How do we make Lieberman irrelevant? He's now using his position as the 60th vote to exact the most leverage out of the Democratic leadership. It's a great position for someone like Lieberman to be in, and it's the kind of position that puts you in a great deal of power against the Democratic leadership and a majority of voters that want a trigger-free public option. That weapon that Senator Reid can use as a threat to make Lieberman irrelevant and to bring him along instead of allowing Lieberman to play his power games is called the budget reconciliation, where one only needs a majority of 51 votes to pass legislation.
As Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid works to cobble together the 60 votes he needs to overcome an expected Republican attempt to block a floor vote on health care, there is still one powerful parliamentary weapon he could draw from his back pocket.
The process known as budget reconciliation only requires a simple majority -- and can not be filibustered -- meaning Reid (D-Nev.) would need only 50 Democrats plus a tie-breaking vote from Vice President Joe Biden to declare victory.
And here's more on this budgetary manuever around Senator Lieberman and the Senate Democrats who would like to make trouble in order to weaken the health care bill in the Senate:
If only 50 votes are needed, Lieberman becomes irrelevant, the most damning sentence that can be handed down to a Senator.
For evidence, just witness this week's fuming from Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), who was moved from the center of the debate to the periphery by Reid's decision to move ahead without her. (What would Reid have to change in the bill to win her back? "The whole thing," she snapped.)
I know there are problems with reconciliation that some have here, but it's a good threat to use to go around Senator Lieberman and other conservadems who only have the interests of insurance companies at heart when they look to make deals to weaken the legislation right at a pivotal moment when a trigger-free national public option is finally in the bill.
This is one way that Senator Reid can deal with Lieberman. How long do we have to deal with Lieberman's continued threats of joining the Republicans on a filibuster, and his dalliances with the GOP? Why are we allowing this man to caucus with the Democratic party? As I recalled, the line was, "He's with us on everything but the war."
Really? With us on everything but the war? If Lieberman really was with us, then he wouldn't be making the filibuster threat unless he was looking for a deal to be made on the bill. If the Democratic leadership thinks that Lieberman's threat isn't real, then that would make sense in their looking to marginalize the threat of his filibuster. However, it doesn't help in having someone like Lieberman continue to treat the Democratic leadership in this way for having allowed him his chairmanship, and welcoming him into their caucus. It's the equivalent of being slapped in the face, and doesn't inspire much faith in the Democratic leadership at this point.
At what point does it stop when conservadems aren't punished for undermining what a majority of Americans want, and when they seek to water down legislation for the benefit of their corporate constituents? When do we stop playing into their hand?
It's why we're looking to strengthen the progressives' hands here by refusing to compromise on a trigger-free public option. They're still fighting in the House to whip every single vote for a robust public option as Chris Bowers says here. Please stay tuned for Chris Bowers' post on OpenLeft if you want to take action to help him. However, word is coming that Speaker Pelosi might settle for a negotiated rate-based public option, which wouldn't be a robust public option at all, but one that saves less money than the robust public option.
As I’ve pointed out countless times before, a robust public option would have premiums roughly 10%-11% less (according to the CBO and CMS) than typical private insurance. That would be around a $1,400 reduction in premiums for the average family that could choose the robust public option. Forcing Americans to pay roughly $1,400 more a year on health insurance premiums, by denying them the choice of a robust public option, is the first slap in the face.
The second big slap in the face is that robust public option would save the government $85 billion more than a weaker public option (with negotiated rates instead of those based on Medicare). Since Obama set an absurd $900 billion ceiling on the cost of health care reform, most of that $85 billion will need to be made up by reducing affordability tax credits to low- and middle-income families. As Ryan Grim at Huffington Post reports:
The public option tied to Medicare rates saves $110 billion over ten years. Requiring it to negotiate rates only saves $25 billion.
If leadership goes with the negotiated-rate plan, that $85 billion difference will have to come from somewhere to meet President Obama’s ten-year, $900 billion price ceiling. The fattest target is the subsidies to help people afford insurance.
Going with negotiated rates instead of a robust public option will deny American families a choice that would save them roughly $1,400 a year on their health care premiums. But making the public option less robust might also cause the government to reduce the amount of tax credits it can give to low-income and middle-income Americans to help them afford health insurance by roughly 20%. So, not only will American families be denied a much cheaper insurance option, but they will also be given less financial assistance to help them afford health insurance from a selection of more expensive options.
If Nancy Pelosi is going to go for a public option that's based on negotiated rates rather than a robust public option, she's allowing the conservadems and moderates in the House to have their way. Why can't she put in a robust public option in the merged bills, and then bring it up for a vote? Clearly Senator Reid made the gamble that he'd have our support in whipping every Senator to vote for cloture, and Nancy Pelosi should make that same gamble as well, because we're going to fight like hell to make sure the votes are there for the best versions of the public option! It's up to Speaker Pelosi at this point on which way she's going to go--for the conservadems or for the American public on the best public option possible going into conference to strengthen the hand of the House in the conference process.
And we're working to bring attention to the terrible Eshoo amendment in the House bill and the similar amendment that's in the Senate HELP bill as well. We'll be working to make sure that no bad provision gets into the final bill without notice--like the Eshoo amendment in the House bill that would ban brand name biologics from ever being available as generics. It means sick people who can't afford brand-name biologics would never be able to get them as generics.
They'd be stuck with an unaffordable biologic medicine to treat their illnesses. It's wrong, and we shouldn't stand for it as a part of the final bill. Here's more from Jane Hamsher, a breast cancer survivor who took one of those biologics, below about the high cost of the Eshoo amendment, which pleased major pharmaceutical companies:
I spoke with Dr. Anthony D. So, the Director of the Program on Global Health and Technology Access at Duke University. While at the Rockefeller for Foundation’s Health Equality program, he has played a key role in fighting for fairer intellectual property rights to make HIV/AIDS drugs available worldwide. He says that if an AIDS vaccine were developed, it would also be a biologic. And under the Eshoo/Barton amendment that passed in the House (Hagen/Enzi/Hatch in the Senate), it could “evergreen” and never fall into generic form virtually forever.
Pharmaceutical companies are trying to use healthcare reform to make sure these drugs never become “generics” and stay extremely profitable. No surprise there.
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That’s just wrong. And POP will be joining with these students to help them fight for affordable drug prices. They shouldn’t have their hands tied by protectionist legislation that puts corporate profits over access to health care.
It's one of the bad provisions in the health care reform bill that we'll be paying attention to so we can put even more grassroots pressure on our elected officials to do the right thing by not allowing major pharmaceutical companies to profit in this manner off our pain and sickness by depriving us of access to affordable medicines. If you are someone you know are on any of these drugs and are having to foot the bill, or should be taking one but can’t afford to, please let us know.
And if you can, please write letters to the editor starting today about the Eshoo amendment, and why it MUST be removed from the final conference bill. And in the letter, please ask your Representative and Senator to remove this provision from the bill.
We'll keep on fighting for what is right, and please help support our work (since we do literally work for you guys) by donating to our fund at Firedoglake! Your donations go to our living stipends, expenses, and travel costs, including awesome tools like these. You also can follow me on Twitter @slinkerwink.
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