Latest Internal Whip Count: Nearly Three-Fourths Of House Dems Support Robust Public Option
Still more grounds for cautious optimism about the public option:
I’ve got the latest internal whip count numbers from Dem Rep. Raul Grijalva, the co-chair of the Congressional Progressional Caucus, who tells me that nearly three-fourths of House Dems will support a health care reform bill with the most robust version of the public option. That’s the one that would reimburse providers at Medicare rates plus five percent.
“I am confident that we have the support of over 70% of the Democratic Caucus,” Grivalva said in a statement emailed my way. That means according to him, around 180 of the 256 Dems in the House are prepared to back the robust public option right now.
The support in the House for the robust public option is a crucial number, and is being closely watched by reform proponents, because it will have a direct impact on the final bill. If a bill passes with a strong version of the public option, that would give House Dems more leverage when the bill is merged with the final Senate version.
Grijalva’s office disputed a recent report in The Politico citing anonymous aides claiming the robust public option only had the support of 145 Dems.
Grijalva and other progressive leaders have been counting votes at the request of House Dem leaders, who are putting together their final bill and asked liberals to show them the support they can muster for a strong public option.
To be sure, liberals still have a ways to go before securing the 218 votes needed for passage, and it’s unclear how many more votes they can pull together and whether the most robust public option will end up in the House bill. But liberals are not done whipping votes yet, and they think the public option has the momentum.
Bottom line: The stronger the support for the most robust version, the greater the pressure on the House leadership to keep a strong public option in the final bill. More later.
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Update: Chris Bowers has the exact numbers:
Yes: 183
No: 22
Undecided: 20
Not Whipped: 31
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How does this help us with the Senate? It’s astounding to me that liberals are concentrating more on defeating a health care bill (FDL’s very public campaign to secure promises from progressive house members to defeat a healthcare bill) than in securing Senate votes for one.
Democrats as always are their own worst enemy
Kit, it helps in the sense that it increases the leverage House Dems have going into conference negotiations with the Senate.
As an Arizonan, I just want to say that Raul Grijalva is worth more than the rest of our mostly sorry-*** Congressional delegation combined.
Kit,
You must not understand how Congress works. BOTH the house and the senate have to vote on a bill. The strategy by FDl and others is that if you can get the house to hold the line than they can have leverage when the bill goes to conference. Securing Senate votes is much harder than securing House votes but the house is just as important.
Kit – I get your frustration and sometimes it’s warranted but this is just a strategy to move the bill that we want. I sgree we often are our own worst enemy, but this seems to be working.
It is not the job of Congress members to sort out how Senators vote, any more than it is for Senators to be dictated to by what might happen in Congress.
the other thing to consider is that the Senate will try to roll the House in conference. Big numbers in the House behind a robust public option will make it more credible if and when Pelosi argues that a final bill w/o a strong one can’t pass the House.
“Big numbers in the House behind a robust public option will make it more credible if and when Pelosi argues that a final bill w/o a strong one can’t pass the House.”
Well yeah.
I wish it made it impossible for the Senate to refuse if a large majority in the House votes for PO. It seems crazy that the Senate can kill something the House is overwhelmingly in favor of, especially when the House is the more democratic body.
Greg has it exactly right in his comment. Conference is always a power struggle. If the House can show that a public option needs to be included to pass, then they have a huge leverage adcantage.
The most amazing this about this number is that they have 180 votes already for Medicare Rates +5% (see: tied to medicare rates). This shows a pretty clear path to 218, and a strong position when they all get to the table.
Public option!? Well, OK, cuz I’m pretty sure a guiding beacon for our founding fathers was their intent for the federal government to provide competition to private enterprise. Please. Can we get real for a moment?
This morning CNBC had 3 republicans and 3 democrats discussing healthcare. About 8:48 into this video, http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=1287053581&play=1, Paul Ryan says Medicare and Medicaid are unfunded to the tune of $38 and $14 trillion, respectively. No one in the room, including Barney Frank, disagreed with those numbers.
Is anybody here informed on these 2007 GAO calculations of our nation’s unfunded liabilities? I personalize it as 20 times the federal budget. So therefore, each taxpayer’s portion is 20 times what they pay annually in social security and income taxes, due today, just to get us back to even on our pre-bailout commitments. Assuming these numbers are even in the ball-park, how does ANYTHING else matter?
What percent of our population comprehends the above financial Armageddon, and the disgusting relative inadequacy of all current proposals combined? Feel free to question my motives for not trusting an at best deficit neutral healthcare plan, or its promoters, as appropriate to address a $52T funding shortfall. Don’t the current proposals boil down to the side in power wants more government intrusion and power, some on the other side don’t, and neither of them are willing to admit that way more often than not they ARE the problem? To those who find wisdom in dramatically changing our country, don’t you think in total ours is the greatest country that has ever existed? If not, what other country in all of history would you prefer us to be more like?
How is it we are even having a national healthcare discussion without our elected officials being fully informed on all the details and facts to the point that they are disseminating that knowledge to all of us. If this isn’t the blind leading the blind, then it’s manipulators attempting to persuade the manipulatees.
How do YOU know when you’re being manipulated?
Totally, we should only consult our founding father’s knowledge on every debate today. I’m sure their knowledge on health care would be very prescient. We should be funding leech technology more than ever.
Thank You, Doctor Questions!
Are you trying to manipulate us, and how would we know if you are?
Persue Truth- You lost me at “ours is the greatest country…”.
To hell with modern health care treatments and Prescription drugs.
We all can live for ever on a once a day dose of Jingoism.
Lost me at: “Well, OK, cuz I’m pretty sure a guiding beacon for our founding fathers was their intent for the federal government to provide competition to private enterprise.”
Let’s get real then. The founders didn’t see fit to include women in the “all men are created equal” part of the thing and the constitution didn’t really apply to us.
Should be go back to the “founder’s intent” on women and our right to vote and hold property?
You don’t understand the founders or anything they based our government on. Go read Jeremy Bentham, Rousseau, Locke, Hume and the rest of the Enlightenment thinkers whose ideas the founders used to construct the government.
Right Wing Republicans’ Health Care Plan, at work.
Patient; I have life threatining cancer, and my Insurance Company has canceled my coverage, and I can not afford medical care.
Republicans: So what! You are still living in the Greatest Country That Ever Was. There now, does that not make you feel all better? By the way, you might want to be patriotic about this,and just die quickly.
edit:
Right Wing Republicans’ Health Care Plan, at work.
Patient; I have life threatening cancer, and my Insurance Company has canceled my coverage, and I can not afford medical care.
Republicans: So what! You are still living in the Greatest Country That Ever Was. There now, does that not make you feel all better? By the way, you might want to be patriotic about this,and just die quickly.
Screw caution, get optimistic people. Only then can your statist hopes be dashed. (By the way, I am sure that in an anonymous whip count, they probably support gun control, withdrawal from Afghanistan, and Employee Free Choice Act too.)
JackieB,
I was disappointed when he didn’t get the Interior slot – so very glad now this PO stalwart remained in the House. if somehow a real PO emerges from Conference, he should get much of the credit
The dems need to understand is that we are not going to stand for them shoving the Public Option down our throa. If they do not listen to our voice they will lose big in 2010. The Free Market is the answer to our Health Care Problems. Like portability that Obama wont put in the Health Care Reform Bill.
https://www.americanpatriotsprevail.com/Obama_Admin_Says_No_To_Port.html
I’m wondering where this health care cancellation is taking place. More and more it just seems to be a drummed up lie. Obviously it is unscientific, but I have made a point of asking every single person I know about their health coverage history. The only reason I have found for having coverage revoked is: “I stopped paying for it.”
Okay, then my family has had the fortunate blessing of having someone just receive a kidney transplant. It was an eight year wait, but not for lack of health coverage. It just took that long to get to the top of the list and then be fortunate enough to have a donor.
At no point did the private insurance company cancel or threaten to cancel the insurance. They just took their lumps and now will likely be glad to see their costs go down significantly.
This just smacks of scare tactics to get us to support the federal government starting another program that will be bankrupt soon. And so what if you trust the Dems to keep things working perfectly well (both parties have shown they can’t… otherwise SS and Medicare wouldn’t be dead broke). Someday you’ll just have someone in power who wrecks it, and you’ll be stuck with it… forever.
This seems like a problem to work in incrementally. Insisting “it all has to be fixed now” is just a prescription for another fix to be called for in ten years.
But then, that just gives politicians something to campaign on I guess… eternal “fixes”.
Government run health care – the so-called “public option” – presents serious challenges for us. The private sector and competitive market forces are the best means to meeting health care needs. Watch this video from the U.S. Chamber http://www.friendsoftheuschamber.com/media/
Ten years out from Universal Health Insurnace and people will wonder why this was ever an issue. I remember when people said that nobody in their right mind would buy a Japanese car and other people who said that Jim Crow was never going to go away, and if it did the America we all love would go to hell. People shouldn’t fear change, but they do. My opinion!
The healthcare debate is focused on fixing healthcare which we all realize is flawed.
But the congress and the president are ready to force insurance on everyone
While overlooking the bigger picture the medical cost itself which ultimately drives the cost of any insurance premium public or private The United States is the greatest country in the world and yet we can’t decide on a uniform cost for procedures, prescriptions, doctors, or hospitals. No healthcare program can work unless mandated pricing is in place first because of greed, if healthcare is passed first everyone the government, the insurance companies, the doctors, the hospitals, the drug companies will take all the extra money and never .look to lower the medical costs.