Chellie Pingree releases a statement:
I’m not going to vote for any House bill that doesn’t include a robust public option without any triggers or coops–that’s a must-have for me. I also believe that it’s vital that there be a vote on the bill before the August recess. Delaying will only give entrenched special interests time to do everything they can to defeat it.
We specifically asked if "House bill" also meant conference report, and she indicated that it did.
That’s what we’re looking for — a public plan that is available upon day one of implementation (no triggers), nationwide (no coops).
Chellie also gave a great floor statement yesterday about the need to vote on a health care bill before recess (vide0).
We’re adding her to our Health Care Heros page.
Since the Senate won’t even take up health care until after August, we’re probably looking at October at least until there’s a vote on a conference report. We need 28 more progressive House members to commit to vote against any health care bill without a robust public plan (no co-ops or triggers).
If 40 progressive members will make that commitment, then Democrats have to do what 76% of the country wants them to do if they want to pass health care. And if they don’t pass health care, members of the caucus know — down to the very last one of them — that it will be a 2010 electoral disaster.
So keep calling. Make them do it. And stop by and say thanks to Chellie for her leadership.
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Thank you JANE for your LEADERSHIP!
Jane… great work on Pingree!
Coupla questions for you… last night I read the CBO summaries and budget estimates for the House and Senate (help committee) bills. I also spoke to Bingaman’s legislative aide earlier this week.
Between the two sources, I found some disturbing things:
1) the public option is not really a public option as Obama has identified it, eg available to everyone. If you already have employer profit-driven “healthcare”, you can not switch.
2) If your employer junk insurance is too expensive (eg if your premiums are over 12.5% of your gross income… seems like a rather high threshold), then you can go to the public plan.
3) Americans will be required to have some coverage… subsidies are available to people/families up to a percentage over the federal poverty line.
4) The public options will be administered through state “exchanges”… some states will be able to set those up quickly, eg Mass., so public option will come sooner, eg 2012… others will be slower… have to be in place by 2014 or Fed. govt will help states set them up.
Sooooo…. all that to say I got very depressed last night about the so-called “public option” because… it’s not nationwide, it’s not available to everyone and it’s not available on day one.
So I fear that once again the wily corporatists have pulled the wool over our eyes.
Maybe, just maybe, the plan is to at least get this in place and then make it “better”… but am I missing something here?
Would really appreciate your perspective.
Thanks.
Just as you pointed out how the Blue Dogs were playing with Republican fire by being obstructionists, the rewards for blocking their corporate pandering behavior could be inversely twice as big. The odds are in our new heros favor with 76% of the public backing them.
Thanks Jane!
Yay Maine! (my home state).
Have you thought about pushing on my congresscritter (Mike Michaud, from the 2nd district (northern half of state, approx))? Officially, he’s a blue dog, but when I talked to his office, I was told that he is in favor of a strong public option. HIs website is careful to mention fiscal responsibility, no doubt because his district is poor and a bit conservative, but my sense is that he could come around and maybe even sign the pledge. He’s not unreasonable (voted against the last supplemental, for ex).
Thanks Jane. $20 to Chellie through Act Blue.
Follow the Money… Link
Call Congress and demand,
SINGLE-PAYER HEALTH CARE FOR ALL NOW!
SEMPER FI!
Just saw John Conyers on c-span say there was no way he would vote for a bill without a public option and that the current one in the bill was so weak that he was having trouble supporting it. I’d say that would qualify as taking the pledge.
Rep. Ross (D – Jackass) says talks have broken down:
Talks With Blue Dogs Appear Dead
http://www.rollcall.com/news/3…..r_friendly
Good for you Waxman! Thanks for standing up for the American public and not giving in to the demands of the “Blue Dogs”!
We should be at 13 now with Fazio (OR) – is that right?
Amen…
See my comment no. 2 pls… I can’t see how this bill qualifies for robust public option….
1) It’s not available to everyone by choice (as Obama states it should be),
2) it’s not available on day one (I guess you could say since there are no triggers, that is indirectly true… but it won’t kick in til 2012 at earliest for some states and 2014 or later for other states),
3) it’s not nationwide
YOu can see that the $1.4M a day for lobbyists paid off.
Cry me a river… pro-industry blue dogger Rep Mike Ross has his panties in a wad (from the roll call link above):
A visibly angry Rep. Mike Ross (D-Ark.), the Blue Dog health care task force chairman, said Waxman reneged on deals the two sides had previously agreed on: an independent Medicare commission and adopting Senate language on a public insurance option. He also said Waxman’s threats to bring the bill straight to the floor — and bypass a markup in Energy and Commerce — were not helpful.
“We are actually trying to save the bill and we are trying to save our party,” Ross said after the meeting ended. He said it’s his understanding that the two sides would not have any additional meetings.
“It’s my understanding that will be the last meeting we have,” Ross said.
WoooHoooo! Go Waxman… once again standing up for the American people… and Booo to Ross… for leaving his constituents in a ditch.
I find myself wondering what “party” he’s trying to “save.” As near as I can tell, the Blue Dogs barely qualify as Democrats.
BTW, anyone have any idea how much longer we’ll have to put up with Harry “Spineless” Reid and his failure as Majority Leader to lead on anything that has any controversial content at all?
Until a majority of the Senate Democratic Caucus feels differently.
Identify 29 Democratic senators who could conceivably want him gone. It’s hard to do.
The American Medical Assoc. endorsed this proposal, along with several other doctor groups. Why do Mike Ross and the Blue Dog’s hate doctors?
Oh, and the highly touted end to denying coverage based on “pre-existing” illnesses?
Ooops… that’s only for new insurance plans… not existing plans!
Ain’t it great?
Bring it to the Floor, Henry Waxman!
Via David Waldman on Daily Kos, this is what three weeks delay means:
This is literally a life-and-death situation here. This is where GOP and Blue Dog footdragging leads: To thousands losing their insurance, going bankrupt, and dying.
I think Jane’s coming up soon on MSNBC, I hope I hope.
Waldman is wonderful. What a gift he is for us.
It’s the party the blue dogs are going to throw with all the money from lobbyists.
Jane writes:
Actually, I just checked HCAN’s “principles”, and there are four not two. I’ve underlined the missing two:
In particular, is #3 missing because the “very small” and “limited” public option won’t have any bargaining clout? Even granted the, er, fluidity of actual public option implementation, that’s a rather large shift in emphasis.
Emphasis mine. Not to put you on the spot, because you’re asking all the right questions, but could you provide a citation for Obama stating that the public plan should be available to everyone by choice? Nowhere in the White House guiding principles for health reform is the public plan even mentioned.
The Congressional Progressive Caucus has listed “available to all individuals and employers across the nation without limitation” in its criteria for a robust public plan. Contrary to claims of the CPC leadership, however, it’s unclear whether even a single caucus member has committed to voting against a bill lacking those criteria.
“Available to all” (or at least, to all under 65 years old) is missing from HCAN’s robustness criteria and from the FDL pledge. In defense of the pledge, one could argue that let’s first get the sausage casing passed in both houses and then let’s push for filling it with maximum robustness, possibly upping the ante on our criteria, once the bill is in conference. Risky, but there you are.
[sorry; above was response to
Reply
Jane’s up on MSNBC now!
Spare me the crocodile tears, please.
If the people who used those numbers really cared about human lives instead of pasting in talking points, the Dem’s plan wouldn’t be implemented in 2013.
And if the bill was any good, you can bet Obama would want to run on it in 2012. But no. He kicked the can down the road. Quelle surprise.
Great. Let me know whether the principle count is still at 4, or whether it’s down to 2.
Jane actually posted that here a few days ago, fyi.
Go Jane!
That weenie was too skeerd to diss Rush.
The latest Gallup and Rasmussen has your 78% way down…it’s not even over 50% anymore; the people are beginning to see the disaster that the spending and the loss of freedom to their own healthcare as well as the added costs to them personally. This is Hillarycare’s cousin and will have the same fate–you can’t fix it. There is nothing that replaces the capitalist system.
Great points once again, but how can we miss you if you never go away?
Called all the House Energy and Commerce members who are “public option only” to ask they support Weiner’s single payer amendment on single payer. See all of them at: http://www.democrats.com/singl…..ittee-whip
All staffers said they would pass the message onto their congressperson EXCEPT Stupak whose staffers hung up on me. Peace. -RF.
Quick question –
If this Health Legislation is so good in August, why would it not be just as good in October ?–Would it be that you do not want members of the House to get back to their Districts and hear more directly from their voters–
No, it would be that we don’t want them to go back to their districts to only hear from the lobbyists on this measure, and out of concern for the thousands that will die and the hundreds of thousands who will loose coverage while they dawdle.
It’s much more difficult to reach them in their districts without a massive expenditure of funds (that we don’t have that the FIRE industries DO have), so we want them to tackle it before they stop hearing the voices of the voters and get their collective earful (or is that pocketful) from the insurance industry lobbyists.
Wow–That is very interesting -You don’t want them to “hear the voices of the voters”– They either hear them now or Nov of ‘10—you obviously don’t have a lot of faith in the Members–Don’t you think they hear from lobbyist while they are in DC–
These ain’t crocodile tears. They’re the frustration of someone who, if the Republicans and Blue Dogs get their way, won’t see anything resembling affordable healthcare or insurance until I’m 65. Which is 19 years off.
This coming from a woman who lost one grandfather at 55, another at 63, both grandmothers in their late 60s, and a father at the age of 62 last year.
Besides, that 2013 thing is just one proposal for the public plan. The restrictions that prevent me from getting insurance due to my pre-existing conditions of migraines and hayfever allergies are banned almost immediately.
Becca: Exactly. But there are some people out there who never got over the fact that their candidate (*coughHillarycough*) didn’t get the nomination and want to pretend that their candidate would have actually got single-payer passed by now, even though Blue Dog guys like Mike Ross of Arkansas clearly rejected SP from the get-go. (Question: If the Clintons are that all-powerful that they can pass single-payer where Obama couldn’t, why haven’t they reined in Mike Ross? If you think he hates the public option, guess what? He hates single payer even more.)