Snatching victory from the jaws of defeat: the public option is alive and well

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The Senate Finance Committee rejected by a vote of 15-8 an amendment to the insurance industry lobbyist drafted Baucus bill from Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) that would have added a robust public option provision.

Sens. Kent Conrad (D-ND), Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), Tom Carper (D-DE), Bill Nelson (D-FL), and Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) joined with all the committee's Republicans in defeating the amendment.

The Senate Finance Committee also rejected by a vote of 13-10 an amendment to the insurance industry lobbyist drafted Baucus bill from Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) that would have added a more modest public option provision.

Sens. Kent Conrad (D-ND), Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) (by proxy – she wasn't present for the vote), and Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) joined with all the committee's Republicans in defeating the amendment.

The Baucus bill will not have a public option.

Sen. Chuck Schumer said after the Finance Committee vote: "To come up only two votes shy in the Finance Committee, the most difficult terrain for this proposal in the whole Congress, makes us increasingly optimistic that we can pass a bill with a good public option in the end. We had more votes at the end of the day than we did at the beginning, and many members who aren't yet for a public option are still approaching us to seek out areas of agreement." Optimism?

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA), who leads the Senate HELP committee, made this statement to The Hill:

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), the chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, said that the Senate "comfortably" has a majority of votes to pass the public plan, and that he believes Democrats can muster 60 votes to break a filibuster.

"I have polled senators, and the vast majority of Democrats — maybe approaching 50 — support a public option," Harkin said told the liberal "Bill Press Radio Show." "So why shouldn't we have a public option? We have the votes.

"I believe we'll have the 60 votes, now that we have the new senator from Massachusetts, to at least get it on the Senate floor," Harkin later added. "But once we cross that hurdle, we only need 51 votes for the public option. And I believe there are, comfortably, 51 votes for a public option."

Brian Beutler at Talkingpointsmemo.com offers a cogent analysis with which I agree The Public Option Lost Today, But Future Fights Could Be Less Daunting:

The spin war is on to frame today's losing public option votes in the Senate Finance Committee. And though no reformer can honestly say today's news was good news, they're also on perfectly safe ground saying that today's news was expected, and that the public option is in no worse shape today than it was yesterday.

What we now know for sure is that conservative Democrats' opposition to a public option tied to Medicare runs significantly deeper than it does to a public option that uses negotiated rates. From a set that often bows to Republican attacks on big government, that's not a big surprise, though substantively it makes a big difference.

We also know that none of the Democrats who voted against the modest public option proposed by Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) say they're dead set against the public option in general–they have concerns sure, but, as always, they reverted to the dodgy explanation that they don't think a public option can survive on the Senate floor.

And therein lies the hope for reformers.

If Conrad, Baucus, et al are right about that, it means that there are members of the 60-large Democratic caucus threatening to join a Republican filibuster of either a public option amendment on the Senate floor, or a health care bill that includes a public option. As far as reformers are concerned that's a problem for Harry Reid and President Obama to solve–and they'd better solve it.

But even if these senators are just making excuses, or they still need more time to think, they won't be able to hide much longer.

Soon, Reid will have to decide whether or not to import the HELP Committee's public option into the package he brings to the floor. If he does, it would completely shift the onus on to the skeptics. As it stands liberals are forced to make the push for the public option; if Reid adopts it, conservative Democrats would be smoked out: either they'd have to accept it, or come out strongly against it by voting with Republicans to strip it, or by filibustering the entire bill.

But he probably won't do that. So what then?

Assuming he doesn't (a safe assumption) there will be more amendments, and, soon enough, the entire Democratic caucus will have to go on the record anyhow. More than that, they'll have to decide whether a public option is worth filibustering. That will be a key test of party unity.

And to take things one step further still, if a public option is not in the final bill that passes the Senate, Democratic leaders could still adopt one in negotiations with the House of Representatives. Maybe they will and maybe they won't, but if they do, then conservative Democrats will have to decide yet again whether it's worth tanking the entire reform project over the inclusion of a fairly modest provision.

That's a lot of choke points, and a lot of pressure on public option skeptics. So while it's much too early to predict what will happen, it's also extremely premature to say the public option fight is over. As you can see, there are much more favorable battlefields ahead.

Let's be clear. The 60 votes senators incessantly talk about is not required to pass a bill. It is a vote for cloture to close debate and to move on to voting for a bill. Democrats have 58 senators and two independents who caucus with the Democrats. They ostensibly have 60 votes for such procedural matters as cloture votes. This is a question of party discipline and unity.

The only way opponents of health care reform with a strong public option can prevent enactment of such a bill is if one or more Democrats side with the Republican obstructionists and against their party leadership on a procedural vote for cloture. These conservadem Democrats would be the one's filibustering a vote on the bill by voting against cloture, not the Republicans who are irrelevant at this point.

If one of the conservadem Democrats is philosophically opposed to a bill with a public option they are free to vote against the bill on an up or down vote. But on procedural votes like cloture, party discipline and unity is both expected and demanded. There should be no equivocation or doubt that the Democratic caucus will deliver 60 votes for cloture and move on to a vote on the bill.

Any Democratic senator who filibusters the health care reform bill because it contains a public option is inviting a game of whack-a-mole: they will be targeted by every Democratic and progressive reform organization in America for defeat – and they will be defeated. A vote against cloture is a career ending vote. (Of course, they will probably go to work as a lobbyist for the health insurance or pharmaceutical industry lobbying firm that purchased their vote).

A few years ago Republicans were demanding "give us an up or down vote" on judicial nominees stymied by a Democratic filibuster. Republicans threatened the "nuclear option" – ending the Senate's cloture rule. That is not necessary here. Democrats should be demanding from their own conservadem senators "No filibuster. Give us an up or down vote."

No filibuster. Give us an up or down vote!