Perhaps you saw this bit of good news (pending a potential el-foldo from our rubber-spined Senate Majority Leader) on health care from Harry Reid yesterday, in which he told Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus to stop "chasing Republican votes" in his attempts to get a bipartisan bill out of his committee:
Reid, whose leadership is considered crucial if President Barack Obama is to deliver on his promise of enacting health care reform this year, offered the directive to Baucus through an intermediary after consulting with Senate Democratic leaders during Tuesday morning’s regularly scheduled leadership meeting. Baucus was meeting with Finance ranking member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) Tuesday afternoon to relay the information.
According to Democratic sources, Reid told Baucus that taxing health benefits and failing to include a strong government-run insurance option of some sort in his bill would cost 10 to 15 Democratic votes; Reid told Baucus it wasn’t worth securing the support of Grassley and at best a few additional Republicans.
What does this have to do with Wyden, specifically? {below}
As I said, if you're among the 3/4ths of Americans who would like a full and robust public healthcare option (FRPO), this is potentially very good news--a bloc of Senators has apparently made it clear to Reid that they will not support any bill that fails to provide a FRPO. Look at the particular positions Reid is redlining in his "advice" to Baucus: a "strong government-run insurance option"" and "taxing health benefits." Who can think of an existing health care proposal that lacks a FRPO and taxes health care benefits?
If you said "Ron Wyden's Health Americans Act," you've been paying attention. Despite protestations that his bill allows for states to create their own, much smaller public exchanges, and that only people with "Cadillac benefits" will see their benefits taxed, what you still end up with is a non-FRPO plan with a benefit-tax funding structure (among other things that I DO in fact like, such as capital gains and estate tax reform--but those things should be happening anyway).
I've said all along that a plan failing to include what Americans most want (FRPO) and including what they do NOT want (a tax on benefits), is not going to make much political headway. And now Reid has validated that analysis, declaring 10-15 immediate defectors on those grounds alone. Couple that with the evisceration that the President did on the central feature of HAA--shifting the insurance process from employers to individuals--and Wyden's plan starts to look an awful lot like the Black Knight in Monty Python's Holy Grail:
Not only is the stumpy imagery appropriate to the rejection of major parts of his bill, I'm starting to find some denial parallels between the knight and Wyden as well. How many hints will it take before our senior Senator drops his apparently un-passable plan, tired at last of rebutting questions about his lack of overt support for a FRPO with another "have at you!" for his pet plan? He has been in Congress long enough to know that no matter how much work you put into it, and how much you think it's the best way to go, eventually if it's not going to fly you've got to let it die.
His refusal to put HAA to bed continues to lead to uncomfortable interviews, where Wyden has to spend more time defending his plan's out-of-stepness than extolling its virtues--of which there certainly are some, much tighter regulations on private care being among them. But it also leads to fulmination and avoidance of the problems , both practical and political, that his press for HAA has encountered. To wit, from today's interview in Portland's Willamette Week:
What do you make of progressives beating you up over your proposal?
Anybody who wants to reform the health system is going to see vested interests of all sorts come after them. And the fact of the matter is, in this health debate, most people say they want change, except where it affects them. That’s why I expect, before this is done, every single money interest will be coming after stuff I’m working for. And that tells me I’m trying to do the right thing. The insurance people started attacking the healthcare bill right out of the box. We’ve had attacks from a whole host of groups.
Given The New York Times’ recent poll finding that 72 percent of Americans favor a public health option, why does it matter if Republicans aren’t there on a public health option if a majority of voters are?
I want to get a big vote for the right approach. That’s what we’ve been working on, not a big vote for something that doesn’t do the job and leaves medical costs continually gobbling up everything in sight. I think we’ve got the right approach on the merits.
OK, I've got two problems with these answers. Number one, he totally avoids the first question, which asks specifically about progressive heat, like the kind I have been giving him for weeks about the deficiencies of HAA. I have no "vested interest," despite being accused more than once by Wyden's Chief of Staff for opposing the plan because I was drafted into a union. I want the best plan for America, and since single payer has been taken off the table, a FRPO is the next best option. HCAN is not a "moneyed interest." Firedoglake is not a moneyed interest, and neither is Chris Bowers at OpenLeft. Further, it's exceedingly insulting to suggest that FRPO advocates are only in it to feather their own nests, when in fact the broadest public interest (in terms of coverage and choice) is literally one of the primary goals. To respond to a question about heat from the left with answers about heat from the right, doesn't cut the mustard.
His second quote answers the question well enough, and I suppose I should be careful what I wish for--because his candid answer is horribly tone-deaf. There is NO WAY you are going to get a "big vote" for the right approach, because 40% of the caucus has no interest in joining you on any vote where meaningful reform is likely to occur. And his final line--"I think we've got the right approach on the merits"--seriously undercuts his protestations of support for a public option, because if HAA is the right approach, everything else must generally be the wrong approach.
But beyond that, his continued fetishization of "bipartisanship" misunderstands what Americans want from their Congress. We quite clearly did not vote for the usual checks and balances on partisan control of government; we voted to get rid of Republicans and put Democrats in charge for a while. That will not last, if they don't eventually, y'know, take charge. Harry Reid is finally showing signs of doing so on health care, telling key Dems to stop worrying about what the Republicans will do. When can we expect Wyden to join him?
[Crossposted at Loaded Orygun, Oregon's Progressive Community and a proud member of the 50-State Progressive Blogging Network...]