On the 19th, the AP's Jim Abrams published a piece on efforts to limit or reform the filibuster. There's some decent information in there on efforts by McCaskill, Bennet and Udall each of whom have their own particular reform effort going. In what I attribute to an attempt at balance, the piece includes a skeptical quote from the Senate Historian, Dave Ritchie (and I have to ask, should he be allowing himself to be quoted in a way that appears to take sides in Senate matters?) and this far more irksome bit:
Supporters of the 60-vote supermajority say it helped prevent Democrats from attaching a government-run public option - an idea unpopular with many Americans - to the health care law. And growing national sentiment that Congress should quit adding to federal deficits was reflected when Democrats needing Republican votes to reach the 60-vote threshold were forced to cut future food stamp benefits and an energy program to pay for a $26 billion jobs bill this month.
Aside from the view-from-nowhwere "supporters say" construction here (Which ones?) the big problem is the vague and misleading statement "an idea unpopular with many Americans" about the Public Option. This is technically true, "many" Americans did disapprove but the implication is that a public option was net unpopular. I'm not aware of any poll which found the public option negatively popular. Quite the reverseactually. The consensus of numerous polls was that it was popular, in some cases strongly and under other formulations with only a plurality in favour.
Then there is next sentence about how the filibuster is working to limit the deficit. It might be worth mentioning that the CBO scored at least one version of the public option as deficit reducing to to the order of about $53B by 2019. So this is the best that AP's unnamed "supporters" can say in defence of the filibuster: It saved America from a deficit reducing, popular legislative proposal and took food out of the mouths of the hungry. Hooray!
The saddest part about this attempt for balance, is that it predictably failed to impress the right as Newsbusters shows in its flailing and bizarre attempt to claim that a factual article about 3 Senators' reform ideas is "praise" of the effort to eliminate the filibuster. Abrams went out of his way to find some scintilla of good policy outcome that could be credited to the filibuster, straining credulity to do so, and it wasn't enough. We know this is because organizations like Newsbusters and the Media Research Center only exist to work the ref, but still AP strives to appease the unappeasable.
I've been a political campaign junkie for years. And the frustrating part about this job is that after going to Election Night parties, I have to go home and write about it for readers to view the next morning. So if a particular race takes the whole night to resolve, I could be up very late. But I had no problem sticking around the "No on 16" campaign party last night until 1:00 a.m. - monitoring the results with Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, State Senator Mark Leno and our good friends at TURN. Because last night's defeat of Prop 16 was one of the most historic victories in California history. Outspent over 1,000-to-one by a monster utility company, consumer advocates defeated by a 52-47 margin an odious measure that would have cemented PG&E's monopoly. To call this a David & Goliath victory does not give it justice. As my friend Robert Cruickshank wrote at Calitics, it's like "an ant taking down an elephant." Oh, and Prop 17 failed too.
The media narrative around the Arkansas Democratic Senate primary is that labor and the netroots opposed Lincoln because she wasn't progressive enough. However, that is not exactly correct. Labor and netroots groups are largely piling on against Lincoln because she broke public promises on key issues that had previously earned her the support of various progressive groups. To put it more bluntly, she won the support of many groups by lying, and now it is payback time.
But the spotlight will shine brightest on Lincoln, who earned union scorn for opposing a public option in the healthcare bill and refusing to back card- check legislation championed by the labor movement.
The campaign dynamic present here is a simple left-right spectrum: Lincoln is being opposed because she is not sufficiently left-wing. This is actually a narrative that Lincoln is pushing in her own ads. In a recent TV spot, Lincoln says to the camera:
The labor unions are spending millions of dollars against me because I won't vote with them 100% of the time.
However, Lincoln did not simply oppose card check and a public option. She made public commitments of support for both policies, before flipping when it was crunch time.
On November 21st, 2009, Blanche Lincoln stood on the floor of the Senate and declared that she would filibuster any health reform bill that included a public option. However, earlier in the year she signed a document stating that she supported the public option. Further, even as she spoke, her Senate website said that she still supported a public option, she is still cool with the public option:
Health care reform must build upon what works and improve inefficiencies. Individuals should be able to choose from a range of quality health insurance plans. Options should include private plans as well as a quality, affordable public plan or non-profit plan that can accomplish the same goals of a public plan.
In the Ozark Mountain town of Rogers, Ark., more than 250 business owners gathered for lunch at a construction company last month to focus on what they saw as a major threat -- a proposal in Congress to make it easier to form labor unions.
At each place setting, attendees found pre-stamped postcards and pre-written letters to be sent to Arkansas' U.S. senators, Democrats Mark Pryor and Blanche Lincoln, who had supported the labor bill in the past. After lunch, the business owners were ushered to computers to send e-mail messages as well.
Five days later came the good news: Two Senate votes had been stripped from the pro-union bill. Lincoln said she would oppose it outright, while Pryor declared the current version "dead" and said he would look for compromises.
It isn't just the public option and card check, either. EMILY's List had also previously supported Blanche Lincoln, but did not do so in 2010 because Lincoln lied to them. From Ellen Malcolm, EMILY's List chair
In 1998, EMILY's List helped elect Lincoln to the U.S. Senate. We believed her when she told us that that, if and when the Senate took up right-wing Senator Rick Santorum's bill to ban what he called "partial birth" abortion, she would insist on a health exception that protects women.
Our members gave generously to her campaign, believing that she would steadfastly stand by the pledge she made to us to protect women's reproductive freedom.
She took our members' hard-earned money to get elected. Unfortunately, when the Santorum bill came up for a vote, Lincoln voted for it even though it provided no exception to protect women's health.(...)
Since she wasn't there for us, we won't be there for her.
Sure, there is an ideological element to this campaign. Sure, there is an anti-incumbent mood. Sure, it is unusual to get a primary challenger as strong as Bill Halter. However, to ignore Blanche Lincoln's repeated betrayals on key issues to progressive groups who had once supported her ignores a central dynamic of this campaign.
Blanche Lincoln brought this primary challenge on herself by going back on several important public commitments she had made in order to win organizational support for her previous campaigns. She simply would not be in this sort of primary trouble if she hadn't lied and if groups like EMILY's List and labor unions were still supported her.
Once again, the states are leading the way on health care reform. This past week, the Vermont House and Senate passed two versions of a bill that would essentially get a consultant to design three systems for health care in Vermont: something similar to Canadian single payer, something similar to a private system with a public option, and something similar to the recently passed federal health insurance bill.
After months of watching Teabagger protests and a weak and ineffectual Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, it was clear that Democrats were going to get creamed in November. But with Congress having finally passed health care reform, pundits are saying President Obama has gotten his "second wind" - and the conventional wisdom is being revisited. Could it be the 2010 midterms will be a good election for Democrats, and Scott Brown's victory in Massachusetts was just their low point? And was the media simply too eager to declare victory for Republicans, a premature pronouncement that will make them eat crow in November? Granted, there's a lot Democrats have done - and can do now - to be in a better or worse position when voters have their say in seven months. But in a rush to report a "rise-and-fall" story, the media ignored the demographic shifts which indicate we are now in a new progressive era - ending what had been a 40-year nightmare.
You won't find me claiming that the health reforms that passed into law this week are great triumphs over corporate interests. Also, I agree with David Dayen that the student loan reforms that passed into law this week are clearer-cut victory for progressives than the health reform bill. Those reforms they effectively nationalize the student loan industry, by cancelling tens of billions in public subsidies to private student loan companies and replacing them with a student loan public option.
However, the claim that there is nothing progressive about the health insurance reforms that passed into law doesn't add up. Because of this legislation, it is estimated that 16,000,000 additional low-income Americans will receive public health insurance than they would have under previous law (CBO report, PDF, page 21). Millions of low-income, uninsured Americans received public health insurance is a straight-up, undeniable progressive victory.
Yet further, the $11 billion in additional funding, over five years, for Community Health Centers in the legislation will, at current rates of service, provide primary health care to an additional 17.8 million low-income patients a year. (Current funding of $2.5 million a year (PDF, page 6) treats 20.27 million patients, so funding of $4.7 billion annually projects to 38.11 patients).
It can be reasonably argued that giving private health insurance companies an estimated 16,000,000 to 21,000,000 new customers in the health insurance exchanges (24,000,000 minus the 3,000,000 people who will drop off private employer insurance, minus some of the 5,000,000 people who will drop off non-group / other insurance) is not a progressive victory. Also, the setbacks from reproductive rights, and the deals for drug companies, completely stink. However, it takes a pretty contorted argument, with a very odd definition of progressive, to deny that getting 16,000,000 additional low-income Americans public health insurance, and nearly 18,000,000 additional low-income Americans public health care, is not a big progressive victory.
Reconciliation bill changed, still expected to pass today As has been reported widely this morning, including by David Sirota, the Senate parliamentarian changed the reconciliation bill earlier today. This will require another vote in the House of Representatives.
The argument that any changes to the reconciliation in the bill would have defeated the bill does not appear to be holding up. However, these are minor changes, and so it could be argued that any substantial changes to the bill would have caused a more serious problem.
Public Option As far as the public option is concerned, there are good reasons to be cynical right now. Either the Democratic leadership doesn't care about it all that much, or they are actively working against it (I choose the former). House Whip James Clyburn says they have the votes to pass the public option. However, Speaker Pelosi said during a meeting last week with progressive bloggers that she was told the Senate did not have the votes (I was in attendance at that meeting), and as such did not try to add one to the reconciliation bill.
On the Senate side, Harry Reid has promised a vote on the public option, but all Democratic Senators have ruled out any strengthening amendments for this reconciliation bill, including a public option. So, the public option is therefore not allowed into the bill, and there is no public vote to verify the claim that there are not enough votes in the Senate. We are just supposed to believe that there are not enough, without any names ever being named.
Whether there are actually 50 votes in the Senate for the public option as a stand alone amendment is a debatable point, as here at Open Left we only ever proved there are 50 votes for a health reform bill that included a public option. What is not debatable is that the Democratic leadership did not try very hard, or possibly even at all, to include a public option in the reconciliation bill.
Republicans still taking process to the extreme, Democrats need to respond in kind During most of March, Republicans declared that passing legislation with only 51 votes in the Senate was THE MOST TOTALITARIAN MOVE EVAH. Now, to no one's surprise, Republicans are voting to allow only 51 votes to change the reconciliation bill in many ways, including non-budgetary items that run afoul of the Byrd Rule, as long as they believe those changes help defeat the reconciliation bill. To put it bluntly, Republicans are willing to use any procedural means necessary to achieve their goals.
As such, the best move for Democrats is try and get reconciliation instructions for as much as possible in the budget bill that will be passed next month. This includes reconciliation instructions for health reform that will allow for a public option to pass in a new reconciliation bill, but it should also include things like energy and education, too.
These reconciliation bills are just about the only way Democrats can still govern. For example, Tom Coburn is going to "pull a Bunning" and filibuster an extension of unemployment and COBRA benefits. The popularity, and immediate necessity, of such benefits far exceeds anything in the health reform package. If Democrats can't even get that done on time because of frakked up Senate procedure, the budget bill needs to leave Democrats with an option to pass as much legislation as possible with only 51 votes in 2010.
Republicans are using whatever procedural options they have to achieve their ends. At this point, Democrats have to respond in kind.
No matter what happened, expect a final vote either late tomorrow, or early Friday. This is not going into the weekend again. Huzzah!
Also, no matter what happens, Democrats are going to vote, as a bloc, against all amendments. This includes any amendments that would strengthen the bill, such as a public option.
However, on a positive note, Tom Harkin has said that the next reconciliation bill, which will come pretty soon, could contain some strengthening amendments. Notably, Harkin indicated this includes the possibility of a public option (emphasis mine):
The Senate this week is debating a reconciliation bill that would modify the healthcare reform law President Barack Obama signed Tuesday. The bill on the Senate floor was written based on the current budget resolution, which will soon be replaced. Harkin indicated that the new budget could also allow for a reconciliation bill, which he believes could be used to enact the public option.
Harkin supports the public option and said the House and Senate advocates would "begin working on that immediately" but, like other Senate Democrats, rejected amending the current reconciliation bill because such a move would force the House to pass it again. Because of centrist Democratic opposition, the public option may not have enough support to pass the House. "The greater good is getting the bill passed," not waging a fight this week over the public option.
With another reconciliation bill coming up shortly, there is another opportunity to pass some good, progressive stuff.
While I wouldn't blame anyone for being dubious and cynical about actually getting a public option in the second reconciliation bill, Senate Demcorats are showing increasing weariness with Republican obstruction tactics, and Harry Reid did promise a public option vote sometime this year. I wouldn't call passing a public option in the next reconciliation bill likely, but it is an opportunity.
Although it has gone largely unnoticed--and perhaps because it went largely unnoticed--a public option did end up in the reconciliation bill. It is a public option for student loans, however:
The student aid initiative, which House Democrats attached to their final amendments to the health-care bill, would overhaul the student loan industry, eliminating a $60 billion program that supports private student loans with federal subsidies and replacing it with government lending to students. The House amendments will now go to the Senate.
By ending the subsidies and effectively eliminating the middleman, the student loan bill would generate $61 billion in savings over 10 years, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
This is exactly what we wanted for the health care bill. Instead of just subsidizing the purchase of private insurance, cut out the middleman and have the government sell insurance directly. It would save a ton of money, and reduce the cost of the insurnace.
Hell, for health reform, we only wanted a public option like that in addition to, and as one alternative to, providing subsidies to purchasing private insurance. The plan was never to just eliminate the subsidies to purchase private insurance at all. The health reform public option was a smaller ask.
But, it didn't happen. Part of me thinks that it didn't happen explicitly because all the dirty frakking hippies were the ones pushing for a public health insurance option. And, if we had been pushing for this student loan public option, it probably would have been defeated, too.
Because that's how politics works: defeat the dirty hippies, no matter what they are asking for, simply for the sake of saying you defeated the dirty hippies. Thus, you can claim victory over the dirty hippies, and show you stoof up to their freakishness. Then, tell everyone that if you didn't defeat the dirty hippies, Democrats would lose everything. From the leadership to the rank and file, the Democratic ecosystem is rife with that belief.
That a public option ended up in the reconciliation bill, just not the public option we were looking for, is as clear proof as there can be that the health reform public option campaign was winnable. But, perhaps what killed it was that the DFH's were the ones asking for it.
Last night, the House of Representatives passed comprehensive health care reform after more than a year of fierce debate. The sweeping legislation will extend coverage to 32 million Americans, curb the worst abuses of the private insurance industry, and attempt to contain spiraling health care costs.
[Note]: Stupak presser cancelled, so Chris posts when he posts. Meanwhile this from David. -- Paul
Per my post last night about major primary pressure on Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet, Firedoglake has an important petition I hope everyone will sign. All it asks is that Bennet, the supposed public option leader, offer the public option amendment in the Senate when the health care bill comes up for a vote:
Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado led the effort to show that a majority in the Senate supports the public option. Was it all for show? Did Michael Bennet only champion the public option when he thought it didn't matter?
Because his Democratic primary challenger, Andrew Romanoff, has a few things to say about that:
"I am deeply disappointed to learn that no member of the U.S. Senate is willing to offer an amendment to restore the public option to the health care bill."
Well, that makes two of us. What member do you suppose he has in mind? Can you think of one?
Sign the petition here - and then please pass it on to anyone you know. Wherever you are on the underlying bill, if you support a public option, then you should be able to support the Senate simply taking a vote on the public option - which the Senate has so far refused to do.
Congress will pass health care reform any day now, and it probably won't have a public option to hold private insurance accountable. Even though a version passed the House last November, and 51 Senators are on record saying they would vote for it. And while Democrats are at this point "damned if they do" and "damned if they don't" on passing a very unpopular bill, the public option consistently has strong support. But Majority Whip Dick Durbin said the Senate won't even vote on a public option unless the House puts it in the final legislation, and a few hours later Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that could not happen. President Obama has been justifiably slammed for not pushing hard enough for a public option, but the truth may be even worse than that. We know the White House cut a deal with hospitals and insurance companies last July on prescription drugs - but as a New York Times reporter said this week, they also killed the public option. And given the public option's inexplicable fate, I have to believe the story.
Great news for "the left" -- Politics Daily's Jill Lawrence wrote us a memo!
Who is Jill Lawrence, you may ask. She is the prognosticator who declared three months ago, "It may be too soon to write a requiem for the public option, but I'm going to do it anyway..."
Surprise, surprise, she now writes, "Memo to the Left: The Public Health Insurance Option Is Dead, Get Over It."
I actually don't care that someone would question whether the public option is dead. Ezra Klein -- a smart guy -- wrote just last Friday, "The public option: Very alive or totally dead?" (He also wrote, "the story of the public option's resurgence has been a mixture of smart organizing and Senate cowardice," much appreciated by the thousands of folks who have been organizing on this issue.)
What I resent about Jill Lawrence's "memo" is that she engages in journalism without facts. Check out her main three arguments against progressives:
First, a public option could complicate passage in the House. Pelosi is trying to balance potential loss of support from anti-abortion Democrats against gains that may come from moderate "Blue Dog" Democrats who prefer the Senate bill. They like it in part because it has no public option.
I spoke with Jill Lawrence and she said this on the phone. I asked her point blank, "What yes votes turn to no votes because of the public option?" Her answer, "Well, I don't know the names."
I suggested she find them. Evidently, she couldn't. But she threw this unsupported argument out there anyway.
One could just as easily say some members of the House are more likely to vote for the bill if it has a public option. Unlike Jill Lawrence, I can name names. The Atlantic's Chris Good wrote about Rep. Scott Murphy (D-NY) -- a former "no" vote -- in his piece, "A Moderate Dem For The Public Option." When signing our House public option letter, Murphy said:
"Our nation's health care system is broken. To have real reform we need to ensure three things; accessibility, accountability, and affordability. I support this letter because the public option would help achieve all three of these goals and help to keep costs down by giving the American public a competitive option to private insurers."
Jill Lawrence's first point goes down in flames. But, she took two more stabs at it. Here's the next one:
"As Sunshine Week begins, I want to applaud everyone who has worked to increase transparency in government and recommit my administration to be the most open and transparent ever, an effort that will strengthen our democracy and ensure the public’s trust in their government. We came to Washington to change the way business was done, and part of that was making ourselves accountable to the American people by opening up our government."
Recommitting to transparency has obvious implications for the public option.
This means that Robert Gibbs will have a very exciting "yes" or "no" answer at today's 1:30pm press conference about whether the secret deal to kill the public option reported in the New York Times is true:
Not to worry, Jim Messina, the deputy White House chief of staff, told the hospital lobbyists, according to White House officials and lobbyists briefed on the call. The White House was standing behind the deal...
Several hospital lobbyists involved in the White House deals said it was understood as a condition of their support that the final legislation would not include a government-run health plan paying Medicare rates — generally 80 percent of private sector rates — or controlled by the secretary of health and human services.
“We have an agreement with the White House that I’m very confident will be seen all the way through conference,” one of the industry lobbyists, Chip Kahn, director of the Federation of American Hospitals, told a Capitol Hill newsletter.
I know that everyone from Russ Feingold to Joe Lieberman implied that Obama said one thing in public but then did the exact opposite on the public option. But he will deserve great credit today when this fresh breath of transparency lets the American people know about what actually happened.
UPDATE: Nevermind. Turns out it was just an empty press release. No transparency to see here.
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