TBD on Ning
Give Me a Public Option or Give Me Death? 4 Democratic Senators will not support Public Option
Senate Democrats managed to pull together a 60-vote majority Saturday evening to pass a key vote keeping health care reform legislation on track, despite efforts by Republicans (and, prior to the vote, a few slow-to-the-table Democrats) to stall or kill the bill.
There are many health care-related issues being debated in Congress, from insurer abuse, preconditions and spiraling health costs to abortion funding and Medicare taxes. But the most contentious issue popping up continues to be the so-called "public option" — government-backed health care coverage — similar to Medicare but available to anyone who cannot obtain or afford coverage from private insurance companies.
"You have people on one side saying 'I won't vote for a final bill if it's in it,' and you have other people saying, 'I won't vote for a final bill if it's not in it,'" said CBS News political analyst John Dickerson, "and so as Harry Reid and the president try to mollify one group, they end up making the other group angry."
Dickerson said this morning he believed that Democrats will get some form of health reform passed, mostly because President Obama is "desperate."
"He cannot have this not pass," Dickerson told "Early Show" anchor Harry Smith. "And Democrats running in 2010 have to have something to run on. So something will pass. It may not look pretty, but something will pass.
"This is the president's signature domestic policy priority. His chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, has said failure is not an option — now that's the kind of thing you say in negotiations, but that's where they are. They need something to pass. They can't have spent all of this energy, campaign on this issue, and then come up with nothing. It would be too desperate for them."
Sausage-making was never like this: Liberal and moderate House members find themselves supporting a 2,074-page reform bill that prohibits federal funds in any insurance plan covering abortion procedures, while conservatives in the Senate are being asked to back a bill that would raise Medicare taxes on wealthier Americans.
"It's a problem for them, on several different issues: On the public option, on the question of abortion for some that is a very big deal, and then also on the cost," Dickerson said.
"And the problem also for them is, if the president is not popular — we see his approval ratings dropping — they don't get the political cover from a popular president that they would like, and that they need."
While Senate Democrats stood together Saturday evening, staying together may be the real challenge. Some moderates (including Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark.) said that while they supported debate on the bill, they could not promise their votes would be there at the end.
Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., said on ABC's "This Week," "If there are a whole host of other items that are the same as they are right now, I wouldn't vote to get it off the floor."
Nelson and a handful of others are threatening to sink the measure unless massive changes take place, said CBS News correspondent Whit Johnson.
Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., is staunchly opposed to a government-backed program, saying it would be fiscally ruinous. "I don't want to fix the problems in our health care system in a way that creates more of an economic crisis," he said on NBC's "Meet the Press."
But supporters say this bill is critical to expanding health care coverage to roughly 31 million uninsured Americans. And they refuse to let a small group of Senators stand in the way.
"I don't want four Democratic Senators dictating to the other 56 of us," Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, said on CNN's "State of the Union."
Reid added an opt-out of the public option for states which did not want it, to try to fend off opposition, but the opt-out hasn’t won over conservatives — making liberals more frustrated.
"What we will say to the people from the more red, conservative states, 'Your state doesn’t have to take it'; but don’t make it so that my state, which would like a public option, can’t take it," Senator Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said Sunday on "Face the Nation."
There are many health care-related issues being debated in Congress, from insurer abuse, preconditions and spiraling health costs to abortion funding and Medicare taxes. But the most contentious issue popping up continues to be the so-called "public option" — government-backed health care coverage — similar to Medicare but available to anyone who cannot obtain or afford coverage from private insurance companies.
"You have people on one side saying 'I won't vote for a final bill if it's in it,' and you have other people saying, 'I won't vote for a final bill if it's not in it,'" said CBS News political analyst John Dickerson, "and so as Harry Reid and the president try to mollify one group, they end up making the other group angry."
Dickerson said this morning he believed that Democrats will get some form of health reform passed, mostly because President Obama is "desperate."
"He cannot have this not pass," Dickerson told "Early Show" anchor Harry Smith. "And Democrats running in 2010 have to have something to run on. So something will pass. It may not look pretty, but something will pass.
"This is the president's signature domestic policy priority. His chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, has said failure is not an option — now that's the kind of thing you say in negotiations, but that's where they are. They need something to pass. They can't have spent all of this energy, campaign on this issue, and then come up with nothing. It would be too desperate for them."
Sausage-making was never like this: Liberal and moderate House members find themselves supporting a 2,074-page reform bill that prohibits federal funds in any insurance plan covering abortion procedures, while conservatives in the Senate are being asked to back a bill that would raise Medicare taxes on wealthier Americans.
"It's a problem for them, on several different issues: On the public option, on the question of abortion for some that is a very big deal, and then also on the cost," Dickerson said.
"And the problem also for them is, if the president is not popular — we see his approval ratings dropping — they don't get the political cover from a popular president that they would like, and that they need."
While Senate Democrats stood together Saturday evening, staying together may be the real challenge. Some moderates (including Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark.) said that while they supported debate on the bill, they could not promise their votes would be there at the end.
Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., said on ABC's "This Week," "If there are a whole host of other items that are the same as they are right now, I wouldn't vote to get it off the floor."
Nelson and a handful of others are threatening to sink the measure unless massive changes take place, said CBS News correspondent Whit Johnson.
Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., is staunchly opposed to a government-backed program, saying it would be fiscally ruinous. "I don't want to fix the problems in our health care system in a way that creates more of an economic crisis," he said on NBC's "Meet the Press."
But supporters say this bill is critical to expanding health care coverage to roughly 31 million uninsured Americans. And they refuse to let a small group of Senators stand in the way.
"I don't want four Democratic Senators dictating to the other 56 of us," Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, said on CNN's "State of the Union."
Reid added an opt-out of the public option for states which did not want it, to try to fend off opposition, but the opt-out hasn’t won over conservatives — making liberals more frustrated.
"What we will say to the people from the more red, conservative states, 'Your state doesn’t have to take it'; but don’t make it so that my state, which would like a public option, can’t take it," Senator Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said Sunday on "Face the Nation."
Tags: Public Option, healthcare
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