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March 25, 2010 08:05 PM UTC

updated: Public Option now in limbo

  • 15 Comments
  • by: wade norris

originally titled

‘no excuse for not introducing a Public Option amendment now’

but since the bill passed the house again, it is now law, so on to the next issue.

Who will introduce a stand alone Public Option?

The purpose of the Bennet Letter

http://whipcongress.com/letter…

Dear Leader Reid:

We respectfully ask that you bring for a vote before the full Senate a public health insurance option under budget reconciliation rules.

Respectfully,

Michael Bennet (D-CO), U.S. Senator

Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), U.S. Senator

Jeff Merkley (D-OR), U.S. Senator

Sherrod Brown (D-OH), U.S. Senator

I hope one of these 4 senators will lead the charge and stay with the spirit of the letter they crafted.

the evidence of the missed opportunity:

cont’d

http://www.dailykos.com/story/…

Will they do it? Well, they’ll probably opt for the path of least resistance, which would tell you no. But it’s certainly worth considering. Democratic counter-planning for the Republican filibuster-by-amendment appears to have sapped GOP resolve. It might not be a bad time to at least give the public option (or some other similar item) a road test with the Byrd Rule. If it doesn’t work, you’ve learned important lessons in advance of writing the next budget resolution and any attendant reconciliation instructions. And since you’ve always got the option of having the House agree to the Senate changes with nothing added in about an hour, you can always just double back and pass that instead and close out the game.

More from Mr. Waldan at Congress Matters

http://congressmatters.com/sto…

If Democrats can demonstrate their willingness to adopt a public option amendment in both houses and to bet on its Byrd Rule worthiness — and they were willing to make its inclusion the penalty for Republican points of order being levied against the bill as currently written — we might get through the Byrd Rule challenges a little quicker than we might otherwise, as Republicans opt to drop their points of order rather than face losing on the public option, to boot.

But that only works if the leadership is willing to make a credible threat on the public option. And of course, that depends on whether or not they believe it would survive the Byrd Rule.

If not, there might perhaps be some other issue about which they’d be more certain that they could use to create the same leverage. Medicare buy-in? Medicaid expansion? Some other provision that puts a silver lining on having to deal with losing on Republican points of order?

I understand the desire to get the bill finished unchanged. But if the decision is taken out of Democratic hands, they can opt to do something with the situation, or not.

Or, they can make the decision to aggressively pursue points of order more difficult (or at least more weighty) for Republicans, by laying out what the “punishment” for striking provisions of the bill is. And if it’s a public option amendment, or Medicare buy-in, then the deal gets offered: drop your points of order, let the bill pass, and go on your way, or else this thing gets finished with one or more of the listed additions of the Democrats’ choosing.

This is explained here by Ryan Grim

Byrd Rule To Send Health Care Back To House, Rules Parliamentarian

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…

Byrd Rule To Send Senate Health Care Bill Back To House

Senate Republicans succeeded early Thursday morning in finding two flaws in the House-passed health care reconciliation package…the upshot is that Republicans will succeed in at least slightly altering the legislation, which means that the House is once again required to vote on it.

The ruling might give Democrats another option — the public one.

Democratic leadership no longer has to worry that additional amendments would send it back to the House, since it must return to the lower chamber regardless. The Senate is now free to put to the test that much-debated question of whether 50 votes exist for a public option. Democrats could also elect to expand Medicare or Medicaid, now that they only need 50 votes in the Senate and the approval of the House.

The question then becomes whether House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) could pass the reconciliation changes with a public option. She has long maintained that the House has the votes to do so. Indeed, it did so in late 2009…

The Huffington Post interviewed House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) on Wednesday evening and asked if he thought he could have gotten the public option back through a second time, when the House voted on Sunday, even without those members who had left. “Yes, sir,” he said emphatically. Clyburn added that the problem for the public option has never been in the House. The problem has been in the Senate. And now the upper chamber has a chance to vote on it.

Finally – from Mr. Sirota

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…

Senate Bill Going Back to the House – Can We Now Get a Public Option Vote?

Let’s take Sen. Michael Bennet (D) and some Colorado progressive groups at their word when they say the only reason they have previously opposed offering a public-option amendment to the Senate reconciliation bill is because if it passes, the bill would then have to be sent back to the House. They say that having to send it back to the House would “complicate” matters…

(but because of the Byrd rule)

… the bill is going back to the House anyway, the Senate still has time to amend the bill with a public option, and the top House Democratic leaders are on the record saying they could pass the public option. Additionally, the New York Times notes that “the parliamentary process playing out on the Senate floor gives (Democrats) a rare chance to enact (the public option) with a simple majority, a chance unlikely to come around again soon.” (this latter point is a key one for the “let’s wait for a standalone bill later” crowd – I’ll repeat what the Times reports: the specific chance we have right now is “a chance unlikely to come around again soon.”)

So I ask what we asked yesterday at our rally at Sen. Bennet’s office: Will our senator now fulfill his promise to push a public option using reconciliation?

When will the PO bill be introduced? And will it have any chance to get 60?

the floor is yours.

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15 thoughts on “updated: Public Option now in limbo”

  1. So why all the pageantry? Is it really that important for you, David, Andrew Romanoff, et al, to have a symbolic floor vote that proves that the public option will fall short of the votes it needs to pass?

    Wouldn’t it make more sense to pass the reconciliation bill without adding any new major policy changes that could force some Dems to vote no on the House side, and pledge to pass it after HCR is a 100% passed?

    What seems more likely is that people want to put a list of names on their websites and radio shows who they can call cowards, bait-and-switchers, etc.

    If that’s not true, then why put the public option up for a vote you know is going to fail? If it doesn’t pass, or it stalls HCR even further when we’re a few steps away from the finish line, then won’t that make the likelihood of it passing in the future that much less?

    To you, David Sirota, Andrew Romanoff, and all of the others who have claimed that the people who are arguing for the passing of the reconciliation bill ASAP without amendments are lobbying against the public option, I say that it is not us, but you all who are, however unintentionally, dooming the public option for failure at a later date.

    This isn’t about what’s good for the American people right now, it’s about political showmanship, and it’s making me sick.

  2. It will lose. It never had 50 votes in the Senate. It still does not have 50 votes in the Senate. And the only version that gets up to the 41 votes counted by Adam Green is one that would only attract 2.1 million people after 20 years, and cost more than private insurance.

    Additionally, there’s almost no one who believes it would survive the parliamentarian.

    I think there’s a good chance that the concept could be sold to Senators by itself in the future. Particularly if it’s an expansion of Medicare coupled with cost containment that substantially improves Medicare’s deficit.

    1. that there should be at least an amendment for medicare expansion, say the Dean 55 and up expansion, but there were 54 votes for the Public Option in the Senate in 2009 – which is why the Bold Progessives campaign started the Whip Congress action.

      That’s why it is curious that the people who asked specifically to include a Public Option via reconciliation, are now unwilling to follow through on that pledge?

      The Opening sentence of the Bennet letter:

      Dear Leader Reid:

      We respectfully ask that you bring for a vote before the full Senate a public health insurance option under budget reconciliation rules.

      Respectfully,

      Michael Bennet (D-CO), U.S. Senator

      Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), U.S. Senator

      Jeff Merkley (D-OR), U.S. Senator

      Sherrod Brown (D-OH), U.S. Senator

      as for RSB’s comment – how do you know it will not have the votes to pass?

      I know we won’t get Lieberman, Lincoln, Nelson and the like,

      but surely if we had 54 votes last year, we can get 50 now.

      All we need is the vote and a round of calls from the constituents.

      1. Bennet’s letter only got 24 signers. And whatever happened in 2009 happened then, and it’s not necessarily true now. If there were really 50 or 51 votes, then why didn’t more people sign Bennet’s letter?

        Second, it would still have to pass the House with major policy changes!

        Unless you know the votes are there, you don’t bring it up as an amendment. Without the knowledge of those votes being there, this is just a game. It’s symbolic.

        That’s fine, of course, but the line of “Passing it in reconciliation now is the public option’s final hope” is a total canard. If you, David, Andrew and everyone else would just admit that you only want the vote as either a symbolic gesture, or a way of knowing once and for all who all of the enemies of humanity are, then I wouldn’t be as angry about it.

        Bennet tried, and you said it was a bait and switch. Now that we know, virtually for a fact, that there isn’t enough support to get it passed, you’re the ones who are actually trying to pull a bait and switch.

        After all, all it would take would be for one Senator to stand up, right?

        1. 24 signers, but the total number of Senators on record is at least 40 at this point

          http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…

          Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) became the 41st senator to say that he would back the public insurance option as part of a health care bill moved through reconciliation.

          Nelson, asked by HuffPost if he would vote for a public option on the Senate floor, was unequivocal. “Yes,” he said firmly. “I’ve already voted for it in the committee, in the Finance Committee.”

          March 10,2010 (2 weeks ago)

          yes Bennet ‘tried’ but in the end he did not do what the Bennet letter was authored to do – to ask Reid use reconciliation to include the Public Option.

          If you don’t think we should have votes to at least try to get the Public Option, and at least try to find out where our elected officials stand, then why do you participate here in an activist community?

            1. so you are arguing with me on the one hand that there are not enough votes to add the Public Option – not even 50, when there is at least 41 now who have recently indicated support, so “why bother doing something that will fail?”

              Yet, at the same time, you seem very confident that the Senate can bring up the Public Option later and magically that bill will not only have 41 supporters, but 60 supporters- you know with Lieberman, Lincoln, Nelson, and 1 republican to boot.

              That makes absolutely no sense, especially when Lieberman announced unilaterally there would not be a Public Option or a Medicare Expansion after his ‘negotiations’ with Reid.

              So how do you get the Public Option back with 60 votes?

                1. the Byrd rule makes the HCR bill need approval from the House again anyway, because they had to strip 15 lines out of the Senate version.

                  There is going to be a vote and it was not because of an amendment – so adding one now won’t cause it to come up for a vote, and it will not endanger the bill, because if the votes are not there, you just bring back the original bill

                  (as stated in the diary)

                  It might not be a bad time to at least give the public option (or some other similar item) a road test with the Byrd Rule. If it doesn’t work, you’ve learned important lessons in advance of writing the next budget resolution and any attendant reconciliation instructions. And since you’ve always got the option of having the House agree to the Senate changes with nothing added in about an hour, you can always just double back and pass that instead and close out the game.

        1. it was officially voted on in 2009 because we could not get enough bi-partisan support to get a vote for 60 – but at that time (in august) there were 54 firm supporters.

          Adam Greene on the 51 if we had the PO in the House version

  4. But I have been watching this unfold. I have been to every townhall, policy discussion, phonebank etc., from the start of the Obama presidency.

    One thing it has taught me is patience. If someone like Bernie Sanders says that they have been guaranteed a vote on the public option, why is there cause to start a political battle? The damn thing isn’t supposed to take effect until 2014!

    Wade, the PO is about helping people, not about it being a political tool.

    If the public option is the solid policy that we think it is; offering choice where care is mandated, driving down price when competition is nonexistent, providing care when none is offered; then it will only become MORE popular as time goes on.

    Bennet has been a supporter of the public option, just as Bernie Sanders has. They both did he same thing during this. So why try to create political unrest?

    1. or “Mr. Sirota,” I guess, doesn’t want to attack his former boss?

      Your points are sound. As it begins to sink in exactly what is really in this health care bill, folks are going to start wanting more, and pressure will build for a public option. Then Colorado will be well served by having in the Senate a strong advocate for the public option who didn’t muck things up by demanding a hurried, untimely or sure-to-lose vote.

    2. Look – if Bernie Sanders says it’s best to wait, and that a vote is promised and coming, I’ll take him at his word.  He’s not beholden to the Democratic Party, doesn’t take money from them, would (and does) beat Democratic challengers, and has no reason to be propping up Dem. Senators who happen to be up for re-election in contested primaries.  IOW, he has no reason to do this other than that it’s the best way forward in his view.

      I agree that the Public Option may have a hard time passing under reconciliation; to pass muster, the budgetary effects must be direct, and the PO doesn’t have direct budget effects, only indirect effects.  The best hope for a reconciliation public option is IMHO a Medicare buy-in, which could be formulated to include regular Medicare patients in the overall risk pool and/or rate negotiation pool, creating a very direct effect on the budget.

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