McConnell: Snowe’s Break With GOP No Big Deal Because This Bill Will Never Become Law
Senator Olympia Snowe’s surprise announcement today that she’ll vote for the Senate Finance Committee bill is the first decisive legislative break by any Republican from the GOP caucus overall on health care, and as such, it’s a big step towards realizing reform.
But GOP Senate leader Mitch McConnell has found the upside in the news: The Finance bill will never become law; and in any case, the real final bill is being worked out by Dems behind closed doors, and it doesn’t constitute “real reform.” McConnell’s office sends over a statement from him:
Senator Snowe called me this morning to let me know that while she continues to have serious, substantive policy reservations with this proposal, she wanted to keep the process moving. I share her concerns about the direction of this bill once it leaves the committee, and her call for transparency before we vote to proceed to any bill on the floor.
The fact is, this proposal will never come before the Senate. But what we do know is that the bill written behind closed doors here in the Capitol will be another 1,000-page, trillion-dollar Washington takeover. We know it will slash a half-trillion dollars from seniors’ Medicare, add new taxes and raise premiums. That’s not reform.
It’s very possible that Snowe’s reasonable, bipartisan posture now will make it easier for her to not support the final bill later. The flipside, though, is that Snowe’s support means there’s no longer any credible way that Republicans can argue that Dems didn’t pursue bipartisan compromise — and it serves as a reminder that the vast majority of Republicans refused to support reform, despite many concessions from Dems.
Those simple facts give reform a big burst of momentum going forward. Getting interesting.
Update: The bill passes the Finance committee, 14-9, meaning the negotiations over the final Senate bill are underway.
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Well of course they’re going to say that. Whatever Snowe does next, we are still moving forward – as you said.
>>>the vast majority of Republicans refused to support reform, despite many concessions from Dems<<<
Yup. Nailed. No turning back. Not for Snowe. Not for anybody.
McConnell is a talking point machine. It’s almost comical.
Seriously, isn’t it blatantly obvious to people the guy is just echoing group tested talking points non stop?
I kinda feel sorry for the guy, having no original thoughts come out of his mouth. I understand he’s got a role to play as the leader of the minority but hot dang that’s gotta be an uncomfortable role being the leader of what is probably the most disliked party in the history of the United States. Apart from the 20%-25% of self proclaimed Republicans, the guy must come across as a fraud.
Senator Mitch McConnel(R)
In A Nutshell.
“I do not mind that Senator Snowe did something stupid, and voted for a terrible bill.”
Hahaha, man their leadership is absolutely delusional. I think I could hear fundamental conservative heads explode.
Vote is done. No small thing here. Bravo.
Greg
Here’s video of Repubs on Fox responding to vote. Notice all the signs around them.
http://www.foxnews.com/video/?playerId=videolandingpage&maven_playlistId=df4b3c7f18eea1b3fb97a8f822a8879495713cb3&maven_referrer=rss&referralPlaylistId=df4b3c7f18eea1b3fb97a8f822a8879495713cb3&referralObject=10632901
First video is Rep Price going on and on about Tort reform. Scroll down to next video of Hatch.
Sounds like SOUR GRAPES!
Signs you’re having a bad day: 1) major effort against HCR fails 2) website re-launch plagued with crashes.
The RNC’s big relaunch of its website has not gone so well today. In the last hour or so, the site has been crashing periodically. The Obama campaign’s former online guru, Joe Rospars, tells TPMDC: “You know your web program is in trouble when your site can’t even handle the traffic bump from people making fun of your web program.”
Zzzzzzing!
Jeez Bernie – it took me 5 minutes just to load the damn LDS commercial!
Iz innocent…innocent I tellz ya!
Hahaha. Price (Terrorist-GA): “Stop govt spending, stop HCR… STOP STOP STOP.” HA HA HA!
Ok, I’ve got to go down to Taos Lighting to see if I can find the light bulbs that go in the weird little light over the sink -
later
Snowe’s support means there’s no longer any credible way that Republicans can argue that Dems didn’t pursue bipartisan compromise
This is just silly, Greg. One or two votes from the minority side hardly makes anything bipartisan. If you had a majority of each parties, sure.
I don’t know that there is a defined minimum but I’d say 1/4 or more of the minority party would be a reasonable benchmark for bipartisan legitimacy, so 10 or so votes in a 60/40 Senate.
Not that this will slow down the claims one bit.
I still like Senator Kyl(R) Arizona, reason for voting against the reform bill.
He pretty much said; Since we Republicans have put over 10% of the people out of work, we can not afford to help them out.
And from Harry Reid:
I am pleased that the Senate Finance Committee voted today to pass their health insurance reform proposal. This represents another critical step toward bringing real change to our broken health insurance system.
“I praise the leadership of Chairman Baucus for guiding this proposal through his Committee. Sen. Snowe is also to be commended for voting for this proposal in the face of immense pressure from opponents of reform. Her courage to stick with her principles in the face of an increasingly partisan environment in Washington, DC is heartening and should serve as a reminder that health care is an issue that should defy party labels.”
“In the Senate, we now move to the important work of merging the proposals of the HELP and Finance Committees with the committee chairmen and the White House in order to craft a bill that can garner 60 votes in the Senate. We remain committed to passing legislation that lowers costs, creates competition, improves quality of care and preserves choice.”
Freehold
He didn’t say they achieved bi-partisanship. It just shows that they pursued it.
Those Faux vids are HILARIOUS. Watch the Rove “fact check” one. Omg. He breaks out the white board. Goodness. The Anthony Weiner video is great if you want to see some hardcore cognitive dissonance on the host’s part when Weiner (D-Truth) says the Baucus bill isn’t strong enough and needs PO.
If there were sound effects, you would have heard a big BAZOING! when Weiner said the final bill needs a strong PO.
I’m really shocked that everyone is missing the point.
Snowe voted for this because it was the best option to water down HCR. If she had voted no, even on a bill that expressly refused to have a public option to try and get her vote, then it would have ended any reason to placate to her anymore.
If she voted no, the bill still would have passed, and every Democrat could say “Look, even without a public option, she won’t vote for it. So put it in, use our 60, and move this to the floor.”
Now that she has teased, and make no mistake it’s a tease, that she’ll vote for the final bill…Dem leadership will have to keep the bill more watered down with the bogus “well if we make it more progressive, we’ll LOSE her support!”
This vote is a setback for the public option.
Too soon to tell if it is or not.
We just got a first down, and got out from under the shadow of our own goal posts. There is the Congressional side to be dealt with, and they are not going to surrender to the demands of one Republican Senator.
A Cloture vote is when we finally cross the fifty yard line. Let us see what develops. PO or Snowe? Snowe or PO? If it comes down to that choice, I doubt if many Democratic PO backers in the Senate, will opt for Snowe over PO.
“This vote is a setback for the public option.”
BBQ is correct! (See also http://www.tnr.com/blog/the-stash/olympia-snowes-vote-thanks-no-thanks.)
I have not quite been able to figure out how a vote for a bill without any sort of public option provides momentum for a robust public option?
Note also Reid’s careful construction: “To craft a bill that can garner 60 votes in the Senate.”
“A Cloture vote is when we finally cross the fifty yard line.”
???
More like a cloture vote is a first down with inches to goal.
SBJ,
In your Premature Mission Accomplished Delusional World.
A vote that successfully ends a filibuster might be first down & inches to go, but that also remains to be seen.
Breaking News:
This Just In.
Republican National Headquarters announce that a search of their archives have uncovered historical documentation which proves that Jackie Robinson was a White Republican, and that he was the first White player to ever have played on the Negro Professional Croquet League.
This GOP.com epic fail is totally hilarious.
Michael Steele’s blog is called ‘What Up?’ …. for real.
“Bush ordered 250k troops into Iraw.”
Marc Ambinder lists the top 10 reasons the RNC website is a failure, including, “When the RNC hosted a kick-off conference call, the website was down,” and “The first question on the conference call was from an Hispanic Republican who asked why the GOP site didn’t have a Spanish-language page and noted that the White House had one.”
More at TP and TPM… the actual site is still experiencing outages… too funny.
We Progressives need to start putting Pejorative names on these proposals, like the Republicans have done, with their Patriot Act, etc.
We should start calling it The Opt-Out, if you want to let the sick people of your State Die Senator, Option.
We want to pass a universal health care bill, but if you want to not keep the sick people of your state alive, then by all means vote for an Opt-Option, Senator……Your State’s Senator’s name here.
@ethan: “GOP Posts Password, Admin Instructions on New Web Site”
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dc/2009/10/gop-posts-passwords-admin-inst.html#ixzz0TqpSAjLr
@oddjob: “A vote that successfully ends a filibuster might be first down & inches to go, but that also remains to be seen.”
For sure. It was interesting (to me) to see that Leiberman doesn’t even support the Baucus bill, let alone something stronger. The next two weeks will be interesting – I expect to hear a lot more along the lines of “They’re writing this in secret!”
Weeks and weeks ago Lieberman came out against doing any health care reform at all until the economy improves (at which point I’m sure he’ll think of another reason to oppose doing it).
“@ethan: “GOP Posts Password, Admin Instructions on New Web Site””
ROFLMAO!!!!!!
When Republicans have been in Power, from Reagan through Bush2, they never even tried to pass Health care reform. When they get voted out of power, for wrecking the global economy, then they say we can not afford health care reform, because we Republicans have caused so many people to lose their jobs, that we can not afford to help them.
Who expected Lieberman to side the Democrats? Not Lieberman – he is one peronsally vengeful little man. I didn’t expect anything out of him. He’s permanently miffed at the Democrats.
For some reason when I read “GOP Posts Password, Admin Instructions on New Web Site” my response is:
And you wanna be my latex salesman?
The Bush Republicans spent all their time giving money to each other for their districts, sticking their tongues out at the Democrats and saying “Nyah nyah nyah! We won!” and trying to pass all kinds of social legislation to take rights from people.
The managed to make it harder for people to file personal bankruptcy; they threatened to make it impossible for **** and lesbians’ rights to ever be recognized, they threatened to take women’s rights away from them, they threatened to take Social Security away from our seniors, they managed to go through the largest budget surplus in history and wreck the economy.
That’s what the Republicans did. They made poor people poorer, made more people poor, wouldn’t let the EPA do its job, put minders on government scientists, like this was the USSR, tapped our phone lines, read our email and god knows what else.
“god knows what else”
Murdered about 250,000 people in Iraq… among other things…
god knows what else
Collapsed the stock market in a manner not seen since 1929 (when they also were in power and advocating that the government do as little regulating as possible) that they’d touted to everyone as the best possible way to finance your retirement.
Of course, what hasn’t been much noted (although I know of a curmudgeonly blog where it was) was that pretty much the entire Bush presidency was a money-loser for the average stock investor. Even before the meltdown, and pretty much all along, when you adjusted for inflation a portfolio indexed to the Dow Jones Industrial Average (or the NASDAQ, or the S&P 500) declined (at varying rates of course) through all of Shrub’s presidency (compared to where it was when he took his first oath of office). If I understand correctly (& strongly believe I do) that portfolio has yet to return to the peak it achieved during Bill Clinton’s presidency.
among other things…
You mean like looking the other way while the Bush authorized torture?
(Sorry. “Bush”, not “the Bush”.)
The reality is that the GOP asserts that it offers better ideas about how to govern.
But it actually offers worse ideas.
“god knows what else”
You forgot “tortured people”.
It offers worse ideas.
(Unless of course you’re already among the very wealthy. Then its ideas are perfect for you!)
I would be interested to know what the people in Snowe’s state think about health care reform.
Do they contact her to tell her that they want health reform? If so, has she just been ignoring them?
I also find it imazing to hear that some Democratic congress members are JUST NOW DISCOVERING THAT THEIR CONSTITUENTS WANT HEALT CARE REFORM.
What am I missing here?
I wonder if Baucus and Conrad got her to vote for his bill by saying, “unless you want the final bill to have a public option then you need to support my bill”. Without Snowe’s vote the public option was for sure. Now it’s a toss up since Baucus can say his bill is bipartisan.