After two weeks where most health care attention has been on the House, we now return to Senate. Here's where things stand:
Five Problem Democrats The only barriers to health care reform at this point are Senators Evan Bayh, Mary Landrieu, Joe Lieberman, Blanche Lincoln, and Ben Nelson. There are fifty-one Senators who support health care reform with a public option, and four--Max Baucus, Mark Begich, Kent Conrad, and Mark Pryor--who have made absolutely no threats to filibuster. The same cannot be said of the five "problem" Senators listed above.
Three cloture votes--threats are on the second and third There are three votes where the problem Senators could potentially join with Republicans to block the bill. First, on the cloture vote to bring the bill to the floor for debate and amendment. Second, on the cloture vote to end that debate and bring up a floor vote on the overall bill. Third, on the cloture vote to end debate and bring up a floor vote on the overall health care bill after the health care bill is returned from conference.
Right now, most of the threats to block the bill are on the second of these votes. Evan Bayh and Joe Lieberman have said they are likely to allow the floor debate. Ben Nelson has not said he will bock the floor debate, and Mary Landrieu senses a compromise is close. Blanche Lincoln recently had a one-on-one with President Obama.
So, a floor debate will likely go forward. However, that will not mean the five problem Senators have been forced into line.
Timeline The current, vague timeline for the Senate is "the end of the year."
Since Harry Reid announced that the merged Senate bill would contain a public option, the process in the Senate has slowed to a crawl. The hold-up appears to be that Reid is waiting for CBO estimates which will not be completed until the end of this week.
This means, at the earliest, floor debate and amendments will start for the health care bill one week from tomorrow. If it does not start next week, then it will start the week after Thanksgiving.
Harry Reid is also telling Senators to get ready for Saturday sessions in December.
Stupak moves to the Senate(more in the extended entry)
The healthcare battle is the first time we've tried to deploy the inside-outside Progressive Block strategy. It will certainly not be the last opportunity we have. So in addition to thinking about the impact of our actions on the battle we're currently engaged in, it's worth thinking about their impact on future battles.
The choices we make in the coming weeks will determine whether we come out of this stronger or weaker than we were when we came into it.
So here's my basic question: what do we need to do in the endgame of the healthcare battle to ensure that progressives - including the CPC in the House, the progressive Senators, and all of us progressives outside of Congress - are stronger for the next battle because of the way this one played out?
Last night in Quick Hits, art3 alerted the Open Left community to the ugly repercussions of the defeat of the Medicare +5% public option. Now, it appears quite possible that even if the negotiated rates public option passes as a part of the final health care bill, it will not cost any less than private health insurance plans. From the CBO analysis of the House bill (page six, PDF):
Roughly one-fifth of the people purchasing coverage through the exchanges would enroll in the public plan, meaning that total enrollment in that plan would be about 6 million.
That estimate of enrollment reflects CBO's assessment that a public plan paying negotiated rates would attract a broad network of providers but would typically have premiums that are somewhat higher than the average premiums for the private plans in the exchanges. The rates the public plan pays to providers would, on average, probably be comparable to the rates paid by private insurers participating in the exchanges. The public plan would have lower administrative costs than those private plans but would probably engage in less management of utilization by its enrollees and attract a less healthy pool of enrollees. (The effects of that "adverse selection" on the public plan's premiums would be only partially offset by the "risk adjustment" procedures that would apply to all plans operating in the exchanges.)
Ouch. That is pretty awful. In plain English, it means that the public health insurance option won't cost less than private health insurance options because, on average, the people purchasing it will be sicker and less well-off. So, even though it will save on administrative costs, its risk pool will force it to charge rates very similar, and possibly even higher, than private insurance companies.
After such a loss of momentum, at this point the public option campaign is just about getting a legislative architecture in place that will allow the public option to be improved later on with only 50 votes in the Senate. Unfortunately, however, any such improvement will be dicey, given that we apparently lack simple majorities for a stronger public option in both the House and Senate. So, in addition to still struggling just to get the public option in place, we are going to have to struggle down the road to get a better group of people elected to both the House and the Senate.
In this bleak environment, yesterday the House Tri-Caucus (Congressional Black Caucs, Congressional Hispanic Caucus, Asian Pacific American Caucus) and the Congressional Progressive Caucus all met with President Obama to voice their frustration. The White House simply described the meeting as productive:
It was a productive meeting that lasted for about an hour. The President congratulated the members on working so hard to get a meaningful reform bill put together in the House.
In a post-meeting interview with Democracy Now!, Progressive Caucus co-chair Raul Grijalva used much stronger language:
[We] basically brought out that now that we're in this stage of having to deal with this negotiated rates that came out of the House, and something much worse coming out of the Senate, on a public option, that we felt-set some parameters of what we felt very strongly about, that the bill still needed to be strengthened; that there had to be cost controls on the private insurance companies, especially with negotiated rates, because they get to set the rates and we have to chase those rates with taxpayers' dollar; and no triggers and no opt-outs, that we feel those are detrimental to the public interest and certainly to constituencies that have lacked the ability to access healthcare in this country for so many years.
That is just for starters, as Grijalva also criticized the White House for catering to Olympia Snowe, and not being a strong enough advocate of the public option. Grijalva also indicated that he would not work to defeat the bill, given that he criticized Senators who have threatened to do the same:
We're facing the most historic vote that any of us are going to take in our careers. And for procedural reasons or for other reasons, to threaten to filibuster, to threaten to scuttle, whether it is Senator Bayh, Senator Snowe, Senator Lieberman, I think they're missing their opportunity with history, and I think the White House and leadership shouldn't allow them to be absent in this fight.
This may be a tough bill to swallow, but with language like this, it sure doesn't sound like Grijalva is looking to round-up Progressives to vote against it anymore.
This bill may very well provide a lot more people with coverage, we may well still get some sort of public option passed, and the Progressive Caucus does appear to have increased its influence. However, the cost of premiums will continue to rise beyond what are already unacceptable levels, and even without the filibuster we apparently still do not have a good enough Congress to pass transformative legislation. It is a hard pill to swallow, and a very frustrating day.
Tomorrow at 10 a.m., the House Democratic leadership unveil their health care bill. It is highly likely that it will include a public option with negotiated rates, rather than the more robust public option tied to Medicare (+5%) rates. There are many other details of the plan to discuss, but for now I will wait until the bill is actually unveiled to discuss them.
The remaining barriers to passage of the health care bill in the House are two-fold:
Bart Stupak's Regressive Block. Representative Bart Stupak is still looking to round-up forty votes to prevent he bill from going to the floor unless abortions are not covered under all health care plans that receive subsidies in the new insurance exchanges.
The leadership is convinced that if Stupak is able to offer an amendment to that affect on the House floor, that it will pass. If the amendment passes, it will kill the entire bill, because dozens of pro-choice Democratic votes would be lost. As such, the leadership will not allow any amendments to the health care bill on the floor. This means that once the bill hits the floor, that is the bill that will go to conference committee.
The Tri-Caucus Progressive Block. For months, the Progressive Caucus, the Black Caucus and Hispanic Caucus (and, I think, the Asian-American Caucus) have been trying to round up House Democrats who would vote against a health care bill unless it included the Medicare +5% option. Now that the bill will not include the Medicare +5% public option, the tri-caucus is sounding noncommittal about the bill. They are also meeting with President Obama tomorrow:
Some liberals were prepared to accept the negotiated rate structure. Others were still withholding support, even while pointing to Reid's inclusion of a government insurance plan in the Senate bill as a victory in itself.
"We were laughed at in August. Who would have thought that the Senate bill would have a public option?" said Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Calif., a co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
Woolsey was noncommittal about whether progressives would accept the negotiated rates. "This is not walkaway time and it is not acceptance time," Woolsey said.
Members of the progressive caucus, along with lawmakers from the black and Hispanic caucuses, were scheduled to meet with Obama at the White House on Thursday, she said.
The Tri-Caucus does not appear to have won this time, but they do seem to have improved at playing the influence game. Threaten to vote against a must-pass bill, withhold your support even after a deal is apparently reached, and viola! You end up with a meeting at the White House. Not bad for a caucus that was the last to meet with President Obama at the start of his term.
Given both the Progressive and Regressive blocs, the passage of any bill will be by a narrow margin. No matter the disproportionate attention the Senate has received, there has always been just as much drama in the House.
It is time to start seriously asking whether the House of Representatives can pass any health care bill whatsoever.
First, while the final meeting deciding the fate of the robust public option is taking place as I type this, the likely outcome is that a public option with negotiated rates will be included in the bill:
In the end, Pelosi, D-Calif., and other House leaders were unable to round up the necessary votes for their preferred version of the government insurance plan -- one that would base payment rates to providers on rates paid by Medicare. Instead, the health and human services secretary would be allowed to negotiate rates with providers and the program would be optional for states, the approach preferred by moderates and the one that will be featured in the Senate's version.
This is going to anger quite a few members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Some of them might not vote for passage now, because they consider the public option too weak.
This matters because there are around 18-25 Democrats who will vote against the bill from the right, pretty much no matter what at this point. With every Republican likely to vote against the bill, this means that opposition from 15-22 Progressives would sink the entire bill.
Even though all eyes are on the Senate, the House is far from decided. Right now, it simply is not guaranteed that there will be enough votes to pass any health care bill through the House of Representatives, due to opposition from both flanks of the Democratic Party.
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)
Following up on Monday's article "President Burris," yesterday I talked over the phone with Jim O'Connor, a spokesperson for Senator Roland Burris. In regards to Burris's statement that he would vote against any health care reform bill that does not include a public option, I had two questions:
1. Will Senator Burris deny unanimous consent on a motion to proceed with a health care bill that does not have a public option?
(Such a motion is required for a bill to be sent to the floor for debate and amendment. If a unanimous consent motion fails--and it only takes one Senator to object for it to fail--then a cloture vote is required for a bill to be sent to the floor for debate and amendment.)
2. Will Senator Burris vote against cloture on a health care bill that does not have a public option?
(This is the logical follow-up to question #1. Given that Maine Senators Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe are the only two Republicans who would even theoretically vote for cloture on any health care bill, if three Democratic Senators say they will vote against cloture on any health care reform bill that lacks a public option, then it will be impossible for such a bill to reach the floor of the Senate.)
O'Connor's response to both questions was that Senator Burris stood by his statement to vote against any health care bill without a public option, bit that the Senator was still working on his floor strategy when it came to procedural votes. O'Connor stated that Burris did not seek to be an obstructionist, but to build consensus around the public option, which is good legislation and which polls show to be popular.
So, Burris is committed to voting against final passage of any health care bill that does not include a public option, but he has so far not committed himself to using procedural motions to block any such bill. As such, it is entirely possible he would still give unanimous consent, or vote for cloture, on a bill that does not contain a public option. Then again, he hasn't ruled that out, either.
Overall, this means that there is not even one Democratic Senator who has committed to blocking a health care reform bill without a public option. It would only take three, but right now the number is still zero.
For Democrats determined to get a health care bill, Sen. Roland Burris is like the house guest who couldn't be refused, won't soon be leaving and poses a plausible threat of ruining holiday dinner.
Suddenly, he can no longer be ignored.
The Illinois Democrat, appointed by disgraced former Gov. Rod Blagojevich, says he'll only vote for a bill to provide health care to millions more Americans as long as it allows the government to sell insurance in competition with private insurers.
And he says he won't compromise.
"I would not support a bill that does not have a public option," Burris, 72, said in a recent interview with The Associated Press. "That position will not change."
Can we start saying President Burris? Not just yet.
First, you would think that a proclamation like this from a Democratic Senator would get more attention. However, Roland Burris is only listed in 18 news stories on Google today, compared with 68 for Olympia Snowe (as of 4:15 pm eastern). Such a discrepancy strongly indicates that the national media simply doesn't believe Roland Burris--or really any other progressive, for that matter--when they claim they will bring down Democratic legislation because it isn't strong enough. If reporters and political types actually believed Burris, this would be a banner headline for dozens of national news outlets.
Second, one Democratic Senator opposing any health care reform bill without a public option is not enough to defeat any such bill, even in the 60-vote culture of the Senate. Given that President Snowe is still dangling the prospect of her support before the Democratic leadership, it would take two Senators (and, given Susan Collins, arguably three) for this to be an effective block. So, Roland Burris isn't enough, but if he were joined by another (hopefully more credible) Senator, then maybe we would really have something.
Of course, even if another Dem was to vow to vote against any health care bill that lacked a public option, it is still actually possible to pass a health care reform bill without a public option through the Senate. Reconciliation only requires 51 votes, is very much on the table right now, and can be used for non-public option health care bills, too.
Part of me would actually kind of like to see a bill without a public option pass through reconciliation. If this happened, it would simultaneously destroy the 60-vote process lie, and also clarify that the Democratic leadership simply wasn't pushing hard enough for the public option (right now, it remains unclear to me whether or not they are with us on this). Then again, we also wouldn't have a public option in that scenario, and satisfied recriminations are a poor substitute for potentially transformative legislation.
As the Senate Finance Committee winds its way toward finally getting a bill out on health care, attention is starting to turn to how Sen. Reid will end up marrying the Finance and HELP Committee bills. He has some really challenging things to think through in terms of how to move things forward. One important point I do want to make, before we see either the merged bill, or what the Senate floor fight brings us, is how important the conference committee will be on the health care bill this year.
As I do from time to time, I want to suggest again how wrong conventional wisdom is, both from the traditional media and from some of my progressive friends, relating to the importance of the conference committee on this bill. This conventional wisdom does have a reason for its existence, which is that House progressives have quite a few times in the past been rolled. Because of this, there is an expectation that it will happen every time. A classic example: this Politico piece which asked the question "when it comes to health care, does the House even matter?" The answer is only no if House progressives give up and let the Senate conservatives decide the nature of this legislation.
Here's what is different this time, though: House progressives are showing some muscle, some guts, and some cohesiveness. They have pledged in writing that they will not get rolled this time, and I think that their leadership is whipping and organizing this thing in the right way. I had a progressive friend awhile back ask me, "Has a bill ever gotten better in conference?" And actually, the answer is yes. The 1993 budget bill the 1994 crime bill, the S-CHIP bill in 1998, and even several of the budget bills in the 1990s after the Republicans took control of Congress all got better in conference in some significant ways. It's up to House progressives to make this a strong bill. This legislation is too important to the White House for this to die, so if they stick together and negotiate well, House progressives can make this happen.
Now don't get me wrong: what happens on the Senate floor is incredibly important. We need to get the best possible bill out of the Senate. But progressives should not panic if the language on the public option, or any other major issue in the bill, is not great. No matter what happens in the Senate the first time around, I am convinced that how good this bill is will ultimately come down to how good the House negotiators are on the bill. Sen. Reid has some tough choices on how to approach the Senate strategy, and Senate progressives and all of the pro-health care reform movement need to work together to get the best possible bill in the Senate floor fight. But don't give up on the conference committee process: this time, the House (and House progressives) will be a player.
I have done some checking on whether Representative Grijalva's claim in The Hill this morning that 46 members will vote against a bill without a public option represents the final count from the Progressive Caucus's whip count from three weeks ago.
It turns out that they never finished that whip count, and 46 was simply the number they were at when they dropped the effort. At the time they stopped, they were actually running above the 60 members who signed the letter opposing health care reform without a public option back in August. At least two other members had signed on.
The effort was dropped, however, in order to begin a new whip count of the entire Democratic Caucus on support for a public option with Medicare +5% rates (aka, the "robust" public option the Progressive Block had been demanding). This new whip count was begun at the request of Speaker Pelosi, who had challenged the Progressive Caucus to demonstrate sufficient support to pass such a public option.
The preliminary stage of that whip count has been completed, with a tentative number submitted to Speaker Pelosi. I do not know what that number is, but it probably is not 218. But even that whip count has not been presented in the formalized manner associated with whip operations, so it is still ongoing in some form.
More when I have it.
Update: Greg Sargent says the preliminary number is 170 members of the House in favor of a public option with Medicare +5%.
Update 2: I hear from a different source that Sargent's numbers are low. The whip count isn't at 218, but it is higher than 170.
But Grijalva noted that 46 members recently signed a letter pledging to vote against the centrist plan. In the numbers game of the House, that is significant, because Republicans are expected to unite against the healthcare bill. So if 39 Democrats oppose the plan, it wouldn't get the 218 votes needed to pass. There are 52 Blue Dogs, as well as many other centrist members not in the coalition.
No such letter with 46 names appears on the Progressive Caucus website, so I have placed a call to verify if the 46 Grijalva is referring to here is the number from the whip count.
If the 46 Grijalva refers to is the total from the whip count, then 14 members have left the original group of 60. Further, whereas the original 60 signed their names in public, we don't actually know who these 46 are. So, while the Block is still large enough to block health care reform legislation, it appears to have weakened significantly. Democracy for America and Fire Dog Lake are trying to bolster them.
Also of note, Harry Reid has clarified his remark from yesterday that "we are going to have a public option before this bill goes to the president's desk." Now his office says they will have a competition and cost control mechanism of some sort:
Sen. Reid believes that health insurance reform must include a mechanism to keep insurers honest, create competition and keep costs down. He feels that the public option is the best way to do that. While we don't know exactly what that option will look like, Sen. Reid, working with President Obama, will ensure that whatever is included in the final bill does just that.
These two developments muddle my positive feelings from last night.
According to an internal Blue Dog whip count, the public option doesn't even enter their top four concerns on the health care bill:
The Blue Dogs have been surveying their membership over the last several days; coalition co-chair Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D-S.D.) has been collecting the responses. She listed the four top priorities that have emerged: Keeping the cost under $900 billion, not moving at a faster pace than the Senate, getting a 20-year cost estimate from the Congressional Budget Office and addressing regional disparities in Medicare reimbursement rates.
So, the Huffington Post asked, the public option is not a top priority?
"Right, the group is somewhat split," she said.
Given this, it would seem that if the other Blue Dog concerns are met, there should be negotiating room to include a public option tied to Medicare rates. That is, as long as the Blue Dogs are negotiating in good faith, which they might very well not be.
Meanwhile, the Progressive Caucus has completed its whip count of members willing to vote against a health care reform that does not include a robust public option. Progressive Caucus co-chair Raul Grijalva is claiming success, but not releasing numbers or names:
After conducting an internal and informal count of House liberals who are still willing to oppose health care reform without a robust public plan, Dem Rep. Raul Grivalja, the co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, says he's still confident that he has a big bloc of House liberals on board to vote against anything that falls short.
"We are comfortable with the sustained support for the public option and, for myself and others, the original letter we signed is still our position," Grijalva said in a statement emailed over to me, in a reference to 60 House liberals who signed a recent letter pledging to oppose any bill without a public option.
A Grijalva spokesperson confirms that he reached that conclusion after multiple conversations with House liberals in the last few days.
The lack of names and numbers leads one to believe that there is negotiating room for House Progressives, too. So, right now the best bet is that some kind of deal is out there that would get enough votes to pass the House, although exactly what that deal is remains unclear.
Over the in the Senate, which will have 60 functioning Democratic votes tomorrow if and when Paul Kirk is sworn in, the leadership is focused on stopping a Republican filibuster rather than on reconciliation. This is a viable strategy, given that not a single Senate Democrat has said s/he will vote against cloture on a health care bill with a public option. Some, like Ben Nelson and Mary Landrieu, haven't committed to opposing a Republican filibuster, but they haven't ruled it out, either. Others, like Joe Lieberman, have said they oppose a public option, but haven't said they would vote against any health care bill with a public option.
And so, the public option remains very much alive tonight. Far from secure, but very much alive.
There will be a full meeting of the Democratic House caucus on Thursday. Both the Blue Dogs and the Progressive Caucus are finishing their health are whip counts in advance of it. Ryan Grim:
The Blue Dog Coalition is engaged in a member-to-member whip operation in the House, beginning with a survey of its 52 lawmakers, to find out where they stand on critical health care issues. The principal focus is the public insurance option, but the canvass also touches on various tax and revenue increase proposals to pay for reform.(...)
The Congressional Progressive Caucus completed its first survey and began whipping back in the spring. They launched a final whip count last week that will be finished by Wednesday evening.
The whip count builds on an earlier letter that 60 members of the progressive caucus signed, pledging to oppose any health care bill without a "robust public option."
Expect both the Progressives and the Blue Dogs to announce the results of their whip counts either tomorrow or Friday morning. Further, expect both groups to declare that health care won't pass the House unless their demands are met. After that, look closely at the language that both groups release, because politicians love wiggle room and will seize on any that is offered them. And then, after that, don't trust quite a few of them anyway, because they could just break their promises.
From that point, expect significantly more pressure on the Progressives from established pundits, prominent Democrats, and the White House. After all, it is simply impolite for the Progressives to upset the order of things. Don't they know that only Blue Dogs and gangs of Conservadems are allowed to alter Democratic legislation by threatening to oppose it? And don't they know that when Blue Dogs do this, it is because the Dogs are common sense, bi-partisan pragmatists? By contrast, everyone knows that when Progressives do it, it is because they are rabid ideologues who just want ponies.
I have seen dozens of comments from single-payer activists from around the progressive blogosphere asking why House Progressives "pre-compromised" on single-payer and drew the line on the public option.
This question has an easy answer, and does not require much research. They voted to do that:
In March, Grijalva did something unusual for the progressive caucus: he began organizing. Caucus leadership sent a questionnaire asking members if they would be willing to oppose any health care bill that didn't include a public option. A majority said they would.
Attendance at caucus meetings - which had dipped to just a handful of members - began rising as the group hashed out what message to deliver to House leadership.
The overwhelming majority of single-payer supporters in the House of Representatives voted to draw a line in the sand at the public option. Then, on April 2nd, they sent a letter to Speaker Pelosi informing her of this vote, thus giving birth to the Progressive Block on the public option. Everyone who is on this list, and who is also a member of the Progressive Caucus, voted in favor of doing adopting that course of action. This includes single-payer softies and right-wingers like John Conyers, Peter DeFazio, Donna Edwards, Keith Ellison, Barney Frank, Raul Grijalva, Jesse Jackson Jr., Marcy Kaptur, Dennis Kucinich, Barbara Lee, Jim McDermott, James McGovern, Jerry Nadler, Pete Stark, Maxine Waters, Anthony Weiner, and Lynn Woolsey. What a bunch of necons and corporate sellouts that group is.
If you think that this group made a poor strategic choice, who knows, maybe you are right. However, I have felt since the start of this campaign that supporting the strategic decision of this group would be a more effective use of progressive activist resources then spending months recriminating against them for making a poor choice.
The Progressive Caucus has been largely irrelevant to Congress since its formation. After making a move to attempt to end that irrelevance, it was important that the grassroots organizations who are the natural allies and ideological cohorts of CPC--the netroots--support and reward them for taking this stand rather than just telling them they were a bunch of idiots. If the CPC had taken this stand, and progressive blogs and email organizations had just told them to shove it, they would never have taken another one. And Progressives would have stayed entirely irrelevant to the workings of Congress.
So feel free to disagree with the decision to form the Progressive Block on the public option. However, please stop asking how this strategy came about. With a little research, it is quickly revealed that the single-payer activists in Congress, including the author of HR 676, voted to undertake this course of action.
One of the stronger criticisms of the Progressive Block campaign for a public health insurance option is that the versions of the public option that have made it through congressional committees are so weak as to have a minimal impact on health care costs and coverage. I do not entirely dispute those assesments, except that getting a small public option now is a more viable path to a meaningful public option down the road than just giving up on the public option altogether. What I do dispute is that the public option fight is only, or even primarily, about health policy. Instead, it is about who runs the country.
In one camp, there are conservatives and private health insurance companies who oppose the public option in all forms. Their basic argument is that the public option would work too well, offer health insurance that is too affordable, and as such will deny private health insurance companies more business. A secondary argument from this group is that a public option supposedly cannot pass the Senate, even though a list of Senators is never provided with this claim and even though either reconciliation or the nuclear option would allow a public option to pass with 51 votes.
In the other camp are House and grassroots progressives. Their basic argument is exactly the same as the first camp: a public option, even in its current form, would offer lower-priced health insurance than private companies. This group is composed of the most reliable Democratic votes in all of Congress, the most Democratic districts in the country, and organizations that provide a huge percentage of pro-Democratic activism.
So this is about who the Democrats in Congress and the White House are going to govern with:
--Those who think that protecting large industries is more important than providing lower cost health care;
--Those who think offering lower cost health care is more important than protecting large industries.
Additionally, the first group is lying about Senate procedure and are the top political opponents of Democrats, while the second group is just about the most loyal and active group of Democrats in the country.
If grassroots and House progressives can't even get a watered down public option in this environment, then it is very difficult to conclude that we are actually part of the governing coalition in this country. And really, that is what this campaign is about who runs the country at least as much as it is about health policy.
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.
This week, the Congressional Progressive Caucus is conducting a whip count of House members who will vote against health care legislation if it does not include public option. Results of this whip count will determine if the Progressive Block strategy remains viable. This is because some recent events that raise real doubts as to whether the Progressive Block is even still operational. Only a hard whip count, with results made public, can ease these doubts.
Following Obama's speech, Mike wrote a diary praising it (Hitting The Jackpot), while David wrote a diary underscoring its deficits ("Reviewing President Rahm Emanuel's Health Care Speech"). I immediately thought that both had a point. Obama had given progressives reason to hope-but only because progressives had finally gotten aggressive and drawn a line in the sand. And David had pointed what Mike was overlooking, and just how little reason there was to let up. That's what I thought Wednesday night.
By now, it's clearly back to business-as-usual, squeezing the progressive to get back into line. But in the process, an inconvenient truth was let out of the bag: Obama's speech placating the liberals was a big hit with the public. Sure, some of it was because he smacked down some big rightwing lies. But if liberalism was really so terribly unpopular, what with us being a "center-right nation" and all, then the gains Obama made by debunking rightwing lies should have been undercut by his liberal moves-not just supporting the public option, but also praising Ted Kennedy.
In short, once again, Obama has inadvertently exposed the profound disconnect between conservative Versailles and progressive America. Unfortunately Obama is on the wrong side of that divide, despite sporadic rhetorical forays to the contrary.
A closer look at the speech and Mike and David's take on it on the flip.
Next week will be gut-check time for the bloc of progressives standing in opposition to any bill that doesn't include a public health insurance option.
The leadership of the Congressional Progressive Caucus plans a "whip count" for early in the week to gauge the strength of their coalition, caucus members tell the Huffington Post. The whip team will also approach members of the Congressional Black, Hispanic, and Asian Pacific American Caucuses.
Democrats hold 256 seats in Congress and need 218 to pass a bill, meaning 39 progressives, voting together, could tank the legislation, assuming all Republicans vote nay.
Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), a member of CPC leadership, estimates that eighty to 100 members will make the pledge.
So, next week we will know if the Progressive Block will be continuing their campaign or not. The odds appear to be in favor of continuing.
Here is my favorite part of the article:
A senior administration official said Wednesday that killing the bill for not including a public option would be "tragic." Centrist and conservative Democrats have expressed frustration at the forcefulness of the support for the public option, arguing that it's a distraction from the broader package.
If the public option is just a minor distraction, then why don't moderate and conservative Democrats just give into the Progressives? Seriously--if the public option is so meaningless, then what's the big deal? Just give into the demands, and pass the bill.
The reason why this doesn't happen is that the basic political calculation for most moderate and conservative Democrats is to claim credit either for voting against, or watering down, a Democratic bill that passes. By voting against or watering down the bill, they can claim credit for standing out from the dirty hippies that make up most of the Democratic Party. However, if no bill passes, then the Democratic Party as a whole is severely damaged, and these moderates and conservatives are usually the first ones to lose their seats in a bad political climate for Democrats. So, they need a bill to pass, but they need to stand apart from that bill at the same time.
However, through their ongoing threat to defeat any bill that lacks a robust public option, the Progressive Block is taking that option away from conservative and moderate Democrats. Now, conservative Democrats can only choose a stronger bill (giving into the Block) or no bill at all (not giving in). From their perspective, they are screwed in both cases. They don't get the option of voting against a bill that passes, or removing the provision the dirty hippies love. Thus, the Block denies Conservadems and Blue Dogs their primary political mode of operation, and all of the power that comes with it.
As such, the Progressive Block actually threatens the continued dominance of Conservadems and Blue Dogs within the Democratic Party. In addition to taking instructions from their corporate masters, that is an important reason why the Conservadems and Blue Dogs don't want to give into the supposedly minor distraction that the Progressive Block is demanding.
It looks like I may have spoken too soon about House Progressives successfully forcing their way into key health care negotiations. From TPMDC, it appears the White House never called them back about their expected meeting with the President:
Remember back on Friday, President Obama discussed the public option on a conference call with House liberals? And remember how the upshot of that call was that Obama planned to meet yesterday with the chairs of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Congressional Black Caucus, Congressional Hispanic Caucus, And Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus?
Well that meeting never happened. Yesterday, sources told me that the meeting hadn't been scheduled, but could happen as late as this morning. Today, a House aide tells me that it's not going to happen at all.
ABC News has learned that President Obama will be meeting with 16 Democratic senators (and one "Independent Democrat") this afternoon at the White House.
They are: Senators Mark Pryor and Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, Mark Warner of Virginia, Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Evan Bayh of Indiana, Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Tom Carper of Delaware, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, Mark Begich of Alaska, Mark Udall and Michael Bennet of Colorado, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Bill Nelson of Florida, Kay Hagan of North Carolina, Herb Kohl of Wisconsin, and Independent Democrat Joe Lieberman of Connecticut.
That this happens to be identical to the membership of Evan Bayh's Conservadem group, plus conservative Mark Pryor and party switching Arlen Specter, is not a coincidence. The pecking order has been reaffirmed. Conservative Democrats like these still hold all the power in the Obama administration.
They have taken that power by providing a credible threat to vote against legislation the Democratic leadership considers essential to pass. So, the Democratic leadership has no choice but to negotiate with them. Until that threat from Progressives is equally credible, or until the threat of primaries from the grassroots is even more credible, this Conservadem gang will continue to hold all the power.
Ever since Democrats retook Congress, individual Progressives have held a lot of power due to their dominance of committee chairs in the House. However, as a group, they have been irrelevant to key negotiations on major legislation. In the House, deals have been hashed out with Blue Dogs since the first week of the Obama administration, while gangs of Conservadem and Maine Senators still do all the negotiating for the Senate.
One of the goals of the Progressive Block strategy has been to change this dynamic, and force House Progressives into these key negotiations. While they are now getting conference calls and mentions in major addresses, it seems there is still some distance to travel before taking part in the truly important discussions. Until that distance is traveled, Progressives still haven't made the gains in influence that the Block strategy was designed to provide.
Update: Hopes that this meeting with the Conservadems is about whipping them into line are, to borrow a phrase from Rahm Emanuel, f*cking stupid. The White House has told progressvie groups to stop attacking these Senators. In the speech last night, House Progressives were called on to be be flexible while the co-ops and triggers supported by many of these Conservadems were praised as avenues to explore. Not to mention that the White House has been offering concessions to Democrats like these on every major piece of legislation in 2009.
The White House is siding with, or at least capitulating to, these Senators, not whipping them into line.
