Senate Health Care Bill Clears Hurdle, Progressive Opposition Grows

Early this morning the Senate voted to end the period of filibuster on the health care legislation by a vote of 60-40. Not surprisingly, the vote broke down along party lines with all the Senators who caucus with Democrats voting to end the filibuster. This is a big step in moving this legislation forward as Democrats and the White House are pressing for a final vote before Christmas.

It is no secret that this legislation has devolved into a complete mess. Republicans are still against any kind of reform, Moderate Democrats have worked to strip the bill of the public option and Medicare buy-in, and Progressive activists are now split on whether to support or kill the Senate version of the bill.

While there is still some good discussion on the pros and cons of the legislation there are some revealing moments that show just how ugly this debate has become. Take this item from last night when the ailing Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) was wheeled into the Chamber to vote at 1am. Byrd's presence was not necessarily required for his vote to count, but the Republicans insisted that he travel to the Chamber to cast his vote in person.

Before Byrd arrived for the vote, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) took to the Senate floor and indicated that Americans "pray that someone can't make the vote tonight". Watch:



Ezra Klein reacts to this incident:

The Senate hasn't just lost a bit of its collegiality. It's become heartlessly ferocious -- a place where the death of an honored friend presents an opportunity to kill his legislation, and in which the infirmity of an ailing colleague is seen as a potential path to procedural victory.

While Republicans continue to oppose any type of health care reform, Progressives are also divided after Sen. Joe Lieberman's (I-CT) successful attempt to strip out the Medicare buy-in and the public option from the Senate legislation. Howard Dean has been very vocal in his calls to "kill the bill" and other progressives are also also advocating that health care talks turn to reconciliation in order to save robust reforms to the system.

Jane Hamsher at Firedoglake has been working very hard on the issue of reform for many months now and has compiled a "Top 10" list of reasons why progressives should oppose the Senate Bill. Here they are:

Top 10 Reasons to Kill Senate Health Care Bill

1. Forces you to pay up to 8% of your income to private insurance corporations — whether you want to or not.
2. If you refuse to buy the insurance, you’ll have to pay penalties of up to 2% of your annual income to the IRS.
3. Many will be forced to buy poor-quality insurance they can’t afford to use, with $11,900 in annual out-of-pocket expenses over and above their annual premiums.
4. Massive restriction on a woman’s right to choose, designed to trigger a challenge to Roe v. Wade in the Supreme Court.
5. Paid for by taxes on the middle class insurance plan you have right now through your employer, causing them to cut back benefits and increase co-pays.
6. Many of the taxes to pay for the bill start now, but most Americans won’t see any benefits — like an end to discrimination against those with preexisting conditions — until 2014 when the program begins.
7. Allows insurance companies to charge people who are older 300% more than others.
8. Grants monopolies to drug companies that will keep generic versions of expensive biotech drugs from ever coming to market.
9. No re-importation of prescription drugs, which would save consumers $100 billion over 10 years.
10. The cost of medical care will continue to rise, and insurance premiums for a family of four will rise an average of $1,000 a year — meaning in 10 years, your family’s insurance premium will be $10,000 more annually than it is right now.

The Health Care Debate on "Meet the Press"

I decided to watch Meet the Press this morning because the panel of guests was quite intriguing. The full hour, save a tribute to Eunice Kennedy Shriver at the end, was devoted to discussing the issue of the health care with the following guests:

Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD)
Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK)
Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-TX)
Host of MSNBC's The Rachel Maddow Show, Rachel Maddow

The conversation ended up being pretty even-keel and brought up many of the same points that are often advanced in this debate. Host David Gregory tried to focus on the more "contentious" issues, like the anti-health care reform protests and the inclusion of a "public" option and there were some good exchanges between panel members which you will see in the video clip that I have posted below. One of the most important responses came from Rachel Maddow and is below (emphasis mine):

MR. GREGORY: Rachel, let me ask you this question. What will progressives, what will liberals, the president’s base accept as reform? Do the independent voters he’s courting out in Colorado and Montana need to be placated, a big part of his base, or not?

MS. MADDOW: I, I, I mean, I don’t, I don’t think liberals monolithically feel one thing about this. I think most liberals would probably prefer a single payer system, honestly. But ultimately, if the president decides that he’s going to go with a reform effort that doesn’t include a public option, what he will have done is spent a ton of political capital, riled up an incredibly angry right wing base who’s been told that this is a plot to kill grandma, grandma, and he will have achieved something that doesn’t change health care very much and that doesn’t save us very much money and won’t do very much for the American people. It’s not a very good thing to spend a lot of political capital on.

I certainly agree that most liberals would like to see a single payer system and I also think that Maddow's point about political capital is spot on. Her point is especially poignant considering today's report that the Obama Administration is not considering the public option as vital to the passage of health care legislation. If Obama decides to compromise with Republicans and with the health care industry in order to simply pass a bill to claim a legislative victory, what he will actually accomplish is revitalizing the right-wing Republican base while advancing watered-down reforms that would not create the change that our health care system needs.

Also worthy of mentioning was a comment by Maddow in the Meet the Press: Take Two webcast that you can find here. Gregory asks Maddow the following:

GREGORY: Do liberals think he (Obama) has lived up to his promise?

MADDOW: I don't think liberals thought he had much liberal promise. I mean, I think that he was a very good candidate and I think that he did get a lot of liberal support but I don't think that liberals believed that he wasn't...that he was anything other than a centrist. He's a centrist Democrat, and so I think that liberals knew...at least liberals that I know, knew that coming into it.

GREGORY: No different than Bill Clinton?

MADDOW: Not really no, I wouldn't say that. I mean the way that he said he would be different than Bill Clinton were matters of style not substance.

Maddow went on to say that during the campaign, when Obama was campaigning against the Clintonian legacy in Washington, he talked about how to be more effective. This difference doesn't differentiate what he would like to see done however and this is an important distinction to make. This is what many have been saying this entire time, Obama is not some staunch liberal politician who is reigning in a new era of socialism. Obama is a centrist Democrat and this is what makes the protests and labeling of Obama as a socialist even more amazing.

Here is a clip from Meet the Press:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy