On the Editorial page, The Times weighs in on Atty. Gen. Eric Holder's policy change on medical marijuana. Though we're happy that federal prosecutors will make marijuana cases a low priority in states like California that have passed laws approving its medicinal use, we think that's the wrong approach. The administration shouldn't be picking and choosing states in which to enforce federal law -- rather, it should de-emphasize medical marijuana cases in all 50.

We also note that the best place for local health departments to conduct swine flu vaccinations is at public schools -- yet that's not where the inoculations will take place in Los Angeles, thanks to a failure by the school district and the county to properly coordinate.

And we muse on the bizarre spectacle presented by Colorado's Heene family, accused of perpetrating the "balloon boy" hoax in an attempt to drum up publicity for a reality show. "As much as some people will do just about anything for a Hollywood contract, a good number of the rest will lap up the juicy story of their wrongdoing. In reality, perhaps we all get what we wanted."

Illustration by Jonathan Twingley / For The Times

Now that covert videos have shown widespread law-breaking at gun shows, the Times calls for a couple of changes, including a federal law like California's requiring that all gun sales be channeled through licensed dealers who must perform a background check. The board also chides Cal State San Luis Obispo for caving in to pressure from the owner of the Harris Ranch beef company, who didn't like the idea of food reformer and author Michael Pollan speaking at the school. The school reduced Pollan's rule to panelist, a craven abandonment of the principle of academic freedom

On the other side of the fold, a senior fellow at the Council of Public Relations argues that there is value to opening dialogue with North Korea, even if that particular olive branch isn't going to bear fruit any time in the near future. And a board member of the Friends of the World Food Program explains why school lunches in developing countries could be our best tool against global violence. The food attracts hungry children to school, where their education contributes to a more rational society.

Finally, Times staffer Paul Whitefield worries about what he should do with the $100 bill he found on the sidewalk. It could have been money for a child's birthday gift from grandparents; it might be someone's last $100, meant to see him or her through for a week. But it's really mine, so Paul can just hand it over and feel at peace.

Photo: Dean Lewins / AFP / Getty Images

-- Karin Klein  

Columnist Tim Rutten notes the recent complaints about the California initiative process by the state's chief justice and a top fund manager and asks, what to do? The answer is, umm, unclear:

Also on the Op-Ed page, James D. Zirin, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, urges President Obama to hurry up and appoint a cyber security czar because the risks are so great. And hey, you can never have enough czars! And author Barbara Ehrenreich scoffs at a recent study, "The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness," that "purports to show that women have become steadily unhappier since 1972." Says Ehrenreich:

On the editorial pages, the board blasts the health insurance lobby for hiring PricewaterhouseCooper to do a hatchet job on the Senate Finance Committee's healthcare reform bill. But it admits that the insurers have a point: The bill falls critically short of the goal of providing universal health insurance. And it argues that the recent botched execution in Ohio, the latest in a string of similar incidents in that state, adds to the evidence that lethal injections don't pass constitutional muster.

Photo credit: Susan Tibbles / For The Times

-- Jon Healey

Small-government conservative columnist Jonah Goldberg makes a startling argument on today's Op-Ed page: We should make the House of Representatives bigger. A lot bigger, in fact; Goldberg says a Congress with 5,000 members would shake up our nation's calcified two-party system and more closely approximate the kind of democracy the founding fathers intended.

UC Irvine School of Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky, meanwhile, debunks arguments that the healthcare bills pending in the House and Senate would be unconstitutional. And obesity experts Kelly D. Brownell and David S. Ludwig argue in favor of a tax on sugar-sweetened sodas, which would help fund healthcare reform programs and lower healthcare costs by decreasing obesity and related ailments such as diabetes.

On the editorial page, the board urges the Obama administration to consider backing new elections in Afghanistan or a transitional government, unless monitors can determine that the country's Aug. 20 election was legitimate.

The editorial board also takes up a gun-rights case and argues, surprisingly enough, in favor of stronger protections for gun owners. Though the board favors measures to reduce gun violence, it thinks the Supreme Court should rule that the 2nd Amendment applies to states as well as the federal government. That's because allowing states to ignore this part of the Bill of Rights could undermine the requirement that they abide by others.

Finally, the board notes that Comcast Corp.'s proposal to buy NBC Universal cuts against the grain of recent media deals, and its effect on the marketplace may be limited. But it will be interesting to watch how the combined company's approach to the Internet might change.

* Cartoon by Rob Rogers / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

• $1.65 trillion added to the national debt, a 28% increase;
• A debt-to-GDP ratio of 11.2%, a post-war record;
• A $4.3 trillion increase in projected deficits over the coming decade, up 300% from the Congressional Budget Office's estimate last year.

CRFB President Maya MacGuineas cut policymakers a little slack, saying that many of the steps that drove up the deficit were needed to strengthen the economy. "But if not accompanied by efforts to reduce the long-term fiscal gap," she added, "they come at the expense of future growth and prosperity."

Lawmakers still have time to establish a bit of deficit-cutting credibility -- 12 of the 13 annual appropriations bills that were due by Oct. 1 are still working their way through Congress. Unfortunately, there are signs that some powerful lawmakers (in the Senate particularly) are more concerned about steering dollars to pet projects than saving money for taxpayers. Granted, earmarks are a minuscule part of the budget problem. But if Congress can't get the small stuff right, how likely is it that lawmakers will take the hard but meaningful steps to close the budget gap?

Incidentally, the liberal Center for American Progress added its voice today to the anti-deficit chorus, issuing a primer on the problem from a left-of-center point of view. Sounding a bit like editorial writers, the authors say that there are no easy choices (No, really?). They also offer a less-than-dispassionate view of how we got in the mess we're currently in, treating the Bush tax cuts in 2001 and 2003 as costly deficit boosters rather than acknowledging their role in stimulating the economy. The center's analysis gives short shrift to the growing economy's role in solving the short-term budget problems of the 1990s, and all but ignores the complex interrelationship between taxes, spending and GDP growth.  Nevertheless, the authors paint a clear picture of the structural problems facing lawmakers, and explain why neither spending cuts nor tax hikes alone can close the gap. 

-- Jon Healey