ARE THE BLUE DOGS AGAINST OBAMA'S BUDGET?

Health policy types were abuzz this morning over an article in The Hill reporting that the Blue Dog coalition was penning a letter "calling on the White House to put forth an alternative health care proposal to the one it offered up in its budget" and saying that the $634 billion fund the White House put towards health reform was "far too high given the current level of deficit spending." The report even had Rep. Jim Cooper suggesting that "the coalition was leaning toward throwing its weight behind a paid-for health care proposal," which offered an eery echo of 1994, when Cooper spearheaded a counter-coalition that sapped support from the White House's proposal.

The only problem: The article isn't true.

"The letter does not say what they say it says," insist Kristen Hawn, a spokesperson for the Blue Dogs. "The Blue Dogs are not advocating for an alternative health proposal by the White House. Its' not even directed at the White House. It's a short letter emphasizing the Blue Dog commitment to pay-go and developing strategies that are deficit neutral."

That last bit is important: Deficit neutral is very different than tax neutral. If the Blue Dogs were demanding a tax neutral proposal -- that is, a proposal that didn't raise taxes -- than the budget outline would indeed be in conflict with their principles. But calling for a "deficit neutral" bill simply brings the Blue Dogs into alignment with the White House, which has always insisted that health reform needs to be deficit neutral, which is to say, paid for. What the Blue Dogs were opposing, in fact, was not the White House's budget, but a letter sent by the AFL-CIO, AARP, the Chamber of Commerce, Pharma, and a few other organizations calling for pay-go rules to be set aside. (I'm trying to get a copy of this letter as we speak.)

John Spragens, press secretary for Jim Cooper, is baffled by the whole thing. "Not only has no letter come by this office," he says, "but there is no health care proposal currently on the table. There is just a pot of money set aside for health reform and eight principles. So another health care plan besides what? There is no health care plan." Cooper, he says, was not threatening to throw his weight behind an alternative proposal. Rather, he was pointing to Wyden-Bennett as an example of what a deficit-neutral proposal would look like.

I should have the full text of the Blue Dogs' letter in a couple of hours.