Senate Majority leader has scrapped a deal forged by the Senate finance committee on the jobs bill, due to complaints from Democrats:
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is rewriting a jobs bill after Democrats complained of too many concessions to Republicans.
Reid announced Thursday that he would cut back on the jobs bill Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) introduced only hours earlier, essentially overruling the powerful chairman.
It is enough to make one ask--why didn't he just do this with health care? The 74 days the Senate lost while waiting for Baucus and Grassley on health care was enough to push the process past the Massachusetts special election. If Reid had just overridden Baucus back then, the health care bill would currently be law.
I guess even if Reid did not override Baucus then, at least overriding Baucus now shows that he valuing bipartisanship at lot less these days. Progress!
Debate, amendments and voting on this bill will take place next week. As I discussed on Tuesday, this bill is pretty weak tea compared to the House jobs bill. It is especially light on direct public infrastructure spending, and direct grants to state and local governments.
The deal between Baucus and Grassley that caused Democrats to balk included many other measures:
[A] short-term extension of the USA PATRIOT Act, flood insurance provisions, Small Business Administration loan provisions, and a $1.5 billion package of agriculture disaster relief provisions.
The Baucus version of the bill also included a tax extenders component very similar to the $31 billion Tax Extenders Act passed by the House, and a deal on unemployment and COBRA extensions.
While these measures will not be in the bill the Senate votes on next week, it is important to note that the Senate isn't scrapping any of these ideas. Rather, they will take up these ideas the week after next in separate legislation.
So, yesterday Republicans took the lead in my national House ballot, giving them a better than 50% chance to retake the House. Today, they are once again forecasted to pick up five seats in the Senate, with even more pickups quite possible. So, things suck electorally for Democrats. No news there.
Let's try a different question today--who is to blame for the sucky electoral situation Democrats face? In the extended entry, I list my top four candidates.
Following the good news today that the Senate has rejected the Conrad Catfood Commission, I noticed this vote on a Baucus amendment to the proposed deficit commission that was described as "to protect social security." Curious, I found the text and noticed this interesting clause:
(b) WAIVER.--This section may be waived or suspended in the Senate only by the affirmative vote of three-fifths of the Members, duly chosen and sworn.
(c) APPEALS.--An affirmative vote of three-fifths of the Members of the Senate, duly chosen and sworn, shall be required in the Senate to sustain an appeal of the ruling of the Chair on a point of order raised under this section.
As I read this, Baucus is saying "the commission can't touch social security, unless 3/5th vote to waive this section, and if anyone raises a point of order on this section, and the chair upholds this section, it takes 3/5th to repeal the chair's ruling."
Am I wrong here, or is the inclusion of this provision an admission that Baucus fears the nuclear option might be employed? Inside, the scenario I think Baucus was afraid of, even though his amendment passed 97-0.
For weeks, Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) has opposed climate change legislation. In the Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee, he openly voiced his doubts and was the only Democrat to refrain from voting for the bill's passage. Now that the bill is in the Finance Committee, which Baucus chairs, many worry that the bill is doomed. However, it looks like Baucus might have outwitted us all.
So we are now finding out the answers to some of our questions about which members of Congress actually represent We, the People...and which ones represent, Them, the Corporate Masters.
We have seen a Democratic Senator propose a policy that would put people in jail for not buying health insurance and a Democratic President who has taken numerous public beatings from those on the left side of the fence for his inability to ram something through a group of people...and yes, folks, the entendre was intentional.
But most of all, we've been asking ourselves: "why would Democratic Members of Congress who will eventually want us to vote for them vote against something that nearly all voting Democrats are inclined to vote for?"
Today's conversation attempts to answer that question by looking at exactly how money and influence flow through a key politician, Montana's Senator Max Baucus-and in doing so, we examine some ugly political realities that have to be resolved before we can hope to convince certain Members of Congress to vote for what their constituents actually want when it really counts.
One of the biggest selling points of the healthcare reform legislation -- a reason why we are supposed to just accept the massive concessions to the insurance industry and drug companies -- has been the promise that the private insurers would finally be banned from the disgraceful practices of denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions.
The most conservative committee in Congress is finally getting ready to consider the first public votes on the public option, with amendments by Schumer and Rockefeller that will likely be considered on Tuesday. The Finance Committee, led by two of the most conservative Democrats in the House or Senate -- Max Baucus and Kent Conrad -- will be the first place the public option finally sees the light of day, getting debate and votes in front of everyone.
Given the poll numbers, and Baucus' past statements supporting the public option, you would think this would be a no-brainer, that no Democrat would want to risk alienating voters who overwhelmingly support it, or the fired-up party activists and donors who have been passionately fighting for it for months. Look at the polling analysis just done by Health Care for America Now:
Support for Individual Mandate Contingent on Public Option: The polls, conducted by Anzalone Liszt Research and Lake Research Partners for Health Care for America Now in mid-September, each found that likely 2010 voters oppose "requiring everyone to buy and be covered by a private health insurance plan" but support "requiring everyone to buy and be covered by a health insurance plan with a choice between a public option and private insurance plans." A mandate that individuals have coverage or pay a fine is a key feature of health care reform proposals that require insurance companies to cover everyone regardless of pre-existing conditions.
Nationally, voters oppose a mandate to purchase private insurance by 64% to 34% but support a mandate with a choice of private or public insurance by 60% to 37%.
"Requiring everyone to buy and be covered by a private health insurance plan"
National: Oppose 64% to 34%
House Swing: Oppose 60% to 34%
Maine: Oppose 55% to 35%
"Requiring everyone to buy and be covered by a health insurance plan with a choice between a public option and private insurance plans"
National: Favor 60% to 37%
House Swing: Favor 50% to 46%
Maine: Favor 55% to 40%
Note: In all three polls, half of those surveyed were asked each question.
All of the health care reform proposals that have passed Congressional committees to date, including three House committees and the Senate HELP Committee, include an individual mandate and the choice of private or public health insurance. The Chairman's mark introduced into the Senate Finance Committee includes the individual mandate without the choice of a public health insurance option.
With numbers like this, and with the entire Democratic base mobilized intensely around the issue, you would have to be politically tone deaf as a Democrat to oppose this, but this is the Senate Finance Committee, so public option advocates are likely to lose these votes. The question, though, will be the margin. On a committee this conservative, far more conservative than the Senate as a whole, if we only get seven votes for the public option amendments, that would have to be considered a major political victory, and a sign that the public option can definitely get a majority vote on the floor.
Of course, the traditional media won't report it that way -- anything that goes against their cast-in-iron conventional wisdom belief that the public option is dead will not be reported. Chuck Schumer nailed it last night on Rachel Maddow: this is just the first step, in the most conservative possible setting. This vote is all about laying the ground work for the Senate floor fight and the conference committee fight after that, both of which are far more favorable to public option advocates. With polling numbers like those above, and an activist base on fire on this issue, it is going to be more and more difficult for Democrats to vote against the public option when they have to vote in the light of day.
When you get down toward the end of a legislative fight as big, complex, messy, expensive, painful, and politically and economically significant as health care, every day is a wild ride with highs and lows. You never know where you are going to end up on that day, let alone at the very end of the battle. The latest developments in health care are just the latest in this long saga.
The worst moments of the last few days are diving into the details of this godawful Senate Finance Committee bill. It's hard to know whether to laugh or cry. I mean I knew the bill coming out of Finance would be the lowest moment in the debate. I (and everyone else following this debate) have been predicting that since this fight began. But when you look at how bad this thing truly is, it makes your head swim. The bill makes it harder for women to be covered for abortions and legal immigrants to be covered at all. It penalizes employers for hiring poor people. It makes health insurance coverage unaffordable for many middle income people. It taxes high quality insurance plans. It provides no actual competition for private insurance plans, and no check on insurance companies' power. It is just a rotten, rotten bill all the way around, almost certainly worse than existing law, which is hard to do.
On the other hand, a lot of good things have happened this week. The AFL-CIO convention was one big strong pushback against the Baucus bill and in favor of the public option, the highlight of which was AFSCME President Jerry McEntee leading a chant of "Bullshit!" on the convention floor in response to the Baucus bill. At Obama rallies in Minneapolis and College Park, MD, the mere mention of the public option brought waves of uproarious cheers, while the mention by the President of the Baucus plan at the MD rally brought a massive round of loud boos. In the Senate, progressive members of the Finance Committee rebelled against the Baucus bill, likely forcing him to make changes, while a Senate Democratic caucus last night had Baucus retreating. And in the House, Nancy Pelosi once again made clear the importance of a very strong bill including a public option.
One final note I might add. At times in this long and ugly debate, the collective weight of the traditional media's conventional wisdom and signals by various political insiders have made public option advocates a little (or more than a little) discouraged. But I see new life and drive in their efforts- new ads going up by a variety of groups, some big direct action efforts being launched next week, grassroots lobbying efforts picking up steam. And some of them, by the way, are by organizations with very close ties to the White House, like Americans United for Change- if the White House thought the public option was dead, I doubt if AUFC would be making this kind of push.
The Baucus bill is an unmitigated disaster. In the 20-plus years I have been working on the national health care issues, it is easily the worst single bill I have ever seen introduced by a Democratic member of Congress. But it feels like a whole lot of people are beginning to understand that, and that the drive for a good health care bill is alive again.
Senate Democrats are going to have to move forward on healthcare without a single Republican supporter after Sen. Olympia Snowe said Tuesday she could not back the Finance Committee's bill.
Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) failed to win any Republican backer despite weeks of intense negotiations behind closed doors to strike a deal.
This is great, great news. There is no longer any justification for the Baucus bill, as it simply cannot reach 60 votes.
To reach 60, you need all 59 members of the Democratic caucus, plus at least one Republican. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe are the only two possible Republicans, for a total universe of 61 possible supporters.
With Snowe opposing, that leaves only Collins. The universe of possible supporters is reduced to 60.
Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) said Tuesday that he would not support Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus' (D-Mont.) health care reform bill in its current form - primarily because it lacks a public insurance option.
That reduces the Baucus bill to a maximum of 59 supporters.
The only justification ever given for the Baucus bill, and all of its problems, is that it could reach 60 votes. Well, that justification no longer exists.
The Baucus bill cannot get 60 votes in the Senate. The only way it can pass is through reconciliation. However, the bill was specifically designed to avoid having to use reconciliation.
Even beyond the Senate, given the Progressive Block, it could not have gotten 218 votes in the House.
Not only is the Baucus bill a highly questionable piece of legislation, it simply is not able to pass into law. Given how frequently conservative Democrats justify abandoning progressive policy by claiming that said policy cannot pass through Congress, it gives me great pleasure to point out in order for health care reform to pass, it actually requires a more robust public option in both the House and Senate.
I have written several times of the media's fixation with the bill that comes out of the Senate Finance Committee on health care. It's finally starting to move now, creaking its way up the track like a half-dead carcass. Traditional media will act like whatever is in the Senate Finance bill will be the bill, that the deal is done. Not even close, folks.
Here's why the Senate Finance markup that will come out next week is nowhere close to what will be in the final legislation:
1. Finance chair Max Baucus has already messed up by not consulting with a half-dozen of the more progressive members of the committee. I am hearing numerous reports, some of which have surfaced publicly, that some of them are rebelling at the awful piece of mangled legislation being thrust in front of them. Given that Snowe is the only Republican that there is even a ghost of a chance of voting for the bill, Baucus has to get all or at least most of the Democrats on board, and I believe if the committee progressives work together, they can force some changes for the better.
2. The bill that makes it out of Finance will be so convoluted, contradictory, distorted, held-together-with-duct-tape because of all the compromises Baucus is making that Democrats will have to remake it in later stages even if they don't want to- and a great many of them want to.
3. Harry Reid still needs to marry the Finance bill and the HELP committee bill. Tom Harkin, who took over the chairmanship of the HELP Committee after Ted Kennedy passed away, is from what I hear bound and determined to make a major push to have the language of the HELP bill be a major part of the package that goes to the floor, including on the big issues like the public option and affordability for the middle class. He is being supported not only by the Democratic members of his committee but by outside progressive forces.
4. The floor fight will be wild and wooly, but I suspect that progressive forces may have an advantage in adding positive amendments to the mix in the light of day in a floor fight. The Republicans will offer all kinds of goofy amendments designed to mess up the bill, but they have two problems: they only have 40 votes, and the public polling on the GOP's actual health care proposals are very bad. Given that, Republican efforts to worsen the bill have little chance to succeed. Progressives, on the other hand, want to improve the bill by doing things that are actually popular: the public option (consistently polls in the 60s and 70s); taxing the wealthy instead of middle class workers with good insurance plans; making health insurance more affordable to the middle class. All of these are going to be pretty hard to vote against on the Senate floor.
5. Finally, to return to a theme I have been rather repetitive about in recent months, it is abundantly clear that House progressives, if they stay strong and stay together, have the negotiating power to block a bad bill. If they don't wilt, if they don't let themselves get picked off one by one, they can negotiate for a good health care bill, one that has a public option, one that is affordable for the middle class, one that forces insurers and providers to do real cost containment.
The traditional media will fall all over themselves to pronounce whatever Senate Finance does to be chiseled in stone. But progressives, if they work together and negotiate tough, can write a bill that will work, a bill on comprehensive health reform that we can all look back on as one of the greatest accomplishments of the era.
Senator Max Baucus's draft of health care legislation appears to be set for release tomorrow night. The Senate Finance Committee is scheduled to start the "mark-up" process--debate and amendments--on September 23rd. Or, at least that is the latest deadline Baucus is floating:
Baucus (D-Mont.) told the Wall Street Journal that the bill, expected to cost $880 billion over the next decade, is "on track" for debate by the committee starting Sept. 23.
There are going to be a lot of amendments offered by both Democrats and Republicans during the mark-up process. Many of these amendments will be attempts by Democrats on the Finance Committee to improve the bill. Baucus doesn't think they will pass:
Based on the comments by several committee Democrats after a meeting Monday evening, that mark up could be a lengthy one.
Baucus acknowledged that the mark-up could prove a busy one but predicted that Democrats would support the package he plans to unveil Wednesday without major changes.
"I don't see any deal-breaker amendments," Baucus said. "Put it this way: It's unlikely that any amendments, which basically change the framework, will be accepted."
If there is an amendment to include a public option in the bill, it will go a long way toward clarifying the Senate whip count picture. Five of the Democrats who have been the most difficult to pin down on the public option--Max Baucus, Kent Conrad, Tom Carper, Blanche Lincoln and Bill Nelson--are on the Finance Committee. Another Democrat, Ron Wyden, has expressed that he is open to a public option, but has not firmly committed.
These six Democrats represent nearly half of the remaining "maybe" votes in the Senate on the public option. As such, a committee vote on a public option will go a long way toward clearing up the whip count picture on the public option in the Senate. Even an amendment on the public option that doesn't pass could net us three or four new "yes" votes. Since we are currently at 44, that would push us to the brink of 50 and proof that a public option could pass the Senate under reconciliation / after cloture / via the nuclear option or any other procedural move to get an up or down vote.
No Democratic Senator is going to get out of this one without voting on the public option. Even before the floor vote, a whole bunch of fence-sitters are going to have to tell us which side they are on next week.
Senator Max Baucus will release a draft of the Finance Committee's health care tomorrow. This is in accordance with the schedule for the Finance Committee to mark-up, and likely vote on, the bill next week:
The Senate Finance Committee should have a draft of their health care reform bill tomorrow, chair Max Baucus (D-MT) said in a news conference today.
Baucus said markup hearings -- where the committee will discuss amendments and details -- will be held next week.
"We're on schedule," he said.
The bill will not include a public option. It will not even include a trigger. Maine Republican Olympia Snowe, who had been pushing the trigger for a while, has given up on the trigger herself:
But this morning on CBS's Face The Nation, Snowe suggested that a 'trigger' did not generate any bipartisan support. "It's not on the table and it won't be," in the final Senate Finance Committee bill, Snowe said. "We'll be using the co-op as an option at this point as a means for injecting competition in the process."
Snowe's Maine colleague, Susan Collins, explains that triggers have been dropped because they might have actually led to a public option:
"The problem with the trigger is that it just delays the public option, because the people who are going to be making the determination about whether the market is competitive enough want the public option. So I think the trigger is just a delay."
Well, at least Collins is being honest about it. Snowe had been saying that she opposed public options, but supported a trigger. The only way that would make sense is if she supported a trigger that would never fire.
According to the New York Times, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America will spend $150 million specifically boosting for the health care reform proposal introduced last week by Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT).
So, it appears that we are getting change Susan Collins and PhRMA can believe in.
No matter what happens in the Finance committee, it is essential that there is a vote on health care reform with a robust public option on the floor of the Senate. If Democratic Senators can keep saying that their aren't enough votes to pass a public option, and if they aren't going to include on in their health care "reform" package, then at the very least they should have the decency to tell us which Democratic Senators were actually opposed to the public option.
We are the activists who worked our asses off to give them their majority. If they are going to not deliver on the hopes and dreams we had that led us to do that activism on their behalf, then they better damn well tell us who canceled the delivery. No more of this code of silence crap that is designed to try and play both sides. They have to stand up, in public, and make it clear which side they are on--the American people's, or the private insurance companies. We need a Senate roll call vote.
Ezra Klein has been arguing that the public option, and other progressive elements of the Democratic agenda, can't pass because the Obama administration is unable to pressure conservative Democratic Senators. Klein tells us those Senators, after all, aren't shrinking violets:
The unifying idea here is that someone can just go into a back room and torture Max Baucus and Kent Conrad. But how?
The controversy over Republican Rep. Joe Wilson's shouting out "You Lie!" at the President over his claim that illegal immigrants wouldn't benefit from health-care reform apparently sparked some reconsideration of the relevant language. "We really thought we'd resolved this question of people who are here illegally, but as we reflected on the President's speech last night we wanted to go back and drill down again," said Senator Kent Conrad, one of the Democrats in the talks after a meeting Thursday morning. Baucus later that afternoon said the group would put in a proof of citizenship requirement to participate in the new health exchange - a move likely to inflame the left.
So, there you have it. That is how you pressure Senators like Kent Conrad and Max Baucus to change legislation. They aren't shrinking violets, but they will cave to an obscure South Carolina Congressman calling President Obama a liar on national television, even when that Congressman's apology has been the main focus of the news cycle for the last 36 hours..
But remember--there is no way that the Obama administration could possibly apply the same sort of pressure to Baucus and Conrad and Joe Wilson can. Wilson is just vastly more powerful and influential than the Obama administration. And don't even get me started on the relative power balance between the Progressive Block and Joe Wilson. That is a mismtach if I ever saw one.
Given the power balance at play, this is a pretty smart move by Baucus and Conrad. First, it will undoubtedly get a lot of Republicans to support health care legislation. Second, it will also go a long way to discrediting Joe Wilson, and keeping the media tide of this story in our favor. Third, it is a good idea to deny legal, documented immigrants who are not yet citizens health care. Fourth, it keeps me excited and engaged in the fight because it shows that progressives have a real role in determining the outcome of health care legislation, especially compared to Joe Wilson. Fifth, I feel very confident now that Democrats won't back down to Republican lies. In total, few moves could have done more to strengthen the Democratic position on health care than this. Brilliant stuff.
Political speeches are designed for specific purposes. As such, their "success" should be judged by how well they achieve that purpose, not by the rhetorical and cultural implications contained within the text and body language. In the case of President Obama's joint address to Congress last night, the specific goal was to advance his push for health care reform. At least so far, all indications are that the speech was enormously successful in achieving that goal. Consider:
Advanced the legislative timetable. Among the five committees with legislative purview on health care, the Senate Finance Committee is the lone holdout in passing a bill. As recently as August 21st, the negotiators on that committee had rejecting even a September15th deadline for a framework for the bill, vowed to reduce its size to $700 billion, and pledged to keep working on a bipartisan basis. Now, committee chair Max Baucus released a framework of the bill on September 7th, put its size at $900 billion, and appears to have foregone the bipartisan negotiations. The draft of the Finance Committee bill will now be released next week, and the committee mark-up of the bill will begin the week of September 21st.
This acceleration of the legislative process happened because of the speech. The announcement of, and build-up to, the speech put Baucus in a position where he could have been the lone hold-out when the speech took place. Not wanting to be such a negative focus of the news cycle, Baucus finally began to take proactive steps to release a legislative framework, however flawed, and push a bill through his committee. So, the speech successful moved up the legislative timetable on health care reform. That could dissolve later on, but at least for now, it makes the speech a success.
About one in seven people who watched the speech changed their minds on Obama's health care plan. "Going into the speech, a bare majority of his audience - 53 percent - favored his proposals. Immediately after the speech, that figure rose to 67 percent," says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland
This poll has been accurately criticized for oversampling Democrats. However, while that may call the overall percentages in favor of the President's health care reform plan, it has no impact on the trendline for support. The speech increased the popularity of the President's health care reform plan--and apparently by a substantial amount. Polling later in the week will be needed for confirmation, but once again, the speech has so far been successful at achieving one of its major goals.
Put Republicans on the defensive. President Obama said in his speech that he would call out Republican members of Congress who are lying about health care reform. On that front, the speech has already resulted in a major news story about a Republican member of Congress, Joe Wilson, apologizing to the President for his outburst during the speech. This is probably the first Republican in Congress to apologize during the health care debate at all.
While this may appear less "objective" a success than the other two bullet points here, it is safe to say that whoever is apologizing during a news cycle is losing that news cycle. For Republicans, an apologizing Congressman is their part in the news cycle right now, instead of their rebuttal to the President's address. That is a clear win.
The goal of the speech was to advance the President's health care reform agenda. Given that is pushed the legislative timetable forward, improved the popularity of the plan, and put Republicans on the defensive, it was successful in achieving that goal. So, leaving rhetorical and ideological analysis aside for the moment, the speech was a success for its own purposes.
Finally, last night's speech was also a big success for the Congressional Progressive Caucus, too. It marked the emergence of the CPC as a major player in the health care reform debate. President Obama specifically mentioned the bloc of House Progressives threatening to oppose health care reform without a public option as the major group that needs to be negotiated with:
To my progressive friends, I would remind you that for decades, the driving idea behind reform has been to end insurance company abuses and make coverage affordable for those without it. The public option is only a means to that end - and we should remain open to other ideas that accomplish our ultimate goal.
For a group that was last in line to meet with President Obama about anything this year, that is quite a step up in visibility and power for the Progressive Caucus. Negotiating power over the President's agenda has no longer been ceded entirely to Blue Dogs and Senate Gangs of Conservadems and Maine Republicans. Not only is that a clear victory for our efforts to increase Progressive power in Congress, but it is also a big victory for President Obama's agenda. By validating the power of the CPC in sucha major forum, President Obama has now given himself some space to work on the left.
To serve as a counter to the more widely publicized positive analysis of the proposed health care bill from Max Baucus, here is a round-up of the negative appraisals that (mostly) progressives have given of that proposal:
Big news broke over the weekend: Evidently, the president lit a fire under Max Baucus (D-Mont) and the Senate Finance Committee by unexpectedly announcing last week that he'd be laying out his own vision for health care reform this Wednesday. Just weeks ago, committee member Kent Conrad (D-ND) predicted the Finance Committee wouldn't have a bill until November. But Baucus circulated a legislative framework over the weekend.
Baucus's bottom line: There will be no public option. Instead, the government will spend hundreds of billions of dollars to subsidize the same old expensive, inadequate private insurance system that health care reform was supposed to reform. The insurance companies get 46 million new customers, and in return, they will pay higher taxes to offset the cost of the subsidies-a kickback to Uncle Sam.
Last week Brian Beutler of Talking Points Memo and I sat down to discuss some burning questions in health care reform: What's the president's thinking on the public option? What leverage does he have over the progressives in the House who demand single payer and/or the Blue Dogs in the senate who reject it? Why is Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) the last best hope for bipartisanship? (The transcript of our discussion has been edited for brevity and clarity.)
You said the [week of September 1] really stood out from the last month in terms of the health care debate. How so?
Maybe the last two days just stood out from the previous month. ... Obama's approval [rating] slid and popular support for the idea of healthcare reform slid. And August came to an end and the President's vacation is winding down, and suddenly the administration realizes that Congress is coming back and they are going to have to do something. And so, it seems they start leaking to a bunch of high profile reporters that they are going to perhaps ditch the public option as part of a grander move to regain control of the debate.
Are the anonymous leakers saying in so many words that they want to ditch the public option?
Well, it's unclear what they are actually going to do. The Public Option would die with dignity. [If] that is accomplished, the President could maybe win over some Republicans, grab the debate and spell out in clearer terms what he wanted [beyond] the public option. He could do this all in a big speech for Congress which is scheduled to happen Wednesday.
Isn't this just a repeat of what we saw during the week of August 20, when the White House seemed to be doing a good cop/bad cop routine where an anonymous aide would leak "to hell with the liberals and the public option" and then another adviser would say on the record how much the president loves the public option?
It could just be a replay. Once those stories came out, the picture sort of fogged up. [There were] secondary reports that the President was courting Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) again-as if maybe one Senate Republican would vote with him on health care reform. Snowe's idea [includes a] public option, but you attach it to a trigger mechanism so that it is only enacted if the rest of healthcare reform is unsuccessful at bringing down prices and expanding coverage. And that's sort of been unacceptable to reformers and progressives, but ... that might be the pound of flesh that she yields from the bill. It fits in with the picture that the leakers painted ... that the public option was no longer going to be one of the key features of the bill.
You wrote about how budget reconciliation could be used to get around the filibuster. How would that work?
The greater problem is the structure in the Senate, where legislation can pass with a majority vote-but only after Senators have debated the bill for as long as they want. As long as 60 Democrats aren't there to shut the minority up, debate can go on and on and on. [ED note: AKA filibustering.] And for every major piece of legislation you see. this happens. ...
There's this de facto 60-vote rule on most legislation, at least in this Congress and the previous Congress since the Democrats took it over. It's extremely difficult to pass a bill through just the regular procedure without either having to concede a bunch of substantive provisions ... or just give up on the bill entirely. [There are] 59 members of the Democratic caucus right now, and maybe 10 of them are mushy on the more progressive part of the President's agenda. Even if all of them are onboard, you're still one vote short of what you need to end debate. And that is why Olympia Snowe matters right now.
So the House would pass the bill and the Senate would pass a bill with budget reconciliation?
They could in theory. Budget reconciliation is sort of like a magic bullet. Every year, the Congress can pass what is known as a budget reconciliation bill. It sets new taxes, or moves money around within the federal budget to basically do what the Congress's budget lays out. It ... was made exempt from the filibuster because Congress [has to] set a budget. ... They need to make sure that money is there and can't have Senators filibustering it just because they're in a fit of peak. So that bill can't be filibustered, but at the same time, the legislation that can be passed in it has to be relevant to the budget, it has to move money around in some way.
So you can pass a lot of elements of healthcare reform in theory-you can pass subsidies to poor people and middle-income people. And you can pass Medicaid expansion, and you might even be able to pass the public option because the public option may need subsidies of its own and could drive down other costs and be a big moneysaver.
How might the president pressure progressives into accepting the bill?
My sense is that the President [will pressure] progressives to back off on the public option. But that could change. Trying to figure out what is going to happen is kind of like trying to move 23,000 moves ahead in a game of 17 dimensional chess. ...
[Obama can] say is that what he's planning will, while not perfect, help a lot of people make the healthcare system more progressive than it was. ... But it would really harm the democratic party and his presidency if the whole project failed and nothing passed. Obama doesn't have a tremendous amount of leverage. [Many] progressive members of Congress are progressive because they don't have viable challenges. They come from progressive districts, with constituents like them, approval ratings in the 60s, 70s, and they aren't going to lose to a member of the opposite party. So in that sense, they can do what they want.
How can Blue Dogs say that progressives should suck it up and vote for every bill when they are never prepared to do the same thing?
... It would at least be a good experiment, for the party and the country, for the [Blue Dogs] to be put on the spot. They believe that their jobs are on the line if they vote for controversial legislation. I don't know how those conversations go when political members of the administration confront these guys and say 'You got into politics to make the world a better place, not to just have a tenure job on Capital Hill. So you're going to vote yes on this and if you lose your jobs as a result, then you did the right thing and we'll make sure that the Democratic party infrastructure is there for you ... .' But that's not the way the party thinks. [It's a] game of building an unstoppably large coalition, and that becomes the goal in the end. And at some point you lose sight of why you are amassing this giant congressional majority and you're never willing to say, well we built this 70 whatever majority so that we could sacrifice some of these seats and do something really impressive and progressive for the good of the country.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about health care and is free to reprint. Visit Healthcare.newsladder.net for a complete list of articles on health care affordability, health care laws, and health care controversy. For the best progressive reporting on the Economy, and Immigration, check out Economy.Newsladder.net and Immigration.Newsladder.net. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of 50 leading independent media outlets, and created by NewsLadder.
One of the truisms of life in DC is that whenever one party controls the Presidency, the House, and the Senate, it is virtually certain that the last of those three institutions will be the toughest nut to crack in terms of actually getting anything done. Between the filibuster, a variety of other arcane procedural rules, the clubby atmosphere of the chamber, and the six-year term making Senators less concerned about the year-to-year swings of their constituents, the Senate is inherently slower and more resistant to change.
That well-known fact to political insiders has congealed into a hardened nugget of conventional wisdom about the health care fight, which is that there is no way a strong health care reform package, including a public option, can make it out of that body. However, if you really look at reality, at what we actually know, that piece of conventional wisdom is mythology.
The Baucus mark-up only adds to this conventional wisdom, of course. But keep in mind that Senate Finance is almost without question the most conservative committee in either house of Congress right now. Its chair, Max Baucus, is in the top five Democrats in terms of conservatism, and has been historically very close to big business and the ranking Republican on the committee (Grassley). He was happy to cut the deal with Grassley in 2001, against the wishes of the vast majority of the Democratic caucus, for the massive Bush tax cut for the rich that was the main cause of our massive federal deficit over the last few years. Other key committee Democrats like Conrad and Bingaman, of the Gang of Six fame, aren't exactly liberally stalwarts either.
But in a soon-to-be-60-Democrats chamber (when Kennedy is replaced), the most conservative committee does not determine things for the rest of the Senate.
Let's look at the actual facts in terms of passing a bill acceptable to most Democrats:
There are between 44 and 50 Senators, depending on how you interpret their public statements, who have said they would support a public option if it was part of the health care package.
There are six other Senators (plus a new Massachusetts Senator, likely to soon be appointed by Deval Patrick once he law re Massachusetts appointments is changed) who have stated no public position on the issue. At least some of these are likely to be open to it with the right amount of arm-twisting by President Obama and Harry Reid.
Depending on how you interpret their various muddled statements, there are three Democratic-caucusing Senators (Lieberman, Landrieu, Nelson) who have stated outright opposition to a public option.
There are no (zero, nada, not a single one) Democratic Senators who have announced that they would join a Republican filibuster in the event Democrats decide not to go to reconciliation to pass a bill. That's not to say it couldn't come to that, but no Democratic Senator has said they would.
Reconciliation is a very live option. Many experts in Senate rules think it can be used to pass the financing and public option parts of the health care bill, and Reid has indicated a willingness to use any procedure available to him.
These are the facts about the Senate, facts which apparently are not being considered by every pundit and every public official who says the votes aren't there for a public option. The conventional wisdom- fed in no small part by well-connected insurance industry lobbyists who spend every day running around Washington telling every reporter and political insider they know that "the votes for a public option aren't there"- is simply false.
One of the reasons so many House and movement progressives are a little peeved about all the unnamed Administration sources and the signals that the White House is backing off on this issue is that it is apparent that the Senate can be won on this issue with just a little bit of elbow grease and arm-twisting. It won't be easy, but getting this bill passed is within reach, if the White House and Harry Reid fight for it. The clubby nature of the Senate might have to be shaken up, the bipartisan comity might have to be given up, and insurance industry lobbyists/contributors might have to be angered. But passing a strong, comprehensive bill, with a public option, through the Senate is eminently doable.
The proposal by Mr. Baucus does not include a public option, or a government-run insurance plan, to compete with private insurers, as many Democrats want.
Two of the Baucus measures reflect the group's long-standing goal to find common ground on highly contentious issues. Instead of a government insurance option, the Baucus proposal would create a network of non-profit cooperatives -- an alternative that Grassley, the lead Republican negotiator, has backed.
Mr. Baucus's proposal does not include a "trigger mechanism" of the type recommended by Ms. Snowe, who would offer a public insurance plan in any state where fewer than 95 percent of the people had access to affordable coverage.
Mr. Baucus's plan, expected to cost $850 billion to $900 billion over 10 years, would tax insurance companies on their most expensive health care policies. The hope is that employers would buy cheaper, less generous coverage for employees, thereby reducing the overuse of medical services.
In addition to the fee on high-cost plans, the proposal also would extract about $400 billion in cost-savings from Medicare, cuts that are stirring unease among lawmakers in both parties, due to the potential backlash among senior citizens, and Medicare's own precarious fiscal state.
Baucus' plan also is expected to be less generous in terms of subsidies and coverage than those bills - which, along with the absence of the public option, is sure to rankle more liberal Democrats.
I don't see how this is an improvement on the status quo. Sure, people will be forced to purchase insurance, and private insurers will be forced to accept all applicants. However:
Cost: There is no public option, not even a real trigger, and fewer subsidies to purchase insurance than in the House bills. Hard to imagine would that will hold down the costs of health insurance premiums.
Coverage: Employers will start offering people who have coverage worse coverage, and insurers don't have to offer much at all in the way of minimum plans to people who currently do not have coverage. Even if more people receive health insurance, it might result in a net drop in the quality of health care the country receives.
If this is an improvement over the status quo, right now I don't see how.
This moves the ball into the Progressive Block's court, not into President Obama's. This draft proposal from Baucus is nowhere close to the type of health care bill they have said they can support. Off hand, it seems perfectly justified to send this bill down to defeat. However, as activists, we only have power to defeat or change this bill if the Progressive Block decides to hold the line. They are going to be asked to fold and compromise, so it is their time to demonstrate leadership. Let's see what happens.
No matter what happens, it is imperative that there is at least a vote on a robust public option in both branches of Congress. We need a roll call indicating who opposes a real public option, and is instead looking to force this crappy bill on us. Otherwise, there will be no way to hold Congress accountable.
The Senate health care Gang of Six (Republican Senators Mike Enzi (WY), Olympia Snowe (ME), Charles Grassley (IA) and Democratic Senators Max Baucus (MT), Kent Conrad (ND) and Jeff Bingaman (NM)) promised to redouble their efforts on health care last night. Then, they promptly decided to take two weeks off:
Senate health-care negotiators agreed late Thursday to ignore the increasingly strident rhetoric from Republican and Democratic leaders and to keep working toward a bill that can win broad support from the rank-and-file in both parties, according to sources familiar with the talks.
In a conference call, the three Democratic and three Republican members of the Senate Finance Committee agreed to redouble their efforts to craft a less costly alternative to the trillion-dollar initiatives so far put forward in Congress. They discussed the possibility of also reining in the scope of their package, the sources said.
The senators rejected the idea of imposing a deadline on their negotiations, and they agreed to talk again Sept. 4 -- four days before lawmakers are scheduled to return to Washington from their August break. The consensus, one participant said, was "to take your time to get it right."
Today is August 21st. The call was held yesterday, on August 20th. If the next meeting of this group is on September 4th, that means they promised to take 15 days off, or slightly more than two weeks, before their next round of negotiations. And by negotiations, I assume they mean the next time they decide to hold a conference call about when to hold their next conference call.
Of course, taking another fifteen days off is already a huge victory for Republicans and others opposing health care reform. The longer the bill takes, the lower President Obama's approval ratings will drop. Approval for the overall health care effort will also probably continue to slide.
As such, it is clear that by "take your time to get it right," what the committee actually meant was kill health care reform altogether. Which is really all this committee has ever been about.
We still have several areas where we haven't been able to come to a consensus. No deal is at hand and substantive issues, big and small, remain under discussion and need to be resolved. We need to keep working together.
I will need to see complete language and a final estimate from the Congressional Budget Office before I can agree to any health care reform bill.
I also need commitments from Senator Reid and Speaker Pelosi, as well as the Administration, that the bipartisan agreements reached in the Finance Committee will survive in a final bill that goes to the President.
With this arrogant and laughably absurd statement (we will only consider exactly what I agree to and no more), Mike Enzi has finally made clear what a lot of us have been saying to Max Baucus all along: the Republicans are never going to deal in good faith, and this idea of a bipartisan bill is not going to happen. Democrats should move quickly now to pass a bill out of committee, and then go to the floor with a Democratic bill, and bone-crunching party discipline should be applied to get us past a filibuster attempt. It is time to move forward with a bill, end of story.
