President Obama, it has been reported, "looks favorably upon" the Snowe trigger. Snowe says that the public option should only be triggered if the private health insurance fails to reform itself. A Sword of Damocles sort of idea.

Supposing we accept that premise, why should it not also be applied to the individual mandate provisions of health care reform? Why should government mandate that individuals purchase insurance from private health care insurance companies before we know they will not if health care reform is successful in holding down insurance costs? Why not have the government imposed individual mandate also be subject to a trigger?

If government intervention in the health insurance market is so anathema to some, shouldn't that also apply to government imposed mandates on individuals? If not, why not? Why not a trigger for government imposed mandates?

Speaking for me only

Booman revisits his theory that the "some" Left blogs are too mean to Obama. This stood out to me:

As a general rule, White Houses defend themselves against criticism, regardless of whether it is coming from the right or from the left. [. . .] I don't think the White House adviser's remarks were aimed at us. They were aimed at other bloggers who have extremely negative interpretations of the president's motives and policies.

I could not care less that the White House took a shot at bloggers. That's just words. What I care about is policy. Booman argues for "favorable" interpretations of policy. What does that mean exactly? Obama is gonna escalate in Afghanistan, imo. I SUPPORT that policy. What "interpretation" should I apply to that? Obama seems poised to embrace the Snowe triggers on health care reform. I vehemently oppose that policy. What "interpretation" should I apply to that? Is Booman's point that we should all concede Obama is a good guy? Conceded. So what? WHY Obama does things is irrelevant. WHAT Obama does is the issue. I return to my constant refrain, pols are pols and do what they do:

As my post below seems to indicate, the endgame for the Obama Administration is Snowe's Trigger as the "public option." But there are still political bargaining actions that progressives in the House and Senate can do to stop the Obama/Reid/Snowe plan. Of course the Progressive Block in the House needs to reiterate that it will not vote for such a proposal. But in the Senate, Progressives have options too.

One would be to offer an amendment to the likely Obama/Snowe/Reid bill that would make the inclusion of individual mandates be dependent on the inclusion of a public option (Steve M. refines my idea and makes it much better - make the mandate be subject to the Snowe trigger.) Why would Republicans vote for this you ask? Because they SAY they oppose individual mandates and this would be a way to strip them out of the bill.

Do the Republicans mean it? Probably not. But their bluff can be called. If 25 Democrats (assuming some Republicans vote for mandates - Snowe, Collins and Grassley to name 3), then mandates without a public option can be stripped from the bill.

At the very least, this would be a smart move politically, making Republicans own the mandates with the centrist Obama Democrats. Then the crappy health care reform bill that Obama seems to favor will be the High Broder (Obama/Snowe/Ben Nelson etc.) bill, not a progressive bill. My suggestion is based on my view that health care reform without a public option will be a disaster. If you think the public option is not an essential element of health care reform (the view of most of the Dem wonks, like Ezra Klein and Jon Cohn), then you would disagree with this proposal.

Speaking for me only

NYTimes:

Two senior administration officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the White House looked favorably on the Snowe [trigger] plan.

I believe this and think it makes the point Glenn Greenwald and myself have been stating for months now - pols are not your friend. As Glenn put it yesterday - "Shouldn't health care activists care more about the public option than Obama's political standing?" They should and they should send the message that the Snowe trigger is unacceptable and, progressive legislators should say health care "reform" without a real public option will not pass. In that sense, Progressive Block leader Raul Grijalva's reaction is the wrong one:

“It’s one vote, she won’t make the commitment on the final product, and she says she’s got to have the trigger,” said Representative Raúl M. Grijalva, Democrat of Arizona, who is leading an effort in the House to round up votes for a government plan akin to Medicare. “I think the administration has put her in the driver’s seat; it’s very disconcerting.”

(Emphasis supplied.) The only way Obama can put Snowe in the driver's seat is IF progressives let him do it. Just say no to the Snowe Trigger. Nonnegotiable. It really is that simple.

Speaking for me only

Not very effectively though:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid scoffed at the suggestion--articulated last night by Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY)--that the public option is simply in his hands. "He would rather say anything so it wasn't up to him," Reid said, before departing for a meeting with White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, and Sens. Max Baucus (D-MT) and Chris Dodd (D-CT). The four will hold the first meeting about how to shape a health care bill that will soon be introduced on the Senate floor.

(Emphasis supplied.) When the Senate Majority Leader is stepping into a meeting with the WH COS and the representatives of the relevant committees, it is damned hard to pass the buck to a guy not even in the meeting.

Memo to Reid - if he wants to pass the buck, he'll need to pass it up - to the President.

Speaking for me only

In the ongoing battle for meaningful health care reform, President Olympia Snowe made a powerful move yesterday, supporting her puppet Max Baucus in the Senate Finance Committee vote. But progressives in the House and Senate have more cards they can still play to trump President Snowe.

From a political bargaining basis, being willing to walk away from a bill is an extremely powerful weapon. Just ask President Snowe. And if the Progressive Block continues to hold that attitude, then it will be in the game at the end. But Senate progressives have a card to play too - reconciliation.

When the pressure to "just pass a bill" comes weighing down on them, they have a great response - "Ok, let's pass what we can through reconciliation." Watch the bluster then. For example, Max Baucus:

[Reid can] invoke[] reconciliation, which allows the Senate to pass a bill with 51 votes rather than 60 votes. From a policy standpoint, this scenario gives the Democrats and the president more of what they want out of health care reform. It would include a public option, as well as more-generous subsidies to make insurance affordable.

But reconciliation can also be a minefield, Baucus warned in a phone interview with POLITICO. It’s “fraught with so many perils,” he said. “More perils than trying to get 60 votes.”

(Emphasis supplied.) Perils for who one might ask Baucus? Certainly not for the Democrats' alleged policy agenda. Is it peril for President Snowe's veto power? Is it peril for Baucus' insurance industry bosses? Peril for who Max?

Speaking for me only

Bill Nelson votes Snowe:

Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) said [. . .] he expects "some version of the public option" to be in the final bill, though he said it may hinge on Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME). "Olympia Snowe of Maine is quite key here," Nelson said. "And if her vote is critical in the future, then she may insist what is a kind of public option."

So the buck stops with President Snowe, according to Bill Nelson.

Speaking for me only

"The Buck Stops Here" -sign on President Harry Truman's desk

Chuck Schumer always has a plan. So what to make of this statement from him?

Leader Reid has the option of putting [the public option] in the final bill[.] If he puts it in the final bill, in the combined bill, then you would need 60 votes to remove it. And there clearly are not 60 votes against the public option. And so we're urging him to do that, and he's seriously considering it. [. . .] It's very important to see if a public option is in the bill that Leader Reid puts together. He hasn't yet made up his mind, but many of us who believe in the public option are urging him to do so, and so far we're getting heard.

Is Schumer putting the onus on Reid, hoping to make Reid act? And act in what way? Which public option? Schumer's level playing field compromise? The Federalist Opt Out Public Option? The horrible Snowe Trigger?

Or is Schumer expecting Reid to kick the decision upstairs to the President? If I was Reid, that is precisely what I would do. I would say, "the final bill will reflect the President's wishes." Pass the buck. After all, Truman said the buck stopped there.

Speaking for me only

Economy got you down? Don't worry. Someone's making a lot of money. One of those someone's is JPMorgan Chase:

JPMorgan Chase said Wednesday that its profit surged to $3.6 billion in the third-quarter from strong trading results and a flurry of new deals, strengthening its position as one of the dominant banks to emerge from the financial crisis. [. . .] Although the recession weighed heavily on its businesses [Really???], JPMorgan appears to be taking advantage of the financial crisis to leapfrog over rivals in the investment banking rankings and expand its consumer lending franchise.

(Emphasis supplied.) It turns out when the government makes money free for banks who then turn around and charge exorbitant fees to their customers, the banks make a lot of money. TARP worked!! For the banks at least.

Speaking for me only

The National Republican Congressional Committee highlighted a parody video of Hitler praising Speaker Pelosi:

On Tuesday morning [. . .] someone at the NRCC posted a bizarre Tweet linking to an altered three-minute section of the 2004 Hitler biopic "Der Untergang" from the conservative site Moonbattery -- with a voice-over of the The Fuhrer ranting about how only Nancy Pelosi shares his vision of health care reform. The Tweet: "Funny Video: Moonbattery: Hitler Reacts to ObamaCare Maneuvers" Hitler, played by Swiss actor Bruno Ganz, is trapped in his bunker with his generals, and rants [in the phony subtitles] about President Obama's revisions to his socialized medicine plan -- and how only he and Nancy Pelosi are still fighting the good fight.

Remember the brouhaha over the video submitted to Move On? And we know the Republicans decided it was Congress' job to censure speech in the past. Logic dictates they should feel the same way here.

Censure the NRCC?

Speaking for me only

Yesterday, I hit d-day for his, to me, strange post, seeming to favor triggers over the Federalist Public Option (he wrote a comment in my thread saying that's not what he meant.) Today he seems to have learned something about the political game:

The wild card in all of this is Olympia Snowe’s yes vote on the Baucus bill today [. . .] The White House is clearly dying for something they can call bipartisan support, and will likely want to use Snowe in that capacity, as well as who she could bring along – Bill Nelson already intimated today that Susan Collins would come along with Snowe (although her role is probably more as cover for moderate Democrats). Snowe pointedly rejected the public option in her comments.

Bill Nelson? Not the same Bill Nelson d-day was defending yesterday when he was praising triggers? Look, I do not think it takes a genius to see that what Bill Nelson was saying yesterday was a result of his KNOWING what Olympia Snowe was going to do today. Frankly, d-day (and other progressives) got played yesterday. In their fight against the Federalist Public Option they ended up, unwittingly, strengthening the Mushy Middle's drive for the Snowe trigger. Understanding political bargaining was lacking in this instance.

Speaking for me only

Say what you want about President Olympia Snowe and her Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, they played a shrewd card today when Snowe voted yes for BaucusCare in the Senate Finance Committee. What is Snowe's thinking here? Here's my view.

Snowe saw that BaucusCare was fast becoming irrelevant and would have been completely irrelevant without her vote. She did not want to offer her trigger amendment now because she is saving that "concession" for the endgame. And she wants the final bargaining to begin with BaucusCare. She did what she had to do today to make BaucusCare the blueprint.

Senators Rockefeller and Wyden (or Schumer) misplayed their hands today by announcing they will vote Yes for BaucusCare. If two of them had voted No (Wyden does not really care about the public option and Schumer is in the leadership so I think I give them a bit of a pass on the political bargaining question), then BaucusCare would have been seen as a nonstarter from the Progressive side. This is important not only in the Senate but in the House, where the Progressive Block needs all the help it can get.

Snowe's shrewd play need not be a big deal in the endgame, but it could very likely be one. It all depends on how progressives in the Senate play it. So far, not good.

Speaking for me only