Weiner: No public option could cost as many as 100 House votes

Source: The Hill

A healthcare reform deal abandoning a public (or "government-run") option for consumers could cost as many as 100 Democratic votes in the House, one House Democratic lawmaker warned Monday.

Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) asserted that rumored compromises on a Senate bill to win centrist votes would torpedo healthcare reform's prospects with liberal members of the House.

"If the president thinks he's cutting a deal to get Senate votes, he's probably losing House votes," Weiner warned during an interview on CNBC this morning.

The liberal New York Democrat said that healthcare reform would be essentially meaningless without having a public option made available for consumers.

Obama administration officials had subtly signaled during the Sunday morning talk show circuit that they may relent on their desired public option in favor of establishing healthcare cooperatives, an issue on which centrist Democrats and Republicans have expressed some semblance of agreement.

"If he says, 'Well, we're not going to have that,' then I'm not really quite sure what we're doing here anymore," Weiner said.

He added that he wouldn't vote for a bill without a public option, as well: "Not only I, but I think there's about 100 members of the House that you need to have something to bring down the prices."

Weiner mildly chided President Obama for his work to defend his healthcare priorities, arguing that the president had done a poor job of convincing senior citizens that the reform legislation would leave their Medicare coverage unaffected.

"Medicare's been used as the bogeyman," Weiner said. "And President Obama up to now hasn't done a great job of putting their mind at ease, and that's part of the problem."

Read more: http://briefingroom.thehill.com/2009/08/17/weiner-senate-healthcare-deal-could-cost-100-house-votes/

is the SECOND best member of the House...right behind my Rep. Robert Wexler.

LET THEM KNOW THEY WILL LOSE YOUR VOTE FOR ALL DEMOCRAT CANDIDATES IF THEY TAKE THIS OFF THE TABLE.....

2 points HGL2U
1-Obama said it'll get done and I believe him and...
2-I made a vow in 2000 (after my name was taken off the rolls down here) to NEVER vote for a republican again as long as I live

Now we may have work for and vote in BETTER democrats

But, there aren't enough of them working for us to have a majority for anything

Most Dems are controlled by special interest money just like Repubs.

You are only attempting to split the Democratic Party by pushing for a third party since the Republicans have nothing to offer except obstructionism.

email him and your Rep and Sens supporting a public option. You can do it more than once. (I like once a week myself.) This is when they need to hear from us.

We will have to work for better Democrats. For starters, join your State Democratic Party if you are not already a member.

But, the alternative to voting for a Democrat is NOT voting for a Republican. It is voting Green or some other third party or even writing someone in.

On edit: AFAIK, this is the most recent quote from Obama on the public option:

“The public option, whether we have it or we don’t have it, is not the entirety of healthcare reform,” Obama said at the town hall event in Colorado. “This is just one sliver of it. One aspect of it. And by the way, it’s both the right and the left that have become so fixated on this that they forget everything else.”

That is far from saying it will get done, or that he will veto a bill that does not contain a srong public option, as the Progressive Caucus defines that term. That is saying the public option is not the be all and end all and leaves open the possiblity that we will not get it.

...it's about healthcare in America.

!

Also wrote my congressman to tell him to thank him.

..................a toothless plan w/o a public option, even if that means Obama losing in 2012. This was his one BIG promise. He has already backed off on other campaign promises and the much overrated "change we can believe in", that maybe we can start electing REAL Democrats in the tradition of FDR, LBJ, Eugene Debs and Michael Harrington. Fuck these Clinton/Obama "centrist" Democrats.

not bought and paid for by lobbyists

Nice job!

what the insurance/'Just say no' groups would do.

At least open it to 55-65 year olds.

I hate the sleazy republicans more and more each day.

It was an amendment to the health care bill. It was voted on at the end of July. Not one member of Congress voted to support it! :rofl:

could be wrong, but I thought it was him?

:kick:

WTF.

Filibuster the Senate version. No reason to let the shitpile come to a vote if it is only going to MANDATE the purchase of PRIVATE FOR PROFIT health insurance - the so called CO-OPs are, and will be, an epic failure.

Actually Thom Hartmann has a GREAT idea - Forget the over complicated "Public Option" and open Medicare to ALL Americans - the system is already in place and functioning - why go to all the trouble to re-invent what already exist...

House representatives are all up for election in Nov 2010 - they will lose handily if they vote for a non-public option bill. Whether in the primaries or in the general, they will have a very tough fight to win.

I doubt such a bill would pass the Senate either, but you never know - they are way too insularized (if that's even a word) so they have no clue of reality.

On the positive side, Pelosi/White House/Progressive Caucus all seem to be behind the public option (if their statements from today are to be believed).

case, it just might pass.

And then 10 Senate Dems will need to sign on.

Well, if Senate Dems were willing to filibuster a watered down version, then maybe you would need 20 Senate Dems to sign on.

But I just can't see a Dem threat of filibuster - they are way too weak and dispassionate about healthcare it seems.

However, I am encouraged by statements from the Dem leadership that the public option is a priority. Let's see.

...a crappy product. Obama is essentially opposing a public option (opposing it in the sense that he's weakening its chances of passage with his mixed messages and weak statements). I'd prefer to see the whole thing trashed if Obama and his Republican/DINO accomplices in Congress succeed in killing it for their corporate masters.

the taxpayer's dime. And not much more.

That would pass, because the Republicans and Purple Dogs would vote for it, too. (They don't deserve the name "Blue.")

worh it. Besides, I would rather have public option lose in the Senate than see a bill without the public option win. The latter would be a total disaster. And, if the public option loses, at least the people who stopped health reform in American will be on record.

Too much bad blood, and the Senators don't have enough spine to risk it. Plus, there are lingering consequences of using it.

I say let these a-holes filibuster a public option bill. The handful of Dems who will spend 3-4 weeks talking incessantly in order to block true health reform will be infamous forever. Especially if you have the President, the public, and the majority of both the Senate and the House clamoring for it.

And if a no public option bill passes (though I doubt one will), good luck to the House Dems who pass it. Don't expect a dime from the base, and expect to get primaried out in 2010.

A bill without a public option ain't worth it. It won't be true health reform, and no one will touch healthcare ever again because it would have been "addressed" already.

on HEALTH CARE??
with the exception of LieberDweeb.

Seems to be a split between progressives and conservatives.

and little else ..

their whole goal is to keep their corporate paymasters happy - so that come back for another 6 years and hear themselves talk some more

utterly spineless. He cannot move legislation worth a damn, AND he's conceded control of the Senate to the Repubs since he claims he needs 60 votes to do anything.

Could you imagine what Lyndon Johnson would do if he were in the Senate now? He'd eat Reid for breakfast.

Was just on my local public radio station reminding everyone that the public option IS the compromise position of progressives. He acknowledged one co-op in LI that works but largely dismissed co-ops as unproven.


Cher

insurance company, officially "non-profit," but with high executive pay and lavish headquarters.

I'm contacting John Dingell and telling him not to vote for the "reform" unless there is a public option!

Remind the WH and the conservadem negotiators that their votes will NOT be taken for granted.

It is the only power the left really has, and it has not been used for decades. Time to remind the party what the word "base" means.....it means without it, you don't have a fucking party.

It's probably that f'ing Rahm -- dlc stooge.

If they ram this thing thru he's going the LBJ route and there'll be a very serious primary challenger. And believe me, I'll be scraping the Obama off my sweat shirt and writing the other guy's name on it. In fact, maybe it'd be good to do that now to send a message.

So far (you Obama people can flame all you want) he has done around 4 things that I did NOT vote for. Iraq, Geithner/Summers, and ... oh f' it. I'm too pissed to think straight.

And yeah, Dennis was my first choice. Only statesman in the crowd.

I'll be doing an email/call to Inslee later today. Probably letter to the local paper, too.

High speed rail and where the hell's my broadband...hurry, gotta pay the cable company.

and said that unless a public option is passed I wouldn't vote for him agian NO MATTER HOW HE VOTES. I pounded on doors for Jimmy Carter and every Dem since but with 60 Dems in the Senate if there is no Puiblic Option, I'm Green!

progressives. No public option = no point to this exercise.

a Dem in a primary against any of these f&*kers who votes against a public option.

They seem to think that they all got elected because we simply hated BushCo so much, so they can keep doing business as usual - there isn't enough belief in the change we voted on in their minds. I think they're sadly mistaken, and the backlash will be very real.

kicked and recommended.

We progressives need to stand firm on this. Dean also said we need to email like crazy for the next 8 to 10 weeks. Ask these reps if they will vote the way the people want or the way their campaign donors want.

Dear Senator,

Public Option IS a compromise.

I vote. I donate to politicians who I believe are making a difference for us and for our children.

A Single Payer health care solution is the morally and financially responsible plan. Anything less is a disgrace. And while I don’t like it, I understand the Public Option plan as a compromise and stepping stone to the future, something to build upon.

Single Payer is the ideal, but ANYTHING less than Public Option is unacceptable.

Again, I vote. I contribute. Any support by you for anything less than Public Option would force my vote to your opponent and to work against your re-election in the next election.

Please be responsible in how you represent us with Minnesota’s U.S. Senate seat. Please be on the right side of history.

Best,

I do keep emailing both of them but I fear it's a wasted effort.

Hop over to the Minnesota forum and you'll find a few versions of the non-response Klobuchar is sending out and Franken doesn't support single payer even in theory (unless it's done by individual states) and has indicated he'd be okay with coops. The Strib said Franken ranked #43 in insurance company donations and Klobuchar is #51 - not Max Baucus, but bad enough and it helps explain their positions (or in Klobuchar's case, her lack of a position).

Hopefully, enough of us will confront them or their staffs in person at their State Fair booths this year. It worked a couple years ago after Klobuchar voted for the FISA bill the first time it came up - she did vote against it the next time.

from Wall Street and the corporations and their lobbyists. About half cam from grassroots, liberals, progressives, unions, environmentalists, African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans - basically US! If Obama abandons US on Health Care, how will he put that exceptional coalition and money together in 2012?

He was talking about Congress.

His leadership on this issue has been less than ideal; in fact, it seems downright wishy washy. He should have been out squelching rumors--with a lightning response team like the one he had during his campaign--from Day 1. Instead, the asshole liars and propagandists have been given virtually free rein to pollute the entire issue, introduce chaos, make threats, and generally ruin his agenda and even his presidency. He also said jack when Max Jackass closed the doors on health reform "hearings" that Obama had "promised" would be open to all.

My vote can no longer be taken for granted. If "Democrats" want my vote, they need to push through DEMOCRATIC-style legislation that is of, by, and for We The People. I will be writing in Dennis Kucinich in 2012 for president if true "public option" health care is not available by then--esp. if I am FORCED to buy worthless fucking "health insurance."

At least a hundred, and counting. Easily. More by week's end. A very strong public option, and a rapid definition of 'affordable' are needed.

The last time she said that, it was five years ago, and some young guy from Illinois had just given the keynote speech at the Democratic convention.

I know. With a name like that, there's no way he can be elected.
Funny. That's what I said to her five years ago.

:rofl:

We need to keep the heat on in the House.

and while I'm a strong supporter of the President, he won't get it for very long if we don't have a Public Option.

Since the Republicans have made the words "public option" evil to their constituents, why not call it what we really want --
the option of Medicare for everyone.

How can the opposition fight Medicare? Vote against it?

We need the Democrats to stand up for us instead of the insurance corporations. We need Obama to do what he promised.

We need Democrats to stop acting like Republicans.

This is one fight we cannot afford to lose.

Medicare SHOULD be the public option. It's a no-brainer! It would be cheaper and easier to set up because it's already in place. It just has to be expanded.

This would severely limit the arguments of the opposition because they would be arguing AGAINST Medicare, which is political suicide. The fear factor would be virtually eliminated because everyone knows what Medicare is and how it works. It would also strengthen Medicare in the long run because it wouldn't be only older, higher risk (and more expensive) people in the plan. Like I said .. it makes too much sense. :-(

Welcome to DU! :hi:


edited: typo :blush:

This isn't about the right wingers, it's about the conservadems and blue dogs. They do know the difference between Medicare and Public Option and they know precisely how many votes it will cost them when an insurance company in their district goes out of business and its employees lose their jobs.

Obama is spot on. The votes are not there for a public option. Pass a bill that includes a co-op option. The co-op will eventually be able to include many of the uninsured. It will fall into financial difficulty and and need a bailout. Even the Republicans will have to support the bailout. Perfect plan, everyone wins.

Progressives don't have the strength to stand up to Rahm Emanuel. The White House needs this and they will cut deals with everyone. Once a program like a co-op health insurance plan is in place the Congress will be forced to keep it financially viable or they will be taking something away from folks. Right now they are giving something new. It's hard to put the toothpaste back in the tube.

NO PUBLIC OPTION AND WE GIVE THEM AN F!
And they will be remembered when the election rolls around! Anyone who stood in the way will be targeted big-time!

bug-time! lol!

A group to the left of a current Progressive Congressman is a very small group. They know they will be remembered when election time rolls around and they would rather have Rahm and his boy Barrack working for them. Bend over and get real ******.

It is the degree of winning. In the W tax cuts, I won and they gave me $600 (I think, that money didn't hang out long in my checking account). Dick Cheney won and they gave him $79,000 (or so). In this latest "compromise" the big winners are those who have been winning. We get a crumb from the pie, they get the rest.

So our treasury is depleted even more, no wait, our debt is increased even more and that money is given to special interests. As an analogy, they are taking the shirt off our back and putting it in some rich guy's rag pile.

We absolutely needed a Roosevelt, either one, and got neither. Obama gave us half of FDR's stimulus... the money out of the treasury but no tax the shit out of the rich to replenish it. No wait, that's wealth redistribution, we can't have that!

I thought Clinton screwed over the middle class, NAFTA, Gramm-Leach, a ton of things. I haven't seen this latest changer fixing anything.

I agree totally with Dennis and Dean. This bill should have been single payer to start with. Grudgingly give the f'ers the public option, kicking and screaming the whole way. They would have been fighting just as hard but they would have been starting from their 10 instead of our 40.

hold it up as an example of how "government" healthcare doesn't work and we'll wind up right back where we are today.

That's why California DROPPED a "co-op"...it didn't work!

repukes won't support ANYTHING that would appear to support any Democrat...

Co-Ops WON'T WORK -- they don't have enough negotiating power, it's unequal coverage depending on where you live and if it can't work in California, where the hell can it work?

Universal Enhanced and Improved Medicare for All is the ONLY "perfect plan" where everybody wins (except the leeches in the for-profit sick care industry)...

I lose. And democrats. They loose when the coop bill proves to be a dud. Oh, and the American people, they lose when they continue not to have affordable health care. Right, and don't forget the American Economy, which is being massacred by bloated health spending among other things. Then there's the whole way we are kinda tied in to the global economy, which is also been taking some pretty good knock.

But other than all that, you are right, everyone wins.

instead of just looking out for the immoral, dysfunctional, "health" insurance corporation's leech like profits.

Actually the only logical and by far most efficient solution is single payer universal health coverage; for all the American People from the cradle to the grave by the United States Government, that would be the cure, a strong public/private option would be treating the symptoms, no public option would be putting the American People down like you would a horse with a broken leg.

The real world collides with the media driven perception of failure due to stagnation. This is going to have fought over time. As these things happen people see the disparity between the real world and TV punditry. The pendulum will swing back as myths are debunked, keep up the pressure from the left.

If the House hangs tough enough, that is.

start bailing from group plans in droves.

IF you want to see a public option in there you have to email and call your senators and representatives.

http://www.congress.org/congressorg/directory/congdir.tt - congress.org - Find your official.

If you don't call and email them and tell them "it's the public option or NOTHING" - then we won't get it. Then in about 4 to 5 years the shit will hit the fan and 30% of the people will be without insurance. And something will have to be done then. But not after a lot more human pain and suffering and the economy will suffer too (i.e. a recesssion).

Obama said the rapidly rising insurance costs will break the Government if we don't do something about it. But what he should have said is it will break the economy. When businesses can no longer pass the increased costs for group coverage along in the price of the products they are selling they will cut the group plans loose. Then many millions more will not have insurance.

If you don't want the insurance industry lobbyists to win without a fight call an email your Senators and representatives - more than once!

Kick anybody in the balls who is against PO.

or how the Democrats attained majorities in the House and Senate. Or was it just because the Republicans were so inept?

LET THEM KNOW IN THE WHITEHOUSE THAT YOUR DEMOCRAT VOTE AND SUPPORT FROM HERE AND GOING FORWARD IS TIED DIRECTLY TO THIS ISSUE

Plus the Hopemobile gets better mileage than fear.

and continues to work. Obama really needs to aggressively take the offense instead of counter-punching the Republicans and letting them set the agenda, even at the town hall meetings of Democrats.

President Obama is just not an aggressive guy but that is what these times seem to need. When I have had a variety of run ins with Republican officials and the occasional freeper, they seem to back down quite meekly when they realize I can give back as good as I get. These bullies respond positively to those who are willing to use their tactics. I know it sounds crazy but bullies need to be treated in a way that they understand. Yeah, yeah, there are exceptions and love and kind words work well too if delivered properly, but these freepers and many Republican officials think we liberals are kittens or worse.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/08/16/tx-dem-bill-without-public-option-would-be-very-very-difficult/

She states it would be very, very, very difficult to pass a bill in the house without a public option! Go EBJ 1! So proud to have her as my rep. here in dallas!! Fire it up progressive caucus in the House, screw the DLC lovin' Senate (minus the wonderful bernie sanders)!!

Rep. Johnson is a registered Nurses and knows Texas needs the public option bad, 1 in 4 in Texas are uninsured (thats 5.4 million people) and that includes thousands of children.

Texas needs the public option!!

Again, I think Sebelius wasn't sent out yesterday to declare the public option dead, I think she was sent to gauge reaction. If this is indeed the reaction from House progressives and they are serious and they really do have 100 votes then that sends a signal to the White House that they have to have a public option.

about presenting the reform in a win win for the people and the ecomomy.

The delivery of this system will remain being delivered by the private sector, and the govt. will be the mechansim that will start paying for the services like it does with medicare. The insurance co. will not be needed.

the democratic party.

I'd write to my congressman, but he is a freshamn right wing nut (McClintock. No hope there!

Sent to Senators Boxer and Feinstein today:

If the minimalist Health Care Bills, so far, do not end up with the meager Public Option, please do not vote for the final bill. In fact, please fight for Single-payer and get the insurance and pharmacuetical corporations from being between my family and our doctors! Without the bare-minimum "Public Option" - not a so-called "Co-Op" there is no reform and not worth the effort at all. As a life-long democrat, supporter of your elections and most of your votes, and a former leader of SEIU and various environmental and social justice efforts for 30 years in Calif, if the democrats fail on health care and thus abandon the 47 million american without health care insurance and teh many millions who lose their health care by getting sick and/or losing jobs, I will abandon the democratic party. I will do everything in my power to encourage all other people I know to do the same for the rest of my life. I am 57. My grandmother lived to be 93. As Gandhi said to the effect "If one person stands up for justice, that person is a majority of one." Please continue to stand with us and not the insurance and Big Pharma corporations!
Thank you for all of your efforts over the years.

Note: OK DU'ers, no need to remind about Feinstein's voting record!
Peace!

Nice to see our reps working for US for a change!

If the public option is off the table, what else is?

The Repugs know the first compromise in the battle for a bill: public option has been exposed as a bargaining chip that 'some' Dems want to use to get the bill passed.

I don't think public option will survive in the bill.

considering everyone is freaking out about the media spin on the public option.

Of course the bill will be written in Congress, but everyone seems to be ignoring that all the existing bills (the Finance Committee's isn't completed yet) include a public option.

I've had it with dem leadership. They are as unprincipled and as cynical as I've ever seen them. I can't tell the difference between the average "new" democrat and early neo-cons. There is no opposition party in US. We are all just sucked along in the slip stream of the radical right wingers who own the media message and desensitize us with their lunacy. In return we get numb and suddenly things like "insurance companies are the right people to formulate public health policy" seem normal. It isn't normal. It is completely stupid. There is no higher intelligence at work behind these words. It is a problem of much lower intelligence of a media fed population who buys this shit year after year. People sitting around getting fat on the greasy lies spoon fed from the media. Yum.

This is exactly the extremist's plan and we fall for it every single time. In four years Glenn Beck is going to look like a moderate and dem leadership is going to insist we need bi-partisanship. We are moving rightward, full steam ahead, only a few knots slower than Bush. Right wing, lackey shills for the fortune 500 monopolies are fking brilliant in their evil. Obama is being played like a banjo.

In the end, we will pay. Because of our unwillingness to fight for what is right, we continue to look cowardly and unprincipled. Watch the right wing build their base and attack at every opportunity while we pussy foot around with bi-partisanship. This will be ugly in a few years when the right wing takes back their control and we will have nothing to show for our brief tenure. They will waste no time forgetting about bi-partisanship.

We are watching, heart broken over torture, wall street pay, wall street fraud, bail-outs, insurance cos, out sourcing, immigrant bashing - the hipocracy behind it all is completely maddening. And finally, this health care cluster fuck is truly an ugly, heart breaking and corrupt America at its worst.

These are House members who have to get elected every two years and who have informed/experienced
constituents.

I hopw he's right and if there's no public option, then there's no real bill imho.

This might work for the single payer folks...

Any general knows a rear-guard defensive position is about 20 minutes away from a full retreat.

St. Exupery once said that if you want to build a ship, it's not enough to gather wood and nails and rope. First, you must teach the people to long for the sea.

There is no inspiration in the Obama/Pelosi/Reid approach. Just a bunch of rear-guard shots being exchanged with a surging, angry swarm of attackers. Where is the uniting, inspirational, visionary Obama of 2008? Invisible. No wonder this thing's in trouble.

The Swedish model works. It consumes about 9% of Swedish GDP, and doesn't bust the Swedish budget. Swedes are considerably happier with it than the citizens of most countries are with their own systems, and it has been around long enough to draw valid conclusions about how it might work out for us.

It has some of the problems that typically haunt single-payer, namely, longer than desired waiting times (which is another way of saying soft rationing). But no major system can be without problems (look at our own), and on the whole, their system would achieve three major goals for the US: 1) universal coverage, 2) cost containment and improvement in national economic competitiveness, and 3) good levels of satisfaction.

http://www.sweden.se/eng/Home/Quick-facts/Facts/Swedish-health-care/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Sweden

Come on, Congress and Obama, don't just inspire us who are in the choir - show us what real leadership means. Teach the whole country to long for the sea.

Pull the plug on Grandma stories from Sweden

http://www.thelocal.se/20888/20090724/

No system administered to millions of people can be without its problems.

But we will fail completely if we let the perfect become the enemy of a greater good. Working with the Swedish model, we can end speculation. Everyone can see how well it works, how much it costs, and then make an informed decision.

Right now those who are angry are afraid. They have no idea what politicians will do with immense new powers, and see no credible evidence of how much it will cost. This could answer many of those fears and soothe many of those angers.

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:woohoo:

:kick:

but this is great news.