Senator Dick Durbin, who was in charge of counting votes on the health care merger in the Senate, is now saying that the public option was included in the Senate bill because of a Progressive Block of Senators who refused to support a health care bill otherwise. From The Huffington Post:
Democratic leaders were forced to include a national public health insurance option as part of health care reform by progressive Democratic senators who refused to support anything less, Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said on Monday.
Durbin's assessment was made to a handful of reporters following the announcement by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) that after weeks of talks with his colleagues he had determined that including a public option that states could opt out of was the best way to go.(...)
"It's a zero-sum situation," said Durbin, who is in charge of counting votes in the Senate. "If we thought that just putting the trigger in meant that we'd end with 61 votes," he explained, then that's what leadership would have done.
"But there were some [senators] that felt that that just didn't go far enough moving toward a public option," said Durbin, who is himself a backer.
Quite a few Democrats did not like it that Congressional Progressives were threatening to defeat a health care bill without a public option. However, without that threat, there is simply no way that the public option would still be alive, much less near victory. Making that sort of threat on a piece of must-pass legislation was necessary both in order to make the legislation better, and also to finally make Congressional Progressives as relevant to the legislative process as Blue Dogs and Conservadems.
Darcy Burner summed this up pretty well today in an article from The Hill. (More in the extended entry)
Leading House liberals such as Grijalva are trying to persuade like-minded colleagues that they can have as much of an impact as Blue Dogs if they wield their power as a bloc. They have threatened to vote against any final healthcare reform bill that does not include a public option.
"Any bill that does not provide, at a minimum, a public option built on the Medicare provider system and with reimbursement based on Medicare rates - not negotiated rates - is unacceptable," liberal lawmakers declared in a letter to Obama in early September.
Playing hardball politics with party leaders is a new tactic for many House liberals, but they are tired of seeing centrists exercise outsized influence.
"If they're not going to be a swing vote, they won't have leverage," said Burner, who said she would like to form a block of 12 committed liberals in the Senate, despite the reputation of independence among lawmakers in the upper chamber.
Again, here were the keys to this campaign:
A Democrat in the White House, and Democratic control of both branches of Congress. (This strategy would not have worked before 2009, except possibly on the bailout).
A piece of legislation the Democratic leadership considered an absolute necessity to pass. (The strategy might not work on immigration reform.)
Uniform Republican opposition to that legislation. (The strategy won't work for any potential vote on Afghanistan troop increases.)
A clear demand (a non-trigger public option) in return for the votes of Congressional Progressives. (The strategy probably won't work for something as murky as new financial regulations.)
Cooperation and coordination between Congressional Progressives and outside grassroots progressive groups to maintain a large enough bloc of Progressives to defeat the bill if the demand is not met.
That is the Progressive Block strategy, and it appears to have succeeded. Kudos to those who first began developing, and executing, the strategy! (Contrary to popular belief, I was not involved in developing the strategy--just in selling it.)
