Democrats Continue to Back Away From the Public Option

As White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs makes the rounds saying that health care reform will be the "law of the land" within the week, it is continually important to examine the demise of the public option.

In August of last year, when the Obama Administration started to waiver on supporting the public option, I wrote the following which still holds relevance to the situation that we find ourselves in today:

In this instance it is important to remember that while President Obama may offer his support for the public option, it doesn't necessarily mean that he would veto legislation that did not contain such a provision. The Administration is looking for a win on this issue and I think it is pretty clear that if a political win can be obtained through passing a bill that doesn't have the public option attached, then Obama will probably sign such a bill. We have seen this type of behavior from Obama throughout his political career and it is what led many to emphasize (pre-2008 election) that Obama is a centrist Democrat who is more willing to adapt to existing institutions than fundamentally fight to change them.

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If Obama chooses to spend his political capital by signing a bill that does not fundamentally change the health care system and is a watered-down version that contains mild reforms, then it is almost certainly going to be a failure. It will be a failure for the millions of Americans who are in need of health care, it will be a failure for progressives who voted for Obama last November, and it will be a failure for true reform.

Not only has President Obama and the Democratic leadership shown that they are not married to the public option, they have shown a gross failure in leadership in working to pass this provision that they all say they support. If they say they support the public option then why wouldn't they fight for it? Because the Senate Democrats and the White House really don't support this provision quite as much as they may say. This clip from The Rachel Maddow Show last week illustrates this perfectly:

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and yet somehow Dennis Kucinich is the bad guy because he has stated that he will vote against the current legislation if it does not contain the public option?

These are interesting times.

Here is Kucinich stating his piece during a radio interview with Ian Masters from last week:

Pelosi Indicates that Dems will no Longer Push Current Health Care Reform

Remember yesterday, when I talked about how Democrats need to pay attention to populist views in order to not suffer the same defeats like we just saw in Massachusetts?

Well, it looks like on the issue of health care reform, the Democrats are tucking their tail between their legs and putting the issue on the back-burner:

Nancy Pelosi's statement viaTPM:

"I don't see the votes for it at this time," Pelosi said. "The members have been very clear in our caucus about the fact that they didn't like it before it had the Nebraska provision and some of the other provisions that are unpalatable to them."

"In every meeting that we have had, there would be nothing to give me any thought that that bill could pass right now the way that it is," she said. "There isn't a market right now for proceeding with the full bill unless some big changes are made."

Fairly ambiguous especially considering that she goes on to say that "we have to get a bill passed". While her statement makes mention of "big changes" that need to be made, we have come so far in the wrong direction that it is hard to view her comments as anything other than applying the brakes to the process.

Politically, I don't see how this can be a smart move. Not only for the reasoning that I mentioned yesterday, but because this is surely going to give the tea-party crowd as well as the GOP a leg-up.

From a practical standpoint, the current legislation is not good and needs a lot of work to repair the damage that was done to it when it was in the Senate. If the Democrats are serious about doubling their efforts to make this legislation better, then great, but it would simply be naive to expect that conclusion from all that we have seen take place thus far. If they are really going to put this issue on indefinite hold, then the last several months can only be viewed as a giant waste of time.

Health Care Compromises

In yesterday's developments on health care reform, the Blue Dog Democrats reached a compromise with Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) of the Energy and Commerce Committee on the Committee's version of a health care bill as well as delaying when the bill would be voted on. What concessions were made? Jeff Muskus of the Huffington Post explains:

For instance, rather than linking the public option to the rates enjoyed by Medicare, the new language would require a separate agreement without Medicare's bargaining power, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) said. Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius would be responsible for negotiating deals with service providers from day one of the public plan's existence, rather than year three. States can also set up co-op insurance plans in addition to the public option, but not in its stead.

"The public option must go out and negotiate with providers, just like private health insurance companies do," Ross said. "It's strictly optional. It won't be mandated on anyone. It will not be based on Medicare rates."

In response to this compromise, Liberal members of the House, including members of the Progressive Caucus, have voiced their displeasure:

The Blue Dogs’ deal, which cut $100 billion from the healthcare reform price tag, was instantly denounced by Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.), co-chairwoman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, who said, “It’s unacceptable. We’re not going to vote for anything that doesn’t have a robust public plan.”

Liberals aimed to win 50 signatures on a letter to their leaders opposing the deal to make it clear they could defeat the healthcare bill on the floor.

and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has targeted her anger not at the Blue Dogs, but at the Health Insurance companies:

"They are the villains in this. They have been part of the problem in a major way," Pelosi said of the insurance industry after her weekly press conference. "It's almost immoral, what they are doing," she said, referring to industry lobbying against a public insurance plan option. "Of course, they've been immoral all along. They are doing everything in their power to stop a public option from happening, and the public has to know about it."

Ezra Klein offers his analysis:

House liberals are afraid of the dynamic in which good bills face Blue Dog opposition in the final mile and are aggressively watered down. Senate liberals are afraid of the same. And throwing this final compromise with the Blue Dogs into doubt is a show of strength. After all, House liberals feel they've already compromised plenty: Coming down from single-payer is a compromise. Cordoning the public plan off on the Health Insurance Exchange is a compromise. The whole bill is one big compromise, and every subsequent iteration is a compromise stacked atop a compromise placed upon a compromise. At some point, the compromises have to stop. Or, better yet, they have to go in the other direction.

In the midst of all of this it is amazing to remember that all of this compromise is being done with a small number of members of a small conservative coalition inside each Chamber of Congress where the Democrats hold majorities. In the Senate, where the Democrats hold 60 seats, the Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee Max Baucus (D-MT), has been holding closed door meetings with a few Blue Dogs to work on a bipartisan compromise but has yet to emerge with a bill.

It appears to me that the compromise is being done not only to push back voting on legislation, but also to tweak the public option so that the insurance companies will not feel too threatened. It is going to be crucial for citizens to contact their representatives and for organizations that still wish to see a strong and robust public option to stay very vocal while Congress is in recess. These lobbyists for the insurance industry are very powerful and what we may end up with is a mediocre bill with no guarantee of a public option. What kind of true reform would that be?

Pelosi Endorses Potential Criminal Investigations

Rachel Maddow sat down with Nancy Pelosi the other night for a comprehensive interview:

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A few items of note, specifically on the sections of the interview that focus around investigating potential criminal actions by the Bush Administration:

1. Pelosi endorses the idea of Senator Leahy's proposed "Truth Commission" to investigate past actions by the Bush Administration, but is concerned about any proposed immunity for officials that agree to testify.

- I fully agree with Pelosi on this point. Exchanging immunity for testimony, while potentially helpful in bringing out elements of the truth, would impede any meaningful attempt at holding those who broke the law accountable. The goal needs to be more than simply a "truth commission", but a serious attempt to investigate the lawbreaking of the past eight years.

2. If the Inspector General report comes back with the indication that there was criminal wrong-doing, Pelosi would support moving forward with additional action against former Bush Administration officials.

- It is reassuring to hear the Speaker of the House come out and directly state that she would support these actions. While President Obama still remains non-committal on this issue, stating that while no one is above the law he prefers to look forward, members of Congress will need to lay the groundwork and keep the pressure on Obama to move forward with these investigations.

3. Maddow does a fantastic job of following up this line of questioning with confronting Pelosi with the fact that she, and other Democrats, had been briefed on these torture programs in 2001 and 2002. Maddow asks Pelosi if it is problematic that she did not raise these concerns over torture publicly after she was briefed. Pelosi then claims that she (and others) were never made aware that the government was actually using these so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques".

Maddow continues to (rightly) push Pelosi on this point because Pelosi's presence in meetings that discussed these techniques could indicate that she and other Democrats not only knew of these programs but were complicit in approving torture. Maddow asks Pelosi if the Administration gave the inference that they believed that waterboarding was now legal. Pelosi says that they may have given that inference, but that she never knew it had been implemented.

This admission is potentially problematic. If Pelosi and others knew that the Administration viewed techniques like waterboarding as legal, what would stop them from using such techniques. Just because the Bush Administration didn't come out and tell Pelosi that they were torturing doesn't mean that it is a surprise that they did. After all, if they told Pelosi and other Democrats that they believed these actions to be legal, why would they not use them? Pelosi is adamant that she couldn't talk about anything that was disclosed in the meetings and therefore could not publicly object to these policies.

Pelosi's statements are difficult to verify at this point considering so much is still secret and I still have my doubts that Democrats were completely in the dark as to what was going on. The new information that this interview does bring out, is that Pelosi is willing to endorse investigations into criminal wrong-doing by the Bush Administration and does not believe that anything that she and/or other Democrats knew, will get in the way of these investigations.