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Rockefeller Amendment for a Public Option Fails 15-8

By: Dan Perrin (Diary)  |  September 29th, 2009 at 04:01 PM  | 

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Senator Rockefeller’s public option amendment offered in the U.S. Senate Finance Committee went down in flames today.

The implications for Speaker Pelosi are profound. Her insistence on a public option in the House bill will force even more Democrats to vote no, and the chances that it will become law are small.

Rockefeller is threatening to offer the same amendment on the Senate floor, but now Rockefeller is between a rock and a hard place since he has publicly said he will not vote for any health reform bill that does not have a public option.

Senator Cantwell made the same threat. But, meanwhile Senator Harkin claims he has whipped his Democratic colleagues and he says “we have the votes” for a public option.

There is substantial doubt about Harkin’s claim, but regardless, either Senators Rockefeller and Cantwell follow through on their threat, or their threats, now and in the future will be meaningless. I wonder if that means they will vote no on final passage in the Senate Finance Committee, forcing Chairman Baucus to find a Republican vote to move the conceptual language essay to the Senate floor?

Here is the roll call vote in the Finance Committee.

Republicans
CHUCK GRASSLEY -no
ORRIN G. HATCH -no
OLYMPIA J. SNOWE -no
JON KYL -no
JIM BUNNING -no
MIKE CRAPO -no
PAT ROBERTS -no
JOHN ENSIGN -no
MIKE ENZI -no
JOHN CORNYN -no

Democrats
MAX BAUCUS -no
JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER -yes
KENT CONRAD -no
JEFF BINGAMAN -yes
JOHN F. KERRY -yes
BLANCHE L. LINCOLN -no
RON WYDEN -yes
CHARLES E. SCHUMER -yes
DEBBIE STABENOW -yes
MARIA CANTWELL -yes
BILL NELSON -no
ROBERT MENENDEZ -yes
THOMAS CARPER -no

Not Agreed to (15-8)

Senator Schumer’s public option light amendment also failed, with Sens. Max Baucus, Kent Conrad, and Blanche Lincoln voting with the Republicans to defeat the amendment.

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COMMENTS

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  • Streiff

    10-13. Conrad, Baucus, and Lincoln voted against.

    • bk

      Kerry called all insurance company profit and overhead “profit” and implied that all goes away when the government runs it.

      Yep, certainly everyone would agree that gov’t programs normally include no overhead and administrative costs.

      • http://dezignworx-ae.com tsquare

        Half the time I’m amazed that some of these guys can answer the question: ‘what is your name?’ truthfully

        • drrhythm

          Well, liberals have been confused on everything from the definition of “is” to the definition of “tax,” so “what’s your name?” could easily be next…

    • snowshooze

      There will be more attempts for the public option.
      There is no fire. We do not need sweeping earth shaking change.
      Maybe the tort reforms coupled with deregulation to allow competition across the entire country, then give it a few years and see what happens.
      I need Workman’s Compensation reform, I dropped my crew over the cost of this insurance and I believe there is only one provider I can use. I have chipped in $75 thousand from my company over the past few years.
      So, I hate the Insurance Companies too, so don’t turn them completely loose, but don’t make them have to bribe you for a sales territory…
      No rush, no fire. Small changes and corrections are better than a 1000 page mystery bill with instant buyers remorse.
      Yaay for the small victory today!!!
      Mark

  • http://online.logcabin.org/about/ suzieQ

    There are three different public option amendments on the table. This one (187) was considered to be the most liberal, and included a price-fixing portion for the drug companies. The problem is that the other two are considered more “moderate” public options, and may gain more support.

    • Streiff

      nt

    • drrhythm

      Did you say Rockefeller’s amendment was number 187? Now that is ironic – that’s the police code for murder (according to pop culture anyway) right?

  • http://dezignworx-ae.com tsquare

    Very nice indeed…

    As an aside… we should all chip in and buy Sen Kerry a clue.

    It is the only way he’ll have have/get one.

  • tricianc

    Remember the Alinsky way:

    This is just so they can introduce the so called compromise: “Co-ops” (which is government run health care under a new name) or if they have to, the trigger to get Olympia Snowe. They will take what they can get to get the camel’s nose under the tent.

    Again, remember the Alinsky way: Put something out there you KNOW won’t fly, then accept a “compromise”, thereby getting some bi-partisan support and there ya go……SUCCESS! AND you can claim how you worked with the other party and take the credit.

    • bk

      “Trigger” is one for sure. If they get Snowe to vote for it by adding a public option “trigger” you can bet it’s only a matter of time before that trigger gets pulled.

      “Non-profit co-op” may be another code word (code phrase?) for what will in short order become a public option.

      Let me remind everyone what Harry Reid said after he and Pelosi met with Obama. He said that if he has anything to do with it, the bill that comes out of the Senate will have “a public option or something like a public option.” I don’t see how you can interpret that to mean anything other “a public option even if the language makes it look like it’s not a public option.”

  • http://www.theminorityreportblog.com/blog/loren_heal Socrates

    Reid will take some innocuous bill having to do with the sense of the Senate on the direction rain falls, and send that to reconciliation with the House version of Obamacare. The two bills will then be reconciled in favor of the House version. House would pass the reconciled version, since they already did.

    Whether Senate Democrats would pass the “reconciled” bag of trash, I don’t know.