In a late-game push to pass the public option, progressive groups are trying to convince Democrats that it would be political suicide to pass a bill requiring people to buy insurance coverage but not giving them the choice of a government-run plan.
A memo making the rounds on Capitol Hill makes the case that the current construct of the Senate Finance Committee's legislation - which includes an individual mandate but no public option - will be resoundingly opposed by the American public.
Commissioned by the progressive-leaning Health Care for America Now - and obtained by the Huffington Post - the piece is based on three new polls conducted by reputable polling firms in swing House districts and the state of Maine.
"Nationally," the memo reads, "voters oppose a mandate to purchase private insurance by 64% to 34% but support a mandate with a choice of private or public insurance by 60% to 37%... Each [survey] found that likely 2010 voters oppose 'requiring everyone to buy and be covered by a private health insurance plan' but support 'requiring everyone to buy and be covered by a health insurance plan with a choice between a public option and private insurance plans.'"
In a not-so-subtle message to Senate Democrats, the memo concludes with a warning shot at the Senate Finance Committee's legislation - which seems unlikely to include a public plan.
"All of the health care reform proposals that have passed Congressional committees to date, including three House committees and the Senate HELP Committee, include an individual mandate and the choice of private or public health insurance," the HCAN memo reads. "The Chairman's mark introduced into the Senate Finance Committee includes the individual mandate without the choice of a public health insurance option." Source: Huffington Post
I agree with Chris bowers:
Klein's central premise is that Progressives have no leverage to make Blue Dogs want to vote for good legislation, since opposing Democrats is popular in their districts. However, Blue Dogs have leverage over Progressives, since Progressives don't want Democrats to lose seats.
The reason I disagree with Klein is fairly simple: if no health care legislation passes, and Democrats lose seats as a result, Blue Dogs are the people who will lose the seats, not Progressives. Even if Klein is correct and Democrats lose a bunch of seats because Progressives blocked it, Blue Dogs are actually the ones who will bear the brunt of those losses. As such, Blue Dogs have more to lose if health care fails to pass than Progressives. Read it all at Open Left
You sent me an email on healthcare from the White House last month, one that went out to millions of people. Now I'm replying by sending one to you. You told me it was time for a reality check. Now I'm telling you the same thing. My message is very simple. As a lifelong FDR Democrat, I won't support any health care bill that doesn't have a robust public option. I'd much rather see a bill without one go down to defeat, than have a bill pass without one.
Apparently, by accounts in Politico and elsewhere, you've been deputized to let it be known that the public option is dead, and to try to appease the majority of us Americans who support it (by 55 to 41 percent, according to a very recent CNN poll) by assuring us that its "spirit" lives on. Sorry, David, that's not good enough. Neither is the "trigger" the White House is discussing with Sen. Snowe. You can be sure that's one trigger that will never be pulled.
I've read that if no bill becomes law, that would be a crushing blow to Obama's presidency. Maybe so. That would be too bad. But we liberals might not knock ourselves out to keep it from happening. Trouble is, you people don't get it. You may have to learn the hard way. Stop worrying about Grassley and Enzi and Rush and Sean and Baucus and Conrad, and Billy Tauzin and Karen Ignagni and their hundreds of lobbyists; and start worrying about the people who worked, paid and voted to put you in the White House. We can live without you if we have to. After all, we survived eight years of George W. Bush. But you folks can't continue to live in that big house on Pennsylvania Avenue without us! Liberals' strong support of Obama is a political love affair. So he should beware of a strong, angry, jilted lover. As columnist Eugene Robinson wrote:
Giving up on the public option might be expedient. But we didn't elect Obama to be an expedient president. We elected him to be a great one.
And if he turns out to be just another pol, then we can do without him. Read it allSandy Goodman, a retired producer for NBC Nightly News, is a freelance writer.
A solid left flank is absolutely necessary for our Democratic leaders in giving them the room they need to make policy more progressive--the Overton Window, if you will. That means ongoing pressure on even our left to keep shoring them up, to keep giving them the reason to push policy leftward. It means helping them to draw those bright line criteria for what is acceptable progressive policy. The health care reform fight is the most critical policy fight this Congress will face, not just because of the stakes for the entire country and the economy, but for the progressive movement. If the progressives in the House of Representatives can force this Congress into passing a health care reform bill with a solid, robust public option, the dynamics not just in the House, but in the entire Congress, will be dramatically altered. Harry Reid won't have to worry about whether he can get Ben Nelson or Mary Landrieux on a bill, he'll have to worry about whether he can get Senate legislation past the House progressives.
As it should be. Read it all at Daily Kos
by Don McCanne, MD
Mark McClellan has it right. The only hope for gaining the support of Republicans is to make the government option “look like another private sector choice, and then what would be the point?”
With the concession of the progressives, the strategy for a Medicare-like public option has already failed. Moving forward with what amounts to another private PPO with a government seal of approval means that the private insurance industry will maintain control of health care financing for the majority of Americans.
We have in the making yet one more example of where the Republicans will extract enough concessions from the Democrats to ruin the legislation, and then when it comes time to vote, the Republicans will vote against it anyway.
The Democrats have to give up the fantasy of a bipartisan solution since Congressional bipartisanship is a total fiction. The Democrats have to move forward with honest health care reform that works for everyone. They shouldn’t look for help from the party of NO.
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