A Very Bad Sign for the Public Option

Who got to him and what do they have?
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What could have made him contradict himself so badly in public?
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This was Jay Rockefeller before someone convinced him that “as much bipartisan[ship] … as possible. ” is what “we really need” (link to TPM, September, 2009)

When it became clear several weeks ago that negotiators on the Senate Finance Committee were planning to pursue a private co-op model instead of a public option in their health reform bill, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV)–a senior member of that committee, and chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee–undertook a study into the history and effectiveness of health insurance co-operatives.
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As part of that study, he asked the Government Accountability Office to bring together all of the research it had done over the years into the effectiveness of co-ops in the insurance market. Today, he sent a fairly scathing letter to Finance chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) and chief co-op advocate Kent Conrad (D-ND) regarding the results.
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Rockefeller, who says he regards the public option as a “must,” writes, “there has been no significant research into consumer co-ops as a model for the broad expansion of health insurance. What we do know, however, is that this model was tried in the early part of the 20th century and largely failed.“

And now Jay Rockefeller says “every one of them has to have one not-for-profit plan, which is sort of like a public option“.
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“Sort of like a public option?”
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A complete reversal, the tossing aside of evidence carefully assembled from the GAO, and the embrace of a dim facsimile of a once-”must” policy –all for the appearance of “as much biparisan[ship] as …possible” in a reconciliation vote?
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What possible leverage could exist over this man –this United States Senator– that would force him to look so obviously and publicly compromised?

“What possible leverage could exist …?”

A promise that the American electorate would not remember what he said last September?

He’s drugged or he’s had a stroke. That statement is pure gibberish.

Anyway, Democrats don’t need Rockefeller for reconciliation so why the death knell?

” .. Rockefeller has been in the Senate since 1984; Bennet has been there less than a year. ..”
How about going by the merits – just for kicks?
We seem to have a little prejudice going here – like being predisposed to admit into the SWAMP line-up many a (real and honorary) caucasian woman rather than a woman “of color”.

Merits of the case?
Apparently, among the American citizens and jurisprudence in New York city, profiling reigns over the inconveniences of upholding robust “discovery”, “human rights” or “the basic rights of every American citizen”.
One may molest a “wrong” person at leisure – and feel somehow entitled to it and protected by the immense resources of, say, a union – until, we presume, one is similarly victimized. [Call it "the cheney curse" or the "Bybee-Yoo-Bradbury Auschwitz defense"(bybad)]

The WH is twisting his ….. imstead of the GOP’s

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/01/24/rockefeller/
Remember how Rockefeller sold us out on the Patriot Act and warrantless wiretaps. I don’t understand. He is in ATTs pocket. But why? He has been in the Senate for years, his little opposition, and has plenty of personal fortune.
I always feel like someone has something on him. He voted for the for the above and then said he sent a letter of concern to the Bush administration. Said he couldn’t speak out because of national security. But did he ever do anything to repair the damage done?
He is an enigma.

The Democrats need to string this out as long as they can, just in case one leftist might make the mistake of voting for them again.

“Rockefeller has been in the Senate since 1984; Bennet has been there less than a year.”
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I read that as an indictment of Rockefeller.
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cowardice wins again…

The statement itself might be incoherent but I happen to agree with the sentiment. The most important thing to do right now is get a HCR bill passed so that people can experience it. Once reform itself is the law of the land it will immediately cease to be “controversial” Then and only then will we be able to have a rational debate about the best way forward.

Me too.

The fact that Reid, Schumer, Durbin AND the President still say they support the public option makes Rockefeller’s sudden defection look very, very fishy. You do have to wonder whom he’s swimming with.

The Constant Weader at http://www.RealityChex.com

It took the Dem grown-ups to realize reviving the public option is not the thing to do when you’re trying to reach out to the GOP for one last try on health care…

http://www.political-buzz.com/

Has there been any point during this process that you haven’t supported passing any kind of HCR bill?
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That reads as it could be snark but I’m serious.
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Is there any deal breaker for you on HCR?

“cowardice wins again…”
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I firmly believe that there is some thing much more sinister going on here than mere cowardice.

Consider this: Rockefeller discovered his horse was dead so it was time to dismount

I’m not sure what happen here but:
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Our civilian court system has apparently managed to get an alleged terrorist to plead guilty and fully cooperate without denying him access to a lawyer,without sending to Gitmo, without torturting him or putting him in front of a military commission, while at the same time making sure he was Mirandize. Now the guy will spend the rest of his life in prison.
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What will President Cheney think about all this?

It sounds like he is channeling Max Baucus.

“It can’t pass so let’s not fight for it.”

“Why can’t it pass?”

“Because there aren’t enough votes.”

“Why aren’t there enough votes?”

“Because it can’t pass…”

Etc.

Maybe this confirms my theory that all the public option talk was just a bargaining chip heading into Thursday’s “bipartisan” summit. If all the Democratic senators signed the public option letter, they would be under pressure to actually pass it when it comes up during reconciliation. So what appears to be incoherence on the part of the Dems is actually a well orchestrated effort to avoid passing meaningful legislation. Does that make me a conspiracy theorist?

Now maybe they can get Al Gore and the Global warming alarmists to plead guilty to fraud and theft of billions of dollars.

Paul(s),
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The part that bothers me about passing this.. this.. WHATEVER it is, is that, when it comes down to it , the “right” time to “fix” ALL that is wrong with it will fall sometime between “some day soon” and “when h*ll freezes over”.
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No one IN THIS GENERATION is going to have the stomach to re-visit this, after everything they have been through.

The public option is more popular with Republicans than anything else in the health care bill.
This is stupid. Does anyone know how to read a poll?
http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/senate-republicans/polls-in-key-states-public-option-far-more-popular-than-senate-plan/
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/09/poll-even-republican-voters-favor-the-public-option.php

This is totally correct.

Democrats are going to end up passing this in reconciliation with zero Republican votes, so all the a**kissing towards bipartisanship is freaking pointless, and to top it off they are taking out the one thing Republican voters want out of the deal?

gunny,
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I’ve been having the same thoughts, covering many unexplainable changes in positions/votes over the years.
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What is it they know about or have on each other? Gotta be some really bad stuff…

I think he has been added to the list of those invited to Thursday’s meeting.

They made concessions with him in the Senate bill to get his vote and convinced him something is better than nothing,

afguy-That’s pretty much my feeling too.
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Better get it right now because fixing it later ain’t gonna happen anytime soon.
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And I’d rather see nothing passed rather than a mandate with no public option.

I have a strong suspicion that bipartisanship may refer more towards getting the Blue Dogs onside than the Republicans. It’s not clear to me that Reid can get the public option through the Senate and the signatures on the petition have certainly been lagging.

Dirks:

The most important thing to do right now is get a HCR bill passed so that people can experience it.

What if what people experience is bad, since this is bad policy that leaves the inflationary problems of health care untouched?
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What if people who get their coverage through their employers continue to see their own share of premiums and co-pays rise significantly every year, and the quality of that coverage drop?
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What if most people don’t see any benefit at all to their bottom lines, and only see disadvantages –which can be blamed, fairly or unfairly, on “Health Care Reform”?
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What if the most important thing to do right now is to get it right, not get “a HCR bill”, i.e. something that guarantees at least the likelihood of a backlash, passed, Dirks?

stu,
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You’re reading my mind. Those that believe that the public is just against ALL HCR are going to see some puzzling situations in elections, situations in which HCR opponents lose or are in closer-than-expected elections.
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I haven’t seen a poll yet structured to ask anything other than “Are you for or against the present version of HCR”. A “NO” is automatically spun to mean “You are against HCR as a concept”, not to determine how many think the present “crap sandwich” is “too little” or “too much”. NO nuances allowed.

superterrificdelegate:
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It’s Kafka-esque, isn’t it?

“Democrats are going to end up passing this in reconciliation with zero Republican votes, so all the a**kissing towards bipartisanship is freaking pointless…”
It’s not pointless and this can’t be passed in any of its current forms by reconciliation.
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First, the whole point is to try to sucker people into believing that the Dems are willing to compromise when they aren’t; it’s all political theatre unless this meeting on Thursday actually accomplishes something, which I doubt, but we will have to see. The problem here is that Democrats plan just isn’t that good, as I’ve said again and again on different threads here it does nothing to attack the underlying costs of health-care and therefore is 2000 plus pages of wasted paper. The Democrats are not willing to accept any idea that has an “R” attached to it; mainly (in my mind) because the leadership is both chambers of the Congress is run by the far left of the party. Due to this unwillingness to compromise the Democrats must put on a show to appear as if they are willing to listen. The truth is that the President really can’t control the leadership in Congress who are generally ultra left and attempting to steamroll right over not just the Republicans and the general public who don’t support this bill, but also the President himself.
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Secondly, reconciliation is solely for use on budget bills which are contentious but are necessary and therefore are supposedly “off limits” for a filibuster. (Keep in mind this process has only existed since 1974; it’s not an “age old” and “time tested” way of getting things done as some would have us believe.) This is to say that the purpose of this process is supposed to ONLY be used for budget bills. HCR is in no way a “budget bill”. Just because it contains numbers that refer to money doesn’t make it a “budget bill”, and therefore using reconciliation can’t, (read this: cannot) be used to pass the bills that are currently purposed but only portions of them which are strictly budget issues.
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Let’s not forget that if any of these bills pass, the only entities with standing in court are states, many of whom are chomping at the bit to get into court and have this whole mess declared unconstitutional (which is probably is).

The explanation is provided by Greenwald:

The Democratic Party’s deceitful game:

“The primary tactic in this game is Villain Rotation. They always have a handful of Democratic Senators announce that they will be the ones to deviate this time from the ostensible party position and impede success, but the designated Villain constantly shifts, so the Party itself can claim it supports these measures while an always-changing handful of their members invariably prevent it.”

See:

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/02/23/democrats/index.html