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Senator Bob Corker unveils his plan for health care compromise: just drop the public option and cut costs. And if a public option will help cut costs? Well, coherence isn't his strong suit. Elsewhere in the same article...
The lack of Republican cooperation has been a serious obstacle in the Senate, and Democratic leaders continue to explore moving a bill through the chamber under a special budget rule known as reconciliation. But some Democrats are reluctant to force action along party lines on an issue that evokes such emotion. "People will be more comfortable with a bipartisan solution," said Sen. Ben Nelson (Neb.), a conservative Democrat. "You're going to have some among the Republican ranks who will be complaining about it, but if you've got a fairly sizable number coming over . . . then you have credibility."So far as I recall, there were never any concerns about anyone's "comfort" when the Bush administration and their congressional allies used reconciliation to pass the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts. Somehow that never gets mentioned, but I suppose it falls under the rule that if a bill increases the defiicit, it should pass with a simple majority, and it decreases the deficit or is deficit neutral, you need sixty votes. That makes sense, right? But anyway ...
"You can get where we need to go, which is give adequate insurance to people who aren't insured, while controlling out-year costs, without a massive rewrite of the whole exercise," said Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.).But Congress is stuck in a partisan stalemate, Gregg noted, and only Obama can pry it loose. "The White House has to first incentivize, or at least give its imprimatur of authority, to a bipartisan negotiating group," he said, adding: "I do think the opportunity is sitting there -- and has been literally in the Senate for six months."Yes, what we need is a bipartisan group of senators negotiating. Haven't had one of those in a while. Maybe a Gang of Six members? This article makes me wonder if Shailagh Murray believes in follow-up questions. Despite, or rather because of, these inane comments, I'm suddenly feeling much better about the prospects of health care reform. Back in July, Republicans were saying the same thing: promising bipartisan cooperation if only they could talk about it for a while. Now, after doing that all summer -- and not in good faith, I might add -- they want to do it again. It's as though August never happened. Democrats still have the structural advantage in the senate, however leery they are of using it, and Republicans know this. President Obama can come in Wednesay and put his party in a even stronger position with a speech that outlines comprehensive health care reform with a public option. Sure, I think the public option is likely to be dropped from the final bill, but the idea was always to use reconciliation as a threat to bring the GOP on board. Since the Democrats went to all the trouble of getting reconciliation put in place, they ought to use it, or at least go down to the wire, to see what Republicans might be willing to deal in good faith. Otherwise, what's the point of playing the game at all?
-- Tim Fernholz
