My bet is that there's a smackdown waiting for Max Baucus soon...

[backscatter712]

Let me explain.

Right now, it seems he has all the cards - he's been putting together the Finance Committee bill in secret, with his gang of six, and it looks like that bill's going to be little more than warmed-over Romneycare. Kent Conrad's co-ops instead of a public option, no employer mandate, subsidies for people making only up to 300% of FPL.

Utter crap.

Baucus thinks he can get away with this because he lives in a relatively conservative state, he isn't up for re-election until 2014, and he's getting all that tasty lobbyist money from the insurance industry.

But here's the thing.

If health care reform dies in the Senate, it might not hurt his reelection chances, but it'll hurt the election prospects of a bunch of his fellow Senate Democrats, a large number of House Democrats, and will give President Obama a huge black eye, and cause him to lose a huge amount of political capital he invested in the health care battle.

Do you think his fellow Democrats in Congress and the White House don't know this? Do you think they're going to take this lying down?

Nope, the long knives are about to come out. Henry Waxman demonstrated this with Mark Ross - markup's back on because Waxman is now confident that H.R. 3200 will successfully pass a vote through his committee. Gee, how did that happen? Mike Ross got a spanking, he got threats of loss of pork, loss of DCCC funds, loss of endorsements from fellow Democrats, and all sorts of tactics designed to make his life a living hell. He was given a face-saving compromise, and told to take it, sit down and shut up.

The same thing will happen with Max Baucus. Just watch. He might be appearing to be winning now, and he'll probably crap his Finance Committee bill onto the floor with co-ops and all the junk reform successfully.

Then, President Obama, Chuck Schumer, and several other Democratic leaders will take him into a back room, explain the facts of life to him, inform him that the Finance Committee bill will be passed over in favor of the HELP bill, and tell him and the rest of the Blue Cross Dems to vote for it, sit down and shut up. Max may very well throw a hissy-fit as Mike Ross did, but in the face of Obama's likely veto threat of any bill without a public option, along with threats to take his chairmanship away, threats to cut him out of any future deals, etc., Baucus will be forced to relent. Even Harry Reid may show his fangs if Baucus doesn't take the face-saving compromise handed to him.

We'll end up getting a bill with a halfway decent, though imperfect public option passed through the Senate by reconciliation. Then it will be improved in conference committee and signed into law.

That's my bet. Obama and other Democrats will not put up with Baucus screwing over their reelection chances, and will get creative in finding ways to twist his arm...

[havocmom]

1. Gonna work to expose Max like we did Burns

Max needs some serious self evaluation.

[SharonRB]

2. I hope you're right

And, Harry Reid has fangs? Who knew? :shrug:

[backscatter712]

6. He only uses them on fellow Democrats

When the FISA bill was up in the Senate last year, and Chris Dodd put a hold on it, Reid actually threatened to make him do a physical read-from-the-dictionary filibuster. You never saw him do any of that with the Rethugs...

But Reid can bite when he's inclined to... We just have to make him inclined to...

[Hawkeye-X]

3. Right now I'm so angry at Baucus, that I want him indicted for RICO and influence-peddling

and demoted to the subcommittee of Absolutely Doing Nothing and Getting Ready to Get Primaried Out by a Progressive Democrat that understands the meaning of what their CONSTITUENTS want, not what *HE* wants.

I want lobbyists BANNED forever from influence of ANY congressman or Senators, and public funding for ALL elections, not just the presidential ones.

Period.

Hawkeye-X

[proud patriot]

4. I sure hope so

:thumbsup:

[Atticus]

5. That's what SHOULD happen.

If something close to this does not occur, 2010 could see the rebirth of a GOP Phoenix.

[backscatter712]

8. Like I said, I think a lot of Democrats on the Hill understand this.

Obama and Axelrod know this, which means they're probably ahead of me on this. Obama's put his ass on the line for health care reform, and as President, he can damned well whoop Baucus with the clue-by-four when he thinks the timing is right.

Right now, I'm thinking he's easing off on the public-option rhetoric, just so Baucus can be enticed to get the bill out of the Finance committee and onto the Senate floor where he and some progressive Democratic Senators can take it away from Baucus.

[Kermitt Gribble]

7. Very optimistic.

My bet is that all the Dems are together on giving the insurance/pharma industry a nice big chunk of our money. If it wasn't about that, why not get behind hr676? I hope I'm wrong.

Have to say this part cracked me up, though: "Harry Reid may show his fangs":rofl: Harry Reid??? Fangs?????

[backscatter712]

9. Don't bet against Obama.

He's a very dangerous poker player...

[Kermitt Gribble]

10. I thought he was a chess player....? n/t

[backscatter712]

11. That too. n/t

[Kermitt Gribble]

13. Now I'm confused.

Which game is he playing in the health care battle?

[karynnj]

15. The more likely reason is the large number of people

in polls who say they want to keep the insurance they have - this is not possible with hr676.

[Kermitt Gribble]

18. That number is not as large as

the one in support of single payer. The ultimate goal of reform is to cut costs and make health care available to everyone, which is exactly what hr676 does.

[karynnj]

22. Unfortunately, that is not true

I've looked through pollingreport.com - where both the questions and the results are archived. The fact is the public option did get 72% and some have taken that result to be for single payer. I have not found a survey where single payer is even at 50%. (There was one study posted here that asked about each option independently and let people say they were against or for each - not constraining them from saying yes to things that can not exist together - that poll had single payer near 50%, but that 50% was the lowest of 4 or 5 options.

Now, if you ask the question of where you want universal healthcare the result will be very high, because people obviously intrept that differently - and not equivilent to single payer.

(pollingreport.com is fascinating as it includes the questions and all the results - so you don't have anyone filtering out what is important.

[Kermitt Gribble]

28. Then what was the question for this result printed by Reuters?:

"Seventy-two percent of those questioned said they backed a government-administered insurance plan similar to Medicare for those under 65 that would compete for customers with the private sector. Twenty percent said they were opposed."

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE55K00220090621

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5897545

[karynnj]

31. That is the NYT/CBS poll and the question is similar to

what they said - "a government-administered insurance plan similar to Medicare for those under 65 that would compete for customers with the private sector." That is the definition of a public option that will compete with the private sector. Here is a description (from wikipedia, which I know anyone can edit, but this is not a controversial definition:

"Single-payer health care is a term used in the United States to describe the payment of doctors, hospitals, and other health care providers from a single fund. It differs from typical private health insurance where, through pricing and other measures taken by the insurer, the level of risks carried by multiple insurance pools as well as the coverage can vary and the pricing has to be varied according to the contribution of risk added to the pool. It is often mentioned as one way to deliver universal health care. The administrator of the fund could be the government but it could also be a publicly owned agency regulated by law. Australia's Medicare, Canada's Medicare, and healthcare in Taiwan are examples of single-payer universal health care systems."

One type of single payer that some have mentioned is "medicare for all". (why e-invent the wheel.)

The public option IS very popular and that popularity should be used to push more Senators behind it.

[Sebastian Doyle]

12. Chuck Schumer? Seriously?

How many fake "Democrats" are in the Senate now because Chuck Goddamn Worthless Snake In The Grass Schumer made sure there were no real Democrats running against them in primaries?

Chuck Schumer's gonna smack down Baucus??

Yeah, right after Pelosi tells Steny Whore to step down and hands his job over to Dennis Kucinich.

[backscatter712]

16. Why Schumer? He wants Reid's job.

He's looking to become Majority Leader when Reid vacates the position, so he may be making some moves to assert himself.

That means that Schumer may do some of the whip-work that Reid's too much of an invertebrate to manage. If Reid fucks things up too badly and people call for him to be kicked to the back bench, Schumer wants to be the one seen as working productively to fix things.

[Sebastian Doyle]

19. Great. that would make three useless "Majority Leaders" in a row.

And I'm not even counting the Repukes here. Daschle. Reid. Schumer. Jesus Christ on a nuclear pogo stick, we can do better than that.

[backscatter712]

20. I agree - Schumer's not particularly great. Just that he's next in line... n/t

[karynnj]

23. Dubin is the assistant majority leader

and I think Boxer is the whip. http://democrats.senate.gov/leadership/

[Mass]

33. Durbin is next in line.\nt

[karynnj]

14. Why Schumer? He was one of the first to suggest that the co-op idea

was an interesting one on a talk show. I think he has tried to be everything to everyone. He convinced a few bloggers that he was "the point man" on the public option. In reality there are two men more likely in that position. Rockefeller was for the public option and is the chair of the Finance committee's health subcommittee and Kerry was said to be the one pushing Kennedy's vision on that committee - not to mention he has the closest connection to both Obama and Kennedy on the committee. In a MSM article , he fashioned himself as the person between the liberals for public option and the conservative Democrats. I have to hand it to him that he does get in both the MSM and the alternative media well - but the fact is that he was not in the gang of 6 - so the MSM article is wishful thinking on his part.

[Honeycombe8]

17. I hope you're right. nt

[backscatter712]

21. Also, 538.com has already analyzed BaucusCare, and shows why it's gonna get eviscerated.

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/07/baucus-bills-bad-math.html

The Baucus Bill's Bad Math

...

So there's not a public option in the Finance Committee's bill -- which should come as no great surprise to anyone who's been following this debate. Instead, there's Kent Conrad's plan for regional, non-profit cooperatives. The real fight over the public option will take place when the HELP Committee's bill, which does include a public option, is reconciled with the Finance Committee's version, and/or when the Senate's version is ultimately reconciled with the House version.

The bigger news, rather, is that Baucus's bill will not contain an employer mandate -- a requirement that employers provide health insurance to their employees -- even though it does contain an individual mandate.

Does this look familiar to anyone?

-- No employer mandate
-- No public option
-- But yes, an individual mandate

It should -- because this particular permutation on health care reform looks an awful lot like the incomplete draft of the HELP Committee's bill that the CBO scored last month, which also lacked an employer mandate and a public option but contained an individual mandate. That bill, the CBO estimated, would cost about $1.0 trillion -- but would only cover a net of about 16 million people. In contrast, the revised version of the HELP Committee's bill, which did include both a public option and an employer mandate, would cost about the same amount but cover a net of 37 million people.

[mzmolly]

25. I don't like the fact that he thinks the public option is

dead. :(

[karynnj]

26. That is really nice analysis -

as you said, it does show why it is going nowhere. The question is why would Baucus push an already discredited plan.

[mzmolly]

24. K and R. I agree with the I hope you're right

crowd. ;)

[JimWis]

27. Interesting points. Hope you are right. K&R

[cleveramerican]

29. I hope your right

hope he doesn't stonewall the president
go on Meet the Press whining about White house pressure.

[kjackson227]

30. Sounds like a plan to me... a good plan.

[Odin2005]

32. Waxman's comments made it obvious that something's up.

The Blue Dogs have pissed off to many people and they are about to have Hell and Damnation come upon them

[Mass]

34. Schumer? He probably thinks that co-ops is the same as public option.

My guess is that every Dem is going to vote this out of committee, saying it needs to advance.

Then we will see the same shenanigans. My only hope is that those who have kept quiet until now and have said they are for a public option will become more vocal for it after this, but I do not believe it too much.

I do not expect anything from Reid. But you can always dream.

Hopefully, the House will help fixing this in conference, but expect Baucus and Conrad to be on the Conference Committee, as well as a couple Blue Dog in the House. So, do not think they will fix too much.

[supernova]

35. Very much want to believe this.

That the other Dems know so very well that their reelection changes hinge on HC reform that they spank the Blue Dogs like Baucus. That would make me smile.

[tsuki]

36. Don't bet on it. nt