.
It is clear now that whatever health care bill passes through Congress and gets signed by the president sometime in the new year, it won’t contain a public option. But, but…don’t despair, at least according to one Democratic senator.
Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) told reporters that the public option is not dead. “It will be revisited,” he said. “I’m just saying, I believe it is so vital and so important that it is going to be revisited. Believe me.” The Iowa Democrat said that “even next year,” senators “may be doing some things to modify, to fix, to compliment what we’ve passed here.”
Alright, but they’re still going to need 60 votes regardless of when they try to pass legislation which includes a public option. Republicans will never sign on to it and unless the economy makes a complete recovery by next November, Dems will surely lose a few Senate seats in the midterms. What this all means is that the earliest anyone can expect the public option to be revisited is after 2012 if and when Barack Obama wins a second term and Dems regain their 60 seat majority in the Senate.
Lots of ifs and way too early to be considering seeing a public option in health care any time soon.
___
To receive email notifications of new posts from MarioPiperniDotCom, click on Subscribe.
I don’t think I’ll see a public option in my lifetime. Democrats would need a minimum of 65 seats to ever get anything through the senate.
What if some private insurance companies would be willing to submit to ultra-strict regulation and meet a rigid set of criteria to act as a sort of public option in the insurance Exchange pool? Who says a viable option absolutely has to be administered by state or federal government?
Harkin is also considering a push to change the Senate rules to eliminate that 60-vote requirement (details). This is actually the most important reform to push for right now. Without it, the Democrats will have a very hard time getting anything done without running into the same kind of sabotage.
Hi may be there is still time. Especially if the solid satirists like you confine your abilities to go after the Republicans. I think you should be lampooning our dear leader to wake him up. Obama prevaricated big time; see the PCCC ad, may be you can post it here, with your sharp commentary. Here is the believer in Single Player, who is suggesting Govt Run Plan as something more achievable.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpAyan1fXCE
Here is my attempt:
____________________________________________________________
”He contends that the legislation matches the proposal he campaigned on: “Every single criteria for reform I put forward is in this bill,” adding “I didn’t campaign on the public option.” [By Scott Wilson, Washington Post, December 22, 2009]
I am unhappy and discouraged to see the top man of USA prevaricate and try to revise even the very recent history. During his campaign President promoted the Public Option and to many including me he is the one who introduced the term. Ed Schultz showed a clip where candidate Obama talks about the Public Option with passion. In fact Ed wanted that Obama back. In his umpteen speeches as President, before he stopped talking about it perhaps as a prelude to plausible denial, he espoused the PO as the best means of achieving lowered cost, foster competition and keep the insurance companies honest in following the regulations. In his mind he was leaving the door open for back pedaling when he said he would be open to other solutions if they accomplished “the same” results. So far no alternatives that he has sold or we have learned of deliver “the same” results. I believe in Single Payer but .. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpAyan1fXCE
American public and his supporters, after hearing his speeches, knew that he was a champion of Public Option. As vested interests started pushing hard his fervor started cooling. The claims made by his staff and astonishingly now by the President himself are at best legalese usable in the course of a trial. The claim that he never made an explicit statement promising to get people a Public Option, while literally correct, is spiritually bankrupt. I am pretty sure he did not make any explicit promises (semantically parsing) in many other areas, but sold the ideas implicitly when firing up the crowds. Mr President we are not prosecuting you in a court of law, so all this plausible denial does not restore the weakening commitment of your demoralized supporters. The attached clip from the campaign puts in stark contrast Obama’s belief set during the campaign and his conflict avoiding hands off approach now.
We are not in the habit of asking our leaders to put down their promises explicitly in a notarized document. President has got to know that semantic hair splitting will not polish his image. A change agent who promised to drain the swamp of Washington Politics, can not use the same swamp, perhaps with a few more alligators, as an excuse for his inability to achieve things he believed in and promised.
Mr President it is high time to channel the Barack Obama of 2008 campaign who the people believed in and admired. There is still time to rid your self of the old Washington dead-weight holding you and thus us back.
Shall we watch 200,000 Americans die in front of our eyes?
In the proposed Health Care Reform bills, subsidies and exchanges etc do not start until 8013 / 8014. Apparently all the tears being shed by President and the Democratic Hill dwellers about the 45000 Americans dying every year are at best crocodile tears. I would imagine that for this tragedy which is equal to 15 911′s in human toll, President would have declared a national Emergency to stop these deaths immediately.
How can these compassionate Democrats, accusing Republicans of being heartless, watch 200,000 more die waiting for 2013/2014? If this is a budget trick, it is a cynical political calculation to show President’s fiscal awareness. Declaring a 900B limit appears sheer hypocrisy. Should he not be talking to all his Cabinet Secretaries, especially Secretary Gates with his Generals, to pony up cuts to take care of this Emergency? It is pure horse manure to claim it will take 4 years to set up. If we are committed to take much better care of the next Katrina, it makes no sense to treat this Health Care catastrophe at the same alert level if not higher.
I am also surprised that MSM is not raising hell on a daily basis. Anderson Cooper should be standing next to a few of the dying, instead of the drama of braving high winds and rain. Most surprising is that us progressive activists and bloggers have also overlooked this heart wrenching situation.
Should we not be talking about this as issue #1 ahead of all others?