The outline (four page PDF) of the House Democrats health care reform plan, drafted largely by three progressive committee chairs, ostensibly has left progressives in the Democratic Party happier than conservatives. From The Hill:
House Democratic leaders gave members their first glimpse of their version of President Obama's healthcare overhaul on Tuesday, with liberals leaving the meeting happy and centrist Democrats walking away skeptical.
The outline put forth lacked many of the details that will decide the fate of the overhaul - notably, how the proposal would be paid for. But it made good on the commitment Obama and Democratic leaders made to include a government-run "public option."
A public option for healthcare insurance is essential for liberals in the caucus. Blue Dogs and New Democrats got less of what they wanted. Most notably, the plan ignores Blue Dogs' call for a government plan to be a "fallback option," if reform of private healthcare doesn't work.
"They've made some real steps toward our principles," said Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.), co-chairwoman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
Much will depend on which direction the Democratic leadership in Congress and the White House throw their influence. Will they pressure centrist and conservative Democrats to fall in line with the health care proposals being put forth from the Senate HELP committee and the House tri-committee? Or, will they instead pressure progressives to give in to the demands of the centrist and conservative wings of the party, which seek to dismember or entirely stop the public option?
As I explain in the extended entry, there are good reasons to believe that the progressives will be the ones receiving the pressure from the Democratic leadership.
Why are conservative Democrats like Mary Landrieu and some Blue Dogs folding on the public option, instead of falling in line with the White House and Democratic leadership? One possibility is because the Democratic leadership is pressuring progressives to fall in line with the Blue Dogs and Mary Landrieus, rather than pressuring the Blue Dogs and Mary Landrieus to fall in line with progressives. From the Concern Troll Politco (emphasis mine):
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer are double-teaming powerful chairmen and rank-and-file members to save health care reform from a repeat of the Democratic Party infighting that helped kill it in 1994.
In a closed-door session Tuesday, Pelosi assured rank-and-file Democrats that she won't move forward on a bill without their consent. "We have to hear from you," one participant quoted Pelosi as saying.
In a separate closed-door session in the speaker's office, Pelosi and Hoyer urged Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller (D-Calif.), Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) and Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) to heed the concerns of moderate Democrats.
That meeting came on the heels of a joint memo prepared by top aides to the speaker and the majority leader.
Now, this is based on anonymous reporting from The Concern Troll The Politico, so this article is certainly not proof of anything. However, it does provide a reasonable hypothesis for why the Democratic congressional leadership and the White House, both of whom have repeatedly stated their support for the public option, are seeing more congressional Democrats defect from the public option than announce their newfound support for it.
Perhaps, instead of pressuring conservative Democrats to support a public option, the White House and the Democratic congressional leadership are actually pushing progressives to give in to the demands of conservative Democrats. Given both the overwhelming influence the White House in particular could exert on all Democratic members at this time, and the lack of converts to the public option within the right-wing of the Democratic caucus, there are good reason to take this hypothesis seriously.
Maybe the leadership is pretty much just siding with the conservative wing of the party on the public option. And then maybe, if either a weak public option is passed or no public option is passed at all, they will tell progressive activists that they wanted more, but that this was the best that could have done given "political reality." That way, they appear to have been pushing for a more progressive reform bill, even though they were actually putting their thumb on the other side of the scale.
I am not saying this is definitely what the Democratic leadership in Congress and the White House are doing, just that it is possible it is what the Democratic leadership in Congress and the White House are doing. Either way, supporting the public option via press releases isn't good enough for either the White House or the Democratic congressional leadership. They are the ones with the most influence over the conservative Democrats who currently oppose the public option. As such, they are the ones most responsible for flipping conservative Democratic votes and getting a strong public option passed into law. If, in the end, health care costs are not reduced, then the Democratic leadership is as much to blame as anyone else.
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