Update: List of Dem Senators Who Don't Support the Public Option
For your viewing pleasure, here's a breakdown of where the key senators stand
on the public option. I've grouped
everyone into four categories. 'Strongly Opposed' is obviously those
who have almost no chance of supporting a bill with a strong public
option. 'Opposed' are those who probably don't want a public option but
would rather not get into divisive arguments with their constituents by taking
a firm stance against it. It should be at
least possible to convince them to support a public option. 'Cajoleable'
refers to those who should be relatively easily herded into support once a final bill
is drawn, when intense scrutiny and the weight of the historic moment bear down
upon them. Finally, there are the 'Recent Converts' who now seem to have become reliable supporters of public option.
If you know something that I don't, or if you think I'm mischaracterizing a Senator's position on this issue, please let me know. I'll update this list in a few days, and I'd like to make it as accurate as possible, so it would be helpful to get some feedback.
Strongly Opposed (2)
Mary Landrieu (LA)-
Joe Lieberman (CT)- Both Lieberman and Landrieu have specifically opposed a public option.
Opposed (9)
Bill Nelson (FL)- Sits on the Finance committee, does not want to embrace the public option but has avoided openly opposing it.
Tom Carper (DE)- Co-sponsored the public plan-free Healthy Americans Act with Wyden. Wants co-ops.
Mark Warner (VA)- Deftly avoiding having to confront the public plan issue.
Mark Pryor (AR)- Blue dog senator who has kept quiet on the public option. I'll take that as secretive opposition. Again, if anyone else has better knowledge on a senator's position, let me know.
Ron Wyden (OR)- Frequent target of pro-reform ads, sponsor the Healthy Americans Act, which does not include a public option.
Mark Begich (AK)- Very little available about his opinion on the public option. He's from a weird state (sorry Alaskans). His next election isn't until 2014. I'm going to put his as a conditional tough sell until I learn more.
Jon Tester (MT)- I couldn't find much on his position, either. Maybe someone more familiar with his political tendencies can fill me in, but I'm going to fill him in as a tough sell.
Evan Bayh (IN)- Fiscally conservative Democrat. Wants to shift the focus away from public option, though he hasn't openly opposed it.
Diane Feinstein (CA)- Seems determined to avoid outright opposition to the public option, though it's clear she does not like it. Gets lots of $$ from insurance companies. Says criticism from left does not bother her. She has reason to worry, though, as her constituency is very liberal and probably very passionate about a public option.
Cajoleable (9)
Michael Bennet (CO)- Prefers the co-op idea, but said he could support a public option.
Max Baucus (MT)- He's been trying to compromise with Republicans by offering them compromises that don't include a public option, but he has said the public option is 'on the table', and he said he opposes the public option merely because it won't get enough votes, not on substance.
Maria Cantwell (WA)- Offered support for a public option, but was vague about what that means. She should be in a position to vote for the final bill.
Kent Conrad (ND)- Main reason for opposing the public option because it didn't have the votes, not because of its substance. If momentum picks up, I think he'll jump aboard.
Byron Dorgan (ND)- Said he would support public option if it doesn't put private insurers out of business.
Ben Nelson (NE)- Initially called the public option a 'deal breaker,' but recently claimed he would not support a filibuster.
Blanche Lincoln (AR)- Wrote a column today saying "Options should include private plans as well as a quality, affordable public plan or non-profit plan that can accomplish the same goals as those of a public plan." The nonprofit concept almost certainly won't be included in the final bill.
Robert Byrd (WV)- Very old and very sick.
Kay Hagan (NC)- Recently caved to overwhelming criticism and said she would support some sort of public option, though she was vague on details.
Recent converts (2)
Harry Reid (NV)- Looks like Harry Reid has decided to take some leadership.
Mark Udall (CO)- Said he supports a public health care option.
Summary: There are 38 definite supporters of the public option (if you count Franken). To break a filibuster, every single senator listed here needs to vote for cloture. That does not mean they have to support the final bill, but for the time being there needs to be substantial pressure put on Landrieu and Lieberman to make sure they do not singlehandedly obstruct what is arguably the most important reform of our time.
Obama needs to expand his message about "empathy" being a requirement for a justice of the Supreme Court to include our elected Congressmen and Senators.
How may we arrange for subliminal sleep messages to be delivered to each and every one of the people on your list? Messages that will convince each of the naysayers that he, or she has:
lost his or her coverage;
cannot get new coverage because he or she has just been informed that he or she has a serious illness or chronic condition;
subjects each of them to endless loop coverage of non-enlightened colleagues arguing against single payer?
Or, we can just deluge them with faxes. But that won't solve the lack of understanding.
July 8, 2009 3:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
I really hope Obama jumps into the fray and starts whipping everyone into shape, but not in a way that would completely devastate his reputation if reform fails.
July 8, 2009 3:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Carl it would help immensely if you included their office phone numbers after their names. Public pressure is going to win the day on this. I called my congresswoman's office today and the guy put me on hold a couple of times to take calls about the same thing. Give me public option or we'll give you political death to paraphrase Patrick Henry.
July 8, 2009 7:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hi Mark- I didn't add their phone numbers and addresses because it would be a text overload and people wouldn't bother reading it. Here's a site where you can find phone/fax numbers: http://standwithdrdean.com/where_congress_stands?chamber=Senate&party=&state=&hc_status=&commit=Filter
Thanks for calling your congressman- I'm glad to hear a lot of people are doing the same thing.
July 8, 2009 9:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dr. Dean's site is great Carl. I just think "one stop shopping" is the way to go when people are fired up and ready to call.
July 9, 2009 10:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
Sen. Tester is actually from Montana (you list him as MO, instead of MT). I don't know if he caucuses with Blue Dogs, but you can bet his constituents are mostly swallowing the GOP lines about the federal gov't not being capable of running a health care system.
July 8, 2009 3:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for the heads up. Seems like Montana people would be anti-government, insular types, but suprisingly they have two Dem senators.
July 8, 2009 4:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
You'd lose that bet.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/01/baucus-battered-by-voters_n_209865.html
July 9, 2009 5:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
What can we do about Feinstein?
July 8, 2009 4:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
I've been wondering that for years now. The only answer I can see involves somehow keeping her away from the cocktail parties . . .
July 8, 2009 4:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Is California broke or what? Isn't there some angle on this "reform" that is going to save the states money? If not, what's wrong with the bill?
July 8, 2009 5:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Raz Feinstein. Call her. I just read a snippet today that criticism from the left doesn't "bother" her. Hey, the left voted her in in the first place. Keep her answering her phone. I have promised $100 to fund her opponent if she foils the passage of good legislation.
July 8, 2009 6:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Feinstein really could care less about public opinion. She isn't up for re-election until 2012 and is therefore quite insulated from the wrath of the mob. (Indeed, the Senate was designed for this purpose and it's the reason for the Senate being a "higher" body than the House.)
However, Feinstein has expressed interest in running for CA Governor in 2010. That would solve people's issues in the nation with here (so long as they aren't in CA).
The fact is that Feinstein is what used to be called a conservative Democrat or a moderate Republican. She's been identified as the "New Lieberman".
July 9, 2009 4:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
PS: Remember the Feinstein wasn't endured to left causes dating back to the beginning of her career. In fact, had it not been for the assassination of Mayor Moscone (along with Harvey Milk), she might not have had a political career in the Senate at all: She ran for SF Mayor twice --- and lost, only to get the job when Moscone was killed. This gave her the foundations of her political career.
July 9, 2009 4:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
What's wrong with a filibuster? It will just make the opponents of the public option look really, really bad.
July 8, 2009 4:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not if they convince enough people that they're saving us from a "government takeover" of healthcare
July 8, 2009 4:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
what is wrong is that people are dying because they don't get the healthcare they need, every day. We have a sick, twisted, regressive, health system in this country, where you go bankrupt and die even if you have insurance.
July 8, 2009 5:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes Carl. We must be reminded of the difference between killing an attempt at filibuster and voting against the bill.
It is just, we must remember that in order to get the sixtieth senator we might need a gurney for Byrd and an ambulance for Kennedy.
There is still a chess game that must be played.
Good, good post.
July 8, 2009 5:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Begich is notoriously slippery on such issues. It's how he got elected as a Democrat in a Republican state.
That said, I think Begich is totally on the Obama train - and I think Obama will eventually realize that Congress isn't going to do anything meaningful on its own.
Begich may give lip service to a non-public option, but I highly doubt he'll vote nay if the final bill includes one.
July 8, 2009 6:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
this is so pathetic. I am reminded why America isn't exactly in the top 10 in the world bank's corruption index.
July 8, 2009 7:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe those who are "Opposed" and "Strongly Opposed" have that mindset because they read the drafts of the bill?
Because the House Majority Leader, a Democrat, said that if the members of congress read the bill they're supposed to vote on, they'd vote against it?
http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=50677
Sounds a bit like the "wisdom" of cap-n-tade in the Senate right now, where EPA just admitted that that wonderful reform will have absolutely no effect on greenhouse gas emissions.
All these "reforms" are dedicated to one and one thing only: more votes for Democrats.
July 9, 2009 8:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
Don't you think you are mis-characterizing the article a bit? You are implying they wouldn't vote on it because they wouldn't agree with the contents - when Hoyer's point seems to be that with the size of the bill and time constraints of the voting membership (even if self imposed) it wold make them unlikely to agree to read the entire thing line-by-line in it's final published form.
I think this says something negative about our representatives' commitment to actually performing their duties - not about the merits of the health reform bill per se.
July 9, 2009 2:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe it's because they don't agree with the contents or maybe it's because they won't be able to get through the actual bill.
I'm happy to concede either option, take your pick.
but it's a travesty both ways, because these are the people who are going to be responsible for the government-run healthcare.
Again - just like the EPA admission on greenhouse emissions - all this circus has only one irrefutable purpose and reason: votes.
July 9, 2009 3:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
No debating the travesty! But honestly, they'll "run" a public plan in the same respect they "run" medicare. Jokes aside, it's pretty much self-sustaining as far as administration - the congrasshats don't muck with it *too* much.
You are more charitable than myself on the cap-and-trade thingie - I think the whole swerve off the rails regarding the GHG situation in general is really all about money. Hell, the DOE spent their $2.4 bn of stimulus on coal-related technologies; praying they can make sequestration work. But that's an issue for a different post.
Having the option to buy in (or not) to a national medicaid system wouldn't be bad. Hell, having a government administered national pool that allowed individuals to participate combined with the elimination of preexisting condition exclusions would be huge - as long as it didn't come with mandates, it would be a step forward.
This could go so many different ways at this point: disastrous giveaway to special interests, waste-of-time neutral, or genuine improvement. Those assholes we send up there might not read it, but I'm pretty sure I will.
July 9, 2009 5:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'll be honest with you. Having no idea 'what' this 'public option' will actually do for us... it's a little hard to be fully gung ho myself.
I feel the only real solution for our country is a single payer health care system.
As long as the public option will actually operate at lower costs and create competition for the private insurers... I support it. I don't want to protect the private insurers by creating a public option that is useless and/or meaningless.
What I am doing is hounding my senators that we need single payer healthcare assuming that they will be more inclined to support a public option with so many supporters asking for single payer.
I am in CO. Udall has gotten on board so that's good but I still feel that 'what kind of public option we want' still needs to be driven home of this entire process could be mere high costs theatrics that protect the health care industry just as it is.
July 9, 2009 2:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's a good idea. The whole point of negotiation is to start by demanding more than you want, whereas democrats have started with the public option.
I think it'll be a raging success if enough people join it. Its so important to allow those who have employer-based insurance to enter the 'exchange'. If the exchange is too restrictive, it could end up being a dumping ground for the poor and sick, which will make private insurance even cheaper for everyone else.
July 9, 2009 4:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
The lines are being drawn around a couple of "sets of principles"
There's the "Quad caucus principles" (combined black, Hispanic, Asian Pacific American and Progressive caucuses). According to them it must:
There are the more robust Progressive Caucus principles ... this should be the benchmark IMO:
Then there is the stripped down bare minimum that FDL is organizing their grassroots campaigns around - geared to be easily relayed in phone conversations with reps:
There has been a lot of discussion in the comments about a couple of stronger "simple" principles being used by other grassroots campaigns. Most agree that "Accountable to" should be somewhat more specific, but in light of the formal caucus principles ... I guess they stuck with simple for the published "whip tool".
There is a pretty wide range of what "public option" (or "universal" for that matter) can mean. But most of the progressive flavors fall in this range somewhere (Dean has his list ... etc.). A big part of the battle is making sure lobbyists and the media don't change the meaning of the words to slip through a mandated health insurance equivalent of Bush's drug program.
I say keep fighting for single payer, but keep in mind what the public option battle is about. IMO, even if the best public option doesn't make things *that* much better - done wrong, there is the opportunity to make the situation a *whole* lot worse. The Goldman Sachs' of the world are drooling for another cash cow, and historically congress has always found a way to weasel them into getting what they want.
July 9, 2009 4:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
If I'm not mistaken, when Obama's budget was passed an addendum restoring the budget reconciliation process, which can't be filibustered, was included. It only has to be included in the health care bill and a simple majority (51 senators) is needed to pass. Even Bill Frist said yesterday that it was legal and ethical. Their is no way Repubs and Blue Dogs can stop or water down the Public Option if Obama and Congressional leadership really wants it.
July 9, 2009 2:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think reconciliation is not what anyone is hoping for. It's complicated, and there are a lot of restrictions, such as that all provisions must have a direct impact on the federal budget. The general thinking is that if things go to reconciliation, it will be because of disappointing loss before then.
July 9, 2009 3:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, it's a last resort (though the Byrd restrictions could be worked around), but I don't see that compromising away a public option in the name of comity to prevent hurting the minorities' (bought and paid for) feelings as worth scrapping HC reform. Without single-payer or at least the PO there will be no reform. Period. Let the Republicans and Blue Dogs stand in the way of that.
We just can't keep pretending that up is down and our government is always acting in the people's interests because mellow-voiced politicians and pancaked news anchors read that from their scripts. If I were in DC, I'd carry one sign to the Capital steps everyday: "Someone is dying at this very minute because our health care system is broke. You must fix it now lest you be complicit in these deaths."
July 10, 2009 12:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
PS Thanks for this post. I think some of those, like Nelson, have come round on this but are downplaying it. Also, your thumbnail pic looks a lot like Carl Sagan to me (just an observation); I can still hear his voice.
July 10, 2009 12:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
Single payer and nothing less! Every citizen who does, or could, pay taxes is covered by the same national health care plan. If rich people want more, they can buy more. What I really don't like is the mandate that I MUST buy coverage from a for-profit insurance company. I do NOT feel that I have any obligation to keep these companies profitable. I would much rather have the coverage come from my taxes even if I have to pay more in taxes.
July 9, 2009 6:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
My letter to Robert Byrd
Dear Senator Byrd,
I've read that you are on the fence or against healthcare for everybody.
I am disabled, so I know how hard and expensive it is to get Health Insurance.
Do you think for one minute that your Healthcare Insurance Company would insure you if you were not a member of Congress?
Don't make me laugh. You would have been dropped so long ago it's sadly ridiculous. Members of Congress have no idea what the "Real World" is like.
Stop letting Insurance and Big Pharma buy your vote out and vote for the "little guy".
Sincerely,
Tom
July 20, 2009 7:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
My letter to Robert Byrd
Dear Senator Byrd,
I've read that you are on the fence or against healthcare for everybody.
I am disabled, so I know how hard and expensive it is to get Health Insurance.
Do you think for one minute that your Healthcare Insurance Company would insure you if you were not a member of Congress?
Don't make me laugh. You would have been dropped so long ago it's sadly ridiculous. Members of Congress have no idea what the "Real World" is like.
Stop letting Insurance and Big Pharma buy your vote out and vote for the "little guy".
Sincerely,
Tom
July 20, 2009 7:17 PM | Reply | Permalink