What is really going on in the Senate re 1. Passing HCR thru Reconciliation & 2. Reviving the PO

[Pirate Smile]

Jay Rockefeller's inconvenient honesty on the public option

Sen. Jay Rockefeller did something very strange last night: He was honest. He said, publicly, that he does not support adding the public option to the reconciliation bill. And he's going to pay for it today.

Rockefeller isn't a closet public option opponent. He's not only been an advocate for the public option, but he offered the amendment proposing the strong public option. It like the old joke about the swearing pianist: Does Rockefeller know the public option? He wrote the public option. It was Rockefeller amendment C6.

-snip-
It would be fair, at this point, to ask why Democrats would have a problem if they attempted to pass the public option. The public option is popular policy, it's good policy, and it energizes the base. The problem is that it's not popular policy with the handful of conservative House and Senate votes that you need to push this bill over the finish line.

Caucus politics present another dilemma: The public option died due to the opposition of Nelson, Landrieu, Lincoln, Lieberman and a handful of other conservative -- and vulnerable -- Democrats. Reid cut a deal with them, and they signed onto the final product. For many, that was a big political risk. The price was letting them say they killed the public option. Bringing it back to the bill will mean they voted for a bill that ended up including something they'd promised their constituents they'd killed. Cross them on this and you've lost their trust -- and thus their votes -- in the future.

Then there's the larger political strategy that the White House, and the Democrats, seem to have settled on. The idea, which is centered around Thursday's summit, is to look more bipartisan than the obstructionist Republicans. Resuscitating the most controversial part of the bill does not fit with that plan.

I'm not defending these arguments. I don't think conservative Democrats will pick up even a single vote if the final plan doesn't include a public option, while I think they'll probably gain a few if their base feels like they won something big this year. Nor have I seen any evidence that Americans will reward Democrats for being bipartisan if Republicans refuse to cooperate with the strategy. But that's the thinking.

Amid all of this, you have a lot of Senate Democrats getting the base's hopes up because, well, it's good personal politics to sign the letter, even if they think actually bringing the public option back into play would be bad legislative politics. I've had multiple offices tell me that they think this whole public option resurgence makes passage of the bill less likely, even as their bosses are being touted as supporters of the public option strategy.

The likely outcome of that will be another crushing and confusing letdown for the party's most ardent supporters, which leads them to turn on the bill and its authors, and makes final passage of health-care reform that much less likely.

Rockefeller will pay for his comment yesterday, because he said publicly what the other offices are saying privately: He supports the public option, but think it's too dangerous to attempt in a reconciliation meant to close out a fragile and uncertain process. The left is going to hammer him for that, and understandably so. I wouldn't be surprised to see him walk it back. But the truth is he's treating liberals with a lot more respect than the offices that are telling them what they want to hear but have no intention of actually passing a public option.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/02/jay_rockefellers_inconvenient.html

[freddie mertz]

1. Thanks for posting this separately.

I feared it would get lost in the flurry of unrecs over at my Klein post.

[FrenchieCat]

2. I don't get it. Why does Klein believe that reconciliation

has to be passed before the HC Bill...which is what he implies? :shrug:

The House could simply pass the Senate Bill pretty much as is,
have the President sign it into law,
and then the reconciliation could happen later,
as long as the house is assured with the 50 sigs from Senators
that they will do it at some point real soon.

[freddie mertz]

4. Don't you get it? Every action has consequences.

They are trying to maintain cohesion in a divided Senate caucus.

They make deals and there are other ones, spoken and unspoken, that keep the wheels turning.

As governance, it is a disaster.

But it is the rotten, lousy system we have.

Time to abandon rosy scenarios, I think.

[FrenchieCat]

7. Your response doesn't make sense.

Could you clarify? With some facts this time? Thanks!

[ProSense]

3. That's an excuse. Senator Menendez doesn't agree

Menendez rejected that assertion, saying "Just simply having a vote on a public option is not, I think, the turbulence that wil derail any effort to ultimately have the type of healthcare reform that reduces costs, stops insurance company abuses against consumers and insures more Americans."

link

[Jennicut]

5. The thing is, in CT we WANT the public option. Lieberman is going against us here.

His #'s would be higher here if he supported the public option. I don't get his thinking at all on this.

[Jim Lane]

8. Lieberman may be going AGAINST you voters but FOR his campaign contributors.

As for the OP, I agree with the quoted article that it's appropriate for Rockefeller to tell the truth as he sees it about the politics of the situation. Others, like Menendez, may see it differently, because no one can be sure what would happen -- but I'm glad that Rockefeller is willing to voice his insider's view.

[Pirate Smile]

6. kick