I am betting the Public Option talk is a ruse.

[Perky]

A bargaining chip.

At this point there is very little political upside to ramming the public Option through with reconciliation. It will be a huge rallying point for the GOP an not a particularly decent motivation for GOTV in November for Dems.

But it would not surprise me if it is not meant to set up the GOP. "Join us on a bipartisan bill and we will pull the Public option out." If the Repukes agree, HCR will not be an issue in the Fall. If they say "NO", publicly say "hell no" to the country and yes to WellPoint", we get to paint them as reflexively deterrmined to be obstructionist to even more modest reform and it becomes a "triggered option" in the final Dems only bill that gets rammed through with no GOP support, and we get to tell the nation that it is the GOP's fault for being opposed to any change in the status quo at all and being in bed with folks like WellPoint,

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[jamesp68]

5. Exactly. It is called the BYRD RULE and those 20 signing the letter have to know that.

Just deflecting blame from themselves to the others in the party.

[ProSense]

10. So how did Bush manage to use reconciliation to pass his tax cuts?

I call BS.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

11. The vote was 65-35.

Your answer: "Democrats."

[ProSense]

16. Final vote

Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003

Final Senate vote:

Vote by Party

Yea

Republicans 48
Democrats 2
Total 50

Nay

Rublicans 3
Democrats 46
Independents 1
Total 50

Vice President Dick Cheney(R): Yes

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

21. That's the second round of tax cuts. The 2001 tally was 58-33.

The 65-35 was a procedural vote.

[FreakinDJ]

15. It might be BS but it's a great put down on the Dems

I becoming more and more leary of Du's new found popularity

[jamesp68]

2. Yes. it is 20 Senators trying to deflect blame from themselves and at the 39 not signing.

I was told this by an angry aid to a Senator.

[Skink]

3. I predict it passes becomes hugely sucessful to the point where even republican voters want it.

then becomes a non issue accept amung the tea baggers who in my day were known as libertarians.

[Perky]

7. The problems is the Senators can't see beyond the first Tuesday in November

And it will not be viewed as successful until it is fully realized in 4+ years

[fascisthunter]

4. I Mentioned as much on another thread

that this may be a bluff to get the GOP to go along with what's already been proposed. The fear of a PO may sway the GOP and give them adequate cover from their staunch supporters to do so.

I hope I am wrong, but I have become extremely distrustful of our democratic politicians.

If it is a ruse, they will lose more seats. And yes, I think they are so disconnected that they would do something this stupid.

[Oregone]

6. Either it was a ruse that it was gone or that its back

Because nothing has fundementally changed since some time has passed. There could be a scenario where stagecraft created the impression it was dead, so that "heroic" politicians can claim at election time to be its savior (but it will likely suck anyway).

[Kyril Enko]

8. It had better NOT be!

If it is, I'll be sitting on my fucking hands come November! And I'm serious!

[Pirate Smile]

9. I think it may be used to get the necessary Senators to agree to

vote for Reconciliation to implement the fixes for the Senate Bill but not to actually get the PO put back in.

Remember, it was just weeks ago when people were desperate and talking about just getting the House to pass the Senate Bill as is because there was trouble getting enough Senators to vote for the Reconciliation. I bet there are enough moderate Senate Dems who say they will vote for Reconciliation if the PO gets left out.

I pretty sure that is exactly where we will end up. I hope people don't turn that into a failure because it wont be one.

Of course, the Public Option can eventually get added to our Health Care system just like many additions were made to Social Security.

[Pirate Smile]

12. I like to post this Ezra Klein article every once in a while to remind people of where Social

Security started from and how much it was modified which is a process many Senators, like Franken, have said will also happen with Health Care Reform.

What Social Security Teaches Us About Health Care

Paul Begala has an op-ed in this morning's Washington Post that's the most important argument you'll read today. I'm going to quote a nice big chunk of it here.

Progressive politics is, in my view, a movement, not a monument. We cannot achieve perfection in this life, and if that is our goal we will always be frustrated. The right has far more modest goals: At every turn, its members seek to advance their power and protect privilege. I've never seen the Republican right oppose a tax cut for the rich because it wasn't generous enough; I've never seen them oppose a set of loopholes for corporate lobbyists because one industry or another wasn't included. The left, on the other hand, too often prefers a glorious defeat to an incremental victory.

Our history teaches us otherwise. No self-respecting liberal today would support Franklin Roosevelt's original Social Security Act. It excluded agricultural workers -- a huge part of the economy in 1935, and one in which Latinos have traditionally worked. It excluded domestic workers, which included countless African Americans and immigrants. It did not cover the self-employed, or state and local government employees, or railroad employees, or federal employees or employees of nonprofits. It didn't even cover the clergy. FDR's Social Security Act did not have benefits for dependents or survivors. It did not have a cost-of-living increase. If you became disabled and couldn't work, you got nothing from Social Security.

If that version of Social Security were introduced today, progressives like me would call it cramped, parsimonious, mean-spirited and even racist. Perhaps it was all those things. But it was also a start. And for 74 years we have built on that start. We added more people to the winner's circle: farm workers and domestic workers and government workers. We extended benefits to the children of working men and women who died. We granted benefits to the disabled. We mandated annual cost-of-living adjustments. And today Social Security is the bedrock of our progressive vision of the common good.

Health care may follow that same trajectory. It would be a bitter disappointment if health reform did not include a public option. A public plan that keeps the insurance companies honest is, I believe, the right policy and the right politics. I believe subsidies should extend to as many Americans as need help and that the hard-earned health benefits of middle-class Americans should not be taxed. I believe insurer abuses like the preexisting-condition rule should be outlawed. The question is not whether I or other progressives will support a health-reform bill that includes everything we want but, rather, whether we will support a bill that doesn't.

-snip-
I carry a heavy burden of regret from my role in setting the bar too high the last time we tried fundamental health reform. I was one of the people who advised President Bill Clinton to wave his pen at Congress in 1994 and declare: "If you send me legislation that does not guarantee every American private health insurance that can never be taken away, you will force me to take this pen, veto the legislation, and we'll come right back here and start all over again." I helped set the bar at 100 percent -- "guarantee every American" -- and after our failure it's taken us 15 years to start all over again.

I would disagree on one point: The original Social Security legislation wasn't "perhaps" a "cramped, parsimonious, mean-spirited and even racist" program. It simply was those things. But it was something else, too. A start. Over the next 50 years, it was built upon. But not only by Democrats. Some of the largest advances came when Republicans saw political opportunity in strengthening the entitlement. Begala implies that progressives eventually added cost-of-living increases to Social Security. In fact, it was Richard Nixon who signed that bill. Similarly, whether you like the structure of Medicare's prescription drug benefit or not, it was a massive expansion of an entitlement program, and it was proposed and signed by George W. Bush.

The trickiest part of my job right now is to balance the desire for a better bill with the need to argue that the bill that's likely to emerge still makes for a better country. You don't want to ease the pressure on Congress too early, but you don't want to see your allies forget that this is about more than the public option.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/08/what_social_security_teaches_u.html

[Hello_Kitty]

13. Different era.

Name a social program that has been improved upon significantly in the past 30 years.

[Hippo_Tron]

25. SCHIP

[Pirate Smile]

28. The Prescription Drug Benefit was added to Medicare.

Done irresponsibly? Of course, it was Bush.

[Gman2]

14. Nope, they made us furious, conflicted and dissillusioned, by continuously

removing the critical components. They will make every attempt to keep it intact.

[Xicano]

23. I have a bridge called the Brooklyn Bridge I'll sell you.

n/t

[WatchWhatISay]

17. Little political upside to ramming the public option through with reconciliation? Are you sure?

I thought the polls are showing that most Americans want the public option.

The political upside would be that then liberals would become re-energized to support Democratic candidates in November. If they could just give us a good reason to do so.

[Perky]

19. There is a fundamental difference conservative and liberal voting habits

Liberals are motivated by caused. Conservative are motivated by fear
.

Getting out the vote for the incumbent is much harder than getting out the vote for the the champion of the the disgruntled. If we win HCR in April it will mean nothing to Dems in November when it ceases to be a cause to fight for, But if the Repukes are still the angry mob they today we will be hut at the polls because "we won the fight"

[burning rain]

27. Republican voters will be at least as incensed by hcr w/o public option in Nov., as hcr with it.

Meanwhile, hcr that does not include a public option will demoralize Democratic voters going into November. Remember Martha Coakley: the no-public option Senate hcr bill was a millstone around her neck, though she had the additional shortcomings of being a lousy campaigner, a poor debater, unpersonable, etc.

[ellenfl]

18. i think the dems waited for the insurance companies

to gouge everyone by raising premiums, as they just have, to bring the public option back into play. now even more voters will be backing the public option.

however, if the final bill is a gift to the insurance companies,as has been suggested, then the dems need to hang that around the necks of the repubs. however they do that will be fine with me.

ellen fl

[Perky]

20. If ou paint Wellpoint as the enemy and the Republicans as their stooges

You effectively move the game from progressive to populiat. Works for me... But harry Reid ain't that cunning.

[CanonRay]

22. I'll believe it when I see it

until then, I call bullshit. Bennett is in a tough primary battle, so he had to show some life. Get out in front of something which can't possibly pass, and claim he did his best. Most Dems in the Senate DONT WANT a public option.

[freddie mertz]

24. I will not believe this till its over and done.

[Aramchek]

26. of course, you do.

[Canuckistanian]

29. Well then, a descision has to be made

Will they sacrifice HCR for ANOTHER voting cycle.. or will they do the right thing this time, both politically and practically?

[backscatter712]

30. Then it's up to us to make it not a ruse.

The public option is so popular that its Beltway opponents in the Democratic party are running out of excuses to avoid implementing it.

They can't tell us they don't have the votes - we can get 51 votes. With Bennet's letter, we're calling out our Senators and demanding they go on record supporting the will of the people.

They can't tell us that a couple of cockblockers like Joe Lieberman can keep it off the table - with reconciliation, he and his ilk are irrelevant.

They can't tell us that the lobbyists won't let it happen - we're not interested in what PhRMA, AHIP or anyone else in the business has to say - they've been fucking us for years, and we won't listen to their bullshit.

We're narrowing the choices down to two. Support real health care reform, including the public option, or get thrown out.

But we've got to shout loud to make it crystal fucking clear that those are their only two choices. There is no choice three.

[LatteLibertine]

31. The problem is

many politicians can't see over the stacks of money "industry experts", aka lobbyists, have placed on their desks.

Some of them come from that industry or go into it when they leave office.

[Raine]

32. On point exactly

and I'm not falling for this crap. x(