Top Democrat appears to set stage for dropping public healthcare option — on blog
Published: June 19, 2009
Updated 9 months ago
NEWS ANALYSIS: As public health option fades, Democrat blogs
On Thursday evening, the Senate sprung a leak: a copy of a draft proposal for the Senate’s plan to reform healthcare popped up on The Washington Post website, creating an instant furor among liberals pushing for a public healthcare plan.
No such plan was mentioned.
What to do? Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-CT) took to the Web late Thursday. In a blog posting reprinted by the Huffington Post, Dodd, one of two senators whose committees are key in the development of President Obama’s plan to reform healthcare, seemed to offer mixed messages on the future of reform.
Update: The House will announce that it has included a public healthcare option in its plan on Friday. House bills, however, often face a rougher time in the Senate where moderates and conservatives have greater control.
On the one hand, Dodd expressed his strong support for a public health plan that would compete with private insurers and give Americans the opportunity to buy into an insurance system that doesn’t fatten corporations’ bottom line. On the other, Dodd signaled his willingness to accept a “compromise.”
“We have the votes to pass a bill that expands coverage to millions of Americans, improves quality, protects patient choice, cuts costs, and averts disaster for our economy and our families,” Dodd wrote. “But, as frustrating as it is to you and to me, I don’t know if we have the votes to pass a strong public health care option. What I do know is that whether we can get there or not is still an open question. What I do know is that I plan to fight hard to convince my colleagues on the committee and in the full Senate that we need a public option. What I do know is that I’m going to need your help.”
The plan leaked to the press, without a public health option, isn’t the final proposal. But confronted with soaring cost estimates of providing health insurance to every American and resistance from Republicans over a public option, the party’s leadership appears to shuffling toward a compromise that would at least get some version of public health legislation passed.
And while pleading for support for a public option, Dodd appeared to set the stage for defeat of a key element of Obama’s universal healthcare plan. Some of his remarks read like a political concession speech — and a plea for understanding.
“When my friend, Senator Ted Kennedy, asked me to take the reins on this historic legislation, I did so with the full knowledge and understanding that it wouldn’t be an easy task,” Dodd writes. “All of us involved in this legislation are under an immense amount of pressure from all sides. That’s why Congress has historically failed to reform health care. After all, presidents since Harry Truman have tried to do it. And here we are in 2009.”
“I really do believe that this time will be different,” he adds. “And I am committed to passing a bill — this year.”
But, he says, “it remains to be seen whether we can pull together the votes to make that happen.”
Finally, he concludes with a puzzling statement: “But I’ve learned in my time in Washington that compromise is important, but it’s always worthwhile to stand your ground on the issues that matter most. That’s how we passed the Family and Medical Leave Act, credit card reform, FDA regulation of tobacco, and many other issues I’ve worked on over the years. We can’t give up on a public option even if it is an uphill battle. And so I won’t. And I know you won’t, either.”
Whether that battle continues to be fought in Congress, however, remains to be seen.
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So, “it’s hard” so you’re willing to walk away instead of force these people to stand up on the floor, make speeches telling their constituents ON THE RECORD that they prefer to pander to the rich running the current insurance companies instead of helping their constituents?
Good choice.. cave and fuck the public while you enjoy an excellent salary and retirement package and health care.. tell the masses they can slowly die in the streets with curable diseases because it won’t be as profitable to save them.
The ignorance and callousness of Americans (especially the ‘leadership’) will never cease to amaze me. How disgusting.
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COWARDS cave…
… Heros stand and fight.
Principles matter…
… Not so much for Dodd.
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How quickly would these professional HACKS change their mind if a million or more people marched on the capitol and refused to leave until they were guaranteed a right to medical care, like all prison inmates currently receive?
Sadly people are more ginned up over same sex sex than life itself!
All we have a right to is a free market. The federal government can’t provide or manage medical care. All government can do is redistribute what we already have and distort markets. This has been going on now for sometime and is the reason why things are slowly getting worse and worse not better and better. Every time the government steps in, the free market is undermined.
Whoo Hoo, Free Market! What a twit you must be. The govt didn’t step into the free market and we almost had a depression. Besides, there is NO free market. The corportations collude, they privatize profits and socialize costs. Do you ever pay attention, and maybe think outside stupid talking points?
When the republicans had bush and a majority in Congress they shoved a war and economic disater right past any opposition. Now the wimpy dems have a president and a clear majority in Congress and they have to ask permission from the insane far right in order to proceed. They stink.
Anything less than every single American having health care is a failure, period.
Atta boy, Chris. Face the “reality” that there are opponents to a public option by framing the opponents as victors. Beautifully done. That keeps you off the chopping block when you’re up for re-election.
If you want compromise, you’ll get it the next time you’re campaigning for re-election. When you’re on the stump and you’ve got to explain your “caving”, you might have to disclose which lobbying group is financing your campaigns, and how the money you receive leaned you in the direction of framing the opponents to a public option as the ultimate political victors. Then we’ll see some REAL compromising.
A few days ago, another poster on a different blog put it this way: “If the votes ‘aren’t there’, then damn it, GO GET THE VOTES! MAKE IT HAPPEN!” That’s you JOB, Chris. If you have 51 votes, that’s enough for a majority, isn’t it?
Risk a filibuster, Chris. Let the insurance lackies stand up at the podium and talk endlessly in defense of the insurance industry. Let ‘em talk all they want. We’ll all be watching, we’ll all be taking names– just like we’re taking YOUR name.
One thing to say to Congress, the media, and the president:
Thank you.
You, like Nixon before you, have shown us that without doubt our system of government does not work for the majority of the people who consent to it. Instead, it works for certain people, special people who have money and access to those who write our nation’s laws for fun and profit. They are The Right People.
The Right People pour billions of dollars into Congress to maintain the status quo. Energy, finance, insurance, war, media, pharma, agriculture, chemicals. These are the *real* united states of America. They’re displayed in all their glory during TV advertisements.
How else can you explain budgetary policy? In what universe does it make sense to spend hundreds.of.billions.of.tax.dollars.every.year to develop, implement, and maintain the ways and means to kill people, while protesting loudly that “$1.6 trillion over 10 years” is too much for public health care? Do the division and compare the numbers. WTF. The only explanation is that The Right People don’t want it, don’t need it, everything is just fine thank you.
This is just ONE example.
So, again, let me speak for all those of the same mind and Thank You, Congress, for showing us just how OWNED you really are. We have become the American Republic of Corporations.
The Democrats we labored to elect now
CONTROL
The Senate, The House, both by large margins & The White House.
And our Poor Democrats “don’t have the votes”
But They Do Have The Campaign Funds They Need
From the Billionaires in the Health Care & Insurance Industries
(to keep them in office for life, blocking the reforms Voters Want).
Poor Democrats… They wouldn’t have the spine to go against their big campaign donors if there were No Republicans At All In Congress.
I KNEW,
When The Democrats REFUSED to Enforce Our Federal Anti-Torture Laws against the Bush Torture Cabal and
When The Democrats REFUSED to Impeach the Most Impeachable President in US History
and NOW continue to Deny That The Bush Admininstration
ever did anything illegal enough to Prosecute Them
That there was NO CHANCE that Our Democrats Would
pass Single Payer or Any Public Option
that Threatened Their Campaign Donors revenue source.
Not The Change We Labored For.
SIGN THE PETITION
To Prosecute Them For Torture
http://ANGRYVOTERS.ORG
Over 250,000 have signed
Join them and call yourself a Patriot
Will Obama stand for Justice or just get in the way of it?
.
Why must the average American taxpayer, pay the wages and the Health Care benefits for a Congress that lobby’s for the corporations and private insurance companies…..we sit quietly by while the people we pay to represent us sell us out to their corporate masters..every time. And then we wonder why we have lost control of our own “for the people” government… Why do we sit on our cowardly, apathetic fat asses and take it?…. We don’t even have the stones that the Muslim “terrorists” in Iran have..no wonder we are so petrified of them..they would obviously kick our asses in a fair fight
So let me get this straight…76% of Americans polled support a public option with single-payer the most popular, however since the people we elected to represent us receive so much booty from the other side (healthcare and drug companies), they’re expected to refuse to vote for it. If that’s the deal, why don’t we include single-payer in the bill, put it up for a vote, and see what happens. Then we should support whomever runs against them when they seek re-election. Eventually maybe we’ll get single-payer.
The simple course of action for The People is this:
We demand that no federal employee received taxpayer-subsized healthcare. From the janitors to the President: No taxpayer-funded or subsidized healthcare benefits.
If we taxpayers are not good enough for it, then neither are they.
There has to be a revolt in this country, as we no longer own our government. None of this should be acceptable to anyone, and we should not walk away from it.
.
E X A C T L Y!!!
Our Representatives should be representative of the People from which they are elected to represent. To date, I see plenty of taxpayer subsidised health care represented in the halls of CONgress and yet I can not find that kind of tax payer subsidised health care plan represented among the People.
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God I’m beginning to really despise the Dems in the Senate. Holy shit what a bunch of mealy-mouthed fucking pussies. Chris Dodd needs to grow some balls and JUST GET THE PUBLIC OPTION PASSED. He needs to shame, cajole, threaten–whatever it takes. Instead, he’s just setting himself up to play victim in the future when any real reform fails. Then he can begin collecting perks from every insurance company in Hartford. Max Bauchus should simply be bound up and gagged.
No public option means a failed Obama presidency. And why should I now vote for the democrats? Insurance companies will be keeping their license to plunder our money. I am p*ssed.
If the 50 million or so uninsured Americans were to stand in solidarity and refuse to pay taxes by stating they need to withhold those dollars to buy themselves health insurance instead of paying for Dodd’s, et al., I’m sure we’d see some action on Capital Hill pretty god damn fast.
If the American people would simply refuse to go to their jobs or buy anything at all for 72 hours, we’d bring this thing its knees in short order. The whole damn world would stop without the sweat of our labor and our trips to Wal-Mart.
The revolution would finally be televised on CNN. If Americans would stop being sheep and stand up to Capital Hill, we could get this country back. Sadly, people won’t even sit on their couches in revolt to turn this thing around.
If we demonstrated in D.C., they’d turn the military on us the way they did on the Bonus Army marchers during the great depression. MacArthur and Patton opened fire on their own American brothers to stop them from demanding their WWI bonus pay. They were living in tent cities and the military burned them down. That’s what they’d do to us.