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For a while, the Energy and Commerce Committee was the last House committee standing on the Hill, and that’s now changed with the passage of the House Tri-Committee out of the committee on a vote of 31-28 today. All the three House committees and the Senate HELP committee were able to pass the health care legislation out of their respective committees. None of the Republicans voted for the Tri-Committee health care bill in the three House Committees, and neither did the Republicans on the Senate side.
So then what’s the excuse for the hold-up on the Senate Finance Committee, and their delay of the vote to September 15th? It’s Senator Baucus’s bipartisanship fetish at display here, as he says below:
Baucus and Grassley have been among the fiercest critics of a single-party approach.
"Fundamentally, legislation that is historic, that is comprehensive, that has a large number of senators supporting it is more durable," Baucus said in an interview. "It will be more sustainable and will inspire more public confidence."
Baucus, who came to the Senate in 1979, and Grassley, who joined two years later, have let that philosophy guide them since they assumed senior posts on the finance committee eight years ago.
Utter lies, Senator Baucus. Most of the progressive legislation that still endures today such as Medicare, was passed without Republican votes. The Republicans in each of the three House Committees, and in the Senate HELP Committee, voted AGAINST health care reform. Does Senator Baucus really think that Republicans will vote for real health care reform? Is he that deluded in his need to please his bipartisanship fetish?
Senator Baucus knows that the delay of the committee vote to September 15th, 2009, allows time for the murder-by-spreadsheet industry to ramp up their PR attacks to scare Members of Congress into voting against any real semblance of health care reform such as the public option and a strong national insurance exchange. He knows that pursuing bipartisanship allows the Republicans to kill progressive legislation. Here are the words straight from a former Republican aide for Senator John Kyl:
Ron Bonjean, who formerly served as chief of staff under Senator Kyl, said: "Creating bipartisan coalitions on key issues is important to prevent Democrat legislative victories."
It’s time for Senator Baucus to realize over the August recess as his constituents and liberal advocacy organizations ramp up their calls for real health care reform with a strong, robust public option, that his bipartisanship fetish isn’t going to cut it this time.
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Well said. But Baucus doesn’t care, nor listen. He is Chairman for the next 6 years–unless there is a total failure on this which causes Democrats to lose their majorities in the Senate.
I think the only pressure that works on guys like Baucus is internal Senate pressure. There are two things going there: everybody knows Ted Kennedy doesn’t have long to live, and they’d like him to be able to see this bill passed and Baucus’ exclusion of other senior Democratic voices (Rockefeller, Harkin, Kerry, Schumer, etc) has caused Democrats within the Senate to place pressure on Baucus. There’s the Committee Chair vote thing. And there are other things floating around–just passing the HELP bill on a party-line vote, etc–which seem to resonate with Baucus.
As for the public, he doesn’t care in my estimation. As a general rule, when politicians stop caring about the public, they should find a new line of work.
I suspect that Big Bucks Baucus wants to make his major campaign contributors happy. Those would be the representatives of the health-care industry that has given him and his PACs so many millions over the years.
Slinkerwink:
Speaker Pelosi will permit single payer an up or down vote on the House Floor.
Should FDL whip for it?
No Republicans want health care reform, because they know that, like Social Security and (to a lesser extent, Medicare) it will make voters grateful to Democrats. Of course, if the GOPs would get aboard, they could claim some credit too. But that would anger their Big Money owners, as well as Bill Kristol.
So there’s no excuse, Max. Time to pass a bill the Democrats (many of whom have worked on health care for years and been excluded from your little team’s negotiations [sic]) can get behind.
A little off topic, but just a little.
Tweety was lamenting the fact that their weren’t people marching in the streets of DC over the health care issue. As usual he views all issues from the front row of the villagers ivory tower. I don’t suppose it would occur to him that the folks most effected by this crisis likely can’t get to DC–even if they could get time off from their minimum wage jobs.
I agree though, it would be nice to see some marchers just so it doesn’t look as if no one cares.
And why shouldn’t the American Taliban have a say on health care?
Elections don’t have consequences, you know.
Beyond the massive campaign contributions that Baucus is reeling in (along with the Blue Dogs),
you really have to wonder whether somebody has something on him.
In retrospect, and hindsight is close to 20-20, Waxman should not have compromised with the Blue Dogs and watered down the public option and the employer mandates. Five Blue Dogs voted against the draft after they had won concessions. It was not worth the concessions. The draft passed by 3 votes and could have passed by 2 if Blue Dog Space had voted no.So why did Waxman bother to let the Blue Dogs alter the bill? In regards to Baucus, why should we let him influence the bill, given what just happened through the compromises with the Blue Dogs?
I saw Tweety opine about our lack of street-marching as well. As if anyone in TradMed paid any attention to the last time there were millions in the world’s streets protesting the impending Iraq invasion!
Well I believed for years and years that both Social Security and Medicare passed over the firm opposition of the Republicans. Turns out to be an urban myth coming from our side.
1935 Act http://www.ssa.gov/history/tally.html
372-33 with 10 Dems, 2 Farm Labor, 1 Prog/Other voting ‘No’ as opposed to 10 Repubs , the Senate vote was similarly lopsided at 77 to 6
1965 Act http://www.ssa.gov/history/tally65.html
Republicans split more evenly but even so a narrow plurality of House Republicans voted ‘Yes’ on Medicare.
I was really surprised. Plus it screwed up a really wicked blog post I had planned blasting the Republican Part root and branch. Damn fact checking messed that right up.