Conventional wisdom has a powerful grip on the minds of most political players inside the beltway, no matter what common sense, actual political reality, the best policy arguments, and actual polling say. Pundits, traditional media reporters, columnists, powerful lobbyists, insiders, White House officials and Senators go into a legislative battle convinced that a certain scenario will play out, and keep telling themselves that over and over, no matter what. This standard fact of DC life has been especially true in the health care fight, the conventional wisdom being that a more progressive bill could never get through the Senate, therefore the Senate Finance bill would be the compromise everyone would have to live with if we were going to get health care reform done this year. Sometimes, though, conventional wisdom runs into a brick wall of political reality and common sense, and the latter occasionally prevails, because at the end of the day, elected officials will have to defend their votes made on the floor of the House and Senate. In health care, we may be getting to that moment.
What is happening right now is that Democratic Senators not on the two health care committees know that they will be voting on the issue soon, and they are starting to look at the details of the Senate Finance and HELP committee bills. The problem for the conventional wisdom version of events is that when Senators are actually looking at having to vote for and defend the Finance bill, it is making them really nervous. The bill was crafted so heavily in favor of corporate America that voters aren't going to like it, and Senators would have a hard time defending it to their voters.
The Finance bill is still pretty awful on middle class affordability issues, even though Baucus was forced to make changes in the right direction on that issue, and middle class affordability is about as central an issue for most voters as you can get. A tax on good health insurance benefits is also incredibly unpopular, and it's in the bill. A public option is incredibly popular, and it's not in that bill. An individual mandate to buy health insurance without a public option is very unpopular, and that's what this Finance bill has in it. Business taking some responsibility for their workers' insurance, which is common sense to most voters, is noticeably lacking in the bill. On issue after issue, when it comes to doing the things that are actually popular with the voters, the Finance committee chooses to go the other direction and do the unpopular thing.
Rank and file Democratic Senators are just starting to realize all this, and are beginning to go to Harry Reid and plead with him to take more of the language from the HELP bill when he merges the two bills. Most Democratic Senators are not going to want to have to defend the unpopular mess that is the Finance bill, and the pushback against it is gearing up.
Which brings us to the 60 vote issue. The White House deserves a lot of credit for pushing through a provision in the budget bill passed earlier this year, over the objection of Budget Committee Chair Kent Conrad, that allows at least part of health care reform to go through the reconciliation process (which requires only 51 votes). That option hangs over the heads of those conservative Democrats who don't want to support a good bill, because they know if they decide to oppose health care reform, they can be rolled if needed. Even if they don't want to vote for the bill on final passage, these Democrats are going to have to decide if they want to support a Republican filibuster to kill healthcare reform. If they do, they risk the wrath of their party's President on his number one priority, the issue he knows will define him as a success or failure in the first year of his Presidency. They risk voting for all these unpopular provisions in the Senate Finance bill. They would risk a nosedive in the approval of the Democratic party nationwide, which will also hurt them in their state. They risk a drop in voter turnout among base Democratic groups in their next election. And if they actually were instrumental in killing health care reform when we had finally gotten so close, they would pretty much guarantee a serious well-funded primary challenge the next time they run. My question is: would they really risk all this knowing that if they vote with the Republicans on cloture, Democrats will just roll them and go the reconciliation route? Political common sense may finally prevail with these conservative Democrats in the end as well.
Slowly but surely, political common sense is waking the Democratic Party up. House progressives are holding firm on the public option, and Nancy Pelosi is reminding people practically everyday that she can't pass a bill without one. Senator Harkin keeps reminding people that we have a majority in the Senate to pass the public option. The Baucus bill carries more water with every passing day. Harry Reid told voters back home in Nevada that the final bill would have a public option in it (although he later waffled some to give him more flexibility to continue to deal with his Senate conservatives.) Rahm Emanuel told Charlie Rose last week that while it would be tough to get a public option out of the Senate, "that doesn't mean in the House they're not going to come to the table and demand it."
Democratic leaders waking themselves up from the conventional wisdom trance they have been in since the beginning of this debate, and are realizing that political reality and common sense may dictate having a better bill, a bill with a public option, a bill that is affordable to the middle class, be the final bill that gets signed into law. Sometimes, common sense does prevail. Hopefully, that will be the case on health care.
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This is not the President's job, nor is it Reid's, it's our job. We govern ourselves.
We are raising money for ads to place the blame for delivering on the public option where it belongs: to Democrats like Senator Bill Nelson. We also have a video explaining our position. Please check out our health care action page. If you agree, please share and donate.
http://forprogress.org/healthcare
If EVERY AMERICAN who wants REAL healthcare reform were to call or email their Congressional reps and senators, we WOULD see action.
http://www.democracyforamerica.com/activities/213-the-progressive-block-stands-united
Senate contact info:
SENATE: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
the House Bill -- so that will be a plus for the final outcome.
Perhaps this is why the Democrats refused to allow the bill to be posted for 72 hours so the public can see it?
This is the "transparency" that Obama believes in?
My dad's advice now stands clearly before me: "Before you sign anything...read it. And if after you have read it, you do not understand it....do not sign it.
This is the Senate's finest hour. After months and months, they have succeeded in presenting a bill that is ' incomprehensible gibberish" that no one can understand.
but here it is:
the age for medicare coverage is hereby reduced to birth.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/23/pat-roberts-pleads-for-th_n_297563.html http://finance.senate.gov/sitepages/leg/LEG%202009/091609%20Americas_Healthy_Future_Act.pdf
The lobbyists are the ones writing the finance committee's bill to begin with. They should be pretty familiar with what's in there by now.
Volume buying and eliminating the middle man is an obvious solution. Our politician's refusal to admit this indicates that it's well past the time to get the lobbyists out of Washington.
Support reasonably priced health care and publicly funded elections.
Americans need to take back their power!
I have seen the numbers at 5 million, Weiner say 4 percent or 12 million, Obama said 5 percent or 15 million. It doesn't matter, the numbers are not big enough to compete or save money. I will be surprised if it even survives. After all the public option is a business not a single payer like Medicare.
How can 4 percent or less force the other 96 percent on anything?
If you mix health care into a pie, lets say, made up of doctors, nurses, hospitals, drugs etc. Slice it into 25 pieces. 1 pie is worth 1 dollar.
Each piece is worth 4 cents. The public option says I am only going to pay 3 cents for my piece to the cook.
The cook knows if he lets the public option piece save a penny than the other 24 pieces will want to save a penny, Now my pie is only worth 75 cents. I’m not going to do that. Let that public option piece go whistle. I’m not going to lower my prices. It wouldn’t be good business.
Plus- Insurance companies have more costs, but option people will mostly be poor and unhealthy which means subsidies to them. That will be added to the cost of the public option.
I guess it will be better than nothing but just barely.
Way to go, Dems. Now neither party have to stop taking donations from the insurance companies.
The second is contact info for the Senate.
Americans have to make it IMPOSSIBLE for Congress to bring a bad bill to a vote if they want to be reelected.
http://www.democracyforamerica.com/activities/213-the-progressive-block-stands-united
Senate contact info:
SENATE: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
If Obama tries and pushes something like that onto us, I will be so disappointed.
This isn't just progressive ranting, folks, Rahm and Obama's backroom deal with Big Insurance and Big Pharma has been publicized on the front page of the New York Times, fergawdssake. It's also fairly well documented that both Democrats and Republicans have been lusting after Big Insurance's lobbying dollars for a decade, now.
When you do the math, it becomes abundantly clear that if real health care reform passes -- and by "real," I mean one that includes at minimum a ROBUST public option (not "triggers," not "co-ops") -- it will be DESPITE Obama and the White House, not BECAUSE of him.
The majority of the American people actually want single-payer, the same as the civilized nations of the world have, and if that's not going to be on at this time, then a public option is the only way to go. Otherwise, the insurance companies are going to be charging two and three thousand dollars a month for covering people with pre-existing conditions. The mega-companies are determined to grab their pound of flesh so their profits stay as obscene as possible. Once the public option is in place, people will flock to it and the big guys will have to lower the price and accept less in profits or go under. The sooner, the better, because they have been killing people physically, financially, and emotionally for decades.
We're tired of being held hostage for the coffers of the rich.
I hope they are smart enough to see this.
We need term limits and campaign reform just as much as we need health care reform but lets get
health care reform first.
The other two will be like trying to empty the atlantic ocean with a teaspoon compared to HCR.
Without real Campaign Finance Reform common sense will be a thing of the past.