Blue Dog Democratic congressman Scott Murphy (D-NY-20) -- who was one of those Democratic Blue Dog votes against the original health bill in the House, hinted today on the New York NPR radio Brian Lehrer show, that he would be a switch to being a "Yes" vote.
One of the questions has been whether Pelosi and Clyburn really have the votes in the House to pass the Senate bill, given that some Yes votes have gone away (e.g., Wexler's retirement), the anti-choice folks not liking the less bad Senate provisions, and the potential for increased ass-protection No-votes among Blue Dogs, cowards and corporate hacks (but I repeat myself).
Murphy is a potentially indicative case of a soft Blue Dog who will probably change from his earlier No vote (when he was not absolutely needed), to a Yes vote when the Democratic leadership needs him.
His district is a meant-to-be-Republican gerrymander of relatively rural counties surrounding but not including Albany in "upstate" New York (really mid-state by actual geography). But it has, with the rest of upstate NY begun to swing Democratic for a while. It was the district that was Kirsten Gillibrand’s before she was appointed to the Senate. But it is still, by New York standards, relatively rural, white and conservative.
More interesting from Murphy:
As a single payer advocate, it was a pleasant surprise to hear the Congressman, as an ostensible Blue Dog who touts that he is a small businessman and independent minded, etc -- make the distinction between federal government costs and what is really important which are total system costs. In the interview he repeatedly cited total cost control, as well as universal coverage as critical concerns. And he repeatedly made the clear distinction between federal government costs (what the usual inside-the-beltway fiscal conservatives claim is important), and actual total health care system costs (what is actually important, and which are twice what other developed countries pay). As part of the effort to pretend to do real reform without addressing Single Payer, this distinction is usually deliberately conflated and distorted by the political powers that be in Washington.
Admittedly, the Murphy mostly spoke about the need to control costs via issues around reimbursement and physician costs, and hoped for savings by incentivizing prevention and primary care.
But it sounded like he could be open to Single Payer. Hopefully his colleague Eric Massa (D-NY-29) who is also from a traditionally conservative upstate New York district, and has emerged as a smart single payer advocate, can work on Murphy going forward.
Just reminder:
Ultimately real health reform, with actual cost control and universal coverage will require a single universal all-American everybody-in and nobody-out insurance pool (single payer; expanded and improved Medicare for All). We cannot get control of total costs and provide coverage for everybody without this.
You can't make money insuring sick people.
The for-profit private insurance companies add an excess of layer of overhead and profit (25% compared to 4% for Medicare), and add NOTHING of value the system. They only compete on the basis of avoiding care for sick people, and engage only in skimming the healthy to the detriment of the system as a whole. Not only would there be savings of $350-400 billion per year directly in overhead/profit waste reduction, but a single insurance pool would end the perverse incentives to not provide care to the sick, and allow better global budgeting, cost control, prevention and primary care.
Update: Listen to full radio interview here: