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Extensive Public Option: Pelosi Reportedly Can’t Find Votes

Posted by JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief in Economy, Health, War.
Oct 23rd, 2009 | Comments

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has repeatedly told the press that she has the votes for a robust public option — but a report in The Politico contends she has now run into trouble:

Speaker Nancy Pelosi counted votes Thursday night and determined she could not pass a “robust public option” — the most aggressive of the three forms of a public option House Democrats have been considering as part of a national overhaul of health care.

Pelosi’s decision—coupled with a significant turn of events yesterday during a private White House meeting—points to an increasingly likely compromise for a “trigger” option for a government plan.

Administration officials have been telling POLITICO for weeks now that this the most likely compromise because it can probably satisfy liberals—albeit only reluctantly and after many vent frustration and some even threaten to walk away from the bill.

This would clear the way for backers to sneak a limited public option through the Senate by attracting moderate Democrats and then to win President Barack Obama’s signature.

Obama told Democratic leadership at the White House Thursday evening that his preference is for the trigger championed by Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) – a plan that would allow a public plan to kick in if private insurers don’t expand coverage fast enough, a top administration official told POLITICO. It’s also sign Obama is interested in maintaining a sense of bipartisanship around the health reform plan.

The question is whether some Democrats want bipartisanship. There are now parts of both political parties that feel bipartisanship is a mistake since it waters down key principles, shows little sign working and is (they believe) a form of political surrender to their political enemies. Right now the GOP seems to be in danger of gobbling itself up as some conservatives seem poised to go after and purge their party of those deemed not 21st century conservative enough (since the new brand of 21st century conservatism is not to be confused with Barry Goldwater or Ronald Reagan 20th century conservatism).

If you follow Democratic discussion over the public option, it is becoming a litmus test now among some Democrats about who is a “real” Democrat. Basically, centrists and moderates are being disdained by some in each party, caught in a pincer that could end in a polarized America being even more polarized.

If Pelosi doesn’t find the votes and there is no vigorous public option, will some Democrats conclude that half a loaf is better than no loaf or will they prefer no loaf? The danger, then, would be that some voters will feel that they gave Democrats the keys to the Congress and the Democrats were…loafing.

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DLS

I'll ignore the mischaracterization (again!) of the opposition, and concentrate on Nancy and the Sopranos.

Pelosi's task is to end the incoherence of the lib House Dems (inmates) and get them working purposefully, albeit for a bad purpose, once more.

Anything with a public option in it is the key to judging success or failure. The public option was never dead, to date; the House needs it in order to retain any kind of serious (by lib Dem standards) bargaining position. The public option can be removed from conference legislation, but has to be in the House's going into the negotiations. It is much less important how "strong" or "weak" the option actually is, other than that obviously the stronger it is, the stronger the initial House bargaining position will be.

It's not Obama that has the real "defeat" if he fails to get legislation signed this year (an arbitrary and impatient requirement). It will be Pelosi, but not only her, but the House Dems, who will be the losers, if the House doesn't agree on a public option product to send to conference negotiations.

Pelosi's test later will be how far left she can get the compromise legislation to be pulled. A bigger test she would set for herself (and to a lesser extent for the House) would be a public insistence on the public option at conference time. Any threat to reject conference legislation without a public option will backfire first if the Senate is opposed to it or the public views the House position as more lib Dem excess, but even more strongly if she makes that threat and then legislation without the public option is approved by the House anyway. She also loses if legislation without a public option is approved by Obama, though the mainstream public wouldn't be surprised by this. (Obama and other more practical-exploitive lib Dems will happily sign and hold aloft any piece of paper with "health care" as part of its title.)

Leonidas

Right now the GOP seems to be in danger of gobbling itself up as some conservatives seem poised to go after and purge their party of those deemed not 21st century conservative enough
The Blue Dogs are undergoing a similar fate on the Democratic side as well.

Jim_Satterfield

Joe,

Given the current positions of the Republican party on this issue, please define bipartisanship. So far as I can tell the only thing the Republican party would find acceptable is a "reform bill" so watered down that it would accomplish nothing. I really am curious about what makes you think any true bipartisanship is possible while still doing the hard things that would be needed to make the word reform meaningful.

DaGoat

Getting off topic a bit, when health care reform was first being discussed earlier this year the public option was not portrayed as crucial to success. Since then it's become a major sticking point, largely because the far left has rallied around it as the key issue. Even Obama has said the public option is not necessarily required for adequate health care reform, so why has it become so important?

JeffersonDavis

Well stated, Jim.

You and I disagree with the healthcare bill, but we agree that it needs fixed. And as long as they scurry to find ways to make their real constituents money (insurance corps, pharmaceutical companies, trial lawyers, unions, and healthcare workers); nothing real will get passed.
(notice: I included groups that typically benefit from both Reps and Dems).

They would never face down those entities for real reform, because they'd lose their money. And since the Constitution was created "of the Corporation, for the corporation, and by the Corporation", that'll never happen.

DLS

""why has it become so important"

This effort, run mainly by lib Dems from the start, has never been about health care "reform," but about the takeover of health care by the federal government. Incrementalism has once again been chosen as the strategy (because rushing to "Medicare for All" promptly is rejected by the public; it already is recoiling from some of the worst of what the Dems are doing this year), and the "public option" (which will gradually displace, then replace, the private sector; the insurers are of short-to-medium term use only) is the core, essence, the true substance in this incrementalist takeover strategy.

Plus, it is the grand prize of the House (and of the lib Dems) related to this issue by the ambitious, reckless lib Dems this year (just as the most radical and repellent global-warming-politics-based features of the "climate" and energy policy legislation were, earlier) is the "public option."

Take away that prize, and the lib Dems and the House lose. They have FAILURE written on them.

It's their Waterloo.

DLS

"only thing the Republican party would find acceptable is a "reform bill" [that reforms nothing...]"

They even can't get that right. Where's the "trigger lock" amendment in waiting?

[grin]

Jim_Satterfield

It has become important because it is increasingly clear that none of the proposals put forth with the goal of preserving the existing corporations and their profit margins will really fix anything. Personally, I'd like to see as a "compromise" the creation of a nationwide not-for-profit that can never do what Blue Cross did and convert most of their units to for-profits. It needs to be a health care organization, serving as a payer to existing hospitals that meet minimum standards for efficiency, helping those that don't change their old ways of doing things and where there is simply not adequate care providing it through new fixed facilities or mobile clinics. In addition I consider it vital that this system treat all health issues, physical and mental, equally. This means it would include psychological, dental and eye care while excluding purely cosmetic procedures. People need their teeth to eat a healthy diet. Oral infections lead to other illnesses. Why allow it to get that far? They need to see well to work at pretty much any job. Our country benefits when the greatest number of people are as healthy as possible, even if you can't just agree that compassion in a wealthy country should lead us to do these things.

redbus

The Blue Dogs are undergoing a similar fate on the Democratic side as well
.

Leonidas, this line of yours intrigues me. Are you saying that Libs are purging Blue Dogs? Over what issues? Please say more, and give examples.

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