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Update 3:25 p.m.: Nevermind. Via HuffPo and Greg Sargent, Sen. Conrad denies Rahm signaled to drop public plan.
Conrad says Emanuel was speaking in reference to the need to overhaul the health care system as a whole — to forge compromise and get a bill to the president’s desk. It was in no way a comment on the president’s willingness to do away with a public option.
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According to Bloomberg, picked up by Greg Sargent, White House Chief of Staff Emanuel apparently undercut efforts to include a robust public plan option in the reform package. Greg is referring to this now updated report from Bloomberg:
White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel met last night at the U.S. Capitol with Senate Democrats and told them Obama is “open to alternatives” to a new government insurance program in order to get legislation overhauling the health-care system to his desk, said Senator Kent Conrad of North Dakota.
“His message was, it’s critical that you do this,” Conrad said.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus of Montana said Emanuel urged the senators to seek Republican support and didn’t discourage them from pursuing the use of non-profit cooperatives, an idea Conrad has proposed.
That updated link now says this:
Obama is signaling that he’s willing to compromise, and yesterday White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel carried the message to lawmakers that the president is “open to alternatives,” Senator Kent Conrad of North Dakota said.
So, who’s talking here, and about what? The quotes are from Conrad and Baucus, both of whom have been pushing for (or tasked with finding) some bipartisan formulation for health reform. To keep their efforts alive, it’s necessary to signal that the White House is still open to Republican support.
But the report doesn’t claim Rahm said to abandon the public plan. It only claims that those who have been exploring alternatives to the plan to get Republican votes have Rahm’s blessing to keep trying. Whether more was signaled isn’t clear.
Moreover, it would not make sense for Obama to provide a strong defense of the public plan concept at a public press conference, and belittle the insurance industry’s objections while doing so, while sending Rahm to undercut support for the public plan with the Democrats who, when we’re done wasting time chasing non-existent Republican votes, will be the only votes for health care reform.
Here’s part of Senator Schumer’s floor speech in which he explains why a public plan is essential and sums up why the search for Republican votes is a waste of time:
To truly reform our health care system, Congress must pass legislation that includes a public option. And a watered-down public plan is no public plan at all.
It is important to remember how we arrived here. For a long time, when thinking hypothetically about health care reform, many in this country suggested we should move toward a single-payer system. The Republicans rejected that, and so at the onset of this debate, we met them halfway with a framework that continues to largely rely on private insurers.
So then we said, if we are going to continue to rely on mostly private insurance, can we at least introduce greater competition into the market by having a public plan as one option? The Republicans rejected that too.
We said, well, what if we ensured that the public plan had to adhere to all the same rules as private insurers, thus guaranteeing a level playing field? The Republicans still said no.
So, some Democrats came up with a new idea: what if we relied on a coop model that have served rural states well? In a good-faith attempt to consider this idea, I proposed some ideas for ensuring that co-ops could do the job of keeping private insurers honest. Yesterday, Senator Conrad indicated he could go along with many of these proposals. But Senator Conrad has never been the problem here; he has always been a good-faith negotiator with the very best interests at heart. It is the Republicans who have not been willing to negotiate. And so I am losing confidence that Senate Republicans will ever agree to the types of changes to a co-op to make it a viable alternative to a traditional public plan.
Let’s be clear. The President has been rallying his troops to support a public plan that people will want to choose, and that actually keeps the private insurers honest. If he’s also secretly sending Rahm to undercut the public plan with Democrats, the White House must know it can kiss their supporters and reform goodby. Aside from the WH’ annoying insistence on always reaching out to Republicans who are trying to make them and health reform fail, I’m not convinced that’s happening, but there are plenty of folks who want us to believe that it is.
And frankly, I’m much more concerned about those who haven’t fully explained what they mean by a "public plan," and so have little basis for claiming that alternatives like Conrad’s co-op concept would be just as good. It doesn’t help, for example, when Ezra Klein first said the "co-op" idea would be "okay," then later wrote that it’s not an acceptable substitute for a robust public plan, and recently suggested that with a few tweeks, this is just semantics.
As I’ve emphasized here, here, and here, folks need to be clear about what the public plan is, what it does and how its features are needed to meet the goals, before comparing it to supposed alternatives.
Other reactions to ambiguity:
krugman, Obama messes up on health care, big time
Sebelius (via AP) to Congress today:
Sebelius defended Obama’s call for a new public plan in the face of strong opposition from Republicans and fresh criticism from a powerful business group.
She told the House Energy and Commerce Committee that a government-run option would increase choice and competition, but the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said in testimony that it would "gut the private market."
"Whether or not this proposal is a Trojan horse for single-payer health care, it is apparent that its cause is ideological, not pragmatic," the Chamber said Wednesday.
Argued Sebelius: "If there is no choice in the market, cost regulation is almost irrelevant. It’s a marketplace strategy that competition is often more effective than heavy-handed regulation."
13 Comments
Thanks for pointing that out.
You’re right. It doesn’t make much sense.
I have a feeling that you can’t judge Rahm’s (or Obama’s) intentions at face value. Much of what they’ve been doing has been setting traps for the Republicans and Conservative Dems and this seems like it could be one of those times. They know that the opposition is going to oppose ALL reforms, no matter what the compromise may be. They also know that the public knows that reform MUST happen. If the public sees that the administration isn’t drawing a line in the sand, and is willing to talk to Republicans, then the Republicans have no wiggle room to block legislation and look like they are serving the public’s interest. Since they won’t come to the table, even when invited, then it’s obvious that their true intention is to protect the insurers rather than their constituents. Once they’ve fallen into that trap, the Dems can styep back from the table and state the obvious ‘The republicans have no intention of reforming Healthcare in any meaningful way, so we are forced to do it without their help.’
I think we’re close to that stage now.
I may be giving Emanuel and Baucus too much credit, but I wonder if at this point, they’re deliberately acting like badder guys than they actually are to help Obama energize the base.
Either that, or I’m wrong. Known to happen.
The think that’s energized part of the base is Obama’s apparently willingness to actually argue, in public, for something worthwhile. If he keeps doing that, the troops will follow. the other part of the basis is disappointed he’s not going further – e.g., single payer.
My previous “elements of a public plan” post is designed to bridge that gap a little, by laying the foundations for how this might evolve.
But on WH tactics, 11 dimensional chess is too hard to follow. I’m a checkers strawman, myself.
I’d prefer naughts and crosses. The health care goal Obama advanced during the election must not be trifled with.
on this issue, i’m not so disappointed in obama – so long as he doesn’t violate his campaign promises. for me, my profound disappointment is not just that the progressive blogosphere is not making the case for single payer (as was done in years past), it’s the way single payer advocates, even the real experts like himmelstein, drsteveb, etc., and single payer ideas have been forcibly removed from the circle of progressive consensus and put into the circle of deviance (jay rosen).
that’s one of the reasons i keep bringing up single payer universal health care — to try to help move it back to the circle of legitimate debate.
I don’t even think of it as 11th dimensional chess. It’s actually pretty straight forwrd when you think about it:
On one end:
- Obama wants a public option
- Most citizens want a public option
- Nearly ALL citizens want some form of reform
- Solving the HealthCare problem will be a huge long-term gain for Dems
One the other end
- The insurance industry wants the staus-quo
- Republicans want the status-quo
- Republicans will be further, and maybe permanently, marginalized if reform is passed as succeeds
So, the strategy is simple:
- Republicans will try to block any reform, but must justify it
- In order to justify it, they must be able to make it seem like Dems went too far and did not compromise
- But Republicans do not want reform, so they will not suggest any compromises that are reasonable
Knowing all that, Obama has publicly called them to the table and asked for their input. Since they are balking, the country can see their real intention, which is to keep the status quo. Once that becomes part of the ‘mainstream’ discussion, which it is becoming now, then people lose all trust in Republicans’ ability to even discuss the issue in good faith (and we’re seeing that already in the ‘who do you trust…’ polls. All that’s left is for Democrats to publicly show frustration with their attempts to negotiate with a party that is opposed to most Americans’ goals. At that point, Democrats can use whatever method they have available to do it without Republicans and have political cover. And once it’s passed, the Republicans will not be able to complain about the outcome since everyone is already aware that their only motive was to protect the unpopular insurance industries profits.
I could be completely wrong here, but that is really what I see happening now.
Dear Scarecrow,
Where did I see the report that Obama has “entrusted” (paraphrasing) Health care reform to BAUCUS, of all tropgdolytes? I was only on a few major blogs this morning, I got it somewhere, Portland’s progressive radio station was also being heard.
Because if that one is true, then serious health care reform is toast, and we need to get on the program of recommending a “no” vote on the toothless reform package that emerges from Baucus’s sold-out hands. No doubt he’ll have a lot of help from the likes of Feinstein, Wyden, Bayh, Landrieu and so on.
In the meantime, there is no hard evidence to disprove Mosquito Fleet’s optimistic scenario, and so I certainly hope that we can keep the pressure up, keep holding the feet of the corporate “Democrats” to the fire, to see for ourselves the necessity of replacing at least 80% of the so-called Democrats in public office at all levels today, and the necessity to face dumping our first African-American president after one term if he continues to go the “George W. Obama” route, selling us out on health care, on energy reform, on tax reform, on accountability and civil liberties/4th Amendment issues.
As an economic historian and a businessman, I actually do believe in the program Obama laid out in the fall and winter, getting the economy back to healthy sustainable growth through substantial reforms in … health care, energy policy, tax policy, and education. That is how economies are repaired. I’m in despair because he himself seems to be the biggest failure in living up to that program, promoting and selling it. He should be the biggest salesman for deep reform, in his own best interest, and instead he may kill the Democratic Party for good … if we get to 2012 with still 12% unemployment and a mandatory-private-insurance health care “deform” with a third-rate public option that proves Repubs correct on government deliverance of services.
All out of his own cowardice, when he should be selling reform big-time in his own political interest in economic recovery. I’m singing the blues, big-time. It just didn’t have to be.
You may have seen that opinion expressed is this news analysis at NYT:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06…..038;st=cse
That view does not appear to be based on any quote from Obama or named source in the White House; it may or may not actually be someone’s view.
I share the frustration, but Obama is, IMO, an incrementalist who believes in fixing things, and even transforming things, but only on a pace that he perceives as attainable. He’s a democrat (small d) who believes that you can’t push beyond the point where the public and its representatives are ready. So while he may intellectually understand the need for more radical transformation — that would explain much of his rhetoric — he also believes there’s only so much you can achieve and sustain.
My optimism about him has always been based on his intelligence, his willingness to listen to smart people, and his willingness to learn and recognize what needs to be fixed. Eventually, this theory goes, he’ll push us in a better direction — and compared to what a Republican would have done on several of these issues — stimulus, directed investments in different industries, health reform, etc — he’s done that, but . . .
My pessimism is that his “only when it’s ready” cautiousness is missing the opportunity his election and the nation’s disgust with Bush governance handed him. But to seize that moment, he had to take the fight to the villains, and it just ain’t the man’s style.
I don’t buy most of the analysis that tries to place him on some ideological spectrum, right to left, etc. He’s much more complicated than that.
Well I think the public is totally ready for single payer and that’s what we thought we’d get with this guy. And I don’t believe for one second that there needs to be ANY debate at all on that INSIPID “PUBLIC OPTION”; just rolled up sleeves and figuring out how to do it, or single payer.
I’ve posted this , but I’ll post it again:
CHINA:Experts urge stimulus package on social welfare
Read it and weep…or…veep
if that was true i think something would have been done about the outrageous bonuses to aig and gs execs.
The public appears ready for single-payer, but he’s not. The public is also ready for legalizing grass but he’s not. The public is/was ready for bushco prosecutions, but he’s not. DADT, again he’s not ready.
The truth is that he’s not listening to the will of the people and neither are the dems, for the most part.
Then there are all the wars. The CM is keeping the truth from us, so is the war machine controlling the WH or does Obama have some clout when it comes to reporting the real news?
It seems obvious to me that the corps are running our country.