Four More Dem Senators Join Push For Vote On Public Option
Yesterday four Dem Senators made a big splash by signing a letter pushing Dem leaders to pass the public option via reconciliation, suggesting the provision may have a faint pulse.
Now four more Dem Senators have added their names to the list, their spokespeople tell me, doubling the number of signatories to eight and perhaps upping the volume of the public option’s pulse ever so slightly.
The new signatories: Al Franken, Pat Leahy, John Kerry, and Sheldon Whitehouse.
They join yesterday’s signers: Michael Bennet, Kirsten Gillibrand, Jeff Merkley, and Sherrod Brown.
The letter asks Harry Reid to stage a full Senate vote on the public option under budget reconciliation rules. It argues that there’s a history of using the technique for passing significant health care legislation and that a majority of Americans has consistently supported a public option.
The letter — the work of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee and Democracy for America — also bears the signatures of over a hundred House Dems.
Despite the growing support for a reconciliation vote on the public option, it’s all but certain not to happen. The Senate and House leadership have shown no appetite for such a move. And the White House is not on board as it gears up for its high-stakes summit next week and the politically dicey health care endgame that will follow.
But the move by these eight Senators — and perhaps more to follow — is likely to gain them plaudits from liberals and health reformers for showing leadership on a provision that still enjoys the support of the American people even as the Congressional leadership has left it for dead.
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Update: Given how many times the public option has been declared dead, I probably shouldn’t have said a reconciliation vote on it is all but certain not to happen. Who knows; maybe it could gain real momentum. Fair to say, however, that it’s unlikely to happen.
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Regarding the White House selling out Health Care reform…”Hear! Hear!”…The public option was arguably the main plank in the Obama-Biden platform, and drum beaten loudest…in the ‘08 Presidential campaign. Economics was the Milieu, or context, but the spineless capitulation to the staus quo… a Capitalist model of Health Care. The only socialized medicine system i’ve personally lived with was in Norway, and it was mostly really good, in many ways full-on GREAT! The scare-tactics repubs and their ilk overblow the negatives…we already have many more lethal negatives, and we get socked crippling prices for them!!! Healthier birthing, healing and new models of Wellness-oriented Medicine, joining forces with more established trditions of Acupuncture and Traditional chinese medicine, as well as Herbalism from around the World…a much more complete way of supporting Health, instead of the pertochemical and other synthetics which Big Pharma pushes, all of which standslargely (and far too arrogantly) on the uncredited shoulders of Midwives, Shamans, Monks, and other knowledgeable healers…together with Industrial medicine, synchronizing best-practices from both, we CAN do it!
Yikes…lots of typos…that’s status quo, not staus quo! Ptrochemical is not spelled “pertochemical”…
there are more grammar mistakes, but it is heartening to see the public option threatening to get up off the canvas, eventually humans will retake Healthcare from the Reptilian-minded Greed Breed.
(Apologies to actual reptiles….you know I don’t mean, or demean you…I know you get it!)
Petrochemical, yeah,the repeated misspelling is ironic, with the whole Petroglyph moniker. Guess I will need to proofread. Some kind of voucher system with optimized flexibility in choosing caregivers,
better ways of supporting meritorious medical students so they don’t have to be millionaires to pay off absurdly vast student loans…innovative solutions socioeconomically as well as with buying power for equipment and medicines, all of these can make the vitally important reforms viable.
Medicare, social security, post office, Amtrak, are all broke and are requiring massive tax increases to keep them afloat.
Look…..its real simple. The majority of the American people do not want Obamacare. Massachusetts doesn’t want Obamacare. This reconciliation talk is just like “rearranging the deck chairs on the Titantic”.
I can’t believe the moderate democrats are going to follow this lame duck president over the cliff.
We need to give a public option to all Americans for health insurance coverage. We need to expand the Medicare system to include all Americans, regardless of whether one is offered coverage by a State or employer. The Medicare system is effective in providing comprehensive health coverage and services to Americans, albeit the system is in need of payer reform to reduce the fraudulent billing. The expansion of Medicare will impact the health insurance industry and this is the correct change for progress as health as a human right and not a commodity. The greatness of this nation is that it changes for the good of its citizens. That is when an industry becomes ineffective or obsolete, we eliminate or significantly reduce it, so that the greater good can prevail. We cannot be beholden to billion dollar companies just because they exist. We need to put the good of the people above the good of corporations. We need a comprehensive public health care coverage option, and the easiest option would be to expand Medicare to all citizens.
Shorter: Public option zombie still undead
dnpstudent: I agree with your most of what you say, especially expanding Medicare. The problem is that the legislation on offer doesn’t do what you want. “Public option” is best thought of as a marketing slogan pushed by Beltway policy entrepreneurs, rather than as a policy option. Medicare for All is the answer, and that will not be achieved by reinforcing the insurance companies by bailing them out, which is all that the bills on offer do.
So you want to expand an already broken system? REALLY? and pay for it how? By taxing those of lucky enough to have insurance-how is that fair? Or by raising taxes on those who actually are succeeding in this country? As to the typos there were one or two so chill out. I was trying to be funny there and obviously you have no sense of humor. I personally know of several people in Europe and they hate their public option (i.e. socialized healthcare) I don’t personally want it-not now NOT EVER! This isn’t fear mongering, it’s called trying wake the ignorant up out of their brainwashed stupor. Yes the insurance industry needs some reformation-this is true. What I am saying is that the public option is NOT the answer. Tort reform, buying across state lines, and fewer Federal mandates would make a HUGE difference in many areas regarding healthcare affordablity-without further bankrupting this country. Geeze wake up will you?