Daschle Clarifies On Public Option, Supports Reconciliation

by Josh Orton, Fri Jun 19, 2009 at 08:09:36 AM EDT

In an interview with Ezra Klein, the former Majority Leader restates his support for a public option:

You made headlines the other day for dismissing the need for a public plan. Want to talk a bit more on that?

I don't know where that came from. We've been pushing back on that all day. I didn't say that. I have said emphatically I support a public plan. A Medicare-for-all public plan. Any federal plan. For all the reasons that have been made for years. It's important for cost, for choice, for competition, for popularity. I strongly support it.

Good to hear. It's a little weird that Daschle says he doesn't know "where that came from," considering the clarity of the source. But in the end, the confusion wound up a net positive, because a prominent Democrat faced blowback for appearing to back off a public option. Such a compromise cannot be perceived as an acceptable option.

Second, Daschle stands behind using "reconciliation" as a procedural 50-vote fallback option in the Senate:

I think [reconciliation is] still the only real fallback legislative strategy we've got. We're going to try and work this through the policy track as long as we can. I think that gives us until September. But if it fails by then, we move to the budget process.

I think Kent Conrad brings up practical reasons why it's not our first choice. But I would take the reconciliation process, even with its shortcomings, over no process at all.

There are Republicans (and even a handful of Dems) who oppose using the budget process to drop the Senate vote threshold on health care to 50. But Daschle's behind it.

Tags: Health care, Tom Daschle (all tags)

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18 Comments

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Does Daschle have two heads?

Cause he certainly seems to talk out of both sides of his mouths....

I don't trust what Daschles says here, he is just covering his butt.

He would sell out the Public Option in a heartbeat, and my take is, behind close doors, he is pushing Co-Op, and winking and noding that is what will be in the final bill.

I think he was a lying phony when he was Leader, and nothing has changed.

by WashStateBlue 2009-06-19 08:20AM | 0 recs
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whatever game he is playing

I don't like it.

by desmoinesdem 2009-06-19 08:55AM | 0 recs
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Re: whatever game he is playing

I don't either, but I find it encouraging that Daschle, who after all doesn't have to worry about facing the voters or anything like that, nevertheless feels it necessary to make nice with the left flank of the party.  It suggests that progressives are not quite as marginalized as some would like us to be.

by Steve M 2009-06-19 09:55AM | 0 recs
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Not marginalized

it's pretty clear that on most issues, especially this one, we own the House of Representatives.

I've seen our coalition as the progressive wing owns the House, the conservative wing owns the Senate and the President is trying to be the happy margin in between.

by DTOzone 2009-06-19 09:59AM | 0 recs
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He may not have to worry about facing the voters

But, he probably does have to please his bosses at the lobbying firm  of Alston and Bird, where he now works:

Alston & Bird's health care lobbying clients include CVS Caremark, the National Association for Home Care and Hospice, Abbott Laboratories and HealthSouth. The firm was paid $5.8 million between January and September 2008 to represent companies and associations before Congress and the executive branch, with 60 percent of that money coming from the health industry.

To me, THAT is why is is sandbagging the left, because for him to be useful to the folks at HealthSouth, he needs to have an image within the Democratic Elite.

You can trust him if you think he's on our side, my take is, he's not.

by WashStateBlue 2009-06-19 12:08PM | 0 recs
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What's this reconciliation garbage?

The vote requirement in the Senate is always just a majority unless there's a veto or a filibuster, and that's all there is to it.  Anything beyond that is putting unnecessary hurdles in place.  I'm looking at you, Harry Reid.

If the Republicans want to filibuster giving health care to 47 million uninsured people, then I say let them stand there with the phone book and drag it out day after day.  See how they look to their constituents then.

by Dracomicron 2009-06-19 08:49AM | 0 recs
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Re: What's this reconciliation garbage?

Re: vote threshold - you're not exactly correct.

If you wanted the senate to hit a total (and un-dramatic) standstill on Obama's agenda, then we could abandon unanimous consent agreements and run the debate time/days requirement on each procedure. But then we'd still be in the legislative equivalent of early February.

by Josh Orton 2009-06-19 08:54AM | 0 recs
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Some things it's worth taking the time on.

Health care reform is something I'd rather they take the time on and get right, as opposed to doing what's expedient.

by Dracomicron 2009-06-19 09:26AM | 0 recs
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Then, it's kind of a catch 22...

The longer they take, the more willing they will be to 'compromise' which in my mind means substituting some kind of co-op idea (which just helps the industry, really doesn't foster any competition) for a public option.

Also, the Republicans only benefit from stringing this out.

I DO believe Obama is waiting on any push for DADT or DOMA or many other campaign promises, to try to keep what ever leverage he has fully focused on this.  Not that I think it will do any good, I am of the opinion that, in spite of what our more determined posters think, there is NO pressure or leverage that is going to get Dodd or Bacus or Bayh or Conrad or any of the Big Pharma Employees to give in to a Public Option.

The ballot box is the only way we will ever have a Public option or even a Single Payer here in the US.

There are at least 10-15 Democratic Senators (I include Maria Cantwell from my state) that would have to go to get Single Payer even considered in a bill.

So, while I agree in theory about taking the time to get it right, time is more the ally of the side that would love to see this entire agenda run aground, AND love to see the rest of Obama's agenda tabled for months, if not years.

by WashStateBlue 2009-06-19 09:44AM | 0 recs
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Yeah

I mean we really can't complain about the government not acting on DOMA, ENDA, EFCA, etc if we want the Republicans to filibuster.

the GOP doesn't care about how their party looks, they only care about making us look like we're not accomplishing nothing.

by DTOzone 2009-06-19 09:58AM | 0 recs
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Oh, I think we SHOULD complain

and soon, because all I have been told is, THIS is the big one, the centerpiece.

If the mushy middle takes it's marching orders from the Right, they will be completely ignoring the election and the general shift left in the electorate.

Which, again, I think is the reality we have today.

Bahy, Nelson, Conrad, are really Reagan Democrats in every sense of the word.

Slavishly devoted to private industry, whining endless about the poor overtaxed rich people.

So, when these turkeys torpedo Health Care, and give us another bill designed basically to keep HealthSouth and Primera Blue Cross in power, then I DO expect to scream like a wounded banshee, and THEN I want to see the issues of are we going to get DOMA and DADT repealed, becuase, of course, we are all holding our powder to keep the DINOS on our side.

My take is, based on what I hear out of Bachus and Conrad, they are going to shaft us anyway, no matter how nice Obama plays with them.

by WashStateBlue 2009-06-19 12:15PM | 0 recs
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Re: Then, it's kind of a catch 22...

Take Dodd off your list.  He has publically stated support for the Public Option.  He and Feingold talked about it today.

by 30000Fine 2009-06-19 03:45PM | 0 recs
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No. I don't trust anything Dodd says or does

Out in the open. He knows his numbers suck because of all the
Shady crap he is involved on. Besides he gets a ton of money
From the health care industrial complex and his wife sits on corporate boards just to make sure Chris stays the good puppy
They  paid for. Who knows what he is doing behind closed doors?

I just can't believe the number of progressives that stand up for Dodd, the mortgage crisis and his shilling for that industry alone
Should be enough to want us to toss his sorry ass out.

by WashStateBlue 2009-06-20 07:11AM | 0 recs
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The problem is

they don't have to stand there and read the phone book in order to filibuster...all they have to do is keep filing cloture motions forever and ever and ever

and all the American people will see is the picture of an empty Senate on C-SPAN with Shostakovich playing in the background.

In the meantime, Republicans use their cable news minions to spread lies and falsehoods.

by DTOzone 2009-06-19 09:55AM | 0 recs
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Re: What's this reconciliation garbage?

Anybody is welcome to correct me if I am wrong, but in order to move to vote on a measure in the Senate it requires a 3/5 vote to invoke cloture. So while a health care measure would only need a majority to pass it would need a 3/5 vote to even get to a vote. This is where the reconciliation process comes in because it would only require a bare majority. The whole idea of reconciliation comes for the inability to get a budget passed without a filibusterer. Now my understanding though is that a bill passed through reconciliation would only be temporary, which is why it is a last resort.  

by political22 2009-06-19 10:18AM | 0 recs
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It only takes 3/5 vote to invoke cloture

when a Senators asks for cloture...the problem is the Republicans have decided to ask for cloture in every single thing we do...ergo, they are filibustering every single piece of legislation we are putting up...that's why the 60 vote threshold is talked about...the Republicans are abusing the rules to make every vote need 60 votes.

The Republicans could, you know, NOT filibuster healthcare and that would mean we didn't need 60 votes, but they will, like everything else...which is why we are threatening reconciliation.

The problem with reconciliation is that it's not permanent and would sunset in, I think, five years...which means we'd have to vote on this again in a few years when it's possible we won't have a majority we have now, or at all, and our entire healthcare reform goes bust.

by DTOzone 2009-06-19 10:54AM | 0 recs
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Yes, but is that a chance we have to take?

And, if you believe this reform has a chance to work (I don't, cause I think we are going to get the Baucus/Conrad bill), then in 5 years, we take the chance that by then, taking it away is electoral suicide.

Look, with Bush at the height of his "Political Capital" him trying to change Social Security was a death march.

IF we get a reform, and IF is working, I take my chances with anyone trying to undo it in 5 years...

Vs, NOT getting anything at all?

Of course, I am almost moving now to the "If we get nothing at all, can we come back in Obama's second term and get single payer"

I mean, we know how much worse this can get, is there a tipping point, when enough of the boomers have suffered at the lose of health care and enough of the new millenials can vote..

And, if we are lucky to have Baucus and some of these other old f's die off on us (no, really, I am serious...I hope they die off and are replaced by real democrats...)

by WashStateBlue 2009-06-19 03:20PM | 0 recs
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As a last resort option, yes

we should keep it, but we should, by no means, PLAN on using it.

by DTOzone 2009-06-19 03:28PM | 0 recs

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