Senate aides say Reid doesn’t have the votes for opt-out public option

[babsbunny]

Senate aides say Reid doesn’t have the votes for opt-out public option

http://rawstory.com/2009/10/senate-aides-reid-votes-public-option/

By John Byrne
Monday, October 26th, 2009 -- 5:49 pm

Fresh on the heels of announcing that he will include an opt-out, government-run insurance plan in the Senate health overhaul, the New York Times and Washington Post reported that Reid had not secured every Democratic vote needed to ensure the bill will make it to the Senate floor.

"Senate aides said Monday that Mr. Reid was several votes short," the Times said.

"Reid has carefully canvassed the Senate in search of 60 votes," added the Post. "So far, he has not locked down commitments from every Democrat, Senate sources said."

[AndyA]

1. Time to do your job (for a change) Harry.

Twist arms. Threaten to remove people from committee positions. Do whatever it takes to make them do what they need to do.

In short, take a clue from the Republicans.

Failure will guarantee Dems lose seats next year. Someone has got to make Reid stiffen up a bit and quit being so damn accommodating to those who impede what the voters want.

[laughingliberal]

10. I think he is doing his job and I'm no fan of Harry's on most days

And he has the scathing emails from this Nevadan to prove it. I think he believes the public option needs to be in the bill and I think he is relatively sure he can get this to the floor for a vote or he wouldn't have done it. I could be mistaken but I don't see him climbing out on a limb unless he believes he has the votes and the support of the President.

[Beetwasher]

2. LOL! The BS Begins To Fly!

Or should I say continues.

[tblue]

3. Well, it was fun while it lasted.

Herding kittens, I swear. Give 'em hell, Harry!!!

[Thrill]

4. Notice evey time it looks like we're going to have the Public Option

these anonymous sources or aides start trying to butcher it.

[KittyWampus]

8. like clockwork.

[boobooday]

13. Yes, everytime there is progress

Someone slips out the "undermine" message and it gets repeated, sourced or not, endlessly.

[KittyWampus]

5. are these Senate aides from the Republican side of the aisle. LOL

[Jim Sagle]

6. I call BS is on this - not on the OP but on the NYT and WAPO.

Just about everything we "know" about poltics is screened through people who are not our friends and who are in the news SUPPRESSION business.

[Aramchek]

7. sure he doesn't, Mr. Anonymous aide.

and the Public Option's still dead, right?!?
:sarcasm:

[DJ13]

9. Reid is too cautious (way too cautious) not to have the votes before announcing it

The only way he might announce without having the votes lined up is if the WH has promised to send Rahm over to break some kneecaps.

[pinto]

11. May not be unusual in the process to have 'not secured' every needed vote.

I wouldn't be surprised if some Senators are refusing to commit publicly, or to their aides, for that matter.

:shrug:

[laughingliberal]

12. And, it does look as if the White House is on board

I posted a link earlier today to this article where Christina Romer spoke about cost savings with the public option. Notice, this is a senior adviser on the record, quoted by name:

One of President Obama's senior advisers argued on Monday that a national public plan would have a noticeable impact on lowering the costs of the health care system yet the evidence wasn't yet available to claim that a trigger-proposal would do the same.
Dr. Christina Romer, Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, said that she had "personally been quite persuaded that the public option can be an important source of cost growth containment," during a speech at the Center for American Progress.
Romer cited a case study of counties in California where the introduction of a government-run plan helped bring down overall costs in the private market.
"One of the things I've learned is that if you look at the state of California for example, where people on Medicaid have a lot of the counties what they do is to contract with HMO to provide care to Medicaid patients," said Romer, in response to a question posed by Adele M. Stan,
Washington Bureau Chief of the site, AlterNet. "And there are a lot of what we call two-plan counties where there are two plans in each counties. And in some counties there are two private plans and in some counties you have one private plan and one publicly run plan. And the interesting thing is that cost growth in the counties with a public and a private is indeed slower than in counties with two privately run plans. It is a small sample... that is one of the things that is giving me a sense that it could be something that could genuinely slow the growth rate of costs."


Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/26/christina-romer-public-pl_n_334043.html

[bluestateguy]

14. Here we go with the leaky pissant congressional staffers

I should have known.

Those people need to get real jobs.

[TheWebHead]

15. there's no way it can pass

states have the ability to opt-in to subsidizing those that accept the new entitlement program... essentially shoving the knife in to those opposing the public option, making them pay for what they don't want. It's a political pinata that will be ruthlessly smacked at but will allow Democrats to say, "well we tried" to the base. I suspect Reid knows it has no chance hence he quietly mentioned the plan includes co-ops, which will be the fallback.

[Aramchek]

16. nope, it'll pass with flying colors

And Obama and the Democrats will have accomplished what noone has been able to do for the last Century in this Nation.

[saracat]

17. Because it isn't a real Public Option if it doesn't cover everyone yet madates everyone must pay!