Rockefeller Backs Away From Public Option--Is He Bluffing?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
shannyn-moore/granny-palin-overcomes-he_b_470297.html

false drama. it is funny to read.

It is my understanding that anything passed through reconciliation must have an expiration date. Would you buy insurance from a company that must legally go out of business in 10 years?

Just pass the bill! The Public Option can always come later. Something needs to be done now. This Health Care Summit, I thought, was supposed to be an arena that highlights Dem/Rep differences. If we're not careful, this could become a Dem/Dem battle when we need it least.

I think he has a good idea of the back-end of the whip count and is just being realistic here. It's more important to get the bill done and passed then to risk it for a third bloody public option fight which I think he knows won't realistically pass.

He stood up for the PO in Finance committee - I don't know why everyone is throwing him under the bus for thinking that it's more important to get the bill done at this point.

you know what, i have not patience with senators - most are scumbags anyway, so just the idiot out

What an awful man and weasel. Its time to clean our own house. So Rockefeller please us tell when is a good time to push for the public option. The majority of Americans want a public option and you still have huge majorities in both houses. If not now then when you pathetic weakling? Fucking coward. Creating turbulence, playing hardball and having a set of balls is how you get things done. Being like Rockefeller all you get to do is taste republican ass

He WAS bluffing. Now he's just folding.

Let us not forget this guy worked overtime to cover up the domestic spying and massive data collection program. Oh who cares about the 4th Amendment anyway?

While I'm thinking about this, let me just lament the fact that there is *no* populist Left in this country.

What a weenie. You wonder why Democrats are so bad in politics? You have some "players" who don't understand game theory and what you need to do to get the other guy to back down.

Until now the discussion has been about the Senate plan vs. the House plan. Of course the Senate plan was watered down by the Conservadems. Problem now is that a "revised" Senate plan will not pass (except by reconciliation) because there are not enough votes to break a Republican filibuster.

You want the Republicans to break down and allow a Senate vote without resorting to reconciliation? Make the potential Senate bill worse for their insurance company masters. Threaten to pass a Senate bill with a public option through reconcilliation. Get at least 40 to 45 Senators to sign onto the letter with the potential that 5 to 10 Senators will ultimately sign on (but who are currently silent). It doesn't matter if those 5 to 10 Senators would even support a public option through reconciliation--if the Republicans don't know the position of those 5 to 10 Senators they run a huge risk. Put the Republicans in the position of either allowing a vote on the Democrat's plan design in the Senate or run the risk of a plan going through reconciliation which includes a public option.

Of course this strategy requires that policians who either do not like reconciliation as a tool or who do not support the public option keep their opposition silent in order for the strategy to work and for the larger goal of comprehensive healthcare get a vote on the Senate floor. Of course you have Senators like Rockefeller who don't get this and blow up the strategy. What a bunch of self righteous jerks.

Let's face it--this is what the Republicans did with the threat of a Nuclear Option when it came to judicial nominees. They made a beliveable threat that they would blow up the Senate rules to get their way. The Bush Administration got 95% of what they wanted because a couple of Senators believed the threat and capitulated instead of forcing the Republicans to try and carry it out the Nuclear Option.

What is it about politics that Democratic Senators don't get? They don't need to actively support a public option through reconciliation---just keep their big mouths shut.

Another Democrat shooting himself in the foot and then wondering out aloud whiy it hurts.

I think the senator is looking for reconciliation cover on future votes to limit carbon emissions from coal. He will want to claim that reconciliation is inappropriate for carbon reduction legislation since he knows that without reconciliation such legislation won't get over the Republican filibuster. This is despicable in two ways: one, he is willing to sacrifice West Virginians' health care for this and two, the coal industry trumps the dangerous transformation of our planet's climate. History will judge people like Rockefeller but it will be too late.

Rocky is such a principled guy. Appears to fight hard when the tide is against him. Then gives up when it's rolling his way. Not hard to see who Jay's really swimming for.

There are almost 200 bills passed by the lower House sitting in the Senate waiting to be voted on . Nothing hardly ever gets done in the Senate that does not enhance the incomes or future re-elections of the Senate members and they take turns throwing wrenches in the machinery of any suggestions to improve the national welfare . It's now Rockefeller's turn .

I can understand Sen. Rockefeller not wishing to give the Republicans something else to cry about prior to the HCIR summit; they get enough uncontested media coverage as it is. What is inexplicable is the idea that putting the PO into the proposed legislation is a bad idea "at this time" because it could imperil reform? And because it isn't in the President's plan?
The Finance Committee bill had the PO and also had 50+ votes. Those votes aren't there now? For the most popular part of the whole HCIR mess? The part that also cuts the deficit the most? Please! If that is true, that means that several of those original supporters weren't going to vote for the Finance bill if it came to the floor. Tell me another!
If the attitude of some Senate Democrats is going to be that they can't consider something that isn't in the WH proposals, the obvious question is: why are you in the Senate? Why go through all the bother of having a House and Senate to write legislation? Just let the President write the bills and have them published in the Federal Register. Simpler, cheaper, and you poor Senators and Representatives won't have to actually to the jobs you were elected to do. Cowardly is the word that comes to mind.
As best as I can tell, the WH proposals are what the President and his advisors feel is the minimum that MUST be in the bill, not what MUST NOT! I haven't heard any suggestion that President Obama considers the WH proposals as sacrosanct and to be treated as some sort of HCIR "10 Commandments", unchangeable forever and ever. Nor that he will veto any bill that includes MORE than those proposals.
The whole idea that it's the President's job to tell Congress what to do certainly isn't in the Contitution. The President can "advise" Congress of legislation that he thinks should be enacted, but it always has been the duty of Congress to put the legislation together for the President's signature. Apparently if the President isn't giving countless speeches demanding the inclusion of something and dragging Senators and Representatives off to be "convinced" to vote for something they, the poor things, just don't know what to do!
My personal belief is that President Obama has stunned some of our Democratic Senators by expecting them to do their jobs. Of course, if they do that, they won't be able to blame the results on the President.....