Harry, this is real simple. You’re making the American people pay much too high a price for 60 votes. You’ve got other fish more important than getting 60 votes to fry. The first is that you’ve got to get a strong health insurance reform bill with a PO that will cut costs. The second is that you need to establish your authority as majority leader of the Democratic Party and create party discipline in the Senate.
Let’s look at the second thing first. Throw Joe Lieberman out of the caucus. Tomorrow! If you do, you’ll have no more trouble from Blanche, Mary, Ben, Evan, or any other blue dog again. You won’t have 60 votes for cloture, of course. But let’s be honest. You never needed 60 votes anyway, and you don’t need it now. You can use either reconciliation or the nuclear option to pass reform with 50 + 1 votes. Which brings us to the first, most important, thing you have to do, and that’s pass a good bill for the American people.
One way to do it is through reconciliation. I don’t think you can pass a good bill with a strong PO through reconciliation because of the Byrd rule. But you can pass three bills, one using reconciliation, and the other two using regular order if you follow a three step strategy I’ve outlined in another diary. The sequence is very important. The PO, which is an optional Medicare for All has to get passed first, along with subsidies based on need. The second thing to be passed, is a regulatory bill making it illegal for the insurance companies to do things like denials of coverage, and the rescissions that they’re doing now. The final bill to be passed is one that gives the insurance companies mandates and exchanges, and also opens subsidies to them, so they can compete with optional Medicare for All.
The reason why the sequence is important here, is because once the first bill is passed, the insurance companies are in a real tight spot. If they don’t support the second bill, why would anyone sign up with them ever again, when they can sign up with Medicare and not risk denials and rescissions? So, they can support such a regulatory bill, or lose all their customers “overnight” to the optional Medicare for All plan.
Once the first two bills are passed, then they also must pass the third bill. If they don’t, then once again, they can’t possibly compete with optional Medicare for All because they won’t have mandates or subsidies to help them out and they won’t even have an exchange where they can try to “out-market” the PO. So the end result is that they have no choice at all with respect to the third bill. They’ll have to support it. And the final result is legislation, passed in three bills, that has most of the advantages of the original Hacker-type of PO. The only differences are that there’s no new organization running the PO, because it’s part of Medicare, and also, this way of doing it does provide for the use of subsidies to buy private insurance, something which wasn’t in Hacker’s plan, and which makes this alternative a bit kinder to the companies.
Now, there’s also a second way of arriving at a very strong PO without 60 votes for cloture. It uses the nuclear option, and I’ve also explained it in another diary. Using it, you could pass any version of reform with a really strong PO. For example, one which would provide unrestricted eligibility for the PO, Medicare rates, an exchange with both the PO and private insurers, good subsidies for the needy, mandates, an operational date within a year of passage in time for the 2010 elections. In short, all the features of Hacker’s PO you wanted to include, provided you can get the support of 50 Democratic Senators and Joe Biden.
My own preference here is that you use the second way of proceeding, because if you use it you’ll never have to worry about the filibuster again. Not when you try to legislate in education, or energy, or climate, or the environment, or when you try to pass a new jobs bill, or financial regulation, or restructuring of the financial system. And you’ll go down in history as the man who got the filibuster. Furthermore, you’ll also neuter Blanche, Mary, Ben, Evan, Max, and any others who might otherwise use the filibuster to break party discipline. Do it. It’ll be great. You’ll be able to deliver on the Democratic platform and keep your promises. Your labor unions will love you. Nevadans will love you. Americans across the country will bless your name. And in the end, you’ll be the greatest majority leader since Lyndon Baines Johnson. What do you think of that?
(Also posted at firedoglake.com where there may be more comments)