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Courtesy of Eric Pusey at Minnesota Progressive Project, the following is the first of what I hope will be a series here at FDL Action: “Voices from the States,” looking in detail at the status of health care reform and the public option in states around the country. If you’re interested in contributing, please email me at lowell at raisingkaine dot com. Thanks.
House of Representatives
All Democrats in Minnesota’s House delegation, except for Collin Peterson (MN-07), will support the public option. Republican Representatives Michele Bachmann (MN-06) and John Kline (MN-02) won’t support it.
Tim Walz (MN-01) represents a conservative district and hasn’t committed either way. Some have called him a blue dog, but this isn’t fair as he isn’t in a strong Democratic district. With that said, I’m not worried about Tim. He’s been making statements that he’ll support if we fix Minnesota’s Medicare gap. He has said he wants significant healthcare reform and not reforming is a huge mistake. I’m confident he’s on our side on this one.
John Kline (MN-02) actually has a more conservative voting record than Michele Bachmann (MN-06). It’s just that he’s not crazy. There is no chance in hell, however, that he or any of Minnesota’s House Republicans will support any kind of serious health care reform.
Erik Paulsen (MN-03) lies about being a moderate, is aided and abetted by the local media and is only a shade moderate from Kline and Bachmann. He’s the opposite of Bachmann: about as bland and boring as a Minnesotan can get.
Betty McCollum (MN-04) represents St. Paul and the eastern suburbs. She hasn’t signed any pledges, but she has stated repeatedly that she supports the public option.
Keith Ellison (MN-05) represents Minneapolis and the western suburbs of the Twin Cities. He signed on to the pledge to vote against any bill that didn’t contain a robust public option. We can count on Keith to always do the right thing.
In an effort to help defeat Michele Bachman (MN-06), I’ve created the Michele Bachmann Bizarro World in which I think you and your readers might enjoy looking at the insanity and lies that have come out of her mouth in the healthcare section of Bizarro World.
Collin Peterson (MN-07) is the only Democrat who could get elected in his conservative district that encompasses the entire Northwestern quarter of the state. He won’t support a public option. He’d like to think of himself as a blue dog, but he’s a conservative Democrat in a conservative district. In Minnesota, we pretty much ignore him … it’s just easier that way.
Jim Oberstar (MN-08) is a solid, old school liberal. He has stated on many occasions that he strongly supports a public option.
U.S. Senate Delegation
Al Franken is solidly for the public option. Soon after getting sworn in he said he supported it. No worries here.
Amy Klobuchar will likely support the public option in the end, but she is maddeningly cautious. She triangulates her positions on pretty much anything, which must just be her nature considering she won by 20% in 2006 against one of the rising stars in the Minnesota Republican Party. In this post from June, I trace Klobuchar’s history of promising to support some sort of universal coverage for all. In August, Klobuchar held a 10,000-person conference call in which she avoided addressing any of the real issues. See here for more on that one.
Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar is for: better health care,
lower costs, nobody getting whacked from their health insurance because of pre-existing conditions, a “uniquely American approach” to resolving the health care crisis.There you have it.
The state’s senior senator spent an hour on a telephone conference call with 10,000 Minnesotans Sunday evening. Most of them still must be scratching their heads. In the midst of this health care crisis, what sort of reform does the senator stand for?
One caller tried hard to pin her down.
“Do you support a public (health insurance) option?” he asked.
That seemed to call for a “yes” or “no” answer.
The caller got neither.
Finally, in this post from September, Klobuchar concedes she’d support the public option if Minnesota’s Medicare problem was fixed. This is a major problem because big states like New York, Florida, Texas and California have higher reimbursement rates than Minnesota.
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Thank you, Lowell. Informamtive piece.
What a dissapointment.
I’m kind of getting sick of the argument that certain Democratic representatives can’t support a public option because they’re from “conservative” districts. Washington loves to use this to maintain the status quo, nothing more. These districts are socially conservative, but they are populated by blue collar folks who hate insurance companies. Voting for a robust public option really won’t endanger anyone. If these districts are so conservative, why didn’t they just vote for a Republican?
I’ve found Klobuchar rather disappointing, her instincts seem to always be wrong. She enthusiastically voted to condemn MoveOn (for which I can’t yet forgive her, it was a clear abuse of Congressional power). She voted for the worst FISA stuff coming from Bush the first time around (finally changing her vote the second time). Now she weasels on the public option. All I hear from her is Minnesota does health care better, nothing dare interfere with that. She also had an embarrassing diatribe at the MN State Fair about H1N1 having “absolutely nothing to do with pork.” I get that she was trying to bolster the MN pork industry, but she just sounded stupid. Lo and behold, pigs from the MN State Fair have been confirmed to have had H1N1.
Anyway, Al Franken’s got a much better compass on issues, and hopefully he’ll set a good example for her even though she’s the senior senator.
Eric! Thank you so much for this. This is just great. Really, really helpful.
Groovester,
Yes, it’s frustrating as I wish they’d all just do what their ****ing told to do. However, what really chafes my hide is the Dems in safe Democratic districts who have either sold out to Big Pharma and the insurance lobby. I’m willing to cut a Dem in a more conservative district a little slack … not too much, but a little.
In Walz’s case, I’m confident he’ll vote for it and Peterson, as I said, is hopeless.
I was invited to be on that 10,000 person call. However, I didn’t get called by their automated system until nearly the very end. I think they maxed out the number of listeners the system could handle, and it probably waited for someone to drop off before calling me.
Anyway, I agree that Klobuchar’s been more vague in how she speaks. I love what Franken’s been doing. Ellison’s been great too.
- Tom