4 Dem Senators Pressure Reid to Use Reconciliation for Public Option

By: Stephanie Condon
Topics: Health Care

(AP)

Four Democratic senators, including two facing potentially challenging election campaigns this year, are asking Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to use reconciliation, a procedural maneuver requiring only 51 votes, to push for a public health insurance option.

Sens. Michael Bennet (Colo.), Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.), Sherrod Brown (Ohio) and Jeff Merkley (Ore.) signed a letter to Reid saying they support this plan for four reasons: the cost savings the public option is estimated to achieve, continued public support for the public option, the need for increased competition in the insurance market and the Senate's history of using the reconciliation process for health care reform.

"Put simply, including a strong public option is one of the best, most fiscally responsible ways to reform our health insurance system," the letter says. "Although we strongly support the important reforms made by the Senate-passed health reform package, including a strong public option would improve both its substance and the public's perception of it."

The letter points to the last CBS News/ New York Times poll that surveyed Americans on the public option, from Dec. 2009, which showed that 59 percent of Americans supported the public option.

Throughout the health care debate, Democratic leaders resisted using reconciliation for fear that bypassing a Republican filibuster would appear too partisan. The letter points out that the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), Medicare Advantage, and the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985 (COBRA) were all enacted under reconciliation.

In this month's CBS News/ New York Times poll, 37 percent of Americans said Congress was more responsible than President Obama for failing to pass health care reform. Half of Americans, meanwhile, said the filibuster -- which requires 60 senators to approve a bill -- should not stay in place, while 44 percent said it should.

The advocacy groups the Progressive Change Campaign Committee and Democracy for America, as well as Credo Action, the grassroots political arm of the for-profit company CREDO Mobile, are promoting the letter and calling on citizens to become signatories online.

"Every day, it becomes increasingly clear that the best way to 'fix' the original Senate bill is to pass the highly popular public option through reconciliation," the groups said in a statement. "It's the populist reform that the House will need in order to pass both bills together and the key change Democratic and Independent voters will need in order to believe in health care reform again and show up in 2010."

Bennet, who was appointed to his seat after Ken Salazar joined the Obama administration, will have to face voters this fall in what the independent Cook Political Report labels a "toss up" race. Before Bennet faces a Republican challenger, however, he will face a primary challenge from former state House Speaker Andrew Romanoff, who won the endorsement of two of Colorado's largest labor organizations.

Gillibrand has also been pushed to the left by the threat of primary challengers. She now faces a possible challenge from former Rep. Harold Ford.

Stephanie Condon
Stephanie Condon is a political reporter for CBSNews.com.
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by mscientist March 3, 2010 8:10 PM EST: Other than the left-wing wackos (like your other respondent), Poll after Poll shows that America overwhelmingly opposes this albatross. The problem is that these arrogant Dems, think they can speak for US, contrary to what we have clearly told them we do not want. The other guy who responded to your post is a clear example of that same arrogance.; Reply to this comment

by bondobuster February 17, 2010 3:51 PM EST

These dems are dumber than than I thought. You would expect them to know that the American people don't want the disastrous democratic health bill, yet they are willing to sacrifice their seat come November! How Pathetic!

Reply to this comment


by Zann-Zel February 17, 2010 4:13 PM EST: Ya know everytime I hear this B.S. I have to stop and ask myself.....Am I an American? well YES! Do I want this health bill.......well YES!!! Why are so many people so arrogant as to think they can speak for the entire country???

by gekkobear February 17, 2010 12:07 PM EST

Why stop there? Go for single payer. Heck, go even further.

Nationalize all the hospitals and doctors in the nation in one fell swoop while skipping the filibuster. Why work slowly toward this goal?

Since the goal is the takeover of all health care choices by the government; and the plan now involves ignoring the rules and rushing forward pell-mell; why not go for everything?

Some day we may have the great government and freedom of countries like North Korea; and the economic might of Zimbabwe... if only the Democrats are allowed to plot this course. Someday...

Reply to this comment


by Zann-Zel February 17, 2010 4:14 PM EST: 38 other free countries have a government healthcare plan - 38! And they're STILL FREE!!!!!


by Quist1379 February 19, 2010 12:46 PM EST: Zann-Zel: I have a question. I assume that you're including Canada and UK, right? If these "free" countries are so great, why are their citizens known for coming to the US for medical treatment? Hmmmmm.....


by SpringerRider February 17, 2010 4:51 AM EST: Look kids,
the left wing cabal is over.
Start packing your bags because the writing is on the wall. Socialism is going the way of your Global Warming and for the very same reason.

They are both lies.

Accept it and go home; Reply to this comment


by SpringerRider February 17, 2010 4:48 AM EST: Since the nuclear option would be guranteed suicide, let us guess what politcal favors are promised to each...

Michael Bennet
Kirsten Gillibrand
Sherrod Brown
Jeff Merkley
Harry Reid

Cash payoffs, cabinet positions, embassadorships...

The fun thing is that Obama never pays off. It is a matter of "under the bus you go"; Reply to this comment

by Keefanda February 17, 2010 4:26 AM EST

Here is a small sample - 13 recent studies - of the vast amount of peer-reviewed, published epidemiological science showing that including public financing of health care is desperately required to have less - especially much less - health care amenable mortality. The first 12 studies are different from and not cited by that Harvard study showing about 45,000 deaths annually via lack of health insurance. The first 3 studies are MORE RECENT than that Harvard study. IMPORTANT NOTE: The first 2 studies' results give scientific evidence that emergency rooms all over the US are violating EMTALA. This is the law that says emergency rooms must treat all medical emergencies equally regardless of patients' abilities to pay. ------ (1) (published in 2009) Lack of insurance negatively affects trauma mortality in US children (3 times higher death rate for uninsured child trauma patients) ------ (2) (published in 2009) Downwardly Mobile: The Accidental Cost of Being Uninsured (almost 2 times higher death rate for uninsured adult trauma patients) ------ (3) (published in 2009) Analysis of 23 million US hospitalizations: uninsured children have higher all-cause in-hospital mortality (60% higher) ------ (4) (published in 2008) Measuring The Health Of Nations: Updating An Earlier Analysis (The US now has a higher health care amenable mortality rate than all the other 18 richest OECD countries. If the US improved to equal the average of the world's 3 best countries, then 101,000 Americans would no longer die annually from lack of healthcare.) (5) (published in 2008) Association of Insurance with Cancer Care Utilization and Outcomes (The uninsured have 60% higher overall cancer mortality.) ------ (6) (published in 2008) Insurance Status Predicts Access to Care and Outcomes of Vascular Disease (The uninsured have a more than 2 times higher overall post-operative mortality rate.) ------ (7) (published in 2007) Disparities in outcomes among patients with stroke associated with insurance status (Uninsured patients with intracerebral hemorrhage and acute ischemic stroke had 24% and 56% higher rates of death, respectively.) ------ (8) (published in 2007) Does Medicare Save Lives? (Medicare reduces the death rate by 20 percent. Part of the reduction holds even in comparison to private insurance: Elderly hospital patients admitted through the emergency room have lower mortality rates on traditional Medicare compared to being on private insurance - since traditional Medicare both tries to and successfully denies a smaller percentage of claims, doctors and hospitals and referred-to care-givers actually do more for patients on traditional Medicare, and this extra health care actually lowers mortality rates.) ------ (9) (published in 2000) Relation between income inequality and mortality in Canada and in the United States: cross sectional assessment using census data and vital statistics (Canada has no association between income inequality and mortality rates. The US has a strong such association for those <65 but no such association for those >65. Such an association existed in Canada before Canadian Medicare, when Canada had a private system like the US.) ------ (10) (published in 2007) Avoidable mortality by neighbourhood income in Canada: 25 years after the establishment of universal health insurance (The change to universal medical care and not change in public health policy caused the vast majority of the decrease in mortality rates.) ------ (11);(12) (published in 2002) A systematic review and meta-analysis of studies comparing mortality rates of private for-profit and private not-for-profit hospitals; (published in 2004) Payments for care at private for-profit and private not-for-profit hospitals: a systematic review and meta-analysis (For-profit hospitals have 2% higher death rates and 19% higher costs because of the need to generate profit to satisfy investors, the significantly higher administrative costs, and the large executive bonuses, according to the authors.) ------ (13) (published in 2009) Health Insurance and Mortality in US Adults (The uninsured have an overall 40% higher mortality rate - almost 45,000 extra deaths annually.)

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by Keefanda February 17, 2010 4:58 AM EST: I neglected to call special attention to study (4), which, in contrast to that Harvard study showing about 45,000 deaths annually via lack of health insurance, says that as many as 101,000 or more Americans die annually from lack of health care, not just via lack of health insurance.


by bradkt1 February 16, 2010 6:52 PM EST: The problem is Harry Reid. A "good old boy" of the Senate isn't cut out to lead it.; Reply to this comment


by NotDon February 16, 2010 5:44 PM EST: Well gee. Judging by this column everything is just rosy for health care. I simply don't understand what the problem is. I seem to recall that when the Republicans were going to override the filibuster, it was called "The Nuclear Option", but now with the Democratics, it is called "reconciliation" Like a couple of lovers who got over a spat. That alone proves the Democratics should do it. It would be so sweet.

Why not ram it through, then go into November hanging the Republican's opposition to it like an albatross around their neck? Yeah, I am pretty sure after reading this article that that would be the Democratic's best course.

And the weighting in that poll you cite? About four in ten democrats in one out of four Republcans? Yeah, that sounds about right. So go with it. Just don't be surprised if professional politicians like Evan Bayh aren't buying it.; Reply to this comment


by cbs_tom February 16, 2010 4:55 PM EST: "NEVER FORGET WHO GOT THE USA INTO THIS MESS"...
by truth-b-toll February 16, 2010 4:33 PM EST

Yes, Those who caused this mess must include:
The lying and stealing financial types (now on the way to prison);
Everyone who bought a house with a loan they could not afford (biggest problem and ignorance is no excuse);
Congressmen who obstructed regulation of Fannie-Mae; and,
alarmist calling it the "worst economy since the great depression" prior to the falling which caused people to not spend thus creating a greater fall (favorite saying of some congressmen).; Reply to this comment


by steeepe February 16, 2010 4:45 PM EST: Reid better get going before collective amnesia forces more republicans into Congress. Democrats are in the majority. Let's see some action.; Reply to this comment