Reid’s Office: He’s Working For The Public Option, And He Believes It’ll Survive
This is cause for cautious optimism among public option supporters:
Harry Reid’s office is confirming that he’s working behind the scenes to sell moderates on a public option — and says he believes that some form of it will survive in the final combined Senate bill.
That moves the ball forward a bit from last week, when Reid predicted the public option would survive, only to have his office walk back the statement.
Reid’s office confirmed an acccount in this morning’s Roll Call reporting that moderate and centrist Dems feel pressured to fall in line behind a public option — and added that Reid himself is actively helping drive that process as he seeks to merge the versions from two committees.
“As we begin the important work of merging the health reform proposals, Senator Reid will be talking to every member of our Caucus about how to put together the best possible bill that can garner 60 votes,” Reid’s office said in a statement emailed my way.
“There are a number of issues that are being discussed and debated internally — the public option included,” the statement continued. “Reid continues to believe that at the end of the day, some form of a public option that creates competition and lowers costs for consumers will be included in any Senate proposal.”
To be sure, the devil will be in the details that comprise what “form” the public option takes. But judging by this statement, Reid is increasingly attaching himself to the notion that the public option will survive and taking direct responsibility for its inclusion — making it tougher for him to not deliver on it in the end.
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This comports with what I wrote on the previous thread.
Again:
I have my sources, and they do not want people exposed to pressure from the Republicans to change their support of cloture.
It is the information that I have of where things stand now. There may be up to five Republicans who will vote to end cloture, because they are taking a beating for just being obstructionists, against health care reform. They are leaning toward voting for cloture, to shed the obstructionist label, that is sticking to them, with a sizable majority of the voters, and of then voting against the bill, during final passage.
That is just a snapshot in time, and subject to change, if public opinion shifts, but as of now, they feel that the Teabagger effort is a spent force, and that the country wants real health care reform.
No Democrats are willing to sustain a filibuster, which will kill health care reform. Some may vote against the final bill, but not enough of them to defeat it.
That you can count on.
“That is just a snapshot in time, and subject to change, if public opinion shifts, but as of now, they feel that the Teabagger effort is a spent force, and that the country wants real health care reform.”
They’re right about the Teabaggers – they were a small minority to begin with but they managed to intimidate the politicians.
They know the country wants reform. My idiotic Republican Rep keeps telling me in response to my emails to him that he is fighting for reform that is “responsible” – e.g. nothing; but he’s carefully hiding that.
The senate would be a better place without Harry Reid in charge. I have no faith in that man.
Reid will not be off the hook until a real public option is in the bill. If he thinks he can put in some watered down garbage and call it a public option, he’ll find that we liberals and progressives will still be gunning for him and those useless blue dogs. Actually, whether they know it or not we’re going to work to get rid of them whether they pass a strong public option or not. I think it’s telling that after one of the liberal groups told him they’d primary him last week he suddenly changed his tune. Know this Harry…IT’S TOO LITTLE TOO LATE! YOU’VE ALL SHOWN YOUR TRUE COLORS AND IT’S NOT BLUE, IT’S GREEN!
We would be far better served by a Senate Majority Leader who was in a safe Democratic seat.
Harry Reid is not that person.
“, he’ll find that we liberals and progressives will still be gunning for him and those useless blue dogs. Actually, whether they know it or not we’re going to work to get rid of them whether they pass a stro”
And replace them with whom? You are talking about people who represent conservative constituenciers. You replace them – it will be with Republicans. And then you’ll see deadlock like you will not believe.
“We would be far better served by a Senate Majority Leader who was in a safe Democratic seat.
Harry Reid is not that person.”
Ah but if Reid can finally get some balls and get this done… I’ll support him again.
Look all you firebrand progressives – the Democratic Party cannot hold onto the majority without independent voters. We have to give a little to get a lot – mainly, control of the government.
I’ll say it again. When Reid’s office puts out a statement that says “some form of a public option,” they’re using doublespeak for “triggers.”
If he can pull off a Senate bill with a strong PO he just might get re-elected. As a matter of fact, if the Dems do this right, we can forget the comparisons to 94.
If the Repubs keep obstructing and not offering anything constructive, they’ll just lose no matter how many Tea parties they have.
Liam
I think you’re probably right about 60 for cloture, but I don’t know about Repubs voting for cloture, hope you’re right.
There’s more going on than you read about in blogs and not everything going on behind the scenes is an evil plot to sell us out to the Corporate Illuminati Conspiracy.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-tc-nw-healthcare-obama-1003-oct04,0,1969667.story
@shamus: Bingo!
What we are talking about ultimately ending up with is a combination of the weak HR3200 with the weaker Baucus bill. No universal coverage and a weak, triggered public option. It’ll cost just under a trillion and I have yet to see any bill that actually reduces the cost of health care.
“There’s more going on than you read about in blogs and not everything going on behind the scenes is an evil plot to sell us out to the Corporate Illuminati Conspiracy”
I like your comments.
Folks,
Now is not the time to engage in “friendly fire”.(Hate that label. Why is it not called what it is; Faulty Ally Fire?)
We are on the battlefield, and the enemy is in our sights. Aim your guns at the foe in front of us, instead of firing down our own lines.
We can evaluate how our officers commanded, after the battle has ended. Flood Senator Reid’s office with messages of encouragement, to fight for a Robust Public Option.
That’s exactly right Liam.
The insurance industry is spending $1M/day to KILL HCR.
The Republican Terrorist Operation is threatening to filibuster legislation that they are supposedly “not holding up.”
THEY are the enemies to progress.
In all, 61 members of Congress—39 in the Senate, 22 in the House, 38 Democrats and 23 Republicans—got money from 10 or more outside lobbyists whose healthcare or health insurance industry clients also contributed to their campaigns.
http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2009/10/hidden-bundles-of-lobbyist-giv.html
I spent Sat. with Organizing for America and I can tell all of you they are focused like a laser beam on Health care and the PO. No equivocation from the grassroots, and that’s all they are working on right now. We’re doing phone banks next week and I’ll find out more tonight about plans going forward.
Well, I know what we could expect from the Republicans. I just got an email from the Roger Williams, the Republican running for Fluffy Hutchison’s senate seat. He is calling health care reform the “biggest government take over over health care since Medicare. In other words, the Republicans don’t like Medicare and would cheerfully get rid of it and kill granny off for real.
Grayson was right!
Freehold
I’ve been talking about that for weeks. The progressive and grassroots organizations have been raising money and producing ads to counter the lobbyist influence in HCR. Baucus is one of the worst, which is why a lot of us are not too excited about the bill the way he wrote it. It’s a little better now but they’re not done yet.
And here is a really nice summary of overall political donations by source going back some years…
http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/list.php?type=L
“In all, 61 members of Congress—39 in the Senate, 22 in the House, 38 Democrats and 23 Republicans—got money from 10 or more outside lobbyists whose healthcare or health insurance industry clients also contributed to their campaigns. ”
Will y’all PLEASE get over the notion that every donation is a quid pro quo.
It’s not.
“Will y’all PLEASE get over the notion that every donation is a quid pro quo.”
Oh.
Only when it’s evil corporations giving to Repugs?
Beware of Right Wing Anti Health Care Reform posters, who suddenly want you to get mad at Democrats, by telling you about who they accepted donations from.
Keep in mind, it was Delay Republicans that gave us K Street on Steroids, and gave us Jack Abramoff, and no Republicans tried to stop it.
Do not take the bait. They are losing the health care reform battle, so now, at this late date, they are trying to divide and conquer.
Do not even use the links he is feeding you. He must think that you are all a bunch of suckers, that he can fool easily. He did not post those links to help get reform passed. He posted them in order to get you to turn on members of your own party.
“Only when it’s evil corporations giving to Repugs?”
If you say so. I never did.
Holy ****, freehold! Thanks for the link. Not much red near the top of that list!
Beware of those who provide data from unbiased, non-partisan sources…
Hey Greg – remember that email I forwarded you from Bill Frist?
If he isn’t positioning himself as the “I am not a guano-insane Republican” candidate in ‘12, I’m Marie the Queen of Romania. He’s walked his “moral imperative” in favor of public option back slightly, but not by much.
““Only when it’s evil corporations”
Let me explain something to you. If there were a Evil Corporate Illuminati Conspiracy that ran the world, I’d have a jewelry collection that would rival Queen Elizabeth’s, because Mr. Tena would be in on it.
Alas, there is no Evil Corporate Illuminati Conspiracy running the world, and I most assuredly do not have a jewelry collection that rivals the Queen of England’s. Makes me almost wish the stupid conspiracy existed.
an Evil…
In other words, sbj – I don’t consider corporations intrinsically evil. They have one raison d’etre – to make a profit. So they do what they can to fulfill that raison d’etre. That is only to be expected.
I consider the lack of regulation that should be controlling the natural corporate aim of endless profit, evil.
The Republicans are responsible for that.
“Alas, there is no Evil Corporate Illuminati Conspiracy running the world.”
Apparently not. If you’ll check the link you’ll see that it’s the American Fedn of State, County & Municipal Employees, Goldman Sachs, the American Assn for Justice, the Intl Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, the National Education Assn, the Laborers Union, the Service Employees International Union, the Carpenters & Joiners Union, the Teamsters Union, and the Communications Workers of America.
“Apparently not. If you’ll check the link you’ll see that it’s the American Fedn of State, County & Municipal Employees, Goldman Sachs, the American Assn for Justice, the Intl Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, the National Education Assn, the Laborers Union, the Service Employees International Union, the Carpenters & Joiners Union, the Teamsters Union, and the Communications Workers of America.”
You are so ******* maddening – you are the one who posted at me “only if evil corporations donate to Republicans”
And I’m correcting your stupid myopia about me – and you can’t stay on point.
sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeit -
@Tena,
Reminds me of the old Peter Cook & Dudley Moore bit;
Cook: Did you hear that the Crown Jewels got pinched?
Moore; No I didn’t, can they be recovered?
Cook: Too soon to tell, Prince Philip is still in intensive care.
@tena: Have you not called the private health insurance corporations evil?
sbj, so you are FOR regulation of political campaign contributions then right?
You do realize that the Right HATES the idea, right?
RE: Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 aka McCain/Feingold:
176 out of 189 GOP Reps VOTED NO
38 out of 40 GOP Senators VOTED NO
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d107:HR02356:@@@R
95% of Congressional Republicans on the record AGAINST campaign finance reform
Why can’t these idiots want and get the bill out of the finance committee before making announcements like this? Every time Ried says there will be a public option the finance committee finds another reason to delay.
@ethan: Actually, I’m against unions forcing their members to contribute to political campaigns with which they might disagree.
And McCain/Feingold is poor law, and I am, in general, in favor of unfettered speech.
“unfettered speech” is code for poll tax. The rich have a right to more speech than the poor. That is what the Right Wingers mean, by “Money is Freedom of Speech”. Scalia actually reinstated the Poll Tax, with that ruling.
So, sbj, your righteous indignation in several posts was fake? That’s a shock. You are busted. Liar and hypocrite.
“@tena: Have you not called the private health insurance corporations evil?”
I don’t think so, but one never knows what one might have said in a fit of pique.
I would have no problem seeing them out of business, but I’m the one who keeps pointing out the reasons why we can’t do that. At least not all at once. For one thing, the industry employs a lot of people and unemployment is high enough. And they are one of the biggest investors on the planet -that’s what they do with our money. The money is tied up all over the place – muni bonds that finance cities’ projects, T bills and notes that represent money lent to the federal government; then there are stocks and corporate bonds and on and on and on.
“and I am, in general, in favor of unfettered speech.”
Ahem. There is no such thing as “unfettered speech.”
Reid’s feeble mind probably believes a lot of things that have no connection to reality. Why don’t we hear from Senator Byrd or Tim Johnson. How many Dem Senators is it now who are stroked out and drooling?
Reid doesn’t get it. We don’t give a god damn about any stinking moderates. We want 51 votes and Medicare for every god damn one of us. You arrange the god damn taxes to pay for it and shut your god damn mouth. Do you understand?
The U.S. ranks 17th in World Health. We have a lower life expectancy and higher infant mortality rates. Our health care system costs 16% of GDP and, still, 47 million Americans have no insurance.
Meanwhile, the health insurance industry cashes in $billions in profits.
This fight isn’t about insuring everyone – its about breaking the stranglehold the insurance companies have on our economy visa vie the Senators they have bought. Those Senators who can not see that and appreciate that will be voted out of office on both sides of the isle.
Paul Burke
Author-Journey Home
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These are TRUE MIND CONTROL SLAVES that are being made and used for drug mules, international assassins, *** slaves, suicide bombers and secret messengers. This could be anyone, from your congressman to your cable guy.
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