The Senate Democratic Leader, Harry Reid -- and a majority of Members of the Senate -- support the inclusion of public health insurance option in the Senate's health care reform bill. The debate over where the Senate of the United States stands on this question is now settled. The Senate -- like the American people, the House of Representatives and the president -- supports a public option.
What is not settled is whether the majority will be allowed to have an up or down vote on a health care bill that includes a public option.
The question is: will any of the Democratic Senators join with the Republicans to prevent an up or down vote on a bill containing a public option -- one that is supported by the overwhelming majority of the American people?
Will any of those Democratic Senators allow themselves to be used by the insurance industry to stifle the will of the majority of Americans who want to end that industry's stranglehold over the American health care system?
Sixty members of the Senate caucus with Democrats -- 58 Democrats and two independents (Joe Lieberman and Bernie Sanders). These 60 members share in the benefits of being part of the majority party, including committee chairmanships. Together they control enough votes to end a Republican filibuster aimed at blocking health insurance reform, and allow an up or down vote that this critical bill deserves. This should be a no-brainer. To their credit, many Democrats who are not strong supporters of the public option have in fact indicated that they would not stand in the way of an up or down vote. Yet several Democratic Senators have not yet committed to vote with the Democratic leadership and support a vote to proceed.
Remember that to pass a bill in the Senate you only need 51 votes -- or 50 votes plus the tie-breaking vote of the vice president. We do not need every Democrat to pass a bill. But every one of them must vote to end debate on a bill to allow an up or down vote to take place, since ending debate in the Senate requires 60 votes.
If some Democrats disagree with the content of the bill -- or oppose a public option -- so be it. They should vote no on final passage. But they should never side with the Republicans on a procedural vote to prevent an up or down, majority vote on the substance of the issue.
Frankly, if a Democrat votes against the party on a procedural vote and empowers the Republicans to block a vote on the party's top domestic priority, the caucus should strip that Senator of all of the power that comes from being part of the majority party -- including committee chairmanships.
It is one thing to oppose the substance of a bill. It's another to oppose the party leadership on a procedural motion and block the will of the majority. That kind of breach of party discipline makes it impossible for a majority party to govern. On procedural votes members of a majority party have to stick together or they might as well not be in the majority -- they hand the reins over to the minority.
In this case they would also be thwarting the will of the voters who -- very intentionally -- ended Republican control of Congress and put Democrats in the majority so they could make change.
By voting with Republicans on a procedural vote, a Democrat would, in effect, be handing the gavel back to Republican Senator Mitch McConnell. They would be allowing the minority Republicans and their insurance industry allies to set the parameters for the kind of change is even allowed to come to a vote in Congress.
That would be true on any issue. But it is especially true of the party's marquee issue, health care reform. By joining with the Republicans and preventing its leadership from calling an up or down vote on health care reform, a Democratic Senator would be engaging in a traitorous act. Not only would he or she be preventing implementation of a critical party priority. That Senator would also be politically endangering many of the swing seats held by House and Senate Members who are up for re-election next year.
That's right -- it is the swing district Democrats that would be endangered by the failure to pass President Obama's health insurance reform. Look at what happened after the 1993 failure of the Clinton health plan that was also the centerpiece of his presidency. In 1994, Democrats lost 54 seats. Of those, 36 were incumbents. It wasn't the members from strong Democratic districts, who had fought hard for health care reform, who lost. It was mainly members from swing districts, rural districts and southern districts.
The Clinton health care bill never came to a vote in the House, but only 11 of the 36 incumbents who lost had co-sponsored the bill. Many of the 25 others had opposed the Clinton health care plan. Didn't matter; they were the biggest political victims of the failure of health care reform.
History shows that when the popularity and job performance rating of an incumbent President drops, the odds of swing Democrats being elected to Congress drop as well.
And it wasn't just that swing voters lost faith in Democrats. Base Democratic voters failed to turn out. Republican base voters -- smelling Democratic blood in the waters -- turned out in record numbers.
The fact is that just as a rising political tide lifts all boats, when the political tide recedes those in the shallowest political water are most likely to be left aground.
Failure to take action on health care would be the most likely way to end the majority status for Democrats. Such a failure would massively damage the political standing of the president and the Democrat brand. That, in turn, would sink swing district Democrats. The Republicans know this. That's why they are fighting so hard to prevent the passage of health insurance reform. Any Democratic Senator who helps them is endangering fellow Democrats.
That is particularly true since polls show that the policy question at issue, the public option, is uniformly popular in swing, frontline and Blue Dog districts. The firm of Anzelone Liszt recently released the results of a poll it conducted in 91 Blue Dog, Rural Caucus and frontline districts. The poll found that 54% of the voters in these battleground districts support the choice of a public option.
In fact, throughout the country, giving consumers the choice of a public option is one of the most popular elements of the overall health insurance reform bill.
But what is more important is that Democrats in swing districts need a public option to convince voters to favor a health insurance mandate. Anzeloni and Liszt make clear in their polling report that in swing districts: "It's wrong to think about the public option in isolation from other elements of reform. Forcing an individual mandate without a public option is a clear political loser (34% Favor / 60% Oppose), and only becomes more palatable when a public option is offered in competition with the private sector (50% Favor / 46% Oppose)."
Turns out that a public option provides a political inoculation against backlash to a mandate. That's because people have no stomach for being herded into the arms of private insurance industry like sheep to the slaughter. They want to know that if the government is going to require them to get health insurance, that it also provides the choice of a not-for-profit public plan -- that they are not left at the mercy of private insurance CEO's.
It is fine for each Democrat in the Senate to vigorously advocate his or her own position on health care. But once the majority of the Senate has made up its mind, no Democrat should be allowed to side with the Republicans to block the majority will -- to block the Congress and the President from taking action. Not only would that be terrible for the country -- it threatens the majority status of the Democratic Party.
If a Democratic Senator votes to prevent his party from having an up or down vote on its top domestic priority, he is endangering the political lives of his swing district colleagues. That would be unforgivable.
Robert Creamer is a long-time political organizer and strategist, and author of the recent book: Stand Up Straight: How Progressives Can Win, available on amazon.com.
Optimist that I am, I still think that when it comes to the crunch the entire Democrat causus will vote for cloture. Then they are at liberty to vote against the bill if they so choose.
If any single one of them, Lieberman or others, vote against cloture then they should be thrown out of the party immediately. (In Lieberman's case strip him of all privileges and remove him from the causus.) Make sure there is a primary challenge to them come the next election. It should be made very clear that defying the will of the majority of the country will result in political death for any senator who does that.
A clear majority of the American People want to change this ridiculous broken health care system that is bankrupting the USA to profit a single sector of our society.
Somebody is going to get hurt if there is change, and that somebody is doing EVERYTHING it can to block change. Their lackeys in the US Senate (and the House) need to be called out into the street and shown for what they are: Duplicitous and dishonorable...
Uncle Ron
It is time to end the tyrrany of the "ubermajority". It's not a Constitutional issue, there's no Senate Supermajority in the Constitution. This is just a bunch of rules put together by a majority of the Senate.
It's time for the majority to undo this execrable mess. Oddly enough, a simple majority of Senators can change the rules at any time.
It is that time, if any of them have the guts to do it.
This Public Option is not even that good. This whole bill was put together by a butcher. When is Obama finally going to speak up ?
I guess at this point in the Obama "presidency" it would almost be cliche to bring up how the left used to consider dissent the highest form of patriotism. Now a lack of ideological purity is evidently the same as committing treason. When a Republican crosses aisles, it is courage, when a Dem does it, it is tantamount to sedition. And boy, the left sure likes throwing around the treason accusation an awful lot. Petraeus, McChrystal, The Blue Dogs, Fox News and pretty much everyone who doesn't kow tow to the president or the minority far-left in this country has been accused of treachery. Given the source, most labelled as such probably consider it a badge of honor. .
http://www.pollster.com/polls/us/healthplan.php
Sits in the middle of the aisle.
Too bad he was left with his important committee assignments. The judas should have been stripped long ago.
1) 10 Republicans and 57 Democrats break a filibuster and pass a solid health reform bill.
2) 0 Republicans and 60 Democrats break the filibuster and 50 Democrats+VPOTUS pass the same solid health reform bill.
Scenario 1) would make me happy but 2) is OK. Why?
If 6 months after passage, people start seeing good things happen, and the doom and gloom predictions do not materialize, then nobody will care if it was 1) or 2). If it goes wrong, the Democrats will be blamed no matter what. Who remembers the vote totals when Medicare was passed?
Remember banning smoking in bars? Lots of screaming about nanny state, dictatorship etc. It was supposed to destroy the industry. Well, it did not and people enjoyed coming home from a bar not smelling like an ashtray, and the bars saved money on cleaning. Who wants to go back to the old system?
Change never comes easy, but if people realize the change was good, everybody forgets the screaming.
Furthermore, every poll taken has shown that a majority of Americans are happy with what they have now. You don't institute a plan that will costs trillions over its lifetime, gives unprecedented control of 15% of the economy to the government (by far the most corrupt institution in the United States), add to an already astronomical deficit and require a myriad of tax increases just because there have been "insurance company" horror stories. Furthermore, citizens of countries with a nationalized health care system can produce far more horror stories about dirty hospitals, substandard care and horrendous waiting lists that far surpass in quantity and "quality" those provided by the pro-government side. If you think a majority of Americans want to emulate the pathetic Canadian health care system, you haven't been paying attention.
Oh yeah, insulting a huge portion of this country by calling them "repugs" because they oppose you politically probably isn't going to win many converts either.
Your so-called "facts" are just more ideological mythology.
For instance, a recent poll in Canada shows that 90% of the people of Canada are more than thrilled with a system that's working wonderfully for them. Every investigation I've read to date shows that Canadian waits are no greater than American, and office-visit waits are far less.
Furthermore, check the WHO listings: Canada has a longer lifespan, lower infant mortality, and overall better health outcome than the American healthcare system.
According to Harvard, 45,000 Americans die from lack of healthcare each and every year.
Perhaps, from your self-centered ideological viewpoint, that's OK, but to someone like me, who has wrestled with the healthcare system for almost 50 years, lost loved ones to its incompetence and been uninsured for periods of more than a year when laid off after working 46 years non-stop, it's just not OK that 45000 Americans are dying everywhere from lack of healthcare.
It's OK if you don't care about your fellow Americans. I know, your ideology is more important than the lives of these men, women and children.
But I do care about my fellow Americans, and I find your Teaparty approach nothing less then reprehensible.
Thank you for using the right word.
As it should be.
The truth is that the government is about to take the already short supply of doctors out over another 30-50 million people. When you do this, prices can do nothing but go up as availability goes down. The number of doctors was limited by, you guessed it, the government, when they illegally awarded control of the nation's medical schools to the AMA, supposedly for your protection. By 1900, the AMA had reduced the number of medical schools from 140 to 90. Since you can't run hospitals without doctors, the number of hospitals was also limited. When things are in short supply the prices go up.
Kinda like saying Iraq has ties to al qaida or the Saddam Hussein has WMDs.