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TechnoratiSenate Liberals Press Reid on Public Option
As Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) aims this week to secure the votes of moderate Democrats on health care reform, a group of liberal senators Monday warned him not to abandon the public insurance option.
![[Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), who requested the meeting with Reid, said progressives believe they have compromised enough on the public option - from a Medicare-for-all proposal to Reid's proposal to create a national government plan with a provision for states to opt-out. (AP Photo/Harry Hamburg)]](http://www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/senateliberalspressreid.jpg "senateliberalspressreid.jpg")
Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), who requested the meeting with Reid, said progressives believe they have compromised enough on the public option - from a Medicare-for-all proposal to Reid's proposal to create a national government plan with a provision for states to opt-out.
"Most of us in the caucus want a strong public option, support the Reid way of doing it," Brown said. "And we're confident that over time, as the debate unfolds and we take amendment after amendment after amendment, that we can get 60 votes."
He acknowledged several moderates need convincing, but said there is little willingness among progressives to back down.
The meeting served as another reminder that the public option remains a dividing line among Democrats. Even if Reid is able to convince moderates, including Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) and Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), to vote with Democrats on a procedural motion to begin debate, the caucus faces a fierce floor fight over the shape of the public plan.
A Senate aide said there were plans to discuss passing the health care bill through a procedural maneuver known as reconciliation - which favored by progressive activists because it would allow Democrats to circumvent the 60-vote filibuster threshold. A majority of the Democratic caucus supports the public option, and only 51 senators would be needed to approve the legislation under reconciliation.
But following the hour-long meeting, senators declined to say whether reconciliation was discussed.
"You need to talk with the majority leader," Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said.
Schumer said the point of the meeting was "very smple. There is a large number of members who feel very strongly about the public option and how we can achieve it. There's also among everyone in that room and everyone in the caucus a desire we have to get a bill, so the question is how do you reconcile both goals."
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.), a moderate, attended the meeting as well, telling reporters afterwards that some compromise would be necessary.
"They wanted to talk about the importance of the public option being in the bill, which I understand," Baucus said. "But the main point is that we must pass health care reform hopefully by the end of this year. But we must pass it."
"I made the point that 60 votes is kind of a blessing and it's a curse," Baucus continued. "The curse side is it's kind of hard to get 60. The blessing side is everybody, every one of those 60 senators knows that we must pass health care reform. So there's a strong driver there to find that solution, to find that compromise to find some way to find a solution that bridges the gap between those who strongly want the public option and the few senators on the other side who do not. There are always ways to find solutions here."
12 Comments so far
Show AllSenator Baucus is no moderate. He's an extreme phony! He indulges in the "socialized medicine" which he rails against for his constituents and all the rest of the plain folks. Read what Jim Hightower said about these phonies.
One can predict what will happen in 2013.
Scenario one
The Democrats will suffer significant losses in the elections including most likely that for Office of the President.
The New Administration will then claim that the Election was a referendum on health care reform and that the people had rejected making it clear that they do not want the current system tampered with.
Scenario 2
The alternative is the American people re-elect democrats in significant numbers and they claim it was because the people supported the proposed Bill.
It a lose lose for the American people, and a win win for the insurance companies.
The way out for the citizen of the USA?
Vote third party in order to register your disgust.
This reconciliation procedure is exactly the way the right wing got would damn well do it and say to hell with a filibuster, but the Democratic "leadership" has to grow a backbone in the meantime. It's long past due. If not now, then when? Let's get to it and do it, senate majority leader. The current president could help by showing some guts as well.
AD
Will a diluted, morally bankrupt and worthless hand over of government money to bloated corporate health insurance firms and erroneously lableled "Health Reform" be Obamas "Mission Accomplished"?
A bill, any bill, must pass. The Dems dither over whether to even try to maybe possibly bring downward pressure on costs in this mandatory insurance bill. The level of cost containment was demonstrated yesterday in the revelation that Obama's cost containment on Big Pharma was a fraud. But since Big Pharma spends millions of dollars advertising drugs on teevee, the media was conspicuously absent covering that news.
Meanwhile, the justification for mandatory insurance is explained with the "you already buy mandatory car insurance" argument.
A car is a piece of heavy machinery operated on public (socialized) streets. You are also required to have a license. Our very bodies, our lives as citizens IS the public, and as an individual life, our rights to determine our own fate are the main purpose of the Constitution. To say that mandatory insurance for health is no different than insuring and licensing car drivers is absurd.
Meanwhile, lots of Sarah Palin coverage. More gruesome crimes. So little information in a nation allegedly run on consent, which means informed consent.
No B*sh Prosecutions--NO SECOND TERM!
Third Party Kucinich/Dean in 2012!
I think it is the No Insurance Company Left Behind program.
Exactly!
This administration will likely end up as one of the most ineffective one ever.
Six months on one dead on arrival monstrousity of a fascist bill and we still aren't there yet.
Of course funding the Wars and supporting zionist war crimes took a matter of minutes.
Oh I forgot Obomber was very effectual and speedy at reinflating the Wall Street bubble with workers money.
EFFECTIVE solution (i.e. single-payer), Backs MockUS! OR SINGLE TERM!!
Whoever runs against Obama in 2012 will not need to try very hard to leverage Obamacare against him. How many swing voters will want to vote for Obama after he doles out billions of taxpayer dollars to banks, insurance companies and drug makers while criminalizing the uninsured and raising taxes of those making less than $250,000 per year after vowing not to?
The fact that Obamacare won't kick in until after the 2012 election should have already raised the eyebrows of anybody with more than half a brain.
"The fact that Obamacare won't kick in until after the 2012 election should have already raised the eyebrows of anybody with more than half a brain." -- raydelcamino
I completely agree with you! Immediately, I thought that something was askew as soon as I learned that the "health insurance reform" bill, if passed, would NOT take effect until 2013. That fact told me that Democrats are scared of "we the people," and how we might vote in 2012, if we discover the truth about the so-called reform bill that is about 2000 pages long.