Photo Credit: Associated Press
Though it sure seems as if someone in Washington is trying to kill the public option. Harry Reid surprised the hell out of me last week when he announced that the Senate health care bill would include a public option.
It gave me great pleasure to announce that I was wrong. I'd love nothing more than to be proven wrong in my pessimism today.
Nancy Pelosi today released the final House bill, HR 3962 The Affordable Health Care for America Act, which includes a less than robust public option. The concession she had to give to garner the 218 votes necessary to get the bill off the floor, I suppose, was to promise reimbursement rates to be negotiated with doctors, rather than based on Medicare rates plus 5%.
But that's not the worst part of what happened today. Speaker "Off the Table" Pelosi sold out a couple of progressive members of the House.
First up, Anthony Weiner. You might remember Weiner introducing an amendment that would replace the then-House bill, HR 3200, with the Single Payer bill HR 676. At first, I thought this was a wonderful idea! That is, until I spoke with Congressman Dennis Kucinich, who co-authored HR 676 with John Conyers.
Mr. Kucinich has been in the House a long time, and understands the snail-like pace and frustrating ways in which things get done. Obviously, as author of the bill, he'd like nothing more than a single payer health care system in the country. But, as he explained to me, bringing the Weiner amendment up for a floor vote is the wrong way to go about it! It would lose, handily. You don't go into these fights when you know you're going to lose!
Congressman Weiner didn't heed the advice of his colleague, and pushed ahead, appearing on MSNBC, seemingly at every opportunity. Today, we learned that even though Congressman Weiner was promised a full floor vote on his amendment, it will not happen. Again, since it would have failed by a huge margin, it's probably just as well. And it did take the attention and efforts away from the better, more logical, Kucinich Amendment. But that certainly doesn't excuse the Speaker from her serious breach of trust; Education and Labor Committee Chairman Henry Waxman told him that Pelosi promised Mr. Weiner a full floor vote if he'd skip a committee vote.
Dennis Kucinich got his amendment through the Education and Labor committee bill, which would have allowed states to create their own single payer statewide health care system. This was the one hope we had in this legislation that would have opened the door to the only system that would truly reform health care in this country. It passed in the committee on which Dennis sits; one of the three bills that was reported in the House, and merged into this new bill that Pelosi introduced today. Although, as David Swanson reports today on afterdowningstreet.org, the Kucinich Amendment was stripped out of the bill, and no new amendments will be allowed in the debate before the House votes on the legislation.
I invited Congressman Kucinich on the program to respond to today's developments. He issued this statement:
There are 5 comments
Obama is not he problem here. he is not the one writing the bill. The way to get more meaningful change is to replace centrists with liberals and rinos with centrists in the house and Senate. As those bodies evolve, we can make progress. Meanwhile, the repubs are disintigrating, opening a hole you could drive a truck through. The opportunities are there. It's all about the primaries.
he would be the worst thing for america, obama is the best thing in 2012 , you don't challenge a incumbat
Useful, conscientious, real healthcare reform died when NAFTA Nancy gave us fake lobbyist reform after 2006.
What else are we to expect out of millionaires that voted for NAFTA like Pelosi and Baucus?
A Moderator has removed this comment due to a Terms of Service violation.
Obama lied to us about the ''audacity of hope''
and ''change'' we can believe in.
Obama is a Democratic Party politician who will
say anything to get elected and stay in office.
So we're going to get an insurance reform bill
that won't solve any of the problems that we are
facing.
DENNIS KUCINICH is populist congressman, of the people,
by the people and for the people.
He's my main man.
I worked hard for Dennis during the primaries, and when
the Dem Party ignored him, I ended up voting for Ralph
Nader -- another populist, consumer advocate.
I will never vote Democratic unless it is a Democrat
like Dennis Kucinich.
It's my only way to protest.
KUNCINICH FOR PRESIDENT -- 2012 !!
And Dennis is the Best the Dems can do for our country.
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