The urgency of last night's meeting between Senate progressives and Majority Leader Harry Reid surrounded the fact that, though the overwhelming majority of Democrats want a public option, and several think they've already compromised enough on that score, the votes still aren't there. So, with key votes just around the corner, how can those moderate hold-outs be swayed, and what happens if they can't be? One possibility is simply leaving the ball in the moderates' court.
"There's potentially a dynamic that works in all of this that as you get closer and closer to the vote, you say--you really do say--we're going to make or we're not going to make history, and it takes on another dimension, psychologically," Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) told reporters. "I mean I've been through that myself. I've gone downstairs thinking maybe I'm not going to vote for that, and then suddenly I see its dimension, think of it in large terms, and then vote for it."
Rockefeller downplayed the possibility that, at the end of the process, there won't be 60 votes to end a filibuster.
"We're not taking that tack, what if we can't--we're talking about how we can," Rockefeller told TPMDC. He said using the budget reconciliation process as a procedural tool to circumvent a filibuster would be ugly, and, for that reason, the focus has to be on making sure Democrats (and perhaps Olympia Snowe) stick together to against a filibuster.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) was also on hand for the meeting. I asked him if last night's meeting was driven in any way by a sense that leadership might be wavering on the public option. He said no: "I think the Senate bill that Senator Reid will present will have the public option that he said it will have in it. My job and the job of others is to make sure that a very strong public option stays in...just wanted to reiterate that.

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Walter Mitty
November 17, 2009 1:00 PM
Couldn't moderates ask progressives the same question? "Do you really want to kill healthcare reform?"
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spencer_f
November 17, 2009 1:21 PM in reply to Walter Mitty
How is there anything like "reform" if there's no public option? What other components of the legislation address the cost and accessibility issues?
So I guess the answer to your question would probably be "no."
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jimbomoron
November 17, 2009 4:27 PM in reply to spencer_f
Have you been living under a rock the last six months? Try these provisions:
That's nothing to sneeze at, and would represent a major change in the relationship between citizens and their government. Some people don't have the luxury of fighting over who does the paperwork. I'm glad you have that luxury. I wish more people did.
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oleeb
November 17, 2009 5:02 PM in reply to jimbomoron
Subsidies aren't reform in any sense at all. That's just a giveaway to the insurance companies. All the other stuff is okay, but each of those things are very minor half measures that will do little to change the system or bring down even on penny of cost to consumers. But none of the things you've listed make it worth the subsidies, nor is any of it worth passing without a real public option which is not really even under discussion anymore. The pale imitation of a public option they are now touting is not worth it at all.
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jimbomoron
November 17, 2009 5:17 PM in reply to oleeb
Would you mind telling that to my 27-year-old sister's face? That because your feelings were hurt that a sufficient number of your progressive litmus tests weren't met, that my sister should have to remain one illness from bankruptcy?
Tell that to the hotel worker who cleaned your room at Netroots Nation. He's one illness from bankruptcy, too. Sorry, you can't get help because my feelings were hurt that not enough of my ideological litmus tests were met.
Tell that also to the waitress at the local diner whose 10-year-old child has diabetes. Sorry, you can't get help because not enough of my ideological litmus tests were met.
Sorry, I can't help you because you're too big a political crybaby to care about the human consequences if this bill does not pass.
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Tanjaoui
November 17, 2009 9:11 PM in reply to jimbomoron
It will pass, in some form. This is too big to fail for the Administration and Democratic leadership. But it will do nothing to contain costs. So your sister-in-law will get her insurance, but she'll go broke as a result. And the insurance industry will make out like bandits with the old, familiar line: 'Your money or your life'. Much better to take this bill without a po (a weak one won't keep down costs, will satiate progressive hunger for real reform and will conform to the Reaganite 'Government is incompetent' meme), trade it for capping premiums and cost sharing and making subsidies available to everyone as Stroszek suggest on another string on this site. Then progressives need to start working for single payer at the state level. That's how it got started in Canada. Pennsylvania and California look like possible single payer pioneers.
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oleeb
November 18, 2009 12:22 PM in reply to jimbomoron
I wouldn't mind at all. You have the attitude of a peasant willing to accept anything, no matter how rotten, that the lords and ladies will give to you. I'm not satisfied with crumbs from their table and if this rotten bill passes the whole country will be mired for a generation with a healthcare system just as bad as what we've got now because it is what we've got now except with mandates and subsidies that only assist the insurance parasites and the other leeches growing rich on healthcare.
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Mateo123
November 17, 2009 1:31 PM in reply to Walter Mitty
I don't think the moderates can say the same thing to the reformers. That is, Democrats control the Senate. The moderate position is merely to allow the full senate to vote on health care reform. The right-wing position is to prevent the bill from coming to a vote.
We have to talk about this in terms of positions. Do the moderates support the far-right position of not addressing the health care crisis at all? Or do they want to address the health care crisis by allowing a vote on the health care bill? Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
Regardless of one's views on the public option, the House bill and the Senate bill are good bills that will lower the cost of health care for all of us. They're not perfect, but they are decent.
The remaining question is whether the moderates will allow good bills to have a floor vote.
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Tanjaoui
November 17, 2009 9:15 PM in reply to Mateo123
I really don't think this legislation is going to have any effect on cost. People will continue to pay more in out of pocket expenses; anything they can't pay will be picked up by the government. The government's tab will skyrocket. This is subsidizing demand to get more people insured. We'll have to come back to cost in a few years.
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Michael A
November 17, 2009 1:02 PM
They are not "moderates." Moderate is the plan, with a public option, being proposed. Liberal would be single payer, which would be good. I would call them "conservative" or some other term, but moderate is clearly inappropriate.
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Chris
November 17, 2009 1:23 PM in reply to Michael A
Very true. I don't know how people who supported George Bush in near totality could be considered "moderate."
They certainly aren't conservative either. There was simply nothing conservative about taking the largest surplus in history and turning it into a $1.2 trillion deficit. Nor is there anything conservative about growing the size of government larger than any president since FDR. And these so-called Democrats supported Bush's every move. They enabled him. And somehow they get to keep their "moderate" and "conservative" labels?
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Michael A
November 17, 2009 1:33 PM in reply to Chris
Oh, I agree on the conservative label. That's why I put it in quotes. However, I would submit that the "conservative" dems are more conservative than the repukes based on the definition of the word. I still haven't come up with a good label for the conservadems. Repukes are reactionary, not conservative, and have no moral compass basically. They say and do anything to get elected regardless of the outcome and the damage caused.
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Chris
November 17, 2009 1:49 PM in reply to Michael A
I'm in absolute agreement. The only thing I'll add is those Dems who get to pretend they are conservative or moderate or whatever, really should be held to the fire. And I don't mean the effigy burning Tea Bagger fires either. So-called conservative Dems typically come from slave owning states/counties. There's no reason that faction of the Democratic Party should be given any credence in 2009. None at all.
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Powkat
November 17, 2009 1:12 PM
The progressives already compromised - they did not insist on single payer - the opt-out public option IS the compromise.
It's the same with abortion - pro-choice is the middle ground -it's legal, but no one is forced to have one.
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mans_best_friend
November 17, 2009 1:23 PM in reply to Powkat
I didn't insist on my pony. Is that a compromise?
giving up what you never had and weren't going to get is NOT a compromise.
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Obama1st
November 17, 2009 2:23 PM in reply to mans_best_friend
Asking to accept a bill which is not what I want is a comproimse if I am asked to support it. dip shit! Single Payer was the correct solution; regardless of political bullshit!
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Mr.E.
November 17, 2009 3:19 PM in reply to mans_best_friend
It is also not good negotiation strategy when the other side is making unreasonable demands. The way you address unreasonable demands is to give up some of your own "unreasonable demands," not your strongest leverage point.
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mans_best_friend
November 17, 2009 4:01 PM in reply to Mr.E.
Single payer was their strongest leverage point? LOL What leverage? It was a complete non-starter and everybody knew it.
And perhaps you've noticed, but there never was a serious negotiation with the other side, so their demands were moot. They're having a hard time selling their own side on the current plan.
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jimbomoron
November 17, 2009 4:32 PM in reply to mans_best_friend
Goofy, you just have to accept that these single-payer enthusiasts are allergic to political, economic, and human reality. And debating them is like debating a dining room table.
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oleeb
November 17, 2009 5:07 PM in reply to jimbomoron
Strong majorities of voters and citizens in general support Medicare for All. The only reason we aren't debating that is because Obama and the majority of DC Dmocrats are in the tank to the insurance companies and big pharma. Thatt is plain for all to see. They chose to be corrupt and to avoid discussing the right thing so they could appear to be compromising when in fact, they are capitulating and doing a grave disservice to the public.
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Obama1st
November 17, 2009 4:32 PM in reply to mans_best_friend
wake the fuck up and learn that single payer(medicare for all) would benefit everybody and lower health care costs across the whole range of health care costs. Not to mention...a death blow to the blood and death panels of health insurance companies...
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Tanjaoui
November 17, 2009 9:32 PM in reply to Obama1st
You're right. 'Single payer' wasn't given a place at the table from the get go. It was the Administration and party leadership that nixed it. They didn't want it because their industry patrons didn't want it. The American people would love it. Our leadership is stupid and venal. So...in a few years, as costs continue to rise, they'll start looking at results based compensation for providers and how to combine that will fee-for-service networks, turning themselves into pretzels to avoid looking at obvious, proven, humane and cost-effective systems currently working all over the world. And people will continue to talk seriously about what's politically viable. Good legislation doesn't enter into it. It's all about sounding like an insider.
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Mateo123
November 17, 2009 1:24 PM in reply to Powkat
The pro-life position -- asserting that the US Constitution contains no right to abortion and allowing states to define when life begins -- is moderate.
Prosecuting the women who obtain abortions for homicide would be the conservative position.
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Powkat
November 17, 2009 3:21 PM in reply to Mateo123
Spoken by someone who has never been pregnant.
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A Missouri voter
November 17, 2009 4:14 PM in reply to Powkat
Er, what is this supposed to imply? That only men are capable of holding ideas that are not consistent with the NARAL party line?
Not to burst your bubble, but men's ideas about abortion rights are not discernibly different from women's.
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Mateo123
November 17, 2009 4:24 PM in reply to Powkat
How is that even remotely relevant?
I could live with the comment if we were talking about sex discrimination. Despite what NOW and NARAL say, we're not. We're talking about the procedure that terminates a fetal life. As a former fetus -- and an American citizen -- I think I'm qualified to talk about whether elective abortion is health care.
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Powkat
November 17, 2009 6:57 PM in reply to Mateo123
And if you've never held fetal life you have no clue. You can have an opinion, but since you can't get pregnant you will never see it the same way a woman does.
Even Sarah Palin admits that she considered abortion - being able to get pregnant makes a difference.
I'm going to stop arguing this, since we will never agree.
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mjshep
November 17, 2009 4:19 PM in reply to Mateo123
No. Prosecuting the women who obtain abortions for homicide would be the far right fringe lunatic religious nut American Taliban position. The conservative position is pretty much what we have now.
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Clavis
November 17, 2009 1:18 PM
Who needs healthcare reform? Surely the Dems can coast on their complicity in censuring MoveOn.org and stripping federal funding for ACORN until at *least* 2016!
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xargaw
November 17, 2009 1:19 PM
The Progressives have done all the compromising to this point and the ConservaDem minority have had their way to the detriment of real reform. The Bills being blended now have too many giveaways to insurers and Pharma and not much meaningful for the public except for a couple factors. The legislation is approaching the point of worthlessness to the public and they know it. If it is stripped any further, no Bill would be better. Obama will not be able to spin a crappy Bill, no matter how he may try. This is the moment progressive voters decide if the the progressives in Congress are worthy of support or not. If they cave again, they are useless to the American people. The progressives have to stop acting like abuse victums and doormats and take a stand. It is also an important moment for Harry Reid that may well determine if he is re-elected or not in Nevada.
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davcbr
November 17, 2009 1:24 PM
I'm so old, I remember when abortion became legal in this country. And one of the major parts of the battle occurred when New York State passed a bill. Opponents were confident that it would not happen. They had a slim lead in the state senate. However, this went away when a republican [the senator from my district] did some soul searching, and talked with his wife and daughter about this. He voted for the bill.
Sometimes the sense of importance of a bill, the history being made, can and will overcome the politics for individuals who find themselves in the middle.
This man never held political office again, and he was well aware that that is what would happen. Somethimes there ARE people who know that they are less important than what they are doing.
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commie atheist
November 17, 2009 2:48 PM in reply to davcbr
In this case, I think it's far more likely that Democrats will lose in 2010 and 2012 if health care reform is not passed. Independents and swing voters will take it as another sign of weakness, and will either vote for the Republican, or for a third-party candidate, or just not vote at all.
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Chris
November 17, 2009 1:24 PM
Anyone catch ABC News' very good report on the failure of recovery.gov?
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The Commenter Formerly Known as NCSteve
November 17, 2009 3:17 PM in reply to Chris
For God's sake, enough with posting the same the off topic thing on every thread, already. Stop it and go write a reader blog, if that's what it takes to get yourself over it. Maybe if you do it well enough, you can explain your apparent belief that this is the biggest, most importantist thing EVER TO HAPPEN in the world today in a way that will make us believe you're not either concern trolling or afflicted with OCD.
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The Commenter Formerly Known as NCSteve
November 17, 2009 3:46 PM in reply to The Commenter Formerly Known as NCSteve
Oooohhh, I get it. You're pimping your own blog. Great. Just when we finally got that Don Davis guy to back off.
And, no, I don't think it was a great report. I think it was the kind of innumerate, superficial, deliberately misleading, anecdote-driven Jake Tapper "gotcha" bullshit that has made the MSM the travesty that it is today and the downfall of democaracy in this nation.
They're trying to track 700 billion dollars at a level of detail never before attempted along with trying to document tens of thousands of jobs in real time. Human beings and probability theory being what they are, that kind of error is going to creep in to such a massive underaking.
And note too, that ABC can't even quantify the level of the problem. They just throw around a few numbers and say "ooh, look, scandal, scandal, incompetence, fraud and abuse!"
A few tens of millions? A few hundred, or even a few thousand jobs? Pfui. At the end of the day, if the errors added up even to a hundred million dollars worth of accounting errors, that would represent less than .015% (that's fifteen one hundredths of one percent) of the total amount being spent through this bill. That would represent one of the greatest feats of accounting in human history, not a fucking scandal.
Good Christamighty, got innumeracy?
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de TOQUEville
November 17, 2009 3:52 PM in reply to Chris
Chris, you don't seem to know how the comments section works around here. Until you figure it out, stop spraying the same damn thing onto every single TPM comment page. Thank you.
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Walter Mitty
November 17, 2009 2:00 PM
If there is a block of 5-6 (Lincoln, Landrieu, Lieberman, Nelson(Ne), Bayh) that stay strong I think the conservdems would vote to kill it. The key is to peel off anti-PO votes one at a time, which will make it harder for the rest to stand with Republicans.
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mans_best_friend
November 17, 2009 2:13 PM in reply to Walter Mitty
I think all those votes are gettable except for that preening POS Lieberman. You can't reason with him. The only thing you can count on Lieberman to do is what's best for Joe. The way to sway him is to promise him that if he screws this up he'll never have another committee chairmanship again, and convince him that you mean it. That's the only thing he understands.
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A Missouri voter
November 17, 2009 2:38 PM in reply to mans_best_friend
I am not even sure that this is true. Lieberman has nothing to gain in terms of courting the favor of CT's voting public by opposing a public option. If he were looking out for his own best interests, he would be supporting the public option. I think that what this is really about is revenge. He is mad at progressives for crossing him in 2006 and is simply looking to sting them wherever he can. With that in mind, I am not even sure that threatening him with his committee chairmanship will afford us any real leverage. I am afraid that Tom Tomorrow may have this one correct.
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mans_best_friend
November 17, 2009 3:48 PM in reply to A Missouri voter
I think winning as an indie has puffed up his sense of self-importance to the point where he thinks he can win again in 2012 with our without the Dems support. The threat to his sense of self-importance would be to strip him of his chairmanship and relegate him to a back-bencher status. I think he would regard that as a real blow. He just doesn't think the caucus would actually follow through on such a threat, and I can't really blame him.
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A Missouri voter
November 17, 2009 4:10 PM in reply to mans_best_friend
Well, I find your view much more cheering than my own, so I hope you are right. Honestly, if we cannot have HCR, then stripping Lieberman of his chairmanship would not be a bad consolation prize anyway.
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The Commenter Formerly Known as NCSteve
November 17, 2009 4:01 PM in reply to A Missouri voter
Totally agree on every point. Man's just plain got a severe personality disorder.
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Bill From PA
November 17, 2009 4:16 PM
Quote: ' He is mad at progressives for crossing him in 2006 and is simply looking to sting them wherever he can.'
True, but Holy Joe has been sticking his finger in the Dem's eyes since early in the Clinton administration. His douche' baggery preceeded, and caused, the Lamont campaign.
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A Missouri voter
November 17, 2009 4:21 PM in reply to Bill From PA
A worthy point.
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Campesino
November 17, 2009 6:22 PM
It's surreal reading your comments. You write as though HCR was something the public is overwhelmingly for, and conservative Dems are standing in the way. It just doesn't poll very well. Conservative Dems seem to be reading these polls and you aren't
http://www.pollster.com/polls/us/healthplan.php
Favor 42.9% Oppose 47.7%
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Tanjaoui
November 17, 2009 9:49 PM in reply to Campesino
I think the public knows - from experience - that no difficult decisions are being made. Intuitively, they know costs will continue to rise, and a few things might get marginally better. If real health care reform were being proposed, single payer or all payer (the German system), they'd be on board. The Democrats have once again underestimated the general public and are doing them a great disservice as a result.
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highplainslawyer
November 17, 2009 7:00 PM
It's really quite simple: No public option = no mandates.
Simplify the bill by limiting it to preventing the insurance companies from discriminating based on pre-existing conditions or age. Everyone agrees on this. This would be a major accomplishment.
But mandates without a public option are not viable and will just enrage the public. They exist only as a gift to the insurance industry.
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Tanjaoui
November 17, 2009 9:55 PM in reply to highplainslawyer
I think the mandate is tied to subsidies. So if you take that away, costs rise even faster. Which is fine by me. It will take a crisis to move us, as a society, to consider adopting a proven solution to universal coverage and cost containment - any one of a dozen systems currently in use around the world. It shouldn't be that way, but that's the way it usually works.
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dougom
November 17, 2009 7:46 PM
With all due respect to Sen. Rockerfeller, at this point the only "arguments" that I can dredge up are ones that come from the dark areas of my subconscious, and include things like kicking people, stomping on their toes, and threatening them with imminent death by waving deadly weapons in their faces and saying, "Vote for the most liberal bill out there, OR ELSE!"
And I'm not a violent guy. Really I'm not. But these foot-dragging, insulated, clueless, white male millionaires are really pissing me off.
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Tanjaoui
November 17, 2009 9:57 PM in reply to dougom
Hey, you're a human being. Something would be missing if you weren't a little aggravated.
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