Air Force One took off from suburban Maryland today at 11:13 a.m. and landed 48 minutes later in Connecticut.
For Sen. Joe Lieberman -- who says he plans to vote no on the president's health-care bill -- it must have felt like a much longer flight. Obama invited Lieberman to the ultimate pressure cooker as he tries to nail down a majority for his top domestic priority.
...there was a public hint of the kind of pressure he is under. When Obama introduced Lieberman at his rally, someone in the audience called out, "Vote yes." Obama, not missing a beat, turned to his traveling partner. "Did you hear that, Joe?" he asked.
Near the end of his speech, Obama said he had told Lieberman on the flight: "You know what? It's been such a long time since we made government on the side of ordinary working folks, where we did something for them that relieved some of their struggles."
This is the presidential bully pulpit at work. Using the full force of the presidency to pressure opponents. Awesome!
UPDATE: Sorry for the typos. Turns out all references to Joe Lieberman were actually Dennis Kucinich.
UPDATE III: I corrected "bullypulpit" to "bully pulpit." It's been used so little recently, the correct spelling escaped me. Thanks for the correction, folks.
Let me get this straight. The Senate will pass a public option if the House will. And the House will, because it already did. But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi won't allow it. So the mortal enemy of public-option backers is . . . Dennis Kucinich.
Why? Because when Congressman Kucinich said he'd stand for a public option he stupidly thought he was supposed to mean it.
Last night, on MSNBC's Ed Show, the PCCC and our partners at WhipCongress.com announced, "We can say with confidence that there would be at least 51 votes for the public option in the Senate if the House goes first" and then named names and revealed new information.
Ed Schultz called it "the best reporting I have seen anywhere on a head count of the public option." (Ok, ok, he hasn't seen Chris's awesome reporting...) Here's the video:
There are now 64 sponosor's to Alan Grayson's Medicare buy-in bill. That's 14 more since yesterday. Here is the complete list:
64 CURRENT COSPONSORS: Representatives Bob Filner, Jan Schakowsky, Barney Frank, Dennis Kucinich, Donna Edwards, Jared Polis, Chellie Pingree, Sheila Jackson Lee, Carol Shea-Porter, Diane Watson, John Lewis, Anthony Weiner, Jerrold Nadler, Nydia Velazquez, Keith Ellison, Loretta Sanchez, Hank Johnson, Maxine Waters, Luis Gutierrez, Lynn Woolsey, Marcy Kaptur, Charles Rangel, Patrick Kennedy, Raul Grijalva, Donna Christian-Christensen, John Olver, Corrine Brown, Eddie Bernice Johnson, Marcia L. Fudge, Danny K. Davis, Pedro Pierluisi, Grace Napolitano, Alcee Hastings, John Hall, Shelley Berkley, John Conyers, Jim McGovern, Phil Hare, Betty Sutton, Jim McDermott, Gregorio Sablan, Maurice Hinchey, Carolyn Maloney, Barbara Lee, Elijah Cummings, Gregory Meeks, Edolphus Towns, Al Green, David Wu, Rush Holt, Carolyn Kilpatrick, Tammy Baldwin, Mike Doyle, Diana DeGette, Steve Cohen, Bennie Thompson, Andre Carson, Yvette Clarke, Steve Israel, James Moran, Emanuel Clever, Judy Chu, Donald Payne, and John Garamendi.
Since this is a stand alone bill, it is worth asking: are there 216 votes for a Medicare buy-in? Are there 51? Even if there are, will those votes still be around next year?
When the buy-in is limited to 55-64, or even 50-64, I believe that there are, and that there will be enough votes. When everyone is allow to buy-in, I don't know. However, it's best to start seeing how many votes there are for the big enchilada, and then decide where to go from there.
Here is a cool pic of the ongoing process:
Have a good weekend. I am going to try and chill out before the six days of insanity start on Monday.
In case you hadn't already heard, today Dick Durbin said that the Senate would only push for a public option if the House included on in the reconciliation bill. However, Nancy Pelosi said the public option wasn't going to be in the reconciliation bill. Greg Sargent:
At a presser just now, Pelosi effectively put the kibosh on including the public option:
"We had it; we wanted it," Pelosi said. "It's not in reconciliation." She added: "We're talking about something that's not going to be part of the legislation."
It might be an extreme outside possibility that, if Democracy for America, the PCCC and CREDO can demonstrate 216 votes for health reform by early next week, they can convince the Democratic leadership to put a public option in the legislation. However, doing so would require a new score on the reconciliation bill from the CBO, which would delay the process by at least another week. At this point, with both the White House and the House pushing a March 20th deadline for the final House vote, the leadership is not likely to accept any changes to the reconciliation bill even if 216 votes for health reform with a public option are demonstrated.
There is an argument to be made that this is demonstrative of bad faith, which Glenn Greenwald does pretty well here. Perhaps the Democratic leadership, including the White House, never pushed for the public option despite offering statements of support. Also, perhaps some members of the House and Senate were simply not being truthful when they made public statements of support for the public option.
At the same time, there is an argument to be made that, lacking the Stupak bloc and three other Democrats who voted for the House bill in November (Abercrombie, Murtha, and Wexler), the House no longer has the votes for the public option. As such, if the Senate were to add a public option to the reconciliation bill, it would either kill the bill or be stripped out in conference committee anyway.
Decide for yourself which one you think it true. I don't think the proof will be available until after the House votes on March 20th, at which point we will be able to see if anyone who voted for the health reform bill made public statements opposing the public option in the past. Then we will know if someone was wasn't being truthful about their supposed support for the public option or not.
Either way, at this point it looks like the only way to pass a public option is through a stand-alone bill at some point in the future. On that front, I suggest starting to push a bill that allows all Americans to buy in to Medicare, if they so choose. That is the ideal public option tied to Medicare rates and available to everyone--Medicare itself. Representative Alan Grayson is already piling up cosponsors in favor of it, and a smaller Medicare buy-in for Americans aged 55-64 seemingly has 57 votes in the Senate (everyone except Lieberman and Ben Nelson). Whether the current version of health reform passes or not, a national Medicare buy-in is the next stage in the fight.
Here is where the Open Left public option whip count stood in the Senate as of late November, 2009:
Oppose bill with any public option (3): Mary Landrieu; Joe Lieberman; Blanche Lincoln
Open to an opt-in public option (1): Ben Nelson.
--Note: Not a worthwhile public option to support
Wouldn't filibuster an overall bill with a public option (2):Evan Bayh; Kent Conrad (never threatened to filibuster).
--Note: Neither would vote for a public option either as an amendment or stand alone bill.
Liked the opt-out (1): Mark Pryor.
--Note: Unclear if Pryor would support non-opt-out
Wouldn't vote against an overall bill with negotiated rates public option (3): Mark Begich ("not a dealbreaker," via constituent letter); Max Baucus (claims to want public option, supposedly voted against it only because it doesn't have 60); and Mark Warner.
--Note: Never promised support as an amendment or as a stand-alone, but wouldn't vote against a bill with one
Support negotiated rate public option (50): The rest.
--Note: See Washington Independent scorecard. Add Tom Carper, subtract Mark Warner
Even now that Paul Kirk is no longer in the Senate, this count shows 49 supporters for a negotiated rates public option, plus one more if it is an opt-out (Pryor). With Biden, that is enough for passage.
Further, if the public option was included in the bill sent to the floor, rather than added as an amendment, three more votes--Begich, Baucus and Warner--could be counted on. That leaves room for defections, such as the one Jay Rockefeller recently made (although I still think Rockefeller is a potential "yes" vote).
Given this count, in theory, there should be plenty of votes to pass a public option through reconciliation. This is especially the case if an opt-out, negotiated rates public option was included in the bill sent to the Senate floor--something which Harry Reid did back in 2009. So, why doesn't it appear that Senate Democrats will pass a reconciliation bill with a negotiated rates public option?
Glenn Greenwald argues this is an example of bad faith. Senators Dick Durbin's office claims they are not going to allow any amendments to the bill the House sends them, but would whip for a bill that included a negotiated rates public option. The basic idea is that they don't want to blow up any deals on votes once the bill reaches the floor, and they don't want to give Republicans an opening to filibuster the bill through endless series of amendments.
While I am well aware that the White House is not pushing for the public option at all, I am still not willing to call it bad faith just yet. This is because no one has proven that there are 216 votes in the House for a reconciliation "fix" to the Senate health reform bill that includes a negotiated rates public option. There were 220 proven votes in the House back in November, but since that time three "yes" votes are no longer around, and an undetermined group of Stupak voters has also been lost.
Until someone proves that the House has 216 for a reconciliation fix with a public option, then the argument coming out of Durbin's office cannot be disproven. Adding a public option to the reconciliation bill in the Senate might well blow up a deal with the House, and cause the package to go down. This is especially given that in order to pass the bill, House leaders are going to have to cull about a dozen votes from the 37 remaining Democrats who voted "no" in November.
So yeah, it is possible that the Democratic leadership is acting in bad faith on the public option, but it hasn't been proven yet. The post shows that the votes should be there in the Senate. No one has made the same case for the House, but that will be the focus in the last-ditch effort for the public option over the next few days.
In the latest game of public option hot potato, Senator Dick Durbin says he will whip hard for a reconciliation bill that includes a public option. However, the caveat is that he will only do so if the House sends a reconciliation bill to the Senate with the public option in it. If the House sends the Senate a reconciliation bill without a public option, then Durbin will whip aggressively against adding one in the Senate. From a Durbin spokesperson:
"I want to be crystal clear: Sen. Durbin and the rest of the Senate Leadership will be aggressively whipping FOR the public option if it is included in the reconciliation bill the House sends over. Conversely, the Leaders will whip against any attempt to alter or amend the bill if the public option is not in it (or as your email says - whip against adding the public option as an amendment in the Senate.)
The reason is simple. There can be no amendments - good or bad - to the reconciliation bill once the House passes it and sends it to the Senate. The House will not do step one (passing the Senate healthcare bill in the first place) if they do not have assurances that the fixes they want (i.e., the fixes in their reconciliation bill) will be passed unchanged by the Senate."
This is the same point I argued last week: the public option must be in the reconciliation bill that the House sends to the Senate in order to have any chance. Because of the leaderships twin desires not to blow up any deals on votes once the bills reach the floor, and their desire to stop the Republican strategy of filibuster by amendment, they are not going to allow any strengthening amendments to the health reform bills to pass. This includes a public option amendment.
However, it is highly unlikely that there is a public option in the House reconciliation bill. Two weeks ago, Speaker Nancy Pelosi said it was off the table. So, the only way to get it in the bill is through the Budget Committee markup of the bill (which will happen next week sometime), after someone proves that there are 216 votes for a reconciliation fix that includes a public option. That isn't much time, but it also isn't entirely impossible.
Now, given that the House is apparently going to have to find the votes for health reform without the Stupak bloc, there are good reasons to think that the House does not have 216 votes for a health reform reconciliation fix without the public option. The Democratic leadership is going to have to find votes for passage among a number of Representatives who voted against the House health reform bill back in November. You can see the list of those members here, and it is not a pretty one when you are looking for about a dozen votes in favor of a health reform bill that includes a public option.
That is the task ahead for the public option--find 216 votes in about five days. CREDO and the PCCC have already sent out action alerts urging people to start this last ditch effort. If you haven't already received an email from them, visit their websites, and join in.
The House of Representatives is deep in the midst of drafting their reconciliation "fix" to the Senate health reform bill. Some of the language of the bill had been sent to the CBO as long ago as last week, and House members are already able to provide an estimated length of the bill (100 pages). The CBO score of the White House draft proposal on reconciliation could be out as early as tonight.
This is important, because the reconciliation bill represents the last stage of negotiations on health reform. Due both to their desire not to blow up deals on votes, and to prevent Republicans from using a filibuster by amendment strategy to kill the bill, there will not be strengthening amendments to the bill on the floor in either the House or the Senate (or, at least, they won't be allowed to pass, as per Roll Call's article on the public option today). The deal that emerges will already be written into the reconciliation bill itself, with the possible exception of a separate deal to capitulate to the Stupak bloc.
With the reconciliation bill nearly written, and with no strengthening amendments to the reconciliation bill on offer, the time for negotiating improvement to the bill has virtually ended. There might be another couple of days of agitation available, but not much time and only for marginal aspects of the bill. We are very close to the time when you simply have to decide whether you want to pass it or defeat it. I am on the support side, but that is something everyone has to decide for themselves.
No matter which side you are on, the odds for passage do not appear very good right now. The Hill sums up the difficulties facing the Democratic leadership pretty well:
The 25 opposed include firm "no" votes and members who are likely "no" votes. Most Democrats on The Hill's whip list are definitely going to vote no, but others, such as Reps. Lincoln Davis (Tenn.) and Harry Teague (N.M.), could vote yes.
However, The Hill has not yet put Democrats who are insisting on Rep. Bart Stupak's (D-Mich.) language on abortion in the "no" category. Stupak has said there are 12 Democrats who supported the House bill in November who will vote no unless his measure blocking federal funding of abortions is melded into the final bill.(...)
Assuming every member votes, Democratic leaders could not afford more than 37 defectors, which would lead to a 216-215 tally.
Democrats can afford 37 defections. Already 25 members are either solid or "lean" no's, according to public statements. Further, that does not include many other groups making demands on the bill, most notably the roughly 12 members of Bart Stupak's bloc. And, it looks like Dems have given up on Stupak anyway:
House leaders have concluded they cannot change a divisive abortion provision in President Barack Obama's health care bill and will try to pass the sweeping legislation without the support of ardent anti-abortion Democrats.
A break on abortion would remove a major obstacle for Democratic leaders in the final throes of a yearlong effort to change health care in the United States. But it sets up a risky strategy of trying to round up enough Democrats to overcome, not appease, a small but possibly decisive group of Democratic lawmakers in the House.
So, with the Stupak group done, House leaders are either already at, or very close to, 37 defections. This means meaning Democrats need to round up all of the roughly 70 other, non-Stupak undecided votes.
That is an extremely tall order. While Democratic leaders continue to express confidence in the passage of health reform, public vote counts indicate that defeat of the bill has become the more likely outcome. For example, David Dayen's latest puts the count at 189 in favor, and 202 opposed.
In just two days, Alan Grayson has piled up 50 co-sponsors to his Medicare buy-in bill, which is designed as a stand-alone bill rather than as an amendment to the health reform bill. Here is the complete list of 50 co-sponsors:
50 CURRENT COSPONSORS : Bob Filner, Jan Schakowsky, Barney Frank, Dennis Kucinich, Donna Edwards, Jared Polis, Chellie Pingree, Sheila Jackson Lee, Carol Shea-Porter, Diane Watson, John Lewis, Anthony Weiner, Jerrold Nadler, Nydia Velazquez, Keith Ellison, Loretta Sanchez, Hank Johnson, Maxine Waters, Luis Gutierrez, Lynn Woolsey, Marcy Kaptur, Charles Rangel, Patrick Kennedy, Raul Grijalva, Donna Christian-Christensen, John Olver, Corrine Brown, Eddie Bernice Johnson, Marcia L. Fudge, Danny K. Davis, Pedro Pierluisi, Grace Napolitano, Alcee Hastings, John Hall, Shelley Berkley, John Conyers, Jim McGovern, Phil Hare, Betty Sutton, Jim McDermott, Gregorio Sablan, Maurice Hinchey, Carolyn Maloney, Barbara Lee, Elijah Cummings, Gregory Meeks, Edolphus Towns, Al Green, David Wu, and Rush Holt.
Every indication has always been that there is overwhelming support for a Medicare buy-in among Congressional Democrats. This could very well pass as a stand alone bill, especially in 2011 once filibuster reform has taken place. This is definitely one of the ways that progressives can viably continue the fight for real health reform no matter what happens to the current bill.
Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) became the 41st senator to say that he would back the public insurance option as part of a health care bill moved through reconciliation.
Nelson, asked by HuffPost if he would vote for a public option on the Senate floor, was unequivocal. "Yes," he said firmly. "I've already voted for it in the committee, in the Finance Committee."
Only Blanche Lincoln is opposed. Kay Hagan, Mark Warner and Jim Webb have not taken a stance.
2. On the public option That makes 41 Senators in favor of passing a public option through reconciliation. Additionally, Tom Harkin, Claire McCaskill and Herb Kohl all support the public option, and support reconciliation, but just haven't stated they would support a public option in reconciliation. So really, the number of public option supporters is 44.
Back in 2009, the other supporters of some sort of non-trigger public option were Robert Byrd, Tom Carper, Kay Hagan, Paul Kirk, Jay Rockefeller, Mark Warner, and Jim Webb. Additionally, there were three other possibilities who we never nailed down one way or the other: Max Baucus, Mark Begich, and Mark Pryor.
We would need six of those ten to pull it off. Kirk is no longer in the Senate, and Rockefeller now claims to be opposed. However, I still think we can get Rockefeller to vote in favor if it comes up for a vote. Would such a strong support kill the public option if the House sent the Senate a reconciliation bill with one?
Representative Alan Grayson has introduced a four-page bill that would allow all Americans under the age of 65 purchase Medicare for a fee. It is a great solution for health insurance in this country that would give everyone a choice of a robust public option.
The bill currently has ten co-sponsors. Notably, I have learned that these co-sponsors were gathered in only 15 minutes, making one co-sponsor for every 90 seconds of effort. That is a pretty good pace.
Grayson is resuming his efforts, so expect quite a few more members of Congress to sign on today.
The Medicare buy-in proposal has, it would appear, significantly more support than a new, stand along public option. In December, only two members of the Senate sort of opposed to it--Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson. Lieberman, however, had publicly supported the idea as recently as September, and only changed his mind to stick a fork in the eyes of progressives. Nelson didn't even declare his outright opposition, just indicated that he was worried about it. Every other member of the Democratic Senate caucus appeared to reach an agreement on a Medicare buy-in.
This is an effort with a lot of potential support in Congress, so much that it could potentially be passed as a stand alone bill. You can support it over at WeWantMedicare.com.
According to Whipcongress.com, Senators Daniel Akaka, Byron Dorgan, and Jon Tester, have stated their support for a public option through reconciliation.
This brings the number of signatories up to 40. With Tom Harkin, Herb Kohl, and Claire McCaskill as definite "maybes," 50 votes in the Senate is starting to seem plausible. Of course, given ongoing vote troubles for Democrats in the House, that chamber needs to be monitored and whipped at least as closely in any public option campaign.
Today I dropped in on the health care rally in DC. Everyone who's anyone was there (not literally, but it certainly felt that way when I was there).
Howard Dean was there. We got to ask him if he thinks the Democratic leadership is prepared to move forward without Republicans and if he agrees with the statement that House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer made at the health care summit that everyone shares the same goal of covering all Americans:
The health insurance bill currently under consideration in Congress would forbid states from providing their residents with healthcare. An amendment correcting that problem was passed in committee last July and then quietly removed. A new campaign is asking the Democrats who voted for that amendment to withhold their votes on the bill until it is reinstated.
Several states' legislatures are close to enacting single-payer healthcare bills. This is a complete healthcare solution that eliminates the for-profit insurance industry, lowers the cost of pharmaceuticals, reduces bureaucracy, and provides universal coverage. As President Obama explains: "Now, the truth is that, unless you have a — what’s called a single-payer system, in which everybody is automatically covered, then you’re probably not going to reach every single individual."
