Farewell to the Public Option… for Now

The last 24 hours has seen considerable movement on the health care front, including the apparent demise of the public option.

It started with a statement from Dick Durbin.

With now more than 40 Senators saying they would support the public option in a reconciliation vote, Dick Durbin is trying to put the brakes on the process, saying that liberals may be asked to oppose the amendment [sub req] now that they’ve said they would support it. Roll Call reports:

Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) acknowledged Wednesday that liberals may be asked to oppose any amendment, including one creating a public option, to ensure a smooth ride for the bill. “We have to tell people, ‘You just have to swallow hard’ and say that putting an amendment on this is either going to stop it or slow it down, and we just can’t let it happen,” Durbin, who supports a public option, told reporters. “We have to move this forward. We know the Republicans are likely to offer a lot of amendments, and some of them may be appealing to Democrats, but we have to urge them to stick with the bill.”

Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), a leading centrist, suggested Democrats should be able to avoid blowing up a reconciliation package if there is ample negotiation on it before it hits the floor. But Carper appeared to warn his Democratic colleagues that any move to amend the reconciliation bill, however noble the policy aims, would only lead to chaos.

That’s the same Tom Carper whose contribution to the hcr debate was the deservedly short-lived opt-in, triggered co-op. But regardless of how worthless his contribution to the debate has been, he still gets a vote. As should Senate liberals, who as of yet aren’t backing down.

But prominent Senate liberals said they are determined to put the public option question to the test when reconciliation comes to the floor.

“I think we have got to do everything that we can to get a public option so that is absolutely something … somebody can and should do,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who caucuses with Democrats.

Sanders said liberals have not decided who would offer such an amendment. However, Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) led a petition drive to get Senators to sign a letter pledging their support for it. The Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which has been tracking the letter signatories and Member statements, projects 41 firm votes in favor of the public option.

Sanders said he believes supporters will have the votes when the amendment comes up. “I can’t swear it to you, but I do think we can,” Sanders said. “I think that some people for whatever reason choose not to sign a letter but will vote. Yeah, I think we’ve got it.”

This largely seems to be an effort to discourage any amendments from being offered, though there is no indication as of yet that anyone other than public option supporters are being told to stand down… [emphasis added]

 

Inserted from <Daily Kos>

This was not an attempt on Durbin’s part to kill the public option.  To move the bill to an immediate vote, Reid has ‘filled the tree” on amendments. Simply put, that means neither side may offer amendments.  He may not open it for just one amendment.  If he opens it for the public option, he must also open it for Republican amendments, and that would open Pandora’s box to a flood of garbage amendments intended to stall the vote indefinitely.  To prevent this, the Senate must proceed directly to a vote on the reconciliation bill as it comes from the House.  And Durbin clarified that, if the House bill contains the public option, he will whip the votes for passage.  So the onus sifted to the House.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said on Thursday that she would not include a public option in a health care reconciliation package that the House will send to the Senate.

"We’re talking about something that is not going to be part of the legislation," Pelosi said, noting "with sadness" that the public insurance option won’t be part of legislation. "I’m quite sad that the public option is not in there," she said.

Earlier Thursday, a spokesman to Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the Majority Whip, said Durbin would "aggressively whip" a health care bill that included a public option.

Pelosi, however, put the onus back on the Senate, saying that the chamber didn’t have the votes needed for it.

"I’m not having the Senate, which didn’t have a public option in its bill, put any of that on our doorstep," she said. "It did not prevail. What we will have in reconciliation will be something that is agreed upon, House and Senate, that they can pass and we can pass… It isn’t in there because they don’t have the votes."… [emphasis added]

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Frankly, Pelosi’s reasoning does not make sense to me.  It did not make sense to Rachel Maddow and Christopher Hayes either.

 

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I disagree with their conclusion.  While I can understand Pelosi’s concern that some Senators might have signed the public option letter as a means of appeasing base voters, while thinking that would not have to back it up.  But I think there is something else in play here.

I have no evidence whatsoever to support this except for my own gut, but that gut has a pretty good track record.  Here’s what I think is going on.  Pelosi is trying to put together a very fragile coalition in the House.  She lost Stupak’s coat-hanger coalition, who voted for the original House bill, but will vote against this one.  There are thirty nine Bush dog Democrats who voted against the original House bill.  To make up for the coat-hanger coalition, Pelosi had to convert some of the Bush dogs.  Some of them voted against the original bill, because they oppose the public option.  Thinking that the Senate could not pass the public option, I think Pelosi made a deal with Bush dogs.  Part one is that they will vote for bill as long as there is no public option.  Part two is that the deal be secret so the Bush Dogs don’t face the ire of the base over it.  Now, all of a sudden, it appears that the Senate could pass the public option if the House includes it, but not realizing that, Pelosi had already negotiated it away.  That’s the only scenario I can envision that explains why the best explanation Pelosi could offer is ludicrous.

Whatever the reason, the public option is dead for this reconciliation bill.  It still needs to pass because it outlaws denial of coverage for preexisting conditions, it outlaws rescission of sick patients, it mandates that insurance companies pay out 85% of premiums in benefits, it expands Medicaid to cover the poor, and it provides subsidies to allow people, who could not afford it otherwise to get coverage.  It will save lives.  It is a platform on which we can build.

With all its faults, it does too much good to let it go.

For now, we have to take what we can get.  But why stop there?  The day it is signed into law, we immediately campaign for another reconciliation bill, H.R. 4789.

Health care reform — here’s where we are. The House of Representatives is about to vote on a Senate bill without a public option. It looks like the reconciliation amendment will not have a public option. The House bill had a public option, but once the House passes the Senate bill, that’s history.

Which is why I introduced H.R. 4789, the Public Option Act. This simple four-page bill [PDF] lets any American buy into Medicare at cost. You want it, you pay for it, you’re in. It adds nothing to the deficit; you pay what it costs.

Let’s face it. Health insurance companies charge as much money as possible, and they provide as little care as possible. The difference is called profit. You can’t blame them for it; that’s what a corporation does. Birds got to fly, fish got to swim, health insurers got to rip you off. And if you get really expensive, they’ve got to pull the plug on you. So for those of us who would like to stay alive, we need a public option.

In many areas of the country, one or two insurers have over 80% of the market. They can charge anything they want. And when you get sick, they can flip the bird at you. So we need a public option.

And they face no real competition because it costs billions of dollars just to set up a national health care network. In fact, the only one that’s nationwide is . . . Medicare. And we limit that to one-eight of the population. It’s like saying that only seniors can drive on federal highways. We really need a public option.

And to the right-wing loons who call it socialism, we say, "if you want to be a slave to the insurance companies, that’s fine. If you want 30% of your premiums to go to ‘administrative costs’ and billion-dollar bonuses for insurance CEOs who figure out new and creative ways to deny you the care you need to stay healthy and alive, that’s fine. But don’t you try to dictate to me that I can’t have a public option!"

And there is a way left to get it. By insisting on a vote on H.R. 4789. Three votes on health care, not two. The Senate bill, the reconciliation amendments, and the Public Option Act.

We got 50 co-sponsors for this bill in two days. Including five powerful committee chairman. But we need more.

Sign our Petition at WeWantMedicare.com.

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Please sign the petition.  I did.  Here Grayson explains it.

 

A single-payer public option is what we want.  After we take what we can get, it’s time to take more.