Today was a very bitter defeat for progressives on the Hill and will be more so for the average American in the years ahead. Pelosi says she doesn’t have the votes for the Medicare plus 5 option- one big insurance doesn’t want because it would actually be very competitive with them. Instead the House leaders went with the Blue Crossers and picked the more costly weaker pub opt-negotiated rates. So we will negotiate rates with drs etc based on a inflating medical care cost system. Doesn’t make much sense at all.
The original idea by Hacker was to have a Medicare PO that would expand in competition with private insurance. Hacker says this deal wont do much for the people at all. CPC leadership is infuriated. After giving up so much now the Medicare PO is likely scrapped because big insurance and big phrama don’t want it. Woolsey wanted a robust PO in the bill and force those reps to either vote for reform with the Medicare po or be the ones to stop it. She bet they would vote reform and for history.
By compromising the compromise again by not putting the Robust PO in the bill despite being short a few votes progressives are very cool to this whole package. The progressives are always expected to sacrifice. It even looks like the Kucinich amendment which would allow states to try single payer will be eliminated.
So what do progressives get here? Not a real competitive PO. Not a PO to compete for INDIVIDUAL CHOICE. And no ability for single payer to flower anywhere if this bill becomes ERISA law. The only good thing is the house did not put the opt out in it- but it may get a floor amendment.
Progressives have finally been invited to the WH after being cool to the deal after it was "settled." SO the progs are coming a long way. Woolsey gets her chance to speak to Obama on all this mess. Should be a very lively meeting I would think after all these months. Progressives must try and hold on together on the Medicare PO for the good of the people. Chris Bowers on Openleft wonders if this bill can pass. After all the Tri Caucus has been adamant for a robust PO and better subsidies. Yeah forgot those subsidies- see with the weaker PO the bill costs much more than the Robust version. So cuts to subsidies will be made according to many reports.
Rep Grijalva vows to fight on to the floor. Woolsey says she cant back the compromise and plans to tell Obama so. Now it will be more imperative to expand the size of the PO to cover more. The bigger this PO can be the better it will be in lowering private rates. After calling dozens of members of Congress this was a bitter day for me and so many.
It is ridiculous that most Dems in the House back the robust PO but because they are a few votes short right now leadership will put in the weaker deal in for the people. 47 Dems blocked the majority of the caucus from doing what is right. Im glad Pelosi pushed like she did for the robust PO and hope even after this passes we can change the PO to Medicare and open the exchange. MORE BELOW INCLUDING INFO ON CONTROVERSIAL WHIP COUNT ON PO:
Rep Kucinich is fed up and asks- why have a 2 party system if Democrats wont stand for the people over big insurance companies?
Late on Wednesday Representative Kucinich put out a press release complaining that Democrats were compromising too much and warned that more compromises in the final bill would water the plan down ever more.
Congressman Kucinich noted that the Progressive Caucus has already compromised on single payer by backing a public option, and now we are being asked to compromise the public option with negotiated rates." He goes to warn that "in conference, we will likely be asked to compromise negotiated rates with a trigger. In each and every step of the health care debate, the insurance companies have won. If they get hundreds of billions of dollars in new taxpayer subsidies, they get to raise their premiums, and increase their co pays and deductibles, while the public is forced to pay for private insurance, then the insurance companies win big."
"If this is the best we can do, then it is time to ask ourselves whether the two-party system is truly capable of representing the American people or whether they system has been so compromised by special interests that we can’t even protect the health of our own people," Kucinich said. "This is a moment of truth for the Democratic Party. Will we stand for the people or the insurance companies?"
Indeed that is the question.
http://www.mydd.com/...
Chris Bowers on why the bill may not pass or why it might-either way expect a very narrow vote no matter:
http://www.openleft.com/...
Wire report-
The rejection of the "robust" public option, which would have reimbursed doctors and hospitals based on Medicare rates instead of negotiated rates, is something of a victory for moderate Democrats and the health-insurance industry, which worries that it won't be able to compete with a strong government-backed insurance program.
It is a disappointment to liberal Democrats, but senior House Democrats say they simply weren't able to round up enough votes. "After a series of discussions over the last couple of days, we've come to realize it's very tough to get to that point," said House Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller (D., Calif.).
Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D., Calif.), who chairs a group of progressive Democrats in the House, said she is reserving judgment until she sees the bill language. " We'll be insisting on it being as strong as it possibly can. If it isn't, we won't be supporting it," she said.
Woolsey and other Democrats representing the Congressional Progressive, Black, Hispanic, and Asian Pacific American Caucuses are slated to meet with President Barack Obama Thursday. Woolsey said she will urge Obama to press the Senate harder to include a strong public option in its version of health legislation.
"I hear him saying that, but he's not saying it loud enough," she said of Obama.
http://www.nasdaq.com/...
Grijalva vows to go the floor for a robust public option:
Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.) has been pushing strenuously for a robust public option, arguing that tying it to Medicare rates gives it the best chance of competing against private insurers. The public option's intellectual father, Yale Professor Jacob Hacker, makes the same case.
Grijalva, in a statement to HuffPost, insists that he is not being rolled by leadership.
"I am not rolling over. I will insist on a Medicare+5 amendment on the Floor so that the full Caucus can vote on it. We are hopeful that the Rules Committee will allow this amendment, which has tremendous public support, to at the very least be voted on for the record," he said.
Grijalva, in pushing for an amendment rather than including the provision in the bill itself, is in conceding defeat in this round, while vowing to press forward.
Demanding an amendment, however, comes with its own set of problems, because conservative Democrats could then demand their own amendments related to abortion and other issues that would garner enough GOP support to pass.
On a policy level, the negotiated public option will cost taxpayers an extra $85 billion and is the favored choice of Blue Dogs and other conservative Democrats. Observers have noted the irony of the Blue Dogs -- who champion fiscal conservatism -- backing the the more costly public option. But such confusion misreads the Blue Dog Coalition, which is more properly understood as a bloc of Democrats who favor business interests. In the case of the public option, requiring it to negotiate rates means higher payments to providers -- hospitals, doctors and drug makers -- and less competition for insurance companies.
Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
Progressives vow to keep fighting for the Medicare PO. They are furious not only about the weak PO being put in the bill but the elimination of a amendment allowing states to experiment with Medicare 4 all. This would mean states would have no way out of mandating folks buy private insurance. This is outrageous and the progs must fight on and on here:
...The "public option" Pelosi and her team will not make payments based on Medicare rates. It will, instead, be forced to negotiate rates with doctors and hospitals, as private insurers do. That weakens the flexibility and muscle of the public option.
Pelosi's plan also drops a number of provisions that had been advanced at the committee level to promote consideration of "Medicare for All" models and to allow states to experiment with single-payer plans.
Progressives were disappointed, to say the least, as they were counting on the House to advance a strong alternative to the Senate Democratic leadership's very weak public option proposal -- which would allow states to opt out of the plan.
Congressional Progressive Caucus co-chair Lynn Woolsey, D-California, said she and her allies would continue to battle to muscle-up the public option.
"It's not even the fourth quarter,'' said Woolsey, who noted the public option had only recently been dismissed as dead by many pundits. "We will be insisting on (the option) being as strong as it possibly can be.''
Woolsey and other progressive Democrats are set to meet with President Obama Thursday.
"He needs to hear from us that he needs to support the public option,'' Woolsey told the Los Angeles Times..
http://news.yahoo.com/...
Liberals question how the robust PO was whipped. Even so a clear majority of dems want the Medicare PO in the House. Yet the Blue Dog version gets in the bill? Yep.
The Hill-
There are 47 Democrats who oppose the "robust" public option, according to a whip survey that leaked Tuesday from a meeting between liberals and House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.).
The survey also indicates that 20 members are "leaning yes," 12 are "undecided" and eight are "leaning no." That leaves 168 members, a clear majority of House Democrats, as yes votes.
Liberals have contended that Clyburn and other leaders gave in too easily. And the names on the list do raise questions. For example, Rep. Jason Altmire (D-Pa.) is listed as a no. But Altmire says he’s told leadership he's fine with a Medicare-based public option. He opposes the bill as it stands because of cost and because it includes an income surtax.
Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Calif.) is listed as "leaning no," even though she and Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) co-authored an op-ed earlier this month supporting the "robust" option. It was titled, "Why We're Breaking With the Blue Dogs on the Public Option."
In July, 60 liberal lawmakers threatened to vote against the bill if it included the "negotiated rates" language, though some signers indicated privately that they wouldn't really vote to block the bill.
It wouldn’t take all 60 to defeat the bill. One whip count has shown that 23 mostly centrist Democrats intend to vote against the bill regardless, according to a lawmaker involved in the counting. That means that another 13 hard-line liberals voting against the bill could defeat it.
http://thehill.com/...