Chris Bowers thinks we have the votes to pass a public option if we are willing to do it as part of a budget reconciliation process. If you read Politico, you might not feel so certain. According to their reporters, Alex Isenstadt and Martin Kady, the House Leadership is back on its heels and are going to pursue a rather a dispiriting strategy for anyone who is currently uninsured.
The comeback for Democrats — if there is one — will begin in an all-important closed-door caucus meeting next week in the basement of the Capitol, where House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and her top lieutenants will try to undo the damage of the August recess and convince their wobbly members that a vote for health care reform will not cost them their jobs in 2010.
Leaders say their strategy is to convince members that nothing is set in stone and that they are more than open to negotiations. And they’re engaging in a softer sell, prioritizing health insurance reforms while pitching the public option as something that’s way, way down the road.
More specifically:
[Majority Whip Jim] Clyburn, for his part, is advocating a “two step” approach in which the most widely supported health insurance reforms, like coverage for pre-existing conditions, go into effect immediately, while the public option is framed as a distant step — something that would go into effect in 2013, only after benchmarks and pilot programs are studied.
Clyburn has proposed setting up modest pilot programs for the public option in certain regions or states — an experimental way of seeing whether these health exchanges can actually work at the local level before they go nationwide.
That is some pretty weak-ass shit to be using as your upfront approach. It might make a good final compromise if that’s the best we can do, but the House ought to be able to bring a good bill to the Conference and make their concessions there, rather than at the beginning.
If Bowers is right, a bill could be rammed home that has a robust public option. It might not kick in until 2013, but it can get passed. I hope the House isn’t crafting a bill with the thought that there are Republicans in the Senate who will vote for cloture. I think that getting any GOP support for anything is highly unlikely.
just got done listening to npr and a discussion with a reporter re the health care issue. as she sees it, right now the votes are not there. It is staggering to think, even for a moment that this country is willing to exclude almost ten percent of its citizens from affordable health care. just staggering.
but, from what I have been able to gather from all of my contacts ( a rather wide assortment of folks)- if the dems blow this, they can forget it. not a dime and not a second of support.
Not waiting for them to blow this – on calls and literature from DSCC, DNC etc I tell them not a penny until the senate votes for a strong public option; when they blather on. I tell them I’m giving money to dfa to campaign for health care, nothing to them until they give us the results we want. btw NJ’s Robert Menendez is on the senate finance committee and I don’t see him doing anything – if he’s doing it behind the scenes, so beit but someone better let everyone know if he’s instrumental in obtaining a public option. there are rumors that Corey Booker is interested in running for senate and Menendez should be primaried if he messes this up.
Not enough votes in the house or senate?
color me surprised.
NOT.
Politico shills for the Republicans. You need to know that to read it properly. And the Republican narrative now is “compromise, compromise, compromise”. To the extent that House Democrats believe Politico it might become a self-fulfilling prophecy. But the situation seems more optimistic. There are a number of Democrats in the House who went to town halls uncommitted and are coming back strong supporters of the public option.
Now I don’t trust Politico to deliver accurate quotes any more than I trust certain writers for the WaPo and all writers for AP.
There is a way to read Clyburn’s statement as just telling how the current form of HR 3200 plays out once passed. It does help to read the bill. What Clyburn describes is what the language of the bill says already. The 2013 date in the bill is a practical one. The rules and regulations have to be built in 2010; then for the administrative aspects of the exchange and the public option, the software has to be acquired, leveraged from existing software, or written from scratch and the data centers have to be set up by 2013.
The sad thing about not pursuing single-payer is that single-payer could have been implemented much faster because it lacks the exchange mechanism. The current Medicare system could have been modified slightly for the system to get going (and yes, Medicare does cover obstetrics already, has to do with the disabled on Medicare). From an administrative standpoint, it would have been possible to stand up single payer before next years elections. Providers then would have five years to shed outside investors. And the system would be in place.
So, I don’t read Clyburn’s statement as a sign of squishyness. The pilot programs would not be to see if, they would be to see how to make the health exchanges work before they go nationwide.
The 2013 date give me some concern because you want folks to see some benefits as soon as the legislation is signed. The health insurance reforms will do that, but how do you hold down the increase in premiums that are likely to result from expanding the pool to folks with pre-existing conditions? And how much of the public option can you implement, leveraging off of Medicare before you actually have the exchange in place?
Nonetheless, this is no time to be complacent. And the FireDogLake campaign is still whipping the progressive caucus to stand firm and not to capitulate to a weak public option out of the Senate. And FDL is continuing to ask why it is so hard to pass legislation that a large majority of folks in individual Congressional Districts want. Jim Cooper (D-TN) is a key example; his constituents want a public option; he is publicly against it. Why do so many conservative Democrats want to commit political suicide by not voting for what their constituents want? Well, that’s the focus of some current detailed research.
Agree with you on Politico. They will spin things in a right-wing way. But frankly, all the press does this, especially the cable news, but pretty much all the press. Despite all evidence the meme is now that the Democrats must move back to the center (right) if they know what’s good for them. I don’t read this stuff anymore because it’s full of lies and misinformation. The Dem leadership would be better off ignoring this press as well–it’s like reading a scary bedtime story to a little girl–no reason filling one’s head with bogeymen.
And as far as Clybourne goes, his message is unclear because the Dems are flailing about for any old message that will work, i.e. make the liberals shut up. The policy is clear. Obama has pretty much made his deal (sellout) and he just needs to ram that atrocity down the Dems throat but it’s turning out to be a bit too much for a self-respecting liberal to jam down his craw.
Even Booman floated the compromise earlier . . . let’s do this in parts . . . . is just a fancier way of saying let’s have Obama’s insurance reform compromise deal now, and then there will be pie in the sky for you hippies down the road once Obama gets the political capital, the Dems have a super-majority and aren’t running for office, etc. Obama and the leadership will design shiny objects to distract the hippies . . . maybe they can vote on some legislative vehicle that will include the public option . . . . but of course it will have benchmarks that will never be met or will require a future act of congress that the Dems won’t actually deliver on (on many times can Obama cry wolf using this argument–where are his FISA fixes he promised?????).
In short, the Dems have no interest in passing health care reform with any meaningful public option. Progressives should make the argument why this is a necessary part of change and not budge. Let’s have everyone vote to see where he or she stands. Let’s make this clear where everyone stands.
Clyburn appear to restrain himself because of his job as majority whip. After all he will have to whip the Blue Dogs on this too.
There are already enough progressive House Democrats pledged to block a bill that lacks a strong public option. If they go back on that pledge, they will have hell to pay in their D+10 and greater districts.
If you use budget reconciliation to show it through the Senate, you will have to do it in two parts. The budget related pieces – public option, subsidies, tax increases, auditing rules – and those unrelated to the budget – ending exclusions for pre-existing conditions, ending rescissions, and other regulatory items. The good news is that the part that must be voted on outside budget reconciliation is popular. Republicans will have a hard time filibustering it. These are also the parts that will take effect first; all that is required is writing and putting out for public review the regulations and then hiring staff to enforce them and answer complaints from patients. That can be done by summer 2010 at the soonest. And we will have to watch these regulations like a hawk and comment on them in the public comment period to make sure that the lobbyist don’t water down the regulations.
Good description of the process.
The devil is in the details and that’s where the politics is coming into play. Right now, if you are right, and there will be no bill without a public option, but I get the sense the Dem leadership and Obama are trying a million ways to get the liberals to accept just that.
I’m not as sure as you are that Obama will fail in that regard–Obama has been effective at whipping liberals– as he did during the stimulus and New Deal for Wall Street bills.
Also, according to your understanding of the split the bill strategy, when would the mandates kick in? Not until the public option is passed, right? Or is that in the first part? If that is the first part how is this different than just passing Obama’s compromise deal and then ‘hoping’ to pass a stronger public option in the future.
When will the mandates kick in? That’s a good question. For the House bill, my memory says that the mandates and subsidies were part of the exchange, so they would kick in 2013 along with the public option.
For the Senate HELP bill, I’m not sure when the mandates kicked in; in fact, I don’t recall any phased implementation in that bill.
You might go scan the PDF files for the bills to see. Unfortunately, we don’t have bills with the markup integrated into them yet, so all you will see is the bill presented for markup.
Exactly who is appeased by this new strategy? If polls are to be believed, the vast majority of Americans, and even a majority of Republicans, want a public option.
This should be a feature that is being touted and should be emphasized, not diminished.
Downplaying the public option will not bring the teabaggers on board. Telling them the public option will not be fully implemented until 2013 will not appease them. It’s a pointless compromise that will weaken effective legislation and bring no one on board. Democrats fail again. They are completely retarded or so corrupted they couldn’t politic themselves out of a crowded room.
Go out and argue for the public option you dipsticks and don’t make excuses and don’t equivocate.
It’s so obvious the Dems are going to wave the white flag and surrender like the cowardly, bought-out tools they are. They’re just looking for a message that will stick to give them political cover for their retreat. They’re accustomed to the left going along or buying whatever excuse the corporatists and Obama come up with so this is a change for them and their normal excuses aren’t working like they usually do.
But make no mistake about it; the Dem leadership and Obama are scrambling for a way to surrender and snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory. They want to cave-in on a public option and are testing a million messages to make liberals sit on their hands once again while the corporatists consolidate control and power.
Anyone that foils these traitors’ retreat will be a hero in my book. If the progressives hold firm and vote against the Obama retreat and surrender bill that is the best outcome at this point. I’ve given up on the public option because I have eyes and a brain and I can tell when Obama and the Dem leadership are working against me. At this point standing firm and laying the groundwork for the next battle is the important thing . . . . if Obama gets a bloody nose from this he has only himself to blame.
The existing House bill doesn’t really go into effect until 2013.
The best we can hope for is that the final bill contain the Kucinich amendment that will permit states to enact their own single payer plans. Unfortunately neither Sestak nor Specter support the amendment, even though PA has one of the strongest single payer movements in the country.
Which senators would we lose on a straight single-payer, Medicare For All plan? Could we get anywhere near 50 for the budget reconciliation process? If we have to go budget reconciliation and we’re not going to get any GOP votes in the senate then why not ram through single payer if we can get to 50 plus Biden?