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Reid Gives Up on Reconciliation?

Olympia Snowe is Now in Charge

By: Brian Faughnan (Diary)  |  November 18th, 2009 at 11:58 AM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

This is significant:

Senate Democrats have abandoned plans to use a fast-track parliamentary strategy to avert a threatened Republican filibuster and pass a health care overhaul — a signal that they are considering major policy concessions to moderates.

The most significant of these could be restructuring or dropping altogether a proposed

20090209_harry-reid_nancy-pelosi.jpg

government-run insurance plan — the so-called public option — that many liberals consider a necessary part of the overhaul.

One possible fallback is a proposal by Thomas R. Carper, D-Del., to create a government-sanctioned insurance plan that would be available only in states deemed to lack affordable private insurance plans. Under Carper’s plan, the insurance plan would be structured as a private nonprofit entity, run by a board appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate…

But Democratic leaders had used the threat of reconciliation to try to corral support for the health care bill from moderates in both parties. That tactic largely failed.

“I think the more people studied [reconciliation], the more people realized that is not a very good way to do substantive legislation,” said Budget Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D…

In a meeting Nov. 16 with Democrats who support a Medicare-like public option, Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., indicated that he did not plan to try to move a health bill through reconciliation, other Democrats said.

“I’m not going to quote him, but suffice to say, after the meeting was over I thought it was unlikely,” said Bob Casey, D-Pa.

Regan LaChapelle, a spokeswoman for Reid, said, “We are not ruling anything out, but Sen. Reid is continuing to work to put together a bill that will garner the 60 votes needed to overcome a Republican filibuster…”

Expect quite a bit of bile on the Left as this news gets picked up. Liberals have never loved Harry Reid, and they’re likely to view this as a surrender – even though reconciliation was always an iffy strategy at best. Still, there are plenty on the Left who argued that a government-run plan was worth blowing up the Senate over. Instead of going that route, Senate Democrats appear to be adopting a new strategy: win over Olympia Snowe.

…[Carper's] proposal is similar to one Maine Republican Olympia J. Snowe offered that would create a “trigger” for the public option, making it available only if private insurers fail to meet deadlines and targets for affordable insurance plans.

olympia_snowe2.jpg

Carper said he was still discussing how the government would determine whether private insurance in a state is unaffordable. A bill the Finance Committee approved (S 1796) deems insurance unaffordable if premiums consume more than 10 percent of a policyholder’s income.

The government would lend money to the new nonprofit for startup costs. After that, Carper said, the plan would have to be self-sufficient.

Carper’s play is to take the half loaf before the Blue Dogs have time to consider how many seats will be lost to health care and a new stimulus bill. But is Snowe willing to make a deal? She was somewhat cooperative before a poll showed her in danger of losing a primary. Since then she’s said the Senate needs to take time before acting.
Cross-posted to theconservatives.com
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  • bobojake

    gets closer to the snakes belly.

  • The_Gadfly

    I don’t see how Carper’s proposal is any different than the public option, it just does it more slowly. With the news about the change in mammogram recommendations (written up well by Jaded) breaking yesterday, why would anybody still think letting government into health care decisions is a good idea? But I still don’t trust Snowe to get that.

  • mschmitt

    One possible fallback is a proposal by Thomas R. Carper, D-Del., to create a government-sanctioned insurance plan that would be available only in states deemed to lack affordable private insurance plans.

    … as if they couldn’t turn around and either deem every insurance plan un-affordable, or actually make it so with legislation requiring more and more useless coverage.

    • conservativemusician

      Is that it still smells like poo, no matter what efforts are attempted to make it otherwise.

      Exactly right mschmitt…Reid is very sneaky…and this stupid bill is not going to die for quite some time. Like Rush says, anything they try to do is going to be a government option, so I hope that more and more people are going to see that this is what is really going on.

  • Spartan4Life

    Not begging, just saying.

  • countessolenska

    He has the CBO report and is happy with it, “despite some last minute road bumps” (whatever that means).

  • danielbdp

    I DON’T TRUST ANY OF THESE SPECIAL INTEREST AGENTS TO DO THE WORK FOR WE THE PEOPLE. THIS MONSTRUOUS DISASTROUS ATTEMPT AT GOVERNMENT INTERFERENCE WITH ONE OF AMERICA’S GROWTH INDUSTRIES WITH SIGNIFICANTLY HIGH SKILLED AMERICAN LABOR CONTENT, SHOULD BE STOPPED. ONLY FREE-MARKET-DRIVEN SOLUTIONS (WITH EMPHASIS ON “FREE”) WILL WORK AT EXPANDING COVERAGE, IMPROVING QUALITY AND DRIVING DOWN COST.

    PLEASE, KEEP UP THE PRESSURE ON CONGRESS. CALL YOUR CONGRESS REPS TODAY & EVERYDAY! BELOW IS A LINK FROM A CAMPAIGN HOSTED TODAY BY PATIENTS FIRST, A PROJECT OF AMERICANS FOR PROSPERITY:

    http://www.rallycongress.com/patients-first/

    • Mayhem

      Using all CAPS makes me far less likely to read your post.

      • roscopico

        Generally pull the plug after two gratuitous misspellings as well. Not to be nit-picky, just saying.

  • danielbdp

    I DON’T TRUST ANY OF THESE SPECIAL INTEREST AGENTS TO DO THE WORK FOR WE THE PEOPLE. THIS MONSTRUOUS DISASTROUS ATTEMPT AT GOVERNMENT INTERFERENCE WITH ONE OF AMERICA’S GROWTH INDUSTRIES WITH SIGNIFICANTLY HIGH SKILLED AMERICAN LABOR CONTENT, SHOULD BE STOPPED. ONLY FREE-MARKET-DRIVEN SOLUTIONS (WITH EMPHASIS ON “FREE”) WILL WORK AT EXPANDING COVERAGE, IMPROVING QUALITY AND DRIVING DOWN COST.

    PLEASE, KEEP UP THE PRESSURE ON CONGRESS. CALL YOUR CONGRESS REPS TODAY & EVERYDAY! BELOW IS A LINK FROM A CAMPAIGN HOSTED TODAY BY PATIENTS FIRST, A PROJECT OF AMERICANS FOR PROSPERITY:

    http://www.rallycongress.com/patients-first/

  • Castor

    Whatever Reid and the donkeyheads cook up is a trap for the unwary or an excuse for a Snowe job.
    We must stand firm and push hard on Nelson, Lincoln and Landrieu.
    And ,oh yes Olympia could be a pimary target!!!

    • roscopico

      Does anybody think ME will continue for a RINO after the unmitigated Chaimberlainism? I believe the NJ and VA Gubernatorial results may have the RINOs running for cover if they think there is still time… but remember the Rinos and Donks believe their “subjects” are stupid serfs.
      They might hope the predictable votes forget come election time.

  • danielbdp

    Interesting Conservative Libertarian organization; makes it easy to effectively communicate your views to Congress and the President.

    http://www.downsizedc.org/etp/campaigns/114

    Check out their Campaigns page. Though not necessarily agree with all of them, some interesting ideas include:

    Downsizers are many (nearly 29,000 strong per their website) and Congress is “tiny” – just 535 people! We The People can be an effective Army if we rally around the “Great Downsize DC Consensus” to reduce the “Federal Monopoly”
    To control Congress, we don’t need to change the people, we need to change their behavior
    No real decisions are made at the ballot box. All the real decisions are made behind closed doors, for reasons that have little to do with what politicians say in public.
    Self-interest is the key to everything, both the problem and the solution. Politicians constantly expand The Federal Monopoly because it benefits them to do so!
    Politicians can?t spend campaign contributions for their personal benefit. But they can take extremely lucrative jobs with lobbying firms, or positions on corporate boards, after they leave office.
    These lobbying jobs can pay millions. The more special interests a politician serves while in office, the better his or her job prospects will be when he or she leaves Congress.
    Politicians pay little personal cost for spending your money to benefit themselves. DownsizeDC aims to Increase Their Cost and Reduce Yours (in time, aggravation, expense, etc.)

    Worth considering…

    • bs

      And stop with the spam. Continue and you’re unlikely to last too much longer here.

  • JadedByPolitics

    are going to drop anything that gives them ULTIMATE POWER! I know and WE all know that ANYTHING at all that Reid/Pelosi/Obama puts out is a POWER GRAB and so I don’t believe WE ought to BITE on LIES coming out to put us off our game of SLAMMING our Senators phones!

  • mom2oneson

    The link for this jut brings up a login screen.

    • Brian Faughnan

      Which link do you mean?

      When I enter the URL for this post, it takes me to this post.

      Is that what brings you to the log-in screen?

      • mom2oneson

        Do you see at the top where “This” is underlined and it’s a link. It takes me to a screen to login like where it says “This is significant.” I just reinstalled my OS so it could be me. :)

        • mom2oneson

          I clicked on free trial but I’m not elgible. You must be logged into it. :)

          • joayn

            professional’s only website. So we peons cannot access it – something Mr. Brian forgot. Actually, if we all wanted to get free trials … nah.

  • erod

    this isn’t over yet. They are going to pass something and we need to make sure it bears no resembelance to the public option.

  • erod

    this isn’t over yet. They are going to pass something and we need to make sure it bears no resembelance to the public option.

  • danielbdp

    WHILE I GIVE THIS DEAN KUDOS FOR HIS COURAGE IN SPEAKING OUT AGAINST BOTH THE CURRENTLY PROPOSED DISASTROUS LEGISLATION AND THE STRONG REBUKE OF THE UNDERHANDED AND DISINGENUOUS MANNER THE MAJORITIES IN CONGRESS HAVE PROCEEDED IN THIS MATTER OF CRITICAL PUBLIC POLICY, I WISH HE HAD SPOKEN UP SOONER…

    LOOKING FORWARD TO SEEING MORE PROMINENT MEMBERS OF ACADEMIA EXPRESS THE OBVIOUS AND SUPPORT THE PEOPLE, NOT THE SPECIAL INTERESTS, IN THIS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT MATTER!

    http://blog.ourparents.com/2009/11/18/harvard-dean-of-medical-school-gives-health-reform-a-failing-grade/

    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704431804574539581994054014.html

    SOME EXCERPTS:

    In discussions with dozens of health-care leaders and economists, I find near unanimity of opinion that, whatever its shape, the final legislation that will emerge from Congress will markedly accelerate national health-care spending rather than restrain it. Likewise, nearly all agree that the legislation would do little or nothing to improve quality or change health-care?s dysfunctional delivery system. The system we have now promotes fragmented care and makes it more difficult than it should be to assess outcomes and patient satisfaction. The true costs of health care are disguised, competition based on price and quality are almost impossible, and patients lose their ability to be the ultimate judges of value.

    Worse, currently proposed federal legislation would undermine any potential for real innovation in insurance and the provision of care. It would do so by overregulating the health-care system in the service of special interests such as insurance companies, hospitals, professional organizations and pharmaceutical companies, rather than the patients who should be our primary concern.

    Selling an uncertain and potentially unwelcome outcome such as this to the public would be a challenging task. It is easier to assert, confidently but disingenuously, that decreased costs and enhanced quality would result from the current legislation.

    We should not be making public policy in such a crucial area by keeping the electorate ignorant of the actual road ahead.

  • asleep06

    I’ll believe it when it happens. Not one second before.

  • cardcarryingmom

    Rule #8: “Keep the pressure on, with different tactics and actions, and utilize all events of the period for your purpose.”

    With so many donkeys pulling the cart, they aren’t going to drop this. They’ll just mush ahead creating the dusty smoke screen from the sink-holed, gravel pit road they’re travelling.

    So glad to know radical rules — works both ways — know thine enemy.

    I will continue to persevere as vigilantly as they do, for as long as they do, in the ways that I can . . .

  • marinetbryant

    Why not let insurance companies sell across state lines instead of blowing a few hundred billion dollars and wrecking what the majority have and are happy with?

    Tom

    • mschmitt
  • mom2oneson

    The co-pay type that covers everything might be high but a plan with a high deductible isn’t expensive at all. I know some people with a history cancer have to covered under a big group policy, then it has to be tied to en employer.
    Apart from that situation so many people don’t even think about insurance apart from an employer and there are a lot of inexpensive policies out there with seven or ten thousand decutibles. People want to beat insurance companies and get their money’s worth, that is a problem.

    i don’t know if I like the state lines idea that would take a lot of control from the states.

    There are other things that are never mentioned, like the act that mandates mental health coverage. What about repealing that? Apart from NICU care I bet that is a huge payout of their insurance comapnies ped bills. I know about 3 families that don’t have one kid on some kind of psychotropics. Alll those kids do not have psychiatric diseases in my opinion.

  • joayn

    Boy, ain’t that the truth? In our local newspaper. in a letter to the editor, a woman was complaining that even though she and her husband had insurance her son didn’t. He had to go to the hospital because he broke his hand, and what was he going to do now? She and her husband couldn’t afford to pay his bill, and on and on. (Lot’s of knashing of teeth in the letter.) My thought, and I’ll clean it up for ya, is, ARRANGE TO MAKE PAYMENTS FOR THE SERVICES YOU RECEIVED, YA DEADBEAT. AND DON’T MAKE STRANGERS PAY FOR YOUR ILL-CONCEIVED OFFSPRING WHEN YOU AREN’T WILLING!

    Cripes, people like that really bug me. Democrats and their constituents. Rots the soul.