Beat Harry Reid In Nevada In 2010

By Mike Thompson
BeatReid.com
Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Harry Reid announced Monday that he would support health care reform, including the so-called public option, where the government would compete with private insurance companies with its own federally-run health insurance plan. We present here some of the theories as to exactly why Senator Reid has made what some consider to be an abrupt shift in his position on the controversial plan. One fact, however, brings clarity to the eyes of Beat Reid and gives us more reason than ever to suspect the true motivations of the Senate Majority Leader.

The version of the Public Option proposed by Harry Reid includes language that will allow individual states to opt out of the plan. One obvious reason for the option to opt out is to smooth the way for the more conservative members of the party to step into line and form a unified front against a GOP filibuster. With the onus of a real commitment to the Public Option falling into the hands if state leaders, democrats on the Hill have been given a free ride to achieving a 60% majority. Which they will need to secure cloture and countervail a filibuster. This also gives them the additional protection of being able to support a policy that might be unpopular within their constituencies and thus hurt their chances for re-election.

Here’s what Harry Reid had to say in a well-crafted statement on Monday: “While the public option is not a silver bullet, I believe it’s an important way to ensure competition and to level the playing field for patients with the insurance industry,” Conspicuously missing is any comment on the battle raging on the senate floor. When asked about whether he will achieve the 60 votes necessary to thwart a GOP filibuster, he had no comment. He said that the bill will now move to the senate budget office to asses its fiscal impact.

As far as Senator Reid’s previous position on a government-run insurance option, he was believed to be mostly in support of the “trigger” option proposed my Maine Republican Senator Olympia Snowe. Predictably, Senator Snowe’s reaction was not a happy one. “I am deeply disappointed with the Majority Leader’s decision to include a public option as the focus of the legislation,” she said. It is a very real reality is that Harry Reid may have lost the support of Olympia Snowe, which could bode poorly in his attempt to get health care reform passed in the Senate.

An analysis by Rick Weissenstein, health-care analyst with the Washington Research Group, agrees with Beat Reid. “It appears that Reid’s plan is several votes short of 60 at the current time.” Inferring again that one prevailing theory is that Reid does not have the votes, and is making this move to nudge stubborn members of the Democratic Party to fall in line. The challenge to those party members is are you really willing to ignore party wishes considering the provision of an “out” for states that do not support the Public Option?

Of course, it could also be that Harry Reid is privy to “insider” information that the rest of us are not. Another Washington analyst, Daniel Clifton, the head of Washington policy analysis at Strategas Research Partners, believes that those senators most openly against the public plan (due to the unpopularity of it at home) have quietly agreed to vote for it. He cites two probable examples, Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark. or Ben Nelson, D-Neb. “They’ll wait to review the bill, to see how the Congressional Budget Office reacts, but they may have given him the signal”

Another possible reason for Harry Reid’s shift to support of the Public Option is the Democratic Party’s long history with the labor unions. The unions worked hard to get politicians in office under the assumption that they would support health care reform, including a government run option. That’s something Harry Reid cannot ignore if he is to rely on the unions’ support in the 2010 midterm elections.

Labor union officials are against taxation of the more expensive, high-end health insurance plans that many union members hold to get expanded health coverage. Labor officials were none too pleased with the Senate Finance Committee bill which relied heavily on taxing high-cost insurance plans, along with offering no public option whatsoever.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka made this clear in a press conference Monday morning. “We cannot be in favor of reform just for reform’s sake,” he told reporters. “The fight now is over what reform will look like. The American public overwhelmingly supports the public option. We need a robust public option that reduces premiums and keeps insurance companies honest by ensuring competition.” He emphasized that the unions aren’t backing down. Over the last two weeks, he says, over 100 AFL-CIO leaders have come to Washington and held over 100 meetings with congressional members or staffers.

They also sent around 42,000 letters and made thousands of phone calls. Trumka promised what he referred to as a “massive day of action,” to occur on November 5^th, during which they will lobby heavily for health care reform with a government sponsored public option. As far as Reid’s plan is concerned, Trumka says it “is a step in the right direction.”

Andy Stern, the head of the Service Employees International Union, had this to say in an article in the Huffington Post: Will the Democratic team be held hostage by a handful of conservative senators, who are willing to deny their teammates the right to even vote for a truly affordable health-care plan? Are they willing to thwart the rest of the caucus, and most importantly, what the vast majority of Americans want?

And still another reason for Harry Reid’s support of the Public Option could be to take pressure off of Barack Obama himself. Obama may very well have made it clear, in no uncertain terms, that it is the duty of a leading democrat to support groundbreaking legislation and do whatever it takes to prevent the Republican defenses from taking it down.

Of course, according to the more liberal, progressive wing of the Democratic Party, Obama’s handling of the debate over the Public Option has been far too “hands off” as of late. They accuse him of letting his supporters take the bullets, while he remains more neutral and protected. Whether or not the president has had any Truman-esque “back to Jesus” meetings with leading Hill democrats is currently only a theory.

Senator Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, had these comments. “I hope the president speaks out strongly for the public option - this health care bill really becomes his at this point. [Reid] took the temperature of his caucus and found that he had to go with the public option,” added Brown. “And now it’s the president’s turn. … He needs to speak out strongly on a number of issues … affordability … the subsidy question - really on the whole package.”

That might be a necessary move for the president. The Public Option is popular amongst Americans as a whole. An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll say 48% support a government run plan, while 42% oppose (4.4% margin of error), last month 46% supported and 48% opposed.

We all know that Harry Reid can count. Most importantly, he can count to 60. His support of the Public Option, with an Opt-Out clause for individual states makes the most sense in the light of the probability of a GOP filibuster of any Democratic health care reform bill. The magic bullet that will kill that filibuster and achieve cloture is to secure the necessary 60% majority vote in favor of the bill.

Joe Lieberman (I-Ct) recently announced that, even though he supports bringing the bill to the senate floor for debate, he will vote against any bill containing public option. This makes the possibility for cloture even more tentative, and cranks up the pressure on Reid and the rest of the democrats to fall in line if they want to see health care reform passed.

Lieberman’s position: “I’ve told Sen. Reid that if the bill stays as it is now I will vote against cloture,” he said.

“I can’t see a way in which I could vote for cloture on any bill that contained a creation of a government-operated-run insurance company. It’s just asking for trouble - in the end, the taxpayers are going to pay and probably all people who have health insurance are going to see their premiums go up because there’s going to be cost shifting as there has been for Medicare and Medicaid.”

Harry Reid, in a statement made Tuesday afternoon, replied this way. “I don’t have anyone that I have worked harder with, have more respect for in the Senate than Joe Lieberman. As you know, he’s my friend. There are a lot of senators, Democrat and Republicans, who don’t like part of what’s in this bill that we sent over to CBO. We’re going to see what the final product is. We’re not there yet. Sen. Lieberman will let us get on [to begin debating] the bill, and he’ll be involved in the amendment process.”

Again, Reid replies in a relatively passionless and cerebral manner. Not looking for a blood bath at this time, Senator Reid is playing the game of politics in a masterful way. Whether its enough to elevate his popularity in his home state of Nevada-and possibly secure a win in the 2010 elections-is still to be determined.

Of course, we at Beat Reid believe he can, and WILL, be defeated in the 2010 mid-terms.