Atrios points to Ezra:
Democrats are likely to walk out of conference committee with 60 senators in their party. Ben Nelson will not be able to ask to change this bit he doesn’t like, and Evan Bayh will not be allowed to offer an amendment weakening that piece. They stand with the White House or against it. And it is, in the estimation of most observers I’ve talked to, hard to imagine them literally filibustering the final vote on health reform. The White House would torture them until they lost reelection. And if no Democrats are willing to filibuster, then the White House could lose as many as 10 of them and still pass the bill.
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The bill the Senate Finance Committee writes in June matters only insofar as it affects the bill Obama gets in October. And there are scenarios in which it’s very important for that final bill and scenarios in which it’s not very important at all. The problem is we don’t know which playbook the White House is working from.
…and says:
It would certainly be nice if all of this was theater and the health care bill is just going to be made awesome magically in the Conference Committee. But there’s no way to know that, and no way to exert any pressure once it gets to that point.
I would say that there are a couple of things going on here. I do believe that everyone is playing the game of "get something passed and we’ll fix it in conference." As Ezra notes, you can potentially lose up to 10 Senators and still pass health care. President Lieberman and President Nelson just aren’t as important as they used to be.
The chances that the administration will step in and pressure centrists to support a strong public plan in conference are about zero. In fact, I’d bet just about everything I own that the opposite will happen — in order to lure the centrists, they’ll put the screws to progressives just like they did on the supplemental to cave and pass something that will make Blue Cross and Kay Hagan happy.
Nancy Pelosi and Barney Frank will help them, and Henry Waxman will stand up and heap praise on this tremendous achievement, because in the end that’s the price of leadership.
Which is why it’s critical that 40 Democrats commit now to kill anything that comes out of conference that doesn’t have a public plan which is 1) available nationwide, 2) on day one and 3) answerable to Congress and the voters.
They need to say it now and be on the record so that when that day comes, it becomes very hard to back down, even when everyone around them is screaming that they are responsible for killing health care reform.
The only way to prevent a health care bill from becoming a big bailout of the insurance industry is to get these members to commit now, and make it impossible to back down even in the wake of tremendous pressure.
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I don’t think there has been any legislation in the last 30 years that has been “fixed” in a Conference. Any “fix” has been for the other side.
“Fix” as in “spay and neuter”
Yep
The price of “fixing” it in that way has to be killing it. Then you cross your fingers and hope everyone’s ego stays true to form, and Rahm has to beat up the “centrists.”
Who never get beaten up, because they conform to Rahm’s politics.
Uh, isn’t this smoke-filled back room government? We don’t want that, it’s not democracy. And the social club in the Senate has demonstrated quite unequivocally that they don’t represent the will of the people.
A-yep.
Good evening from Stockholm!
That’s the part I find most disappointing about this administration…who BO is asking to compromise the most.
Almost one o’clock in the morning? Is it still light outside?
“The most liberal president ever elected.” Snert.
Probably true but sets the bar low.
Jane never sleeps. /s Hope it’s nice and cool over there Jane.
Conference committees are not places where bills are made better. They are places where bills are made worse, where connected senators and representatives sneak things in to benefit lobbyists.
The only exceptions I can think of is when one of the two houses has passed a better bill; sometimes the better language can win. So maybe if the House bill has a strong public option and the Senate bill doesn’t, and the House side is absolutely 100% committed to the public option, that it can win.
I think it would be a better bet for the House Dem leadership to promise that nothing gets out of conference that doesn’t have a strong public option, so we don’t even have to count on 40 Democratic senators. At this point I don’t think we even have 40 Democratic senators who can really be trusted to put the public ahead of the insurance lobby, or maybe just barely.
The Baucus/Conrad proposed cuts to bring their bill to 1 trillion (by reducing subsidies) seemed unrealistic and kind of like a poison pill. The House bill from last Friday seemed to be offering what President Obama asked to have created (the public plan defined).
When I read this post, I wonder, “Was the House bill just a sop to healthcare reform advocates?”
Your idea to have all of the representatives (Your 40) to commit is a good one.
Ed Shultz replayed the video of Grassley saying that a public plan was a deal breaker where the Republicans are concerned. Then Ed interviewed the senior Democrat from Illinois who at first strongly advocated for a strong public plan. In about half a minute, the Democrat back-peddled like mad – saying that he hoped for a public option, but that a good compromise might have to do.
This is the current state of affairs. Republicans have their heels dug in and Democrats are prepared to fold like a house of cards (to Big Insurance).
Small fixes can be made in conference committee, but not large ones. Conference committees reconcile differences, but they do not substitute the minority report for the legislation that was reported out of either chamber. If a robust public option does not come out of either chamber, it will not come out of the conference committee. f a single-payer system had been on the table, the public option could have become the political compromise. Now the public option (which is oversold as a reform) is the most radical approach. It will be sacrificed on the altar of political expediency.
We’re in this predicament because most Democrats in Congress are wimps, many are fools, and some are scoundrels. Wimpery, of course, is the biggest problem: Democrats don’t believe in anything strongly enough to fight for it. They think raising a ruckus is bad manners.
Our only hope for even a diluted public option? That Obama emulates Lyndon Johnson and does whatever he has to do to strong-arm Congress into doing the right thing. How long a shot is that? I think it’s more likely that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei will convert to Christianity and get full-dunk baptized in the Mississippi by the proud Rev. Wright.
What comes out of Congress will not have a public option worth mentioning. But it will require that everyone purchase health insurance, and it will provide huge subsidies to private health insurance companies. The Wimpycrats will call it victory. The rest of us will know it’s a sellout.
#14 “Republicans have their heels dug in and Democrats are prepared to fold like a house of cards (to Big Insurance).”
#15 ” But it will require that everyone purchase health insurance, and it will provide huge subsidies to private health insurance companies. The Wimpycrats will call it victory. The rest of us will know it’s a sellout.”
And maybe that’s always been the plan——blame the repubs.
Jane: “I’d bet just about everything I own that the opposite will happen — in order to lure the centrists, they’ll…pass something that will make Blue Cross and Kay Hagan happy.” And here I was thinking that since it looks just like that to me too, not to mention all the other crap, it must mean I’m depressed and seeing through a glass darkly. No, I’m just in touch with reality.
I’ve been thinking about when they passed the Medicare drug bill a few years ago, which I’m grateful for as someone on Medicare, but it could only pass by including the prohibition against Medicare bargaining for drug prices, thus giving a windfall to pharma at taxpayer expense. So we had the spectacle of Americans going to Canada (which could use their clout to bargain for prices) for their prescriptions and drug companies making record profits, and now Obama telling the nation on TV that our government health insurance, viz. Medicare/Medicaid will consume the entire federal budget (not a great way to sell the concept of government health insurance).
Due to frustrations resulting from greed and obstructionism that doom 100 million Americans to no healthcare or to be underinsured or to be just flat out screwed by the insurance companies, I’ve designed my own health care solution. It contains generalizations, but they can be resolved in conference.
I have read that there is potentially $250 billion in savings to be accrued from instituting single payer or the public option. Accept reality. Divide the savings as follows: Give insurance companies $150 billion right off the top, no taxes. The insurers should jump at this, no need to spend money to pay off Congress, and they can get rid of all the little rats who work so hard to find ways to screw the insured out of their rightful benefits. Just pure profit. This is a small price to pay so that Americans can get the health care they deserve and need, just as good as Congress.
Secondly give $50 billion straight to Congress. Now granted many in Congress are honest and have integrity (I think, many being the key word). This is a generalization that has to be resolved; maybe the honest can just say no, and refuse the money. But those who are whores and obstructionists will likely take the money and run, since it is very obvious who they are anyway. They have nothing to lose, especially since with a little work they will be identified and ousted their next election.
All this can be accomplished in a very short period of time, which will leave Congress lots of time on its hands to begin to resolve all the other crises we are now living with. I understand that it will take work to get this approach through Congress, but just maybe the corrupt are outnumbered by honest Congress men and women who too want to accept reality and get the issue resolved. Surely the honest will leap at a chance to make a stand and move on, assuming there are enough honest to get it done.
Riiiight.
They’ll fix it so it’s better for the insurance companies, and worse for everyone else. Because they can, and they’ll get more money: the insurnace companies have deep, deep pocketses.
F*ck the insurance companies.
Single payer, or public option as a second choice.
Kill it in conference. No socialism. No Tyranny. No Public Doctors. Ever. The American people do NOT wish to be the Soviet Republic of America.
Jane, do you have any judgement about Sen. Rockefeller’s bill, Consumer’s Health Care Act – has no number, but is available on 42 PDF file pages via his web side http://rockefeller.senate.gov/press/. See West Virginia Gazette article on June 25 at http?/sundaygazettemail.com/News/20090623731 with interview with senator who says
We have a moral choice. This is a classic case of the good guys versus the bad guys. I know it is not political for me to say that,” Rockefeller says. But do yo want to be non-partisan and get nothing? or do you want to be partisan and end up with a good health care plan. That is the choice.”
His first principles are a small list of just/robust expectations. I’ve not read the bill, so the devil may well be in the details, but I was kind of excited to see the article and the bill and hope to get to at least some of it’s provisions soon.
I’ll be making calls on Monday, now that the California Neuropathy Action Foundation Conference is over and at which I called for PNers to work for a just and robust public option available to all who wants and needs it
THIS YEAR = got a lot of applause in response. Glory be!
Blessings and thanks
There’s no folding or backing down to be done. We know the Republicans don’t want to help out uninsured Americans and they won’t vote for any reform and they actively try to slow work on the legislation.
Dems are essentially on their own in Congress to find ways to implement the president’s goals.
Insure more people.
Lower individual costs.
Lower systemic costs to the nation.
Improve quality of outcomes.
Do it without deficit spending.
Be open to bipartisanship.
Insuring more people means a public option because the private sector has simply decided not to do it.
Lowering costs can be achieved with the competition a public option will bring to the market and with some other things like IT and form standardization and regional equalizing and introduction of more doctors, nurses and community health centers and by providing incentives for more not-for-profit care and more salaried-pay (rather than pay-for-service).
Doing all this without breaking the bank is important to avoid negating the goal of lowering systemic costs. That doesn’t make it easier.
To avoid burdening the insurance companies with patients they don’t want there should probably be no mandates and elimination of subsidies and other gov’t monies going to private insurers and (possibly even) care-givers.
To protect consumers there will need to be regulations preventing insurer interference in the doctor-patient relationship and to prevent other significant harms to consumers.
True the corporate Socialism must end. We’ve let them get by with monopolies and subsidies far too long. We must work to make the economy work better. The “Tyranny” we have to deal with now is that of Big Money influencing Congress, elections, everything! We need to narrow the wealth gap to prevent that domination.
Nobody (AFAIK) is calling for “Public Doctors”, only more salaried doctors instead of pay-per-service doctors. We need to distance doctors from money issues, so they can focus on healing.
DL, ask the corporations if they’ll be okay with ending *their* little corner of the Sovietized America.
How many no-bid contracts to the Dept. of Defense?
How much wasteful military-industrial spending?
How much in subsidies to the oil industry?
How many idiotic subsidies to agriculture?
Who exploits patent law to avoid letting their opposition develop products?
Why can’t we get drugs imported, at least from friendly countries?
There’s lots of room for improvements which will save the public tons of money. Then more people could afford health insurance from private vendors!
YELL IT LOUD!
Doctors go to school and earn much abuse to become well paid for their services. Their Hypocratic oath REQUIRES they owe no allegiance to the government, only to the patient. As for Corporate Socialism, I trust a private corporation answerable to its shareholders more than I trust a government which more and more is answerable to no one. As far as no bid conferences to DOD, when you’re in a war, you don’t need to follow procurement rules. War is the exception, the emergency. The USA has an estimated 200 reserve YEARS of oil. Keep burning it until you develop an answer as we’re going to need the CO2 to stop the global COOLING more scientists are predicting is the overall patter. Patents are protected by the US constitution. NO PUBLIC DOCTORs. THey work like Public Toilets. No Tyranny from this Administration and their lackeys. Common Sense will prevail.
Was the House bill just a sop to healthcare reform advocates?
Yes.