Statement on Bennet Letter Urging Use of Budget Reconciliation to Pass a Public Health Insurance Option
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Washington, D.C. - Jennifer Hoelzer, Communications Director for U.S. Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), issued the following statement today in response to requests that Senator Wyden sign Senator Michael Bennet's (D-CO) letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) urging use of budget reconciliation to pass a public health insurance option:
"Over the last few days, many Oregonians have been calling our offices asking Senator Wyden to sign Senator Bennet's letter urging the use of budget reconciliation to pass a public health insurance option. Callers should know that Senator Wyden appreciates the time that each and every one of them has taken to call his office. He not only continues to support the public option - which he twice voted for in the Senate Finance Committee - he continues to think reconciliation should remain on the table if it proves necessary to guarantee that every American has quality, affordable health insurance. Senator Wyden has, however, held off on signing the Bennet letter because - as is now known - the President invited him to attend tomorrow's bipartisan health care summit and he intends to first join the President in a good faith effort to see if a bipartisan solution is possible."
Well, he is open to reconciliation, but not a yes on the public option through reconciliation yet.
Openleft community member fladem also acquired the following statement from Jon Tester's office:
"Jon has been very supportive of a public option in the past, but he'll continue running any health care ideas through a gauntlet to see if they're right for Montana's families, small businesses and family farms and ranches. Jon is not in the 'do-nothing' camp. He continues to believe that if nothing is done to reform health care, then Medicare will go broke, no one will hold insurance companies accountable, and health care costs will continue to break Montana families.
Since there are now finally 60 active, voting Democrats, it is possible to break any Republican filibuster. Hell, it actually only requires 51 votes to break a filibuster, if Senators were more honest about process. Further, if they didn't even want to both with filibusters, they could always just go with reconciliation, since Tester now gives them enough votes even if Robert Byrd (who is opposed to using reconciliation for health care) defects.
Senate Democrats have the votes. No more process excuses. Pass the public option.
Krugman explains that the executive branch had to originate this complex financial rescue because Congress couldn't. And Paulson screwed it up, but something had to be done, and the bill became 'better than nothing, but not good'.
So am I for the bill? Yuk, phooey, I guess so. And I'm very angry at Paulson for putting us in this position.
What did he expect? Paulson is a Bush administration official.
Jim Webb pulled his usual 'I'm a populist and don't like Wall Street' line earlier in the debate, and then voted for a piece of reactionary legislation. A bunch of Rs said no to this bailout, truly an odd bunch. On the bright side, Dorgan, Feingold, Wyden, Tester, Cantwell, and Sanders voted no.
Well, no not really, but I bet I got your attention and you started reading this diary planning to argue emphatically against me. However, I'm going to argue that a Democrat like Bob Casey is the proper choice as running mate for Barack Obama (who, I am assuming, will be our nominee).
The book, which features both Matt Stoller and Chris Bowers, takes a look at the populist movement building on both the Right and Left. It is much different from my last book in that it is investigative, firsthand narrative journalism - all brand new material, rather than analysis/synthesis of information already available. I tried to write a book that is engaging both for political junkies and non-political junkies - and that's why this book is much more novel-like than a typical political book.
Among other places, my travels took me to New York city for a behind-the-scenes look at Lou Dobbs Tonight; Redmond, Washington to accompany union organizers at Microsoft's headquarters; Dallas to join shareholder activists planning resolutions at the ExxonMobil stockholder meeting; Helena, Montana to witness a groundbreaking tax fight in the Montana legislature; Washington, D.C. to shadow three U.S. Senators (Bernie Sanders, Sherrod Brown and Jon Tester); Las Vegas and Chicago to attend YearlyKos Conventions; Boulevard, California to camp out with the California Minutemen; Meriden, Connecticut to explore the Ned Lamont for Senate campaign; and Albany to study the most powerful third party in America.
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