So Landrieu and Lincoln say they'll vote to allow debate to continue so that the Senate can eventually vote on whether they want to vote to reform the nation's healthcare system. Lest you get too excited by their radicalism, here's the cold water on our collective enthusiasm.
After announcing her intent to support a health care debate this afternoon, Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) told reporters she thinks Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will soon have to choose between a triggered public option and no health care bill. She also says Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY)--the third-ranking Democrat in the Senate one of its most fierce and vocal public option advocates--has been tasked as a point man on the issue.
"I believe it's going to be very clear at some point very soon that there are not 60 votes for the current provision in the bill, and that the leader and the leadership are going to have to make a decision and I trust that they will figure out how to do that," Landrieu told reporters.
Blanche Lincoln raised the stakes on this on the Senate floor today, saying "I've already alerted the Leader and I'm promising my colleagues that I'm prepared to vote against moving to the next stage of consideration as long as a government run public option is included." She continues to argue falsely, just like Joe Lieberman, that the public option will cost the federal government too much, proving that not only Republicans can pick and choose what they like from CBO reports.
We're veering ever closer to the point where this bill is not going to do a whole lot more than force people to buy crappy insurance. The public option, as limited as it is, is the foot in the door to providing more and better options to more people. Without it, even as constricted as it has become, this bill isn't reform. It's telling the insurance companies they really shouldn't cherry-pick customers and leave people without care, and erecting a few more barriers for them to get around while they continue to do just that.
Triggered co-ops, the Carper plan that Schumer is apparently pushing, isn't a compromise. It's no kind of public option and should not be supported by anyone calling themselves a progressive. It's a capitulation. So Senators Brown, et al., it's your call. You said no more compromise. It's time to prove that you mean it.
Update: Schumer's staff e-mails to refute Landrieu's suggestion that he's been tasked with a compromise, or has been free-lancing on the issue, as another Democratic aide suggested. Schumer's spokesman Brian Fallon e-mails this statement:
"Since Leader Reid announced the opt-out public option would be included in the Senate bill, Senator Schumer has not approached anyone about compromises. He is fully behind the level playing field opt-out, which he himself helped advance."
--Schumer spokesman Brian Fallon
Ah, palace chamber intrigue. All I can say is stay tuned.
