The House yesterday proposed a healthcare reform bill with a robust public option, and it was well received by the White House. Today the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee reported out a healthcare reform bill (the "HELP" bill) with a viable public option, and it too has been well received by the White House. The ball is now squarely in the court of the Senate Finance Committee and its fainthearted chairman, Max Baucus. Baucus is beholden to the healthcare, insurance and pharmaceutical industries, and will not permit a viable public option to be included in the Finance Cmte. bill.
The teams have been set: the President, the Democratic Party, the House of Representatives, the principal Senate committee on matters of healthcare, and the overwhelming majority of the American people want a robust public option as a centerpiece of healthcare reform. Max Baucus, Evan Bayh and the Republican Party do not. The issue now is what kind of bill gets adopted by the Senate, and whether an overwhelmingly popular President backed by his party and the American people make concessions to Max Baucus, or whether Max Baucus bends to the will of the President and the American people.
Max is waiting for Reid and Rahm to come to him with compromises and concessions. Let me suggest an alternative strategy to the Leader and the Chief of Staff: ostentatiously welcome Baucus's Bill and then throw it directly into the trash, and then see what kinds of concessions HE is willing to offer. Then negotiations can commence.
It's time to pull out the stops and put a little heat on Max Baucus. It's time to make it clear to Max and Evan that the issue is not whether we'll have a public option, but what kind of public option we'll have. A Finance Cmte. bill with NO public option is a non-starter, dead on arrival.
No more playing defense, not when we have 76% of the American people on our side, and not while our quarterback is at 60% in the polls.
Stop defending the public option. Start attacking the Baucus Bill. Stop discussing CBO estimates and the size of the federal subsidies in a public option. Start saying clearly and loudly that the Baucus Bill is unacceptable and that Max's way of doing business is DEAD.
Baucus's Bill is the Medicare Part D disgrace writ large.
It is Dick Cheney sitting down with the Big Energy Boys to carve-up our wallets.
It is Tom DeLay wandering the floor of the House to bribe and threaten members of Congress into supporting the Pharmaceutical industry's looting of Medicare.
It is offering lavish taxpayer subsidies to an industry that has completely failed to offer affordable health coverage and services to millions of Americans and have profited obscenely from this failure.
It is the ultimate act of abject political obeisance to THE DOLLAR. For God's sake, it's the way George Bush did business for the last eight years.
It is EVERYTHING we denounced, rejected and voted against last November. And so it is, in a very real sense, a slap in the face from Max Baucus. It's a provocation and an insult.
Let's not just sit and wait for the Senate's errand boy for Big Healthcare to grace us with the bill the lobbyists have written. Let's start attacking the Baucus Bill today. Let's make it clear that a bill without a public option does not even get read; it goes directly back to the drawing table.
Baucus's bill will soon be released, and the battle will be joined. This battle will be won or lost with the opening gambit. Do Harry and Rahm go to Max bearing concessions and compromises, or do they deliver a message to Max that the American people and the Democratic Party have demanded a public option. It's that simple.
We've had more than 60 years of temporizing and compromise on healthcare. This isn't a line in the sand. It's the end of the line. It's our party's destiny. It's our country's redemption after suffering the indignity of years of rule by Bush and the republican crime syndicate.
Game on, Max and Evan.