Pelosi on the Public Option: "That's Gonna Happen."

[kpete]

Source: The Nation

Pelosi on the Public Option: "That's Gonna Happen."
posted by Christopher Hayes on 07/22/2009 @ 3:08pm


Just got back from an hour-long interview Speaker Pelosi gave to a few journalists on healthcare. I've interviewed the speaker a number of times, and it always strikes me how vast the gap must be between Pelosi's public persona as a kind of gentle earnest liberal grandmother, and her behind-the-scenes role as an incredibly effective vote wrangler. At one point she said that she's always called Washington DC "the city of the perishable. When you got the vote, you take the vote." And at this she pounded her fist into her hand with relish and a smile that made me think about just how much she seems to like her job.

She seemed confident about the House being able to pass a healthcare bill with a "strong" public option, the importance of which she repeatedly stressed. "That's gonna happen," she said flatly. She also said that for all the stories about Democrats rebelling over the Ways and Means proposed surtax on the rich, she's gotten very little push back from members of her caucus.

And unlike Democrats in the Senate, Pelosi didn't seem overly concerned with getting a bipartisan bill. "This is bigger than anything we've done in our political lives," she said of passing healthcare reform. "It's the most noticeable initiative that Congress can take that improves the lives of Americans." Republicans, Pelosi said, know just how politically potent the issue is and how much successful reform would benefit Democrats. And that's why they're devoted to killing it. Jim DeMint's comments that defeating healthcare would "break" Obama, "blew their cover." Pelosi said. "They will do anything to stop it."

All of that said, Pelosi, who urged forward momentum and no delay, wouldn't commit to a firm time line. And she was restrained and diplomatic in responding to questions about members of the Blue Dog caucus that have sought to slow things down. While she suggested the house would pass their version of the bill before August recess, she stopped short of promising it. She clearly feels the urgency, however. "Ideas can melt in the sun," she said, "especially in August."


Read more: http://www.thenation.com/blogs/jstreet/454643/pelosi_on_the_public_option_that_s_gonna_happen

[berni_mccoy]

1. Very encouraging.

[Libertas1776]

2. Boy, do I hope so.

[RollWithIt]

3. So if this bill contains a public option, will the critics on the left back off?

I mean seriously, if he passes the most important health care bill since Nixon started the mess, does that buy him breathing room from the naysayers?

[No Elephants]

5. I think Teddy Roosevelt started it before Nixon started it.

;)

[RollWithIt]

12. I'd suggest you check your own intelligence if you think FDR is somehow to blame for current HC

And start checking the Nixon tapes on the subject. Nixon basically planned out how to provide private insurance companies the ability to provide less care and make more money. It's all on the Nixon tapes.

[Johnny Noshoes]

17. ugh...That's TEDDY Roosevelt NOT FDR.

You know FDR's cousin TEDDY who was President way before Franklin.

[RollWithIt]

27. Uh,,, I stand by my statement, even though I misunderstood the Roosevelt...

Your post still doesn't make any sense.

[Johnny Noshoes]

29. I meant to reply...

I meant to reply to the person who mentioned TR. Yeah as a reply to you it doesn't make sense - ah well. Actually upon reading it again I DID mean to reply to you. I do agree with you it WAS Nixon who started this whole mess with the HMO nonsense. If we can get some kind of decent reform it will be a START. I think if the public option part of the reforms is set up right - over time it will out compete private insurance and we just might end up with single payer by process of evolution.

[Umbral]

6. Why should they?

[Amos Moses]

9. It depends on what the public option entails.

[ProudDad]

11. No unless it's a VIABLE public option

that will lead to single-payer...

http://www.pnhp.org/blog/2009/07/20/bait-and-switch-how-the-%E2%80%9Cpublic-option%E2%80%9D-was-sold/

Anything less will be worse than what we have now...

[glitch]

26. Exactly. So my guess is NO. At least I hope they won't back off if offered something so shoddy as

the public option as it's currently described.

[tavalon]

31. If this includes a public option I will be thrilled and will sing Obama's praises about it

and I will continue to hold his feet to the fire regarding Iraq, Afghanistan, indefinite detention and protecting the Bush administration - all things I think he is handling badly. Overall, though, as pissed as I am about the above mentioned things, I like Obama. I think he's done a huge amount of good in such a short time.

[John Q. Citizen]

33. Which bill are you referring to with a public option? There is the bill that just passed the

three committees of the house that has what is being called a "Public Option" but won't allow people to buy into it. It has fire walls and will only have about 10 million enrollees by 2019, according to the scoring by the congressional budget office. it doesn't contain costs according to CBO.

It's essentially Romney Care, what the state of MA passed under Gov Romney. It forces everybody to pay private insurance companies and to buy health insurance from them. The tax payers subside lower income people. As costs go up, benefits are cut. Did that buy Romney breathing room? Maybe a tiny bit for a short while, but the problem is that Romney Care, while very popular with the insurance industry and the drug companies, doesn't contain costs and so as people see their benefit disappearing and their health care access shrinking they don't like it. Romney isn't considered a public hero in MA

i think you are mistaken in your caricaturization of the issues as "Left vs Right"

What people want is affordable quality health care for all. "Affordable" "quality" and "for all" are the key words here.


We know this can happen, because people all over the world have done this.


However, simply signing a bill, any bill, and calling it landmark reform (which is what Romney did) won't work.

The people you see pushing and asking for more are doing so because we want a better bill. We are concerned with health care primarily, not with whether obama gets more or less breathing room. Of course Obama said this isn't about him, yet people, like yourself. will want to make this about him.

if the Dems pass a bill that contains costs and extends quality affordable health care to all and Obama signs it, they will get lots of breathing room. Not for the passing and the signing, but because the bill actually effects peoples lives for the better.

So I guess we will see what bill gets produced and if it actually effects people lives, substantially, for the better.

[Zhade]

36. +1 -- great post.

NT!

[DireStrike]

34. It really depends on the bill

It could be a poisoned option that really has no chance of surviving. Or it could be the foot in the door towards single payer. We shall see.

[Auggie]

4. Just hurry

I'm falling apart here

[No Elephants]

7. She has the votes in the House. Tthe House is only Part 1 of the battle, though.

[W_HAMILTON]

8. Yeah. I almost never worry about the House.

It's always the Senators that are the problem. Republicans threaten a filibuster, and the Democrats never retain enough of themselves to muster 60-votes on anything. The Senate is the problem, not the House. I have no doubt that Pelosi will keep her word, at least on this issue.

[FatDave]

13. We don't need 60 to pass it.

We just need for no democrats to join a republican filibuster. And if such a thing as political suicide exists, I would have to think a democrat joining a republican filibuster would be it.

[Deep13]

15. This is being introduced using "reconcilliation."

We need 50 votes in the Senate. We already have a majority on board in the House.

[FatDave]

18. Not yet it's not.

Reconciliation is an option on the table to get around a filibuster if we need to, but the Senate and Obama want to avoid it if necessary, because it is the very definition of ramming it through. They might use it as a last resort, but they want to avoid it if they can because they will suffer a great deal of blowback.

Still, all we need is 50 out of 60 democrats to vote for the bill (with Biden to break the tie) for it to pass. Where we need 60 is in voting for cloture, which is the vote to stop debating and vote already. Republicans can keep a vote from happening by refusing to vote for cloture, which is a filibuster. So all we need 60 votes on is cloture. There can be blue-dogs who don't vote for the bill, they just have to vote to end debate. Not doing so is supporting a republican filibuster, which I think would be the end of their career as a democrat.

Now, I'm not sure how many of these blue-dogs we've got all together, and I'm not sure how many of them couldn't be brought on board eventually, but I think one way or another we can get 5/6ths of our senators to support the democratic platform.

[W_HAMILTON]

20. I'd be surprised if we don't need 60.

We're Democrats. We need 60 to pass anything. Republicans will just threaten to filibuster otherwise.

[ProudDad]

10. Smoke Screen "public option"

to shovel more money at the health-industrial-complex...

For the real skinny:

http://www.pnhp.org/blog/2009/07/20/bait-and-switch-how-the-%E2%80%9Cpublic-option%E2%80%9D-was-sold/

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6120089

[Amos Moses]

14. thanks for the links

kick :kick:

[John K]

16. why does the author of this article ignore the un-insured?

Good Dr. Kip (bait and switch) keeps saying that the House "public option" being suggested would not be pre-populated. What has happened to the 47 million uninsured? Aren't they the base for the public option? He also talks about a sales force for "public option." Does Medicare have a sales force?

Unfortunately, we are stuck between the cuckoos on the right who want nothing and the wackos on the left who want everything. If you read the House bill (I'm up to page 100) you will notice that it is complicated stuff that will not rise full grown from the President's pen when he signs a bill. The signing of this legislation will be a beginning not an end.

How was Social Security created? How about Medicare? The bureacrats did their work after the reporters and the politicians had gone home. Stay calm, change IS coming.

[Schema Thing]

32. welcome to DU, John K.

anyone who actually reads bills is going to be a good addition to our discussion board!

[John Q. Citizen]

37. I don't think Kip Sullivan is a doctor. He's an expert on health insurance systems and he's an

organizer.

the CBO, (Congressional Budget Office) scored and analyzed the bill. I don't think they are on the right or on the left. They work for Congress. Or are you suspicious of the CBO?

According to the CBO, the public pool in the house bill will go into effect on 2013 and by 2019 it might have as many as 10 million people enrolled. The reason Kip Sullivan says it will start out empty is because that is how the bill is written. That is also why the CBO project that by 2019 it may have as many as 10 million enrollees.

The 47 million uninsured would be subsidized by tax payers and insured by private insurance companies. Which is why the bill is expected to cost around 1 trillion dollars in new money over the next ten years, according to the CBO.

You, I , and the left all would think that perhaps the 47 million uninsured should be the base for the option. But that isn't how congress wrote the bill. Sorry. Better luck next time.

You seem to somehow assume the the health reform law written by congress and recommeded out of committee has some relation to Medicare. It doesn't. The laws are very different, they aren't connected in any way. No, medicare doesn't have a sales force. But private insurance companies do have sales forces. And the pool in the house law will have a sales force, That way it can compete on a level playing field with private insurance companies. Stupid, I know, but thats is how it's written.

Too bad us wackos on the left weren't writing the bill, or we would have set it up like Medicare, also. But that would have been unfair to the bloodsucking scumbag insurance companies, now wouldn't it?

You should read up on Social Security and Medicare You don't seem to understand how they came to be or how they were set up.

They were put into place by real lefties, you know, real and true whackos, which is why they work so well and people like them so much.

[WriteDown]

28. Yep, we're going to make a lot of healthcare execs VERY....

rich.

[LaPera]

19. Fucking makes me smile...Very happy, & yes, very encouraging to hear the speaker say those words!!

[earcandle]

21. Keep those calls going at this link

http://www.democrats.com/single-payer-committee-whip

[KoKo]

22. K&R...Sounds Good...hopes it's a good "Public Option," though...

[The Stranger]

23. What in the fuck is she waiting for?

Why dare the Rightist, Elitist media to stampede the sheeple against it?

[Kingofalldems]

24. Blue Dog(s) now in a state of shock!

[creeksneakers2]

25. This is what she was keeping the powder dry for

Big change. Not just symbols.

[grantcart]

30. yup almost like they had a plan

[colsohlibgal]

35. Public Option Is A Broad Term

I'm not sure that the public option she is talking about is what we need. I keep hearing things form people that leap out at me. One thing is I keep hearing people like Donna Edwards of Maryland this morning, who said there would be a public option that would be "competitive" with the private plans. Competitive? So that means instead of a $800 a month premium their plan would only be $775? Not only that, but health care should not be employer based.

The republicans are intent on stopping any kind of reform to protect their rich buddies/benefactors. Unfortunately that's also the case with too many democrats. Then 80% of the other democrats don't get it. The club that gets it is Bernie Sanders, Dennis Kucinich and shockingly few others.

We need to boot the leeches and go to a subsidized single payer. France is rated #1 in the world in health care, do like they do.

Financing for it? End the drug war and tax pot. Heck, cut the defense budget in half - we'd still be paying more than anyone else except maybe China. Create a fair tax code - raising the top marginal rate to 45% or so. Collect social security tax from all, not just those below 100,000. Start making tangible products here again and reestablish proper tariffs to protect our goods. Cut the oil barons off at their knees ASAP, invest in clean, green energy like wind and solar. Do all that and we could provide health care for all, college for all, and begin to completely repair and revamp our infrastructure. But wait, that would be democracy and we live in a corporates oligarchy. Never mind, I forgot that lobbyists, power brokers and Goldman Sachs run Washington.

Breaking news - Senate Majority leader Harry Reid is still in need of a spine transplant,he says they will not get anything done before the break - more time to water this bill down further.