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Reid, Baucus and Dodd: 'Strong Consensus' In Today's Health Care Meeting
October 14, 2009, 10:12PM
Sens. Harry Reid (D-NV), Max Baucus (D-MT) and Chris Dodd (D-CT)
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Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) and Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) of the Senate HELP Committee released a statement today following their first day of discussions regarding the merger of two Senate health insurance reform proposals. Here's the full text:
Today's meeting was a great opportunity to begin our conversation about a number of key issues. We'll continue to discuss these issues in greater depth over the coming days as we press forward with this critical work with the White House. There was strong consensus that crafting a bill that can garner 60 votes is an attainable goal. We all share the belief that failure is not an option, and we are energized with how close we stand to bringing meaningful reform to our health insurance system. We look forward to meeting with our caucus tomorrow and continuing our discussions next week.
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pablito
October 14, 2009 10:37 PM
These guys... these are not my kind of guys.
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FebM
October 15, 2009 6:59 AM in reply to pablito
Yah, None of these guys represents change we can believe in. First they are watching their behinds because of poor polling back home, Baucus is a sellout and Reid cant lead the lunch queue in the cafeteria.
Time for progressives to Up their Game.
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Trailerville
October 14, 2009 10:42 PM
This may have been discussed, but should everything be focused so heavily on 60 votes? A cloture vote is different from actually voting for the bill. Isn't it possible that some moderates might be willing to vote for cloture but not for the bill?
For example, Alito got confirmed 58-42, but the cloture vote was 72-25-3. Is EVERY SENATOR that opposes that bill really going to take this to the point of riding along with a filibuster?
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SleepinJeezus
October 14, 2009 11:03 PM in reply to Trailerville
The answer: The Dems have 60 votes, if you include the cross-dressing "Weeping Joe" Lieberman. The cloture vote should be manageable as a party discipline matter. You simply don't vote to sustain a filibuster against your own party's leadership, regardless of how you might personally vote on the Bill. If Reid can't manage this, he has no business at all pretending to be Senate Majority Leader.
The sixty vote threshold is a red herring, as is the Snowe "bi-partisanship." The Dems need now to gain some backbone independent from their campaign contributing insurance industry bagmen and do the right thing.
Then again, turning their back on the party faithful and refusing to include any pubic option might be the very best thing to happen to the issue of campaign finance reform in a long time. I know it will represent for me the final straw and cause me to be ready to tear the party apart to get it back in the hands of the people once again.
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mfpdx
October 15, 2009 1:33 AM in reply to SleepinJeezus
Lieberman is NOT a Dem, and he wasn't voted into office by Democrats....regardless of the farce of their saying so. He doesn't vote w/the Dems any more than the R's - he has been against the progressives on the war, wiretapping, and this, just for starters - 3 very important topics......so no, he is not Democrat [nor does he call himself one anymore - whew!].
They don't have 60 votes either, but you're right, if the damned blue dogs would BE DEMOCRATS, they could do this.
Problem is, blue dogs aren't necessarily Dems, but cons.....voted in by cons.......to stop progressives in the party. So if blue dogs vote against HCR, they aren't going to pay.....the cons who voted them in will reward them for gawd sakes.......that's what they do. Reward failure.
And they are VERY good at it; Dems need to smarten up and stop celebrating the election of conservadems into their party.....might seem limiting, yet what good does it do to have them if they're going to actually FIGHT against you on things that are BASIC to the your [Democratic] platform while taking up a seat that Democrats should have at least tried to fill with a progressive; one who WOULD vote with them! Democrats just don't need blue dogs; they don't stand with the rest of the party.....these insurance companies have bought them off.......and it's not just the insurance companies......blue dogs are notoriously corporate. NOT fitting with the Democratic platform at all!
And quite frankly Democrats don't need that from their own party....they already have the R's to do that....
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JAY LAPIDUS
October 15, 2009 10:17 AM in reply to SleepinJeezus
You'll like this:
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/10/lieberman-flirting-with-political.html
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Forrest
October 14, 2009 11:06 PM in reply to Trailerville
Yes, because if they have 50 votes for passage then a vote for cloture is as good as a vote for passage.
It would be different if it was a matter of the opposition just not wanting to take ownership of the bill. Republicans are determined to prevent as much progress as possible on anything, though. The dissenting Democrats have a vested interest (in campaign contributions or otherwise) in killing it, too, so they won't even vote with their party for cloture.
The Senate leadership is spineless, and that is why they fail.
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mcrose68
October 15, 2009 10:07 AM in reply to Forrest
The Senate leadership is weak, and there are a good 15 or 20 Senators who are thinking about whether they'd like to retire rich, or retire common.
If they protect one of the largest cash cows ever created (the current medical insurance industry) they can retire as "consultants" with no particular responsibilities. If they help get a public option passed, it will hammer the profits and growth of a bloated insurance industry and . . .
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saschaben
October 14, 2009 10:45 PM
Well, I will say for them, it takes a great deal of skill to craft a paragraph like that which through the use of euphemism, cliche, and pablum business-speak, says absolutely nothing about anything.
Let's hope that the rest of the discussions are a bit more fruitful in the content department.
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Trailerville
October 14, 2009 10:48 PM in reply to saschaben
It was a pretty impressive amount of meaninglessness.
Also, I hope that was just a bad picture. They all look really pissed.
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pablito
October 14, 2009 10:55 PM
I cannot wait for Baucus' little 15 minutes in the spotlight to end. This guy is really milking his moment. When the health care bill is signed into law, no matter what its contents, he is going to slip back into obscurity and ultimately blipped out of the public eye once the Montana voters can get their hands on him again. Such a smug jackass in every photo op.
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egads
October 14, 2009 11:10 PM
It's a wonderful country. Senators representing fewer than 4 percent of the populstion of the country (that is, if you include Senator Snowe) are meeting to decide what the rest of us can have by way of health care. I hope they include some money for mental health. I think I'm going to need it.
Egads
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jmcrocco
October 15, 2009 8:43 AM in reply to egads
I don't know why People in these threads keep dumping on Maine like our low population makes us any less relevant, the truth of the matter is that "Maine care" our public health plan for low income citizens works extremely well for people who can't afford coverage. I'm surprised hasn't come up thus far. Anyway Pro HCR supporters should be happy that they got any R votes , if it wasn't for the forward thinking tendency of Mainers , I doubt she would have supported it , I don't think some of you people realize , Maine is a state full of liberal people though we do vote republican often enough but we also hold OUR politicians accountable. We have been lobbying snowe constantly to get this vote She knows she will not win re-election if she simply blocks reform. My god listening to some of you makes me wonder if you are getting involved in YOUR states
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wbgonne
October 15, 2009 8:56 AM in reply to jmcrocco
I'm with you. Maine is a great place with pretty good politics. It isn't the fault of lightly-populated states that the Constitution gives every state two senators. That's life.
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Walter Mitty
October 14, 2009 11:27 PM
Why did Harkin send Dodd to represent HELP? Dodd is a White House patsy. You'd think after all the big talking from Harkin about how a public option will be in the final bill that he'd be the one personally fighting for it.
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benintn
October 14, 2009 11:49 PM in reply to Walter Mitty
Because Ted Kennedy is dead. And Harkin, for what it's worth, wasn't involved in writing the bill. Dodd was the one who helped push the HELP committee process through and ran the sessions in Kennedy's absence.
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Tanjaoui
October 15, 2009 10:17 AM in reply to benintn
Yes, I think Kennedy dead would do as good a job as Dodds alive. Better: his memory might spur their consciences as they meld these two bills. I'm pretty sure he would've seen to it a decent po made it into the bill.
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hollywood
October 14, 2009 11:57 PM
Yeah where is Harkin???
I would much rather have a rabid liberal chewing on Max and Harry at this meeting of the minds.
With literally so many lives hanging in the balance, what these guys do is stunningly, profoundly important to the future of America. Millions of bankruptcy fillings or not. Tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths or not. Please give yourselves over to your heart and conscience. Please make us proud of our country again! The most popular historical figure in our neighbor Canada is the man who fought and won the battle for universal health care........ as if you and everyone you love truly owes life itself to political heroics. Where is the heart of America? We will know soon.
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KML
October 15, 2009 12:12 AM
The vote for cloture versus the actual vote for the bill is what I don't get. Does anyone have or know of any info/stats on how often senators who plan to vote against their party on the substance of a bill continue to support their party when it comes to voting for cloture? In this specific case, I've read conflicting reports indicating that Dems either do or don't have the likely support for cloture on this, even though some conservative Dems are unlikely to vote for the actual bill (at least assuming it moves to the left before the vote). But when guys like Schumer and Baucus, who presumably know these rules better than I do, say they don't have/can't get the 60 votes (yet) for a bill with the public option, I assume they're confident that either the same handful of Dems voting no on the bill will vote against cloture, or that a group of dem procedure hawks (Russ Feingold, etc.) who ultimately WILL vote for the bill WON'T vote for cloture.
So I'm curious- anyone have those statistics?
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mans_best_friend
October 15, 2009 12:32 AM in reply to KML
I don't think statistics mean much in this case. The vote will be so close that even one defection might be enough. And it certainly isn't a given that if they manage the cloture vote that they will get 50 Aye votes on the bill. All that will depend on what's in the bill and that's pretty much up for grabs right now. They have a very small needle to thread, trying to keep both the progressives and Blue Dogs on board. There's no solution that will make everyone happy. The best they're going to be able to do is craft a compromise that each group can live with. But it won't be easy.
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WNCBlue
October 15, 2009 8:44 AM in reply to KML
OpenLeft.com has been keeping track of the Senate votes.
By their count, there are 51 senators on the record as being in favor of some form of the public option, the latest being Jon Tester.
So far no member of the caucus has gone on the record as being willing to filibuster a bill with a public option, though Lieberman and Nelson have specifically refused to rule it out.
But if they choose not to include a public option in the bill, Reid, Baucus, and Dodd will give Lieberman and Nelson - and any other Democrat whose donors oppose a public option - a free pass.
I agree with Jane Hamsher at firedoglake. Reid should put in a public option - the preference of a majority of the caucus, and a policy that would pass the senate on an up-or-down vote - and then let any Democrats who want to kill it, kill it. At least that way we'll know exactly who they are.
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dannyluv
October 15, 2009 12:19 AM
I'm sorry, but we don't give a damn if it passes with 60, 51 is fine as long as it has a public option. Screw Snowe and anyone else trying to kill the public option and lord help the idiot that votes against it. If you think you will get away with no public option, you had better think again, there will be consequences, swift and severe
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Seafarer
October 15, 2009 12:45 AM in reply to dannyluv
This comment by dannvlu is 100% correct.
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xargaw
October 15, 2009 1:07 AM
Let's hope Dodd carrys the torch for Ted Kennedy. It would be good to see someone want to deliver decent reform for the Kennedy legacy.
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mc mark
October 15, 2009 7:30 AM
[quote]and we are energized with how close we stand to bringing meaningful reform to our health [b]insurance[/b] system. [/quote]
Hum? Dog whistle?
Um senator you should be working on health[b]care[/b] reform, not health insurance reform
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RectoNoVerso
October 15, 2009 8:37 AM
Health Care Options For Dummies
http://rectonoverso.wordpress.com/2009/10/15/health-care-options-for-dummies/
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Clavis
October 15, 2009 9:58 AM
I certainly hope that the Democrats continue to keep the opinion of Ronaldus Magnus in mind...
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