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Jeff Merkeley (D-OR)
Reid has evidently decided to push a vote on health care past the August recess, something that Republicans, Joe Lieberman and Blue Dogs have been urging.
In the mean time, Freshman Democrats in the Senate are backing Max Baucus’s "bipartisan" plan which reportedly has no public plan:
While the Senate leadership, President Obama, Senate liberals and House Democrats continue to express impatience with Baucus’s efforts to forge a deal with Finance Committee ranking member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and other Republicans on a healthcare reform package, these freshman senators offered their backing of the process and the issues Baucus is pursuing.
We applaud you and Sen. Grassley for your continued work and dedication toward a bipartisan effort," a letter from the freshmen to Baucus says. "We stand ready to serve and to help you and the Senate Finance Committee to craft a bill that bends the healthcare cost curve, provides affordable coverage, and rewards value-added services."
Democratic Sens. Mark Begich (Alaska), Michael Bennet (Colo.), Roland Burris (Ill.), Kay Hagan (N.C.), Jeff Merkley (Ore.), Jeanne Shaheen (N.H.), Mark Udall (Colo.), Tom Udall (N.M.) and Mark Warner (Va.) signed the letter.
Baucus has been courting the freshmen in recent weeks, hosting meetings with groups of them in his office in between his negotiating sessions with Grassley, Democratic Sens. Kent Conrad (N.D.) and Jeff Bingaman (N.M.) and Republican Sens. Mike Enzi (Wyo.), Olympia Snowe (Maine) and Grassley.
The freshman senators, like Obama and the centrist Blue Dog Democrats in the House, place special emphasis on urging Baucus to come up with policies to reduce long-term healthcare spending.
Contrary to how others are interpreting it, I actually think Pelosi is saying she is willing to stay — it’s all a function of what happens with Energy and Commerce. They House can still vote on the bill next week.
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I really never understood the fascination with Warner. What makes him a Democrat exactly? I’m really disappointed in Bennet and Burris. Bennet, because he’s obviously not worried about a primary challenger.
This is a slow motion train wreck. IMHO, we should pull back from trying to get Blue Dog and conservadem votes. It just isn’t going to happen. They’re assholes. I think we should regroup and go for the reconciliation process, which isn’t perfect but at least we won’t have to compromise with conservatives.
Jane,
I ask the following with tears running down my face. Can you please start another campaign that deals with ’shutting off all money’ to any Democrat until Senator Harry Reid is replaced a Majority Leader by the likes of Senator Chuck Schumer.
We need to stand together in the Netroots Community and I can’t think of another way to deliver a ‘huge blow’ to the CORPORATE WHORES.
Thanks for your consideration
and there’s that no small matter of that dead horse I keep beating:
gosh, golly, gee I wonder what Sugar Daddy Max had to say in those courting sessions
At this point, I am more and more convinced this whole process is a fast-motion trainwreck (slow-motion was last week). There is obviously no leadership anywhere, and we the people are completely shut out of the negotiations.
Individual mandates for citizens to buy insurance will be a disaster with these people writing the legislation — they MUST not be part of the final legislation.
The hell with MedPac, bending the cost curve, etc. All too complicated, and you can bet that the lobbyists will get what they want at our expense in any such ‘reforms’.
This reform has to be simple and it has to occur now — the only way to accomplish that is by Medicare (preventive care, basic family medicine, and catastrophic coverage) for all, and to pay for it by ending the ridiculous ‘ceiling’ on income levels taxed via payroll tax. Tax everyone the full value of their salaries at 12% (still split between employer and employee), and give de facto universal coverage in the Medicare network.
Then, let the health insurance ‘market’ evolve new networks, but under massive regulation. Give the federal government the ability to bargain for much better drug prices, and figure out the best way to bring doctors on board. Throw the insurance and pharma companies under the bus.
That’s it. Otherwise, a worse system might emerge.
We are still 10 to 20 years away from the government we need — until bad people like Max Baucus are kicked into retirement, and we create the grassroots organizations to pressure these senators to be scared of us.
Progressives need to target Reid and a handful of Blue Dogs and campaign for a third party candidate or campaign for apathy (no campaigning, no donating, no voting).
There is nothing to reconcile if we can’t get a good bill out of the House. And there isn’t a lot we can do to the Blue Dogs — they don’t care what we think.
We have to build a road block in the House. If health care doesn’t pass, all the Dems lose, and that means the onus is on those who are working against what 76% of Americans want — a public plan.
We have leverage with progressives. We’re their constituents. We live in their districts. Force them to do what we elected them to do, and spread the word in their districts if they won’t.
The problem I see with their reasoning that they need August to talk with their constituents, is that,…. since they did not struggle with the policy and produce an House bill and a Senate bill,….. when their voters ask them about healthcare they will have nothing to say. They produced a good House bill but they don’t support their own Party’s platform for reform. What will they say to their voters in August? “We’re just a bunch of do-nothing legislators, I guess.”
You might as well wish for the tooth fairy to come in and wave her magic wand — it just isn’t going to happen.
That may well be, but the worst thing that could come out of this is some kind of individual mandate without any public option.
And this isn’t academic to me — I am currently without health insurance because I am unemployed, and had to give up my FEHB Cobra coverage because it was $6k per year to maintain my coverage (BC/BC PPO). I am ineligible for any kind of unemployment or Cobra premium reduction that was passed in the stimulus because I voluntarily quit my job. I’m in good health, but had to buy some antibiotics over the internet because I couldn’t afford to see a doctor and pay for them from a US pharmacy. These drugs (azithromycin, amoxicillin) cost pennies each.
So, if the US Congress finds a way to pass a law that forces all of us broke, uninsured folks to find a way to ‘buy in’ to the system or get fined, how exactly is that supposed to work? I bet you they find a way to exclude folks like me (’voluntarily’ unemployed or underemployed) from any of these subsidies, so I’ll get doubly screwed — or I’ll be forced to find a way to pay for some do nothing policy that won’t cover me if I sneeze.
I’m with you Jane, appreciate your tireless efforts and still support your efforts to find some kind of ’spine caucus’ in the House to at least have some of the citizens at the table. But an individual mandate of any kind will be an absolute policy and political disaster, especially under the kinds of ‘reforms’ the conservaDems are likely to support.
BTW, I agree 100% with what you wrote at 7. Jim Moran blew me off with his normal bullshit weasel words when I wrote him a whip letter — and you can bet he’s going to have a primary opponent in 2010, one way or another. He and Gerry Connolly are going to find uncomfortable ground here in NoVa.
Better check on Walt Minnick (D-ID). He’s told the local newspaper here in Boise, he’s not voting for the health bill as Obama has it.