Olympia Snowe reverses herself on co ops & admits public option not on the table

Source: Crooks & Liars

Olympia Snowe reverses herself on co ops and admits public option not on the table in Senate Finance Committee
By John Amato Friday Aug 21, 2009 11:03am

Olympia Snowe admitted to Andrea Mitchell that the Senate Finance Committee is not even considering a public option in their bill and never had it on the table. She said that the skyrocketing costs of health care are paramount to their bill which is why they are ogling co opts.

Mitchell: So bottom lines, Nancy Pelosi says that they will not produce anything that does not include a public option. Do you see any way that the gang of six will come out of the Finance Committee with a public option?

Snowe: No, I don't. We have not had the public option on the table. It's been co ops and addressing affordability and availability and plans through the exchange and those are the challenges we're wrestling with to insure that there are basic plans to offer Americans.

Read more: http://crooksandliars.com/john-amato/olympia-snowe-admits-public-option-not

Everybody knows that Finance wasn't going to produce a draft with a public option in it -- if they produce anything at all.

Finance is broken. At this point Baucus, and Conrad, are like chess players with a losing position who are going to let the flag drop on their clocks and lose on time, rather than get beat over the board.

The Senate GOP sent word out via Kyl that nothing Finance can offer is acceptable to their caucus -- no version, no compromise is enough to get GOP votes. And in the House, Pelosi's train is leaving the station already. They screwed the pooch, they know it, and this is the only semi-dignified exit.

HELP's version will be the Senate's lone contribution to conference, and whatever emerges, Snowe will vote for cloture, and against the bill. That's her usual straddle, and I don't think she'll change.

so the REAL democrats can get the bill done.

That means you, Baucus and Conrad - you are NOT worthy of the seats that you have right now. In fact, your entire state's population (Montana and Dakota) doesn't even come close to Schumer's numbers OR Kerry's numbers. Let them take your positions and get the bill done.

Hawkeye-X

It's been done for two months. We needed to get behind it back in June and we wouldn't be in this mess today.

It only covered a small percentage of the uninsured and it rated badly with CBO. That why you don't hear too much about it.

Anyone earning up to 150 percent of the FPL ($33,000 for a family of four) would be eligible for Medicaid; the bill also expands S-CHIP to cover people up to age 26, from age 18.

That alone will take an enormous bite out of the uninsured. And there's a public option.

HELP is Teddy Kennedy's bill. More details here. Unless you're a single-payer-or-wait-another-generation type, it's just about the best bill out there.

we want single payer, but will settle for a strong public option now. So, if HELP has a meaningful public option, we've had it covered all along.

by single payer people. Everything has been attacked by single payer people. That's why it looks as if there's no support. Single payer is opposed, right wing nutballs oppose, and the people who only hear right wing nutball lies and single payer people are confused so they oppose.

Yes, it is the fault of people who refused to listen two months ago and were warned this is where we'd be if we didn't mobilize around the best plan we could hope to pass.

So let's just get on with it already. Kick something out of Finance and put it and the HELP bill up for a vote and then send it to conference.

:silly:

Silly me, beginning this process by talking with insurance companies before anyone else, then PHRMA, then hospitals and so on. Silly me for going on about partisanship, when nothing in the real world indicates that is a realistic possibility. Silly me for leting Grassley bog this down until the break.

What ever was i thinking? Why didn't you stop me sooner, given you and I are all powerful and all? Or why didn't you just get on it? Why were you waiting on me?

Meanwhile, back in reality, please see Repy # 23.

pass the bill out of the senate with out a public option.. just to get it the hell out of there,then in the conference place it back in and DARE the democrats in the senate to let it die.. They will have to pass it via reconciliation like the republicans did with the Bush tax cuts in 2001 and 2003..

..will eat broken glass rather than be confronted with a vote on a plan containing a public option. They're slow-walking this because they want to postpone the painful day when they basically vote 'yes', on cloture on the conference report anyways.

you do it ASAP and hope things work out and/or memories fade.

BTW, which of the bills are you saying should pass?

http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/schumer-promises-public-option-in-healthcare-bill-2009-07-05.html

http://www.politico.com/blogs/politicolive/0709/Schumer_guarantees_public_health_care_option.html

http://senatus.wordpress.com/2009/07/01/schumer-to-push-public-option-in-finance-committee-health-bill/

http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/2009/06/grassley-on-schumer-health-care-plan-its-obnoxious.html


In light of the fact that in another thread around here I posted a story about Baucus's chief of staff telling people in Montana that he was fighting "tooth and nail" for a public option in May and then another DUer posted a Time story where he was busily killing it off in March - I'm at the point where I'm not believing much of anything.

Right now I am about thinking that they play poker, eat catered food, leave and come back through underground tunnels, and then read a script handed to them by a lackey to read to the media the next day about all the "hard fought" negotiations going on.

conclusions and loyalties.

All the conflicting info and flip flops would be hysterical if this were not the most important legislation since LBJ.

I wish someone would just channel him already and get this done.

Olympia Snowe now is claiming that the Gang of Six on the Senate Finance Committee have never put a public option on the table; instead, they are strongly considering co-ops, because of fiscal concerns?? WTF??!!



Heeeerrre's Kent!



August 18, 2009:







This garden path sure is nice. Why won't you annoying liberals just skip along, now.


:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

to force insurers to cut their bloated costs?

All show.

Baucus, Bingaman, who's been invisible, and Conrad are it for the D's/.

The full committee hasn't touched the issue yet.

of meetings. If the main Dem on TV claiming to be the advocate fighting for public option is secretly negotiating away public option and replacing it with trigger or co-ops, then of course the GOPs are going to start FROM that point and pull even further right.

a public option in name only. Here we have his starting salvo back in May

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/05/health/policy/05health.html

Right from the getgo, he was trying to figure out how to create a "level playing field" as he calls it. So, he was sitting around, rubbing his chin and saying " Hmmm, how can I design a public option that is every bit as crappy as the private ones it's going to compete with? "

FU Olympia Snowe for not standing up for them with a strong public health option.

Hell they deserve single payer national health insurance like the rest of us do.

they bail out banks and aide the wealthy but when it comes to life and death for the poor and middle class they play theatre. What a bunch of psychos

"pushback." We've been innundating them with calls and emails (me, once a week).

A national strike is very difficult in this country. We aren't Paris.

The last time America was able to muster one was in the early Fifties. The country is too big and suburban/rural, we've become too apathetic and we don't have the infrastructure because our unions don't do it. Candidly, the Republicans, by calling on their own organization, the NRA and the churches, could succeed a lot better than Democrats, IMO.

on working. You want to make it hard on yourselves, so be it. It really would be easier if you would do it right the first time. We will not allow co ops. It will be a public option. Period. Get it into your thick skulls that we aren't playing around.

donated my last dollar and cast my last Democratic vote unless a strong public option becomes law. They may not keep their word about a public option, but I know I will.

"Senator Baucus's Committee" and the like so many times Chuck Todd lost count. Which prompted Chuck Todd to opine that these were fairly clear signals that the plan in Baucus's Committee was going to be THE plan. Then Todd or someone talking with him mentioned a piece of supposedly traditional inside the Beltway wisdom, as follows:

Q. What constitutes a quorum of both houses of Congress?

A. The President and the head of the Senate Finance Committee.

Don't stop emailing and calling the WH, your Senators and your Rep. I don't care if they are liberal, purple dog or Republican. Hammer them!

Senators are not true representatives, they have long terms and as long as they have the right campaign funder they never loose their seat. They are created by the Constitution to take forever to get anything passed and slow the legislative process. The true voices of the people are the House, they have to face election every two years and truely want to do what best for their constituents not their pocket book. It seems like its always like this, the House gets a bill ready that helps everyone votes and passes it quickly, then the Senate has to see what their contributers say, take a break, posture, take a break, think about it, take a break, then maybe theyll vote on it sometime later on if they cant get it killed through the media. Seems like the Senate could fuck up a wet dream.

It can be hoped that the House progressives in alliance with the reactionary right will kill the whole damn thing.

Those are the people who reelect her - not the fucking Teabaggers.

No-PO-Snowe will be ex-Senator come November 2010....