The public option was DOA. The votes were never there in the Senate. As early as this thing got started up you had Senators from both parties giving interviews where they indicated that they believed there weren't going to be enough votes for a public option. It was never anything more than a fantasy for far left liberals and a scare tactic for republicans.
I disagree, they had 58 (or 59) votes for the public option, depending on whhich Ben Nelson you believe. That's not far away at all. It was Lieberman who claimed they "didn't have the votes" - by which he meant his own and possibly nelson's.
That's fine, but we'll never know. I don't believe they would have had 58 or 59 votes had it ever really come to a vote. The political courage just wasn't there in my opinion, and no amount of them saying them WOULD have voted for it will change that opinion.
Aside - this shows the warped sensibility that the filibuster abuse has gotten us into It doesn't take that much courage to vote for to end debate on the measure. Especially given that the public option was one of the most popular aspects of all potential bills in opinion polling Lieberman et all could have still voted against the bill if they wanted to. Allowing it to come to a majority vote, as outlined in article I is not a big deal.
I agree on this 100%. The only thing that surprises me is that people would rather pay for other people's health care than have them pay for it themselves. Seems like conservatives would have wanted that. Essentially now, people in Missouri will continue to pay for the uninsured anyway since the costs of their hospital bills which go unpaid anyway simply gets passed onto them regardless.
You mean Reid, right? Pelosi got a public option bill through the House, then got the non-public option one through the House again - say what you will about her, but she got it through
My understanding was that Durbin promised to whip the heck out of the senate to get it passed if Pelosi would add it to the reconciliation bill - but she opted not too, ostensibly because she felt there were not enough votes in the senate for it too pass, even though 40 folks were already on-record supporting it and only 51 were needed.
The problem there was that they only had one shot at this. Anyone who was truly for the public option should have been on record at that point. There was no benefit at all to not making their views known. So the fact that only 40 had been on record was a very bad sign. If 51 Senators wanted it, all they had to do was say they were on board and then it would have forced Pelosi's hand. Without that, there's no way she was going to risk the bill failing in the Senate.
I didn't see this earlier, but the system is built on full participation. If Missouri is excluded, then what happens when a Missouri resident that doesn't have insurance gets cancer, and then moves to a neighboring state? The insurer can't be required to insure someone like that, so it all starts breaking down. If Missouri was completely isolated and didn't impact other states, that would be one thing. But that's not how the country is set up - health care issues cross state lines.
This is simplistic. If it failed in the Senate because they tried to push through the public option they would lose the whole bill because of Scott Brown's election.
Actually, it's not simplistic so much as just plain moot. As I noted previously the agreement had already been made with the appropriate lobbyist entities to kill the public option. The circular nature of the blame game between Obama, Pelosi, and Durbin/Reid illustrates that none of them wanted the stink of killing it, but none of them wanted to include it either, for obvious reasons. To be fair, by that point the GOP scare-machine had seriously reduced the previously large support for a public option - but that just hides the fact that Obama had already cynically traded it in months before. I'd wager invisiblefan is right and that this was Obama's "plan" from the get-go - but it still stinks and claims of "transparency" and "reduced lobbyist influence" were revealed as farcical ploys.
the blame game lies with the people who we know weren't going to vote for it any way. that's why its moot
That is a good point but on the flip side there is a great risk to Missouri also. Missouri could see a flood of people coming into their state being uninsured and taxing Missouri's emergency medical system. I think it is definitely in the interest of them to participate in the US health care system but how much can we force people, or states, to act in their self-interests?
Bingo. Anyone who thinks you can have a solid health insurance program without a mandate is deslusional or doesn't fully understand how insurance works. All these numbnuts need to get out of their group health plans through their employers because guess what you're basically supporting socialism. Everyone pays the same in premiums though the less healthy receive more in benefits. They also drive up costs to everyone in the plan, even the healthy that never go to the doctor. Damn that has been going on forever. The cost of the uninsured increases the costs to everyone else. What's funny is these are probably the same morons who want lower taxes. By not having a mandate you're just increasing your taxes. http://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/cea/TheEconomicCaseforHealthCareReform/ As the number of uninsured rises, there is a corresponding increase in uncompensated care costs, which include costs incurred by hospitals and physicians for the charity care they provide to the uninsured as well as bad debt (for example, unpaid bills). Both the Federal government and state governments use tax revenues to pay health care providers for a portion of these costs through Disproportionate Share Hospital (DSH) payments, grants to Community Health Centers, and other mechanisms. In 2008, total government spending to reimburse uncompensated care costs incurred by medical providers was approximately $42.9 billion. In the absence of reform to slow the real growth rate of health spending and a subsequent rise in the uninsured, we project that the real annual tax burden of uncompensated care for an average family of four will rise from $627 in 2008 to $1,652 (in 2008 dollars) by 2030. Idiots........
