We’ll deliver the petition signatures to Harry Reid next week after a big news conference in front of the Senate.
What does this proposal mean? In general, it means Democrats need to be Democrats!
Republicans are planning to use the Senate “filibuster” procedure to block a vote on health care reform. But if all Senate Democrats stick together, a clean up-or-down vote will take place.
This means 51 votes — not “60 votes” — would be needed to pass reform. And winning a public health insurance option would be very likely.
Which senators would feel pressure from this proposal? All the senators who are siding with the insurance companies and opposing the public option: Max Baucus (D-MT), Kent Conrad (D-ND), Joe Lieberman (I-CT), Ben Nelson (D-NE), Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), and Mary Landrieu (D-LA) are some examples.
Let’s send a clear message: It’s not OK for Democratic senators to join with Republicans to block a vote on health care. Period.
Thanks for being a bold progressive.
(from Adam Green, Stephanie Taylor, Aaron Swartz, Evan Miller, Michael Snook, and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC) team.
Support this effort here, www.boldprogressives.org/majorityvote.
but I am not prepared to force a vote on any bill until we know what it is. I have become completely disheartened by the way this whole debate has been played out. None of us know what is really going on. I am very fearful that this is going to be nothing more than a hand out to the insurance industry. It has not been a battle about how to make health care affordable and accessable to the people of America. It has been a battle about how to bring the health insurance industry on board and make it a “status quo” lucrative proposition for them. It is really making me sick.
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p>It never occurred to me that this battle would follow this course. I thought that when the Democrats won the presidency and the majority, there would be no question that the reform package would be one that would make healthcare affordable and accessible. Instead it seems it will simply be an enforceable law that we pay ridiculous premiums for lousy health insurance.
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p>What exactly is a “robust public option”. I know what I want it to be. I want it to be an HMO style plan with low co-pays and zero deductibles. I want it to be affordable for all, including those who are on the low end of middle class who qualify for no subsidies. I want it to be a self- funded, successful, government run program without corruption or thoughtless and wasteful spending on unnessecary expenses like exotic landscaping at administrative offices, or lavish gatherings that are documented as business meetings.
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p>What exactly is a non-robust public option? Something that is similar to what we now get from corporate insurers. High premiums, lousy benefits? Something that is so expensive, so inadequate that it will allow the marketplace insurers to compete with it and maintain their status quo. Yet something we will be required by law to purchase.
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p>Too many questions, not enough answers. We are flying blind here.
what are you doing? You broke the string of the last five diaries by NeilSagan having ZERO comments.
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p>Why not free ice cream, free houses and trophy wives for all while you’re dreaming. BTW… who’s going to pay for all your free giveaways? Let me guess… rich people, CEOs and “let’s make insurance companies pay for it”.
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p>Please don’t reply to this or we bump the total up to “3” comments!
You must have missed the part where I said self-funded. There is such a thing you know. Except in today’s world where billion dollar profits is the ultimate goal, and the only place to suck that money from is middle class household budgets.
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p>I hope you’re having a lovely evening.
It’s another tinker-bell Obama theory where if we wish for it hard enough, it will come true.
Unfortunately there are millions like you.
If you don’t see $$$$ signs, you don’t see. Why would anyone do anything just to break even. So what if it saves lives and improves the American experience. To you, and people like you, the humanity part is of no value.
Are you talking about self-funded (which I was) or now mixing the benefits of such services?
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p>Let’s exchange comments when the public option crashes and burns… or passes and destroys our healthcare system.
I think liveandletdie would be a perfect username for YOU! You’re brilliant!
There’s no way to tell how the two Senate bills get merged, how the three House bills get merged, and how the bills from the two chambers are reconciled.
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p>Rockefeller’s amendment in the Senate Finance Committee was a robust public option. It was available to all, not just the poor or the folks who lost work-provided health insurance. I’ve heard people use the adjective “inclusive” to describe this open program. It has the promise of putting an additional 23% of every health insurance dollar to work delivering health services as oppossed to for profit insurers. I don’t know how they think they can have an individual mandate without a public option.
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p> Rockefeller’s amendment was voted down including five democrats: Nelson FL, Lincoln, Baucus, Carper, Nelson NE. Schumer offered an amendment after Rockefeller for a public option. It was scaled down and got two more votes in the committee but also did not pass. Cantwell proposed at state-based public option. Also not included. I don’t know the state of the senate Finance Bill anymore becuase I was getting to frustrated with the markup debate and votes. I think mark-up is finished, CBO scoring is done, and the bill going to be voted out of committee (or not) Tuesday.
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p>Capuano talked about the public option in the second town hall phone conference yesterday. He supports it for the purpose of producing downward pressure on health service costs and said that if the bill did not have that, he would vote no.
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p>There is a caucus of about 40+ progressives in the house who pledged to vote down a bill without public option. Today 30 Democratic senators wrote Reid and made the same pledge. 30 in the Senate doesn’t have much sway but the 40+ in the house can keep health care from passing if they hold out for a public option. If they do get a satisfactory Public Option, there’s no guarantee it survives reconciliation but they do get the opportunity to vote on the inal bill as well (I think).
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p>The most current info I find about the “sausage-making” is at FDL.
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p>I think it is important to stay current and lend our names to this effort. Congressmen and Senators are making the calculation about whether they can afford to vote no on these popular reforms (no becuase their corporate benefactors have financed their campaigns and they don’t fear their constituents.)
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What this petition says is that Reid should threaten Democrats to vote for cloture (to end debate) even if they plan to vote against the health care bill.
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p>The threat is to take away their seniority, committee chair, etc. That way Dems don’t have a hard time getting 60 votes to end debate; the Dems will all (Franken, Kirk, Byrd, etc).
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p>The vote on the bill requires a simple majority 50. (And we can count on Joe Biden to be the 51st.)
…where has he been on this? Often the VP is the administration’s “hatchet man”. While Obama was playing can’t-we-all-just-get-along Biden should have been out there every day calling the opposition on its lies and idiocy!
I think Joe is focused on national security policy more than health care reform but I do recall seeing him make a speech about health care the week after Obama’s bicameral address to Congress in September.
the same strategy should be applied to force the bill to include a robust public option, very much along the lines that liveandletlive outlined above:
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p>We need a health reform bill that includes a robust public option. I fully support the strategy reported in Rachel Maddow’s piece.
I’m with you and liveandletlive on the characteristics of a public option.
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p>The latest proposal (by Schmer and Rockefeller) is a nationwide public option that states can ‘opt in’ or ‘opt out’ – they’ll decide which soon. They see this as a way of getting public option through the Senate. Our blue friends in red states and even our blue friends in purple states are not terribly pleased but Krugman sees it as a good move becuase it gets public option, it gets passed the 10th amendment argument being made by red state governors running for president in 2012, and it puts pressure on red governors for years to come.
job of keeping up with all of the proposal and amendments coming from different legislators. You hear about one briefly, you never really hear about the entire proposal, then you never know if it passed, or if it was change before it passed, or how many proposal have passed that we never heard about. That is a big part of the problem I am having with this debate. We could end up with a very disturbing final bill. I guess all we can do is wait and see. Over the weekend, I will try to find the latest proposal you note above and read what it says. Maybe if it is an “affordable and accessible” proposal that our government is suppose to be seeking, it will restore my faith.