Obama Tells Liberals Public Option Doesn’t Have Votes
* In a private meeting at the White House this afternoon, Obama told a roomful of House Dems he doesn’t think the votes are there to pass the public option, and urged them to take the long view and to support the Senate bill as merely the beginning of reform, Dem Rep Lynn Woolsey tells me.
Also: Obama thanked the assembled, mostly liberals, for their ongoing insistence from the left over the months that the bill be improved, Woolsey says. “He thanked us,” she recalled. “He said the bill wouldn’t have been nearly as good as it is if we hadn’t advocated.”
Woolsey, the co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, who was present with around seven or eight other liberals, says Obama compared the health reform fight to the passage of Social Security and Medicare.
“He was very clear: He thought this was as good as it’s going to get,” Woolsey said, referring to the plan to pass the Senate bill and fix it via reconciliation.
“He encouraged us to understand that this is the beginning of health care reform, not the end of it — and that we will fix it later, as we have with Social Security and Medicare,” she continued.
“He doesn’t believe the Senate has 51 votes for the public option,” Woolsey said, characterizing Obama’s remarks to the assembled.
But Woolsey says she’s now a definite Yes on the Senate bill, provided the reconciliation fix is adequate, even if it lacks a public option.
*************************************
Happy Hour Roundup:
* Former No Vote Moves To Undecided:
Dem Rep John Boccieri, who voted No on the health bill last time, is now undecided on the Senate proposal, his office confirms. In a statement emailed my way, Boccieri said:
“After reviewing the President’s health care proposal and watching portions of his bipartisan health care summit, I’m encouraged the proposal contains important provisions to reduce fraud, waste, and abuse and reduce the deficit. I am hopeful that going forward from last week’s summit with bipartisan ideas, we can finally move toward providing affordable, quality coverage for everyone.”
Boccieri represents a new addition to the “undecided” camp, so expect him to be lobbied hard.
* But: Dem Rep Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin, a previous No vote who was thought to be undecided this time, is now a definite No on the Senate bill and reconciliation.
* Cheney Fearmongering Fail: Sam Stein reports that Liz Cheney’s latest McCarthyite smear is even at odds with conservative legal heavyweight Theodore Olsen, who as the lead counsel in Bush v. Gore helped make Dick Veep!
* Relatedly, a nice catch by Spencer Ackerman: The two GOP Senators leading the Cheney-ite smear of the “Al Qaeda seven” actually voted for the act that enshrined the right of terror detainees to defense counsel.
* More: Adam Serwer gets Condolleezza Rice’s former legal adviser to condemn the Cheney smear.
* Amy Sullivan explains why health reform proponents shouldn’t quake with fear every time Bart Stupak opens his mouth.
* Getting the GOP to filibuster in person on the floor may be seductive to some liberals, but it also may be a non-starter.
* CNN fact-checks White House claim that health bill has GOP ideas, calls it (largely) for the White House.
* Obama reads riot act to insurance execs, tells them rate hikes are “unacceptable and unsustainable.”
* And Michael Roston says the Eric Massa mess isn’t really comparable to the Mark Foley scandal, but Dems had damn well deal with it in a hurry anyway or squander what’s left of their moral high ground.
What else is happening?
Update: The Progressive Change Campaign Committee’s Adam Green emails a response to Obama’s claim the votes aren’t there for the public option:
Obama is telling America, “No, we can’t.” But we’ve been showing more and more each day, “Yes, we can” pass the public option. If President Obama doesn’t think the votes exist in the Senate, he needs to name which senators would oppose it. If he can’t or won’t, there’s no reason for House progressives to be part of the White House’s loser mentality.
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I’m going to drop in a piece by Digby on the Cheney/Kristol ad…
“It’s another example of the patented “I know you are but what am I” routine which the Republicans have perfected over the years. This one is obviously designed to create some equivalency in the minds of citizens between the heinous torture advocates Yoo, Bybee, Addington etc, and defense lawyers who, by definition, very often defend guilty clients. Indeed, it’s a cornerstone of our judicial system. I assume the right wing radio talkers will spin the idea that these defense lawyers are terrorist sympathizers hard and before long, we’ll have full fledged debates about whether or not they should be disbarred. At that point, most Americans will tune out and say “they’re all scum” and that will be that.
But the larger point is that this kind of argument, however cynically designed to cover Dick Cheney’s historical legacy, results in the same ripping of the social contract as the torture “controversy.” Over time a fair number of people begin to believe that something we were all taught in grade school as an absolute — a constitutional right to counsel — is controversial. And another piece of our consensus about what the constitution means will have been destroyed (by some very creepy authoritarians, I might add.)
And the greatest irony of all this is that for decades one of the most famous screeching critics of what they used to call moral relativism was none other than Lynne Cheney. Shamelessness and hypocrisy doesn’t even begin to explain it.”
Too bad the 45,000 who are going to die can’t “take the long view.” But who cares, they’re peasants anyhow.
Good night Tena. Got to get up early and GTT. Since your from there you should know what it means.
“Actuator”, there is a point where making excuses for moral bankruptcy IS moral bankruptcy.
Corporate-insurers provide NO service other than money changing.
They don’t apply bandages, they don’t do surgery, they don’t clean bedpans.
Corporate insurers just loot their customers by failing to provide them healthcare.
Every dollar denied a Customer in healthcare is a dollar a Corporate-insurance CEO puts in their pocket.
Consider how many customers the CEO Corporate bureaucrats had to RATION to make these millions last year:
http://www.healthreformwatch.com/2009/05/20/health-insurance-ceos-total-compensation-in-2008
The Corporate-insurance industry IS the “Death Panel”, they make money off of Americans pain and suffering.
While right wing predators can justify the sick Corporate-insurance industry, anyone with a conscience would rather it be completely replaced with a healthier progressive solution.
“word” simply means “I heard you”
Why did Social Security not get an increase?? Read this one!
According to the Trustees for the Social Security Administration, ” THERE WILL NOT BE A COST OF LIVING INCREASE FOR THE NEXT TWO YEARS IN SOCIAL SECURITY BENEFITS. ADDITIONALLY THEY WILL RAISE YOUR CO-PAY FOR YOUR RX MEDICARE BENEFITS ” !
They, the Congress ( BOTH ” REPUBLICAN AND DEMOCRATS TOGETHER “) say no increase is warranted because of the losses in gross national product and other cute things..
NOW HERE SPORTS FANS THIS IS THE ONE THAT WILL FLIP YOU OUT!! –
THE SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION IS FUNDING TWENTY FOUR MILLION DOLLARS– 24,000,000.00 DOLLARS FOR NEW ELECTRONIC
MEDICAL RECORDS PROCESSING FOR OUR
CONGRESSMEN AND SENATORS !!
THEY ARE OBTAINING THESE FUNDS and I QUOTE DIRECTLY FROM THE SOCIAL SECURITY WEBSITE……………
” THIS MONEY WILL COME FROM THE SAVINGS TO BE GENERATED FROM WITHHOLDING ” COST OF LIVING INCREASES FOR 2010 & 2011 in
SOCIAL SECURITY BENEFITS FOR THE ELDERLY AND A $2.00 INCREASE ON ALL MEDICARE RX BENEFIT CO-PAY”
Please pass this to ALL your friends and have them “PROTEST TO THE IDIOTS WE ELECTED TO CONGRESS ” who by the way, have just voted themselves ANOTHER 3% SALARY INCREASE!!!
Just another reason government can’t be trusted to keep their promises and spend the peoples money in the best interests of the people. The truth is, since it is not their money they could less whether it is wasted and have a lot of incentive to spend the money on what they want and need, not what the people want and need.
Okay, it’s official now, no one can continue to blame the liberals (progressives) if the Senate bill does not pass the House. They have accepted the President’s assurances, the only ones holding the bill hostage are the blue dogs and the “sepsis” stupaks. What are we going to do about it now that we can’t blame progressives anymore?
“People still have a problem being truthful about what’s stopping the House from passing a health care bill tomorrow. House liberals have brooked every compromise, made every harsh vote, lost virtually every big fight, and still backed the bill. Raul Grijalva, who just, um, a day ago talked about leaning no on the final passage, heard enough happy talk from Barack Obama to flip right back to support today. That was never, ever in doubt. They’ll accept the assurance from the President that he will sign the Senate bill and the reconciliation sidecar in tandem, and that’s that. They don’t need much convincing.
The hurdle to this approach remains Blue Dogs and the Stupak 12, and if the House doesn’t meet their deadline, that’s the reason, pure and simple. Diana DeGette may be confident that Bart Stupak and his anti-choicers can’t kill the bill, but he’s certainly confident that he does, to the extent that he’s proclaiming that House leaders “don’t have 10 votes for the Senate bill.”
http://news.firedoglake.com/2010/03/04/reminder-liberals-not-the-problem-on-passing-health-care/
lms, good post and agree that progressives have compromised the most on the bill as it stands now. Hopefully this process has raised a lot of consciousness about how HC can be further reformed.
And the righties who can’t understand what “word” or “one love” means are either stupid or juvenile smart asses. I like a smart ***, but please be funny or, you know, smart.
“He thanked us,” she recalled. “He said the bill wouldn’t have been nearly as good as it is if we hadn’t advocated.”
And yet he allowed his pet pitbull Rahm to repeatedly attack and insult and belittle progressives, and liberals, both the voters and congress persons, and allowed him to cut liberal representatives and their voters off at the knees in the press, and refer to us retards and to continues to do allow the above even now.
He has lost much of our support by allowing that to go on and has given a tremendous amount of ammunition to the Republicans and Tee Baggers by allowing his administration to insult his voters.
Saying thank you to congress and serving up a **** piece of legislation is like offering his hand and then sucker punching us.
The public doesn’t play political games. Obama can’t make promises then break them, say yes one day then no the next, then repromise and rebrake the promise and expect the voters to tolerate that kind of treatment or to maintain any respect for being treated that way. Congressmen can be bought. Voters can’t.
sbj, if you’re still around or checking in, I didn’t mean to imply earlier that CA doesn’t still have the opportunity for a good education, we still have both good schools and great teachers. It’s just that fewer students can afford it or have access to the limited resources now because of such huge budget cuts.
All of our five went to public school and college here and were successful. This is the first time one is leaving the state to get a better education than she can receive here and it’s a troubling sign for the future.
Don’t presume to speak 4 tena but,
“One love…”
Harkens, for this tao, Rb. Marley & de Wailers:
“…one heart, let’s get together & feel alright.”
JahLove.
Word.
@lmsinca: Looks as if we may be heading towards the small bill that I was ridiculed for just the other day. We shall see.
And I agree that budget cuts that force college tuitions to go up are something to be avoided. I do hope, however, that some of these folks protesting realize just how good they have it here in CA. Even with the increase the cost of 2-yr and 4-yr university is really low compared to back East. And I have to grind my teeth when I hear someone saying they can’t afford a college education when we have some really excellent community colleges that are, you must admit, practically free. What are they? $50 a unit plus books? C’mon now!
Ezra Klein nails it (what else is new, I guess). From a chat transcript posted on his blog:
Public Option letter
Hi Ezra, I was just wondering what the chances are that the public option could gain momentum again? It seem unlikely but then why are more and more senators signing this letter? And what happens if the letter gets 50 votes?
Ezra Klein writes:
I’m really caught on how to cover this. As you say, the letter really has a lot of signatures now. 39, if I remember correctly. But in my reporting, I can’t get the people I trust to say, yes, take this seriously. The White House has pretty much said it doesn’t want to do this. Pelosi has said it’s unlikely. So these offices have a low-cost way to please the left by signing this letter, but they don’t actually expect to have to do the work of getting the public option passed. If that tips at any point, I’ll let you know, but as of now, the whole thing reads a little deceitfully to me.
———————————————————————————————————————-
The whole thing is worth the read, BTW. Even the part about the zombies.
Rachel Maddow goes all psycho on Liz Cheney tonight. Kent Jones had to fake arrest her.
Liz Cheney’s balls are in the vice.
sbj, I totally agree our community colleges still rock and since my daughter is an awesome teacher at one of them they rock even more. But, a community college only gets you an AA and entrance into a four year college if you want it.
Also, my daughter attended the college she is now teaching for and it’s different now than it was not that long ago. It’s much more difficult to get the classes you need to satisfy the requirements.
Hey, we both live and work in CA and understand the challenges but probably disagree on the fix.
tao, you must look cool on your cabin porch with the long dreads….
also sbj, we’ll see about the small bill, but I see you read my intriguing post re the small reconciliation bill. I thought it was an interesting idea but I’m not sure you’d approve of the results.
@lmsinca: “Hey, we both live and work in CA and understand the challenges but probably disagree on the fix.”
Gotta admit – I don’t know how to fix this mess. We’re all gonna have to eat a bit of **** pie, methinks.
@lmsinca: “I thought it was an interesting idea but I’m not sure you’d approve of the results.”
I’m gonna keep an open mind and evaluate once I see it. First we need an up or down vote in the House on the senate bill. It won’t pass. Then I guess they’ll move to debate a smaller bill. Who knows what it will include. I’m guessing they’ll try to pick up at least a few GOP votes so they can pass the 60 vote threshold in the Senate and avoid reconciliation. If so, it might not be so bad. Maybe they can get something passed by November.
sbj, you know I love ya when we agree. It’s rare but occasionally we do. Who are you thinking should follow the “Terminator”, not Meg I hope?
Well, I remember Brown (and Ronstadt) and I’m not eager to go through that again. Don’t know much about Meg but she seems to have a lot of money. I don’t know why anyone would want the job. No one has my vote yet.
lmsinca:
(quoting Congressman Garamendi at FDL):
“Other studies show that for every dollar the state invests in UC and CSU, it gets back $5.67 and $4.41 respectively in long term economic output. Taking a long view, higher education in California pays for itself and then some, meaning every qualified student we force away from a higher education is a dent in California’s productivity and output. Taxing students is simply bad fiscal policy.”
Which completely beggars the question of WHY California’s flagship universities are putting the bite on their current and potential students.
Unless the “studies” Garamendi is citing are totally bogus fabrications.
This is the case, of course. Not all educations are equal.
This is why a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering with a “B” average is going to make more starting money than a magna *** laude Women’s Studies Bachelor of Arts.
Chemical Engineer gal goes off and invents Oxi-Clean.
Women’s Studies dude rages against “the Man” while he’s still delivering pizzas 10 years down the road.
tao, thanks for the Marley post re “One Love”, I couldn’t put my finger on it until you posted it. We always listen to an awful lot of Bob on the way to Vegas, he just gels with the desert for me.
lmsinca:
” Who are you thinking should follow the “Terminator”, not Meg I hope?”
You didn’t ax me, but I understand that Vicente Fox is available…
CalD:
(quoting Ezra Klein):
” So these offices have a low-cost way to please the left by signing this letter, but they don’t actually expect to have to do the work of getting the public option passed. If that tips at any point, I’ll let you know, but as of now, the whole thing reads a little deceitfully to me.”
Wasn’t I saying essentially this like a WEEK ago?
This is the Senatorial version of the “Participation Award” to the moonbat Left.
“See, Moonbats? I SUPPORTED the PO->Single Paya->Socialist UtopiaCare to the bitter end! Nice moonbats! May I have your vote and some campaign monies? You don’t want to lose me up there speaking Truth to Power,(they know you goobs flop over on your backs for a belly rub when someone uses that term), amidst all those eeeeevil Rethuglikkkans who want to make Granny pay for the abortion that they’re not going to let her have!”
Bob Marley and Nas; I really get it from Nas – Illmatic – there’s a joint on it called One Love. I listen to Illmatic constantly. The greatest rap album ever laid down. Never get tired of it.
Have a great weekend, peeps.
See y’all next week.
And – One Love.
“Which completely beggars the question of WHY California’s flagship universities are putting the bite on their current and potential students.”
Did you miss the lack of funding Bilgey? Most of our public Universities depend upon some tax revenue. Do you live in a state where they don’t?
And I know you’ll totally freak out when I say my pick for Gov. would have been Gavin. I know I’m a DFH but I just can’t seem to help it. Jerry Brown is way past his prime and I’m looking for the younger, cooler, candidate.
Also Bilgey, I’ve been telling everyone I know with high school or college age kids to try to push them into science. We agree that is where the opportunity lies. The problem is when you’re an artist, writer, humanitarian, computer geek or whatever, science just doesn’t do it for you. Everyone has to follow their own path and hope for the best.
The Government’s jobs numbers for February get released tomorrow, along with revisions to January and December ‘09. All projections across the board point to bad news. We will find out tomorrow but NPR explains what some are saying is the reason for the skewed numbers:
NPR.ORG
By Jacob Goldstein
Tomorrow morning, the government will publish its monthly jobs numbers for February. The figures are supposed to answer a key question about the economy: How quickly are we adding or losing jobs?
Because of last month’s blizzards, though, the February numbers will be rather messy.
The numbers come from a government survey that always asks businesses how many employees were paid during the pay period that includes the 12th of the month (regular employees get paid once per pay period).
As it happens, Feb. 12 was right when the East Coast was getting hammered by big snowstorms that kept lots of people home.
The snow won’t make any difference in the survey for people who made it into work at least once during the pay period that included Feb. 12. The snow also won’t affect people who didn’t make it into work during that period but got paid anyway.
“We’re talking about a very particular type of worker — an hourly worker, maybe only works a few days a week, and really could miss work and not get paid,” Joel Prakken, the chairman of a consulting firm called Macroeconomic Advisers, told me.
Somewhere between 150,000 and 220,000 people may fall into that group, Prakken said. (His rough estimate is based on the effects a big storm in 1996 had on the numbers.)
That group is big enough to have a significant effect on the numbers. Between December and January, for example, total number of jobs declined by 20,000.
So the effects of the snowstorms are likely to overwhelm whatever monthly change would have happened in February if the weather had cooperated. The numbers will paint an unrealistically bleak portrait of the employment landscape.
lmsinca:
“Did you miss the lack of funding Bilgey? Most of our public Universities depend upon some tax revenue. Do you live in a state where they don’t?”
The state university system here in the Old Dominion is not
at issue, the one in California IS.
And my point is that if Garamendi’s cites were on the up and up, then California could “spend its way to prosperity”…heck, man, a “4 for 1″ return is better than dishwasher-safe s*e*x toys.
But the studies ain’t kosher, and so neither is Garamendi’s sob song to save the government education industry subsidies.
But if they’re starting to look at means-testing subsidies from the basis of whether a course of study yields a decent monetary return to the student and the state, than that’s a glimmer of hope for the future of higher edumacation.
“And my point is that if Garamendi’s cites were on the up and up, then California could “spend its way to prosperity”…heck, man, a “4 for 1″ return is better than dishwasher-safe s*e*x toys.”
Where do you come up with this cr@p? Oh sure, we all know we could spend our way out of a recession, but unfortunately the conservatives at both the state and federal level don’t believe in that kind of investment.
You can claim you think the return on investment would be great if true, and if so why wouldn’t anyone want to get that kind of benefit? Passing legislation or actually allocating money in that direction is another story right?
Please don’t pretend you would fund this kind of investment. Or maybe you would, as long as the students were doing the right kind of research or study you approved of. Puhleeze, don’t patronize me.
“beyond left”: “without the structure of HCR to hang it on, (universal coverage/individual mandate), it will be way harder to get the robust public option/medicare buy in passed”
There’s a lot of “hope” for “change” wrapped up into that.
My prediction: The opposite of what you hope will happen.
If this bill is passed as is, with the buying of CORPORATE Insurance enforced by law (”individual mandate”), it will NEVER be “fixed” the way you hope it will.
Once the Corporate-insurance-industry gets to use the force of law to extract ransoms from 30 million more Americans, a part of that money will be used to buy the politicians required to keep the system in place.
The double-sick-irony is that part of money used to buy off the politicians will be the government subsidies (and the wages of poor and average Americans) that should be used to provide healthcare for Americans.
Instead, government subsidies (and working American’s wages) will go to further enriching an already very sick system of Corporate predation.
As for this Corporate strategy being the equivalent of “universal coverage”, Obama himself ridiculed this as the equivalent of forcing the homeless to buy houses and then claiming that solved homelessness.
But it just gets worse:
Poor folk with this kind of Corporate mandated insurance are still not going to be in a place to use their insurance because the Corporate friendly legislation provides for loopy loopholes to prevent payouts: Massive copays and huge deductibles designed to discourage the use of the insurance are still legal.
Worse, just because you are forcing Citizens by law to buy Corporate insurance doesn’t mean that those Citizens can afford the Corporate insurance even after the weak subsidies.
And while the Corporations may be forced to sell you insurance they can still overcharge you for various things such as if you are older they can charge you THREE times as much as a younger person.
And this how it will be “fixed”: Right-wingers and their newly enriched Corporate-insurance allies will claim that the newly created CORPORATE INSURANCE SCHEME should be expanded to include Medicare.
And on top of all of the predictably bad policy outcomes, the political outcome for the Dems might be even worse once poor and average Americans realize they are now criminals for not paying ransoms to overpaid Corporate-insurance predators.
The worst part of it is that most all of this would be avoidable if Obama lived up to his promise to create a Public insurance Option or at the very minimum lived up to his promise not to force a Corporate mandate.
I don’t understand why these liberals cannot get it into their heads that this is just a start. HCR will be expanded and liberalized in the future, without doubt, if it can just get off the ground now.
All, happy hour roundup posted:
http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/terrorism/the-morning-plum-83/
Bernie (quoting Digby):
Over time a fair number of people begin to believe that something we were all taught in grade school as an absolute — a constitutional right to counsel — is controversial. And another piece of our consensus about what the constitution means will have been destroyed …
If this happens, it will be the fault of people like Digby, not Cheney, because foreign fighters waging war against us do not enjoy the same constitutional rights as American citizens. For Digby to pretend that there isn’t anything controversial about granting foreign terrorists such rights means that he is the one attempting to blur the distinction between foreign fighters waging a war against the US and common domestic criminals. So if the average Joe who quite sensibly objects to granting foreign terrorists these rights eventually comes to see common domestic criminals as equally undeserving of those rights, Digby can blame the left for doing their best to convince people that there is no difference between the two.
scott c: whether military or civilian courts are employed, defendants have a right to council either from the justice dept or the JAG corps. Doesn’t every PERSON (not citizen) deserve the aid of someone to argue their case in any US court?
@ Bilgeman | March 4th, 2010 at 10:58 pm:
”Wasn’t I saying essentially this like a WEEK ago?”
I apologize for missing your comments but of course you were correct in saying that. I’ve been arguing the whole time while in most cases a little harmless pandering like that never hurt anyone, it’s harmful in this case because it plays to the (otherwise) bogus Republican talking point that Democrats are trying to sneak through some massive social policy initiative via budget reconciliation rules.