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Emanuel Pessimistic On Public Option In Senate

Rachel Slajda | September 24, 2009, 12:50PM

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Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel

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Appearing on Charlie Rose last night, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel sounded less than optimistic that the Senate's health care reform bill would include a public option.

"I think the Senate's been clear what the prospects [are]," Emanuel said. "That doesn't mean in the House, they're not gonna come to the table and demand it."

He also wouldn't say for sure whether there will be a public option in the final legislation.

"It has to be what the conference has to negotiate," he said.

He did, however, say there will be a bill before Congress takes its Thanksgiving recess, and that it won't look quite like the Senate Finance Committee bill.

"The legislative process is a place where both bodies get to contribute," he said.

Video after the jump.

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49 comments

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jerryfatheart

September 24, 2009 1:00 PM

This hardly sounds like he said it won't pass the Senate. Way to drive traffic, though, guys!

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jerryfatheart

September 24, 2009 1:03 PM in reply to jerryfatheart

To clarify: It's clear he's pessimistic, as the headline here says, but this isn't definite.

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September 24, 2009 1:19 PM in reply to jerryfatheart

I agree. And I don't really have a problem with what he's saying. He's saying the public option will have a hard time passing the Senate, but he also points out that the final legislation is what gets worked out in committee. That's all true.

But thanks to TPM, my new business venture selling flammable Rahm effigies is taking off quite nicely.

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September 24, 2009 1:32 PM in reply to Xantar

You should wander over to DKos. I imagine there's quite a market for them over there. . .

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September 24, 2009 1:34 PM in reply to CT Voter

Kos is where I first saw the story today. They may have already run through their stock of effigies.

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September 24, 2009 1:38 PM in reply to fbacon2

I saw it over there, as well. We readers are pretty predictable. Throw up a headline that overstates the situation just a bit, tack on a few exclamation points, and presto! Angst, angst, angst.

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September 24, 2009 1:40 PM in reply to CT Voter

Keeps him on Maddow every other night....

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September 24, 2009 2:03 PM in reply to CT Voter

Yeah, I have to say, this is pushing the envelope of what I consider acceptable sensationalism. TPM has gotten really predictable about this.

"Area man says he doesn't want a public option"
"Pelosi breaks a heel -- is this end of the public option?"
"Note found in wastebin reveals Dems divided over reconciliation"

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AJM

September 24, 2009 2:56 PM in reply to Alex39

Whistling past the graveyard of Democratic hopes -- Rahm, on behalf of Obama, is letting all you guys down softly.

Also, you are falling for one of the oldest tricks on the books -- don't blame the guy in charge, blame the guy in charge's appointed hatchet man.

Obama is the one who didn't choose to have his administration fight for public option.

It is going to cost him in enthusiasm in his next campaign unless the progressives hang tough and refuse to pass any program without the public option supported by the majority of the American Public.

If you start as a popular President and have the bulk of the public with you on a position and you quit without a fight, don't expect of lot of enthusiastic support.

Oh, but the conservative Senators won't vote for it -- because they don't want to lose their insurance money and because they are afraid they will lose their seats if they do. Well, make it clear they will lose their seats if they don't - not hard for those in borderline seats -- and then they can vote their consciences.

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September 24, 2009 8:48 PM in reply to Xantar

You're being played. But it isn't by TPM ... the public option is dead.

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September 24, 2009 1:33 PM in reply to jerryfatheart

Wow! Now that I've seen this video, I can't believe this bit is getting so much attention. It was a throwaway line at the end of an interview in which he also said the House would demand a public option. I suppose the headline for today could have been "Rahm encourages House position on public option," but that would be too easy.

For the record, he should've rephrased the Senate part to make it sound less pessimistic and more hypothetical (i.e. "Even if the Senate can't pass one, etc. etc.") Otherwise, I don't see how he's wrong. Certain Senators will demand a public option come out of the reconciled HELP and Finance bills, but if the Senate can't get enough votes to include it, the signal has always been conference committee.

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jerryfatheart

September 24, 2009 1:54 PM in reply to fbacon2

Exactly. He said also said this after saying that the House is probably going to come to the table pretty hard for a public option: "The legislative process is a place where both bodies get to contribute."

I think there's this tendency to overreact to everything about the public option. What I see here is paving the way for the Senate to merely produce a bill that would be reconciled with the House's bill. He's not referring to the final product at all!

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September 24, 2009 2:06 PM in reply to jerryfatheart

Even talking about what passes the Senate is a step ahead of the game right now. The Senate Finance Committee is the immediate concern. They do not want to box the committee in on the public option if the fate of the entire bill rests with Baucus, Lincoln, Nelson, Conrad.

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September 24, 2009 4:35 PM in reply to jerryfatheart

And now the circle is complete. A comment on PBS turns into a freak-out on Kos, a headline on TPM, and now this: HuffPo makes a story on "Emanuel Bearish on Public Option in Senate" to "Rahm: Public Option Not Likely To Pass."

Guys, so long as our judgments about the fate of health care rest with these media outlets, we'll have no hope of figuring this stuff out.

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September 24, 2009 2:47 PM in reply to fbacon2

Yep, we should pack up and go home. It's all over now. Negativity abounds.

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September 24, 2009 2:50 PM in reply to jerryfatheart

pathetic.

did you watch the interview?

its very clear not only does Obama not want the public option but Rahm is working to making sure it never happens.

i dont understand why people hold onto illusions.

emmanel is a corporate guy first and always, and so is Obama.

the fact that you dont see it is exactly the reason why nothing gets done.
they count on people being ignorant and jsut following blind.

sort of like the palin supporters.

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September 24, 2009 3:15 PM in reply to JadeZ

I don't understand why you persistently think you can read other people's minds.

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September 24, 2009 1:02 PM

Hey, Rahm:

(expletive deleted.)

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September 24, 2009 1:11 PM

Mr President,

Go ahead! listen to Rahm, he's going to lead u off a cliff.

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CranialRectalLoopback

September 24, 2009 1:16 PM

Why does the Senate pretend like there aren't TWO FUCKING BILLS coming out of committees?

Why is everyone pretending that FOUR OF FIVE BILLS have the public option?

If we follow the new 75% rule of the Repubes, we have 80% of the proposed bills with A FUCKING PUBLIC OPTION!

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September 24, 2009 1:17 PM

Then twist some arms, for goodness sake.

It's clear they don't want the P.O. Obama could have it if he was willing to spend the political capital here. Obviously they are saving it...for what? I have no idea.

Disappointing.

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September 24, 2009 2:39 PM in reply to Dorn76

I'm not sure he really has the political capital anymore. If his approval ratings were still in the 60s, then yeah, he would. But he burned a lot of capital to get the stimulus passed, and he's lost more thanks to death panels and the other distortions and falsehoods that have been spewed in the healthcare reform debate.

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September 24, 2009 1:18 PM

Rham is Obama's Dick Cheney.

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CranialRectalLoopback

September 24, 2009 1:56 PM in reply to rstephen

Rahm is just a dick.

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September 24, 2009 1:18 PM

Good leadership.

Keep it up.

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September 24, 2009 1:22 PM

I think he is saying that the public option will be put into the bill during the House/Senate conference. Goes around a lot of the stalling in the Senate.

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September 24, 2009 1:27 PM

Is this Rahm bragging that he thinks he's killed the public option, or is this Rahm lowering expectations so that he can label any piece of crap that passes a "win"?

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September 24, 2009 1:36 PM in reply to condew

Right on both counts. I believe he never wanted the PO let alone single payer, but only a trigger. As has been pointed out elsewhere, in Beltway speak, a trigger is something that never gets pulled, but is in place for CYA purposes only. And either Rahm is leading Obama around by the nose or Obama would gladly take a trigger and claim victory.

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September 24, 2009 1:46 PM in reply to Bushie

But who are they trying to fool with the trigger? The Obama cult? The general public won't know what they are talking about. The insurance industry, the Republicans, the Blue Dogs, the faux Progressives, the rest of the western world -- will all see this for the lie it is. Who but those who don't want to be disillusioned by their hero are going to believe any of it?

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September 24, 2009 3:50 PM in reply to bluebell

That's the problem with living in a bubble, everything outside seems disjointed, unfocused and unimportant, as opposed to life inside the bubble that is disjointed and unfocused and vapid.

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September 24, 2009 1:38 PM

A black man from the Southside of Chicago is letting the Southern Rapture Republican Racist party drive his agenda... priceless.

I think they moved some furniture around, but the White House hasn't really changed from the previous administration.

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September 24, 2009 1:48 PM in reply to witty1

Let's try that again:

African American? Yes. A black man? Depends on what you mean by "black". And Southside of Chicago? Not in his formative years.

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ShoelessJoeMcCarthy

September 24, 2009 1:43 PM

I have my own skepticism about Rahm at times, but boy, TPM, David Kurtz's lead-in para about this on the front page is VERY misleading... sensationalistic and inaccurate.

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September 24, 2009 2:53 PM in reply to ShoelessJoeMcCarthy

it is not!.

did you SEE the show?

i did.

rahm makes it very clear he does NOT ever want a public option.

geez
and i thought only the republicans were the problem!

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September 24, 2009 1:45 PM

African American? Yes. A black man? Depends on what you mean by "black". And Southside of Chicago? Not in his formative years.

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September 24, 2009 1:52 PM in reply to Schmed

"You claim this distracts from the health care debate, but you are less than half right. The health care debate is a debate about racism. In the eyes of the right wing opposition, this is really about telling a struggling white middle class that health care reform under Obama means taking their money and using it to buy insurance for black people."

Yup. I never saw him as a symbol of liberating anyone from anything - he was just the furthest removed from W., but apparently not removed enough.

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September 24, 2009 2:20 PM in reply to witty1

Well, W. really wasn't from Texas either.

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September 24, 2009 2:35 PM in reply to Schmed

True that.

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September 24, 2009 1:50 PM

this plan seems like it's more ROMNEY than RAHM, lol

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CranialRectalLoopback

September 24, 2009 1:57 PM

Anyone think that picture of Rahm looks like Jim Carrey's Grinch?

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September 24, 2009 1:57 PM

I have to say that I think (hope) that the White House is trying to downplay the public option in the Senate and they hope that it at least is included with a trigger that they can then remove when the bills are merged in committee with the House.

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September 24, 2009 2:02 PM

Emmanuel couldn't care less about what happens to the public option or to the people of the US. It's all about him and him being in the middle of the action. He is a poster boy for the sort of person who should not be allowed in public affairs.

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September 24, 2009 3:14 PM

For a guy who's supposedly such a tough bastard, he seems to be approaching Congress on bended knee with regard to health care. Why don't you cowboy up and read the riot act to some of those Blue Dogs and conservaDems, Rahm, and get it done with a public option. Isn't strong-arming what you're supposed to be good at? I mean, c'mon!

I wish the email addresses of White House staffers was somewhere on the White House web site; I'd like the progressives of the blogosphere to flood Emanuel's inbox to pressure him into genuine, hard-core support of a public option. These White House guys really need to grow a spine.

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September 24, 2009 3:37 PM in reply to dougom

I agree. I actually thought Rahm was the perfect choice for that very reason. He could play Progressive Bad Cop to Obama's Conciliatory, Non-Partisan Good Cop. Hasn't worked out that way. Shows how little I understand of the political game. In my defense, I was hoping Edwards would take the Democratic nomination way back when. He would've gone to bat for this. Of course, he'd be roadkill by now, too, but for marital infidelity! Maybe Dean will run again someday. Sigh...

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September 24, 2009 4:30 PM in reply to dougom

What we have here is Chicago politics. The party is for sale to the highest bidder.

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September 24, 2009 3:38 PM

Thanks to Rahm, we have the Blue Dogs instead of more Progressives. I haven't really figured out Obama, but it is plain that Rahm is not on the side of mainstream Democrats and most Americans. One thing is clear. If we don't get a decent health care bill with an accessible public option, we can't blame the GOP. It will be the failure of the Democrats to get their own to do what is needed and right. They will also pay the price in 2010 and they will deserve the price they incurr.

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September 24, 2009 4:18 PM

R-E-C-O-N-C-I-L-I-A-T-I-O-N

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September 24, 2009 4:50 PM

I'm tired of his pessimism and blocking of the progressive agenda we all voted for last year. If no public option makes it through, I think that's a failure of leadership and some heads should roll.

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September 24, 2009 11:53 PM in reply to shazam

This isn't the only issue that will be on voters' minds come election time (though it should be the principle issue - it certainly will be for me)...but, without a public option or much, much tighter gov't. control of pricing and minimum enforceable national standards across the insurance industry (something like the German system - but that's way off topic), apolitical and centrist voters will continue to see their insurance premiums rise, more and more people are going to lose their health insurance, and on top of it, they're going to be forced to buy insurance, which is like a tax. That comes at a time of high and long-term unemployment. The pot of public ill-will will continue to simmer. And Democrats are going to pay at the polls, especially Blue Dogs. The Administration will justly take its share of the blame. It has shown no leadership on this. Whatever their motives, failure to control the industry (and its costs) will reinforce the perception that Congress is for sale to the highest bidder. A demoralized Dem. base's efforts will be half-hearted. Noone's going to switch parties, but the base will stay away from the polls in droves. Those triangulating against their best instincts are being too smart for their own good. A robust national public option, not subject to triggers/loopholes makes sense on the merits and is a politically cost effective measure for those in power.

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