Is the public option on the ropes?

White House appears ready to drop 'public option (0.00 / 0)

y PHILIP ELLIOTT, Associated Press Writer Philip Elliott, Associated Press Writer   - 2 hrs 10 mins ago
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_...

WASHINGTON - Bowing to Republican pressure and an uneasy public, President Barack Obama's administration signaled Sunday it is ready to abandon the idea of giving Americans the option of government-run insurance as part of a new health care system.

Facing mounting opposition to the overhaul, administration officials left open the chance for a compromise with Republicans that would include health insurance cooperatives instead of a government-run plan. Such a concession probably would enrage Obama's liberal supporters but could deliver a much-needed victory on a top domestic priority opposed by GOP lawmakers.

Officials from both political parties reached across the aisle in an effort to find compromises on proposals they left behind when they returned to their districts for an August recess. Obama had wanted the government to run a health insurance organization to help cover the nation's almost 50 million uninsured, but didn't include it as one of his core principles of reform.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said that government alternative to private health insurance is "not the essential element" of the administration's health care overhaul. The White House would be open to co-ops, she said, a sign that Democrats want a compromise so they can declare a victory.

Under a proposal by Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., consumer-owned nonprofit cooperatives would sell insurance in competition with private industry, not unlike the way electric and agriculture co-ops operate, especially in rural states such as his own.

With $3 billion to $4 billion in initial support from the government, the co-ops would operate under a national structure with state affiliates, but independent of the government. They would be required to maintain the type of financial reserves that private companies are required to keep in case of unexpectedly high claims.

"I think there will be a competitor to private insurers," Sebelius said. "That's really the essential part, is you don't turn over the whole new marketplace to private insurance companies and trust them to do the right thing."

Obama's spokesman refused to say a public option was a make-or-break choice.

"What I am saying is the bottom line for this for the president is, what we have to have is choice and competition in the insurance market," White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Sunday.

A day before, Obama appeared to hedge his bets.

"All I'm saying is, though, that the public option, whether we have it or we don't have it, is not the entirety of health care reform," Obama said at a town hall meeting in Grand Junction, Colo. "This is just one sliver of it, one aspect of it."

It's hardly the same rhetoric Obama employed during a constant, personal campaign for legislation.

"I am pleased by the progress we're making on health care reform and still believe, as I've said before, that one of the best ways to bring down costs, provide more choices and assure quality is a public option that will force the insurance companies to compete and keep them honest," Obama said in July.

Lawmakers have discussed the co-op model for months although the Democratic leadership and the White House have said they prefer a government-run option.

Conrad, chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, called the argument for a government-run public plan little more than a "wasted effort." He added there are enough votes in the Senate for a cooperative plan.

(More at url)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_...

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by: Steve W. @ Sun Aug 16, 2009 at 18:31:04 PM CDT

saw it... (0.00 / 0)

...not a game changer.

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by: Jay Stevens @ Sun Aug 16, 2009 at 18:36:27 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

According to the Democratic finance Committee Staffer i spoke with in DC last June 25th, (0.00 / 0)

reconciliation can't be used to pass a health care bill.

So with the Dems only having 58 or 59  effective votes (Kennedy is very sick and might not be able to show up to vote, same with Byrd,) they might not be able to break a filibuster if all the Repos held together.

And of course the Dems have some Senators who might actually vote against cloture like Nelson, Landrieu, and Pryor, just name but a few. Conrad says they don't have the votes to pass a public option in the Senate. He may be correct.

The fact that not just Conrad, but Obama's HHS Secretary  Kathryn Sebelius says that the public option isn't all that important and the fact Obama himself seems to be backing away suggests the public option might not happen. Or even that a bill won't happen at all if the progressive caucus in the house sticks to their guns. Both Murtha and Kucinich have suggested the very real possibility that there will be no bill sent to the president to sign this year.

At this point the only bill that looks like I can support it is HR676 in the house. It's the Medicare for all bill that will be debated and voted on in Sept.

If the public option is dead, then perhaps you would join us in fighting to get as many votes as possible for real reform, Jay. While I seriously doubt HR676 could pass the Senate, It may still be the only game in town, the last bill standing, so to speak.

Who is your congressman, Jay?

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by: Steve W. @ Sun Aug 16, 2009 at 19:14:43 PM CDT

Dahlkemper... (0.00 / 0)

I dunno, Steve W, I don't think we're done yet.

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by: Jay Stevens @ Sun Aug 16, 2009 at 21:06:06 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

You were done the day you gave up single payer ... (0.00 / 0)

First, take single payer off the table. The align the debate between public option and coops, or nothing. The drop public option. Was it that hard to see it coming? Do you see it now?

Here's the deal with coops: Who's going to apply? In the beginning, many people, but a hefty share of people the insurance companies don't want, much like Insure Montana. Due to reserve requirement, coops will be forced to raise premiums to cover those people, and people will drop out and go back to private insurance.

In the end, you have MCHA. One difference: MCHA requires that insurance companies have first crack at you. Coops would not. That would be the only difference. Private insurers will crush coops.

Coops are no threat to private insurance companies. They will be the last best option for the very people insurance companies turned down. They will be very expensive.

How does that song go? "My oh my, you sure know how to arrange things ... you set it up so well, so carefully." What's that word ..."triang..." - oh, never mind. You never believed in it anyway.

Wulfgar ... how's that game theory thing working for you? And negotiation strategy ... you had this all gamed out - right?

Kudos.

Our best option - nothing. Our only hope- the progressive caucus. The problem? Wiretaps. Watch them start dropping like flies.

System corrupt. Abort, Dave. Close the pod doors.  

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by: Mark t @ Sun Aug 16, 2009 at 23:13:13 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

About how I expected (0.00 / 0)

Wulfgar ... how's that game theory thing working for you?

You play the game by the rules you have, Mark, not those you think you ought to have.  You're the one who insisted that rules of Baseball apply to a game of hoops.  Single payer was never on the table.  Not because of Max or Obama or lack of strategic value.  It was never on the table because not enough people, in Congress or out, wanted it.  How many years has 676 been DOA in Congress?  The lack of Single Payer has little or nothing to do with the current status of Public Option.

I guess the real question is, Mark, how's that temper tantrum working out for you?  Kind of poorly, I see.

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by: Wulfgar @ Mon Aug 17, 2009 at 15:34:03 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Well here's an indepth analysis of the HELP Bill done by Kip Sullivan (0.00 / 0)

of the MN chapter of PNHP. Do you know if anyone else is doing in depth analysis of either HR3200 or of the HELP bill?

I mean SEIU or HCAN or somebody must be reading these things and figuring out exactly what they mean and what they do. But is PNHP the only group publishing them? If so, why? if not, where do I find them?

Here's Kip's analysis of the HELP bill

http://pnhp.org/blog/2009/08/1...

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by: Steve W. @ Sun Aug 16, 2009 at 23:05:42 PM CDT

Game over (0.00 / 0)

..the economic royalist have won again..

How much did they spend this time bribing Congress and lying to an angry public?

They do such a neat and tidy job of kicking "reform" ass...regardless of the industry.

And you might have noticed...they hardly ever throw those Congressman that are "bought" under the bus..They vilify the opposition, and give such large bribes, that even a douche bag like Baucus can be re-elected when they finish screwing the middle class....

With his support of the Bush tax cuts and now this lame ass health care reform, Max Baucus continues to over see, and support, the largest redistribution of wealth in this country's history...

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by: bigsage @ Mon Aug 17, 2009 at 06:03:56 AM CDT

Here is what appears to be a pretty good analysis of why the public option is probably dead. (0.00 / 0)

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com...

From Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight

Earlier I suggested that the public option probably does not have the votes to pass the the U.S. Senate. Let's examine this in a bit more detail.

Open Left's Chris Bowers lists 43 senators ( http://www.openleft.com/diary/... ) who as of last Wednesday, he believes based on official communications would vote in favor of a public option. This appears to be the best and most contemporary whip count of its kind.

There are at least two names on Chris's list of yea votes that I'd regard as less than certain: one is Ted Kennedy, who obviously supports the public option but might not be healthy enough to vote on it, and the other is Diane Feinstein, who has indicated that she's open to either a public option or non-profit co-ops -- wherein lies the whole debate. But let's give the Democrats credit for these two votes and start counting upward. What's their easiest path to 50?

...

So for the public option to pass, it probably needs to be included in the initial, unamended bill that hits the Senate floor. This means that it probably needs to be supported by a majority of the Senate Finance Committee. But this is a little bit of a problem, since the public option only appears to have seven solid yes votes in the Finance Commitee when it will need 12:

Likely Yes (7): Rockefeller, Bingaman, Kerry, Schumer, Stabenow, Cantwell, Menendez
Probable Yes (1): Wyden
Swing (4): Baucus, Lincoln, Bill Nelson, Snowe
Probable No (2): Carper, Conrad
Likely No (9): Grassley, Hatch, Kyl, Bunning, Crapo, Roberts, Ensign, Enzi, Cornyn

If you could get a majority of this group of 23 senators to support the public option, then it would have better-than-even odds of being included in the bill that made it to the President's desk. Getting a majority of this group, furthermore, would probably mean that folks like Blanche Lincoln and Bill Nelson had voted in favor, meaning that the bill had at least 50 votes worth of support in the Senate overall.

...

So, again, in order for a public option to pass, it probably requires the support of:
1. A majority of the Senate Finance Committee;
2. A majority of the Senate overall.
...and these two things are highly correlated; it is likely that either both are true or neither are.

When Kent Conrad says the public option does not have the votes, I suspect this means that (i) he himself does not want to vote for it; (ii) Max Baucus, the committee chair, is no more than lukewarm on it; (iii) senators like Carper and Lincoln have told him they'd prefer to vote on a bill without a public plan. If Conrad knows this, then the White House probably does too. There's some utility to them in pulling back on the public option now as (i) it signals their willingness to broker a deal while a deal can probably still be had and (ii) it prepares the liberal blogopshere to be let down gently, and perhaps to have rebounded by the time the bill comes up for final passage in the fall and their phone calls and door-knocks could be essential.

And the conclusion...

"If the White House now says that Kathleen Sebelius "misspoke" in her statements on CNN this morning, they still have a lot of explaining to do. Did Barack Obama, Robert Gibbs, Bill Clinton, and Dick Durbin also misspeak when they hinted that it was time to move past the public option? Did they not know that they'd generate headlines like this one on the Drudge Report, headines that would take a lot of wind out of the public option's sails?

The White House had to know these things. This has not been a subtle hint. If they're hedging a bit now, it's probably because they're hoping to temper the reaction some in the blogopshere. I don't blame them for wanting to do so. And I don't blame the blogosphere for being angry -- the White House did not provide much in the way of leadership on this issue. But that doesn't mean it isn't the right time for the White House to (at least mostly) cut bait. There's likely going to have to be some sort of "regrouping" moment in September for health care to pass -- some sense of momentum that the White House can sustain for two, three, four weeks. If you'd waited until then to table the public option, such a moment would be less likely. There also probably has to be some effort to sell the public on the virutes of the plan as is -- and if the Administration can't convince the liberal blogopshere of that over the next 2-4 weeks, they almost certainly can't hope to do so to the general public."

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by: Steve W. @ Mon Aug 17, 2009 at 10:20:11 AM CDT

yeah... (0.00 / 0)

...when Nate Silver rings the bell, you know it's time to come to dinner.

...am hiding under my bed now...

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by: Jay Stevens @ Mon Aug 17, 2009 at 12:52:24 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Nate should stick to crunching electoral poll numbers (0.00 / 0)

His political analysis is novice.

He misses it by a mile when he states that a PO need a majority of Finance members in order to succeed. I don't think anyone has predicted that Finance would report out a PO since Baucus wrote his white paper last fall.

I don't even think that many people expect the Senate bill to have a PO, because they don't even have the leadership to hold the dems feet to the party line on a cloture vote.

But put people like Conrad on the rack when the conference committee puts the choice on the table: vote for a PO, or you will be tagged with killing health care reform and taking down the dem party in defeat. Then you'll see him cry uncle. Why would he say he'd support a PO when he's been tasked with writing its competition? Of course he's going to campaign for his ideas to win the day, and state that his opponent (the PO) doesn't have the votes to win.  

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by: JC @ Mon Aug 17, 2009 at 13:47:49 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

I hadn't seen you post anything like a whip count for the Senate, which Silver (0.00 / 0)

links to in his article, and I thought that was interesting.

if you read his entire article, you will see his argument of why he doesn't think that conference committee will attempt to put the PO in if it isn't passed already by the Senate. Now he may be wrong, but you don't argue why he is wrong or why you think  that a PO would be put in during conference. Do you think Max would support it?

Obama is already backing away from a PO. Who is going to make the Senate  put a PO in during conference?

The Help bill does have a PO, of sorts, kinda, barley, well not really but some people like to use that misnomer to describe it.

So it will either survive merging with Finance or it won't and if it doesn't who is going to stick it back in at the end?

And not only that, but the PO in HR3200 is hardly a PO either. The CBO says 10 million people enrolled in ten years at best.

It seems the folks who advocated that we start with PO are content to call anything a PO if it in any way is started with public monies or it lets a few people in maybe.

When that is taken into account, it's very obvious to me that effectively speaking anything which even remotely resembles the PO that was talked up and sold as the road to reform last year is long dead.

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by: Steve W. @ Mon Aug 17, 2009 at 16:23:51 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

I've had a hard time taking Silver's political analysis seriously (0.00 / 0)

ever since he and David Sirota had their little pissing match strewn all over the blogophere last winter. I particularly liked this bit from OpenLeft.

I didn't really want to get into whip counts, because there is no real legislation to whip: a nonexistent Finance bill, or a vague HELP bill. And I don't think that whipping notions or rhetoric is any sort of indicator of anything in particular.

But I agree with you on the state of the various PO's as they currently exist. Maybe the House, after it gets 676 scored and out on the floor, will see fit to beef up the PO in the merged House bills. And I agree that the course the PO has taken from last years debate on strong vs. weak PO has been to a version even weaker than weak.

I kind of like James Carville's thoughts on the status of health care reform:

Democratic strategist James Carville said Sunday that congressional Democrats should force Republicans to filibuster health care reform in the Senate.

"What about this?," Carville said Sunday... "Suppose they pass a House bill that can get 56 Senate Democrats." Then, Carville suggested, instead of using reconciliation, a special budgetary maneuver in Senate procedure that frustrate GOP attempts to mount a filibuster, Democrats should call for a vote. "And make [Republicans] filibuster it. But the old kinda way is that they filibuster it and make'em go three weeks and all night and [Democrats] will be there the whole time.

"Then, you say, 'They're the people that stopped it. We had a majority of Democrats. We had a good bill. They stopped it.'"...

"Make'em filibuster it and then run against a do-nothing Congress [in 2010]," the former aide to Bill Clinton and longtime ally of both Clintons told CNN's John King.

Dems should grow a set and create some political opportunity out of what is looking more and more like a lose-lose scenario.

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by: JC @ Mon Aug 17, 2009 at 18:22:54 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

now max can have his bill and his bribes (0.00 / 0)

this should keep baucuses paymasters happy. it was the way it was going all along. saw it coming three months ago.

failure is much less about teabaggers and much more about the money.

the question is....how much is this p.o.s. bill gonna be worth fighting for now. who does it really help anymore? (besides the politicians campaign coffers)

will need to see what the sausage that comes out of the finance committee tastes like before passing judgment but it looks pretty tasteless and unappetizing right now.

it is like i said a few weeks ago. our real enemies are not the tea baggers but the politicians who willingly and brazenly participate in a corrupt system.

two idiot montana senators woke me from my hibernation and i am furious...

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by: problembear @ Mon Aug 17, 2009 at 11:04:29 AM CDT

Is the public option on the ropes? (0.00 / 0)

Not on the ropes anymore - it's been KO'd - by Democratic Senators like Kent Conrad, and the GOP, and most importantly, public opinion.

Chalk it up to another Obama failure to deliver......

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by: Eric Coobs @ Mon Aug 17, 2009 at 11:49:17 AM CDT

Your pre-ejaculations, Coobs (0.00 / 0)

about Obama's failure to deliver are quite, let's say, self-serving and unfounded.

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by: JC @ Mon Aug 17, 2009 at 13:51:07 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

JC, Obama's failures (0.00 / 0)

Politifact has the list:  http://politifact.com/truth-o-...

The last one is particularly relevant to this discussion.

>>>>>>>>>>
Negotiate health care reform in public sessions televised on C-SPAN

To achieve health care reform, "I'm going to have all the negotiations around a big table. We'll have doctors and nurses and hospital administrators. Insurance companies, drug companies -- they'll get a seat at the table, they just won't be able to buy every chair. But what we will do is, we'll have the negotiations televised on C-SPAN, so that people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents, and who are making arguments on behalf of the drug companies or the insurance companies. And so, that approach, I think is what is going to allow people to stay involved in this process."
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

PROMISE BROKEN.  

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by: Craig Moore @ Mon Aug 17, 2009 at 14:27:58 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

What? You think that Obama (0.00 / 0)

can order a CSPAN camera into the Finance committee workings?

The "big table" is just a classic political metaphor, kinda like the dems "big tent."

And plenty of material has shown up on CSPAN (when's the last time you checked its schedule and tuned in?). But anybody who seriously believed that we were going to have a camera in the West Wing have spent too much time watching West Wing.

Politicians promise multitudes of undeliverables. One hopes that their main policy goals they campaigned on are acheived.

Cameras as the health care industry comes in to cook deals in the backrooms? Never. Only the naive thought that would come to pass. One look at campaign finance records could have told you that. If lobbyists and execs wanted to pay to get on TV, they would have bought themselves their own Reality TV show. Oh, wait--they did. It's called Fox.

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by: JC @ Mon Aug 17, 2009 at 14:41:04 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

JC, you are back peddling (0.00 / 0)

so fast you are about to fall.  It was Obama's promise to have the light of public scrutiny and everyone around the table.  Politifact rates that promise as BROKEN.  

So, I guess you are accusing him of patterning his presidency on a myth from having watched too much West Wing. If so, which TV program is he patterning healthcare on?

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by: Craig Moore @ Mon Aug 17, 2009 at 14:50:10 PM CDT

[ Parent ]