Ryan Grim is reporting that yet another gang of Senators, now a Gang of Six centrist Senators is dragging their heels on healthcare form, demanding a delay in a letter sent to Senate leadership.
The letter, obtained by the Huffington Post, was drafted by Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) and is also signed by Democratic Reps. Mary Landrieu (La.) and Ron Wyden (Ore.). Independent Joe Lieberman (Conn.), who caucuses with Democrats, signed on, as did Maine Republican Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins -- moderates heavily courted by President Obama.
The organized effort to slow down the process is a blow to the reform effort. Obama has pushed hard for a final vote before the August recess, arguing that delaying until September could slow momentum and risk missing a historic opportunity.
The letter, sent to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) stresses that while the senators still want health care reform done this year, they don't feel comfortable voting for it until they've had more time to study its costs and benefits.
This effort to gum up the works is inexcusable. Healthcare reform is the most critical thing Congress will do this session, the thing that will do the most to help the most Americans. Matt Yglesias demonstrates why:
When thinking about this sort of thing, it’s also useful to recall the Families USA health reform ticker:
A delay of, say, seventy days is the amount of time it takes for as many people as live in Omaha to lose their health insurance. And one doubts that if the whole city were facing that fate Nelson would be so cavalier about the consequences of delay. More generally, this is an issue America has been debating for decades, it’s not as if Barack Obama just inserted health reform into his budget as a big surprise. Even just limiting consideration to the current reform drive in the United States Senate, Max Baucus and Ted Kennedy (and then Chris Dodd when Kennedy fell ill) have been doing steady work on this issue since well before the 2008 presidential election. And the topic of health reform was extensively debating in both the presidential primaries and the general election. For anyone who’s interested, there’s been plenty of time to look at the questions.
Here are some more statistics [pdf] to consider for Senators Nelson, Landrieu, Wyden, Snowe, and Collins.
- 44,230 more people are losing health coverage each week.
- 191,670 more people are losing health coverage each month.
- 2.3 million more people are losing health coverage each year
Here's what it means for those specific Senators:
- Maine (Collins, Snowe) = people losing coverage/week: 110, month: 500, year: 5,950
- Connecticut (Lieberman) = losing coverage/week: 310, month: 1350, year:16,220
- Nebraska (Nelson) = losing coverage/week: 220, month: 930, year: 11,210
- Oregon (Wyden) = losing coverage/week: 620, month: 2,690, year: 32,300
- Louisiana (Landrieu) = losing coverage/week:810, month: 3,530, year: 42,350
And if you really want to be morbid about it, you can go find the estimates for the number of people who will die for lack of coverage in your state.
Should this Gang of Six actually achieve the delay they're asking for, their August recess might not be the pleasant visit home they're looking foward to.
