Senior Senate Aide Denies Report Reid Has Votes For Public Option
Public option supporters: Put the corks back in the champagne bottles.
A senior Senate aide is denying a report that’s fast making the rounds saying Harry Reid has concluded he has the votes to move forward with the public option.
ABC reported today that they have the goods, citing Democratic sources and claiming Reid “has concluded he can pass a bill with a public option.” ABC said Reid is now convinced that even if some moderates are still holding out against it, they will ultimately vote for it on the procedural vote to get it past a filibuster.
Not so much, the senior Senate aide claims. “He has not concluded anything yet,” the aide said of Reid. “But he is more optimistic.”
Interestingly, though, the aide endorsed Kent Conrad’s claim today that “the direction of the conversation” is towards putting the public option in the final bill.
“He is correct,” the aide said of Conrad. “That is where we maybe, again maybe, are headed.”
Meanwhile, TPM reports that Senator Tom Carper is predicting that there will be some form of public option with an opt-out in the final bill.
So while this is far from a done deal, there’s definitely some serious movement afoot.
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Greg,
Please stop with all this minute by minute straws in the wind reporting. It sheds no light on anything.
hrmm..my comment got eaten
I’m a little confused – don’t they need Snowe’s vote for cloture?
Liam
You do realize that you don’t have to read the blog minute by minute right? Its irresponsible for a journalist not reporting what is out in the ether. By the same token we all have the option of backing away from the compuer for awhile or slowing down on pressing the refresh button. While you might not like the minute by minute minutae, I personally want to know the back and forth and the more information the better.
Regarding that pro health reform ad I linked to on the last page, it’s interesting to see the list of associations behind the group.
Americans for Stable Quality Care Supporters:
American Academy of Family Physicians
American Academy of Physician Assistants
American Academy of Nursing
American Academy of Nurse Practitioners
American College of Nurse Practitioners
American College of Physicians
American College of Preventive Medicine
American Osteopathic Association
American Medical Association
Biotechnology Industry Organization
Families USA
Federation of American Hospitals
National Alliance on Mental Illness
National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners
National Coalition for Promoting Physical Activity
National Consumers League
National Council of Women’s Organizations
PhRMA
YMCA of the USA
That’s quite a list.
I don’t know if there are 60 votes for cloture what’s so ever.
Sg. An option which you did not choose to exercise yourself. I did direct my comment to Greg, specifically, so why are you not following your own advice.
News is News. Harry said, someone else said not so fast, but on the other hand, blah blah blah is not news of the moment, the hour the day, the month, the year, or ever. It is just f@rthing in a wind tunnel.
Mr. Sargent:
“Public option supporters: Put the corks back in the champagne bottles.”
Maybe you should try putting the corks somewhere else.
Knock it off with the PO Absolutism and focus on stuff that isn’t nearly so divisive and thereby has a chance at actually getting passed, and then see how it works.
Why do you seem to be convinced that you can solve a problem in a few months that has taken decades to arrive at it’s present state?
Bilgey, Decades when the Republicans were in power. Thank you for admitting that the Republicans are to blame for the Health Care Crisis.
sbj – No. If Reid can keep 60 Democratic senators in line (big if), he doesn’t need Snowe.
Bilge, what should we be focusing on that isn’t nearly as divisive as something that is supported by a clear majority of Americans, a supermajority in the House and nearly a supermajority in the Senate?
I’d like to hear your ideas for something that is less divisive than that. Thanks.
@Rachel.
SBJ has had that explained to him, many times. When he starts with his “I’m confused” bit, it is him just trying to play his FUD game.
SBJ likes to pretend that he is Detective Columbia, with his feigned confusion act.
Columbo
@Rachel Q: So we spent all of that time in the SFC to get some Democratic buy-in, not Snowe?
Yes Columbo, and SBJ did not deny that he was just playing his usual FUD act.
Ethan:
“Bilge, what should we be focusing on that isn’t nearly as divisive as something that is supported by a clear majority of Americans, a supermajority in the House and nearly a supermajority in the Senate?
I’d like to hear your ideas for something that is less divisive than that. Thanks.”
Look, Ethan, if you think that Greg Sargent is giving you the unvarnished skinny, you’re deluding yourself.
He cherry picks his polls to support his PO/Single Payer/Socialist Utopia agenda, and an example can be found two or three jumps down in the Rasmussen headline thread.
A very clear majority of 77% favor lifting the interstate ban on health insurance, and another clear majority of 66% favor removing anti-trust exemptions, which, in their totality, is a market-based approach to lowering costs by increasing competition.
But you don’t hear that here at Plum Line, do you?
It’s “ALL PO/Single-Payer/Socialist Utopia ALL the Time”.
Let’s try those two proposals, and give ‘em a few years to see how they work.
Sargent and his ilk want you to swap out your engine and transmission, while I’m suggesting a new distributor and a new spark plugs,and see how it goes with that.
A lot of moonbats think Obama is playing “rope-a-dope”, and I wodnder that is indeed the case, he’s having his crew stir up PO-mania while he stays under the radar of commitment so that he can move to the center and implement those very two items.
So why all the drama?
We all agree that lower HC costs is a desirable thing, and most of us agree that those two are good, common-sense ways to go about it.
What are we gaining from the PO/Single-Payer/Socialist Utopia hard sell?
A Dodge is a Chrysler is a Plymouth, and it still sucks, and folks ain’t buying it.
Why are we ignoring that perfectly good Ford over there?
“What should we be focusing on that isn’t nearly as divisive as something that is supported by a …supermajority in the House and nearly a supermajority in the Senate?”
They can’t even count a majority of votes in the House yet, for ANY type of PO, let alone a supermajority. I am unaware of any count showing majority support in the Senate for any type of PO.
Not saying they won’t get there, but I’m not sure where you are getting your numbers. The House count is at 200 for a PO bill. I don’t believe there is any good Senate count but Leiberman said he can’t even support the Baucus bill.
I’m having a hard time taking anything a Birther/Secessionist has to say seriously.
Chuck:
“I’m having a hard time taking anything a Birther/Secessionist has to say seriously”
That’s because you’re an idiot who can’t think beyond big, cartoon-like labels.
It’s part of you folks’ charm, though.
Seems to me that one who has a fetish for birtherism defines cartoon. I wouldn’t call it charming, tho’. More like entertaining at best-sad and pathetic at worse.
“A very clear majority of 77% favor lifting the interstate ban on health insurance”
First, that may be so in the general population, but politically with Democrats it is a non-starter, so therefore it is a divisive issue.
Second, there are a ton of resources out there about this issue. I strongly recommend that you read more about it. The Right trumpets the idea because it would improve competition and shows that it would cover 12 million Americans. But that view leaves out a lot of important information about how the health insurance markets would change, and that changes the equation dramatically. Check out these articles:
newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/triage/2008/10/purchasing-insu.html
http://www.newamerica.net/pressroom/2008/across_state_lines_explained_why_selling_health_insurance_across_state_lines_not_answer
I do think that enabling greater CHOICE to the whole country is something that is in the cards for HCR, but to push an interstate commerce clause on its own is, again, a non-starter.
“another clear majority of 66% favor removing anti-trust exemptions”
Yes. And the Dems have been out in front of that.
Tell me Bilge, do YOU support removing the anti-trust exemption?
And if so, can you tell me why the Republican Party is opposed? Not one has sponsored either the House version nor the Senate version of the Dem bill.
thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d111:HR03596:@@@P
thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d111:SN01681:@@@P
(need to add the http:// to links)
@Chuck,
Have you noticed how often Bilgey, The Birther Mascot, claims that the USA is a Foreign Occupier of his Confederate Land?
I bet Bilgey does not know that it was The Slave States that pulled a Pearl Harbor, or 9/11 on America, when they attacked Fort Sumter.
Ethan:
“First, that may be so in the general population, but politically with Democrats it is a non-starter, so therefore it is a divisive issue.”
Well, there you have the future of your Health Care Reform initiative…a plan that will be popular with Democrats, and the general population will at best be lukewarm to.
And that will mean throwing Dems out of office, dismantling their partisan damage and then starting all over again with something the electorate can afford that kinda sorta fills the need.
“The Right trumpets the idea because it would improve competition and shows that it would cover 12 million Americans. But that view leaves out a lot of important information about how the health insurance markets would change, and that changes the equation dramatically.”
Excuse me, but do you REALLY think that having “print money ’til we’re bankrupt and then print some MORE” government as an active competitor won’t ALSO change the market dramatically?
Certainly it did in Canada and the UK, but that somehow doesn’t seem to bother the moonbat chorus so much in that instance, does it?
NO private firm can compete with Deficit Health Care
“Tell me Bilge, do YOU support removing the anti-trust exemption?”
I thought I’d made it clear that I do.
“And if so, can you tell me why the Republican Party is opposed?”
Probably the same reason your gang can’t seem to give up their little state sinecures, entrenched interests and partisanship.
But as you can see, I’m willing to buck the Rockefellers’ position on anti-trust, if you’re willing to buck the Moonbat Academy on free markets.
Apparently, you folks are not willing to do that, so good luck with the Party-approved Public Option/Single Payer/Socialist Utopiacare.
Liam:
“I bet Bilgey does not know that it was The Slave States that pulled a Pearl Harbor, or 9/11 on America, when they attacked Fort Sumter.”
Which Slave States would that be, Liam?
the Slave states of Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky and Missouri that didn’t secede?
No, I think you mean the Slave States that seceded, and opened fire on Fort Sumter when Lincoln, rather than evacuating it, tried to have it reinforced.
Funny, I can’t imagine Yankee Americans NOT getting upset if a foreign power had a military base on say, Liberty Island or Alcatraz Island, with the capability of bottling up the port.
Guess some folks are just “touchy” about those things.
Too bad that they fell for the deliberate provocation, because as it turned out, that was the pretext Lincoln needed to launch his illegal war.
Or didn’t you wonder why he didn’t declare war as soon as he was inaugurated?
Because he couldn’t legally do so. James Buchanan had been correct. There was no power granted to the Feds to allow them to make war on the States that wished to peaceably secede.
None.
Bilgey The Birther/Secessionist calls The South Pulling a Pearl Harbor on Fort Sumter, “a peaceable way of leaving the Union”
Mental rot, caused by inbreeding, sure has destroy old Dixie.
“A very clear majority of 77% favor lifting the interstate ban on health insurance”
We do that and every health insurance company will incorporate itself in the state where they get the best deal (like with Delaware and the credit card companies). In five to ten years things will be even worse than they are now.
Can I just say how weird it must be to live in the legal landscape of 1860 and expect to be taken seriously by Americans living in 2009?
oddjob:
“We do that and every health insurance company will incorporate itself in the state where they get the best deal (like with Delaware and the credit card companies). In five to ten years things will be even worse than they are now”
Where do you buy your crystal balls?
If the Feds pass a Public Option/Single Payer/Socialist Utopiacare Plan, things will be worse in 5-10 years than they are now
If the Feds do nothing at all, things will be worse in 5 years than they are now.
In fact, the conclusion that things will be worse than they are now is the one common feature that absolutely everyone is agreement on.
So the debate is really over what’s going to make it LESS worse than it’s otherwise expected to be..
Public Option recreates MediCare,(and that’s got an unfunded mandate,..i.e. “bill coming due”, that nobody wants to even contemplate).
Pretty much the same story for ALL government social spending entitlements…people vote themselves benefits today to be paid for from the Treasury later.
We’re broke, man, We’re skint…busted…tapped out.
The Chinese aren’t going to subsidize us forever.
oddjob:
“Can I just say how weird it must be to live in the legal landscape of 1860 and expect to be taken seriously by Americans living in 2009?”
Hey…folks take Spike Lee and the rest of the “Reparations for Slavery” crowd seriously,(or at least they do a pretty good job of pretending to), why NOT de- and un-Reconstructed Confederates?.
Revisit the scholarship on the issue of secession, it’s actually quite a “progressive” and “enlightened” thing to do!
After all, you’re researching and identifying a great injustice of Euro-centric moneyed White male oppression.
Even if those oppressed were OTHER Euro-centric moneyed White males who themselves were oppressors.
No matter…it’s ALL about the social justice and the ethnic cultural heritage self-esteem.
And I’ll have me a heapin’ helping of that. too, plzthxbye!
While right winger bilgewater’s defense of slavery only represents a part of the right wing, that part of the right wing still represents a significant power motivating the right wing movement and is behind a significant number of powerful Republican politicians.
While it’s contemptible and sick, right winger bilgewater is at least being openly honest about their racist motivations.
But bilgewater’s false recollection of history goes beyond his twisted defense of slavery.
It’s the Republican Debtor Party that put US into debt.
Republican President Reagan increased the US debt by 260%.
Republicans Reagan and Bush I increased the US debt by 400%.
Republican Bush II more than doubled the US debt, and that’s not including the trillions Republican Bush funneled out the back door of the Fed and the trillions it will cost to pay off the other debts that Republican Bush II indebted US with (such as paying off Republican Bush’s Iraq War Lie that we’re still in).