Sherrod Brown Co-sponsors Coburn-Vitter Public Option Amendment
Sherrod Brown explains to David Shuster why he signed decided to co-sponsor Tom Coburn and David Vitter's amendment which would require members of Congress to enroll in whatever version of the public option ends up being passed in the health care bill.
Brown: Yeah, you often find out about amendments going on on the Senate floor and if my staff and I like one of the amendments we'll call an office and say, Republican or Democrat, I'd like to co-sponsor. We do that as a matter of course it happens across party lines all the time, hundreds of times a day. We did that with Sen. Coburn, nine times we said we wanted to co-sponsor--usually it takes once and they say yes--I've always accepted that. So has everybody I know in the Senate. Nine times we asked to co-sponsor and their office either just said we'll get back to you or ignored our calls and our emails because it was all a sham.
They don't, they clearly don't like the public option. They were making fun of it. Their whole game is to delay and deceive and to play political games. And when they offer an amendment saying sign up for the public option to force--tell members of Congress they have to join the public option--I think I should. I think we all should but they don't evenn like it themselves. And so it's just a little partisan game they're playing, and this is too serious for them to play those kind of games.
From Salon's War Room--Coburn, Vitter plan to ridicule public option backfires:
Now, as the Senate's debate over its version of reform legislation kicks into gear, two Republicans -- Sens. Tom Coburn and David Vitter -- have picked up that theme and are running with it. The two authored an amendment they want attached to the bill; it would require members of Congress to enroll in whatever version of the public option the final legislation creates, if it includes one.
Both Coburn and Vitter are vehement opponents of the public option, and they're hoping to prove themselves right by showing that no senator who's in his or her right mind would want their healthcare covered by it. They've gotten a surprise, though: Genuine support for their amendment from someone on the other side of the aisle -- and a proponent of the public option, at that -- Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio.
Senators Franken, Dodd, and Mikulski also joined Sen. Brown in co-sponsoring the amendment. Here's Sen. Franken weighing in on the Senate floor.
The overall bill still extends and subsidizes for-profit health insurance, the conflict of interest of which is unconscionable.
A public option, if it is available to all and is not otherwise compromised would tend to mitigate that. Good on Sherrod Brown all else equal.
That however still does not address the serious deficiencies of the main bill as far as the enormous cuts to Medicare and the large expansion of Medicaid, both of which could dramatically limit coverage, rather than expand it.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
Digby writes on this here. A comment on that post was highlighted by Daniel De Groot at OpenLeft:
We really do live in different universes.
Corruption favors the wealthy.
I was trying to explain to a conservative acquaintance that the main reason that government has a hard time providing services is because we keep voting in people who do not believe that government can work. I explain that government would be actually smaller, cheaper and much more effective under progressive liberal leadership, and that short-term spending increases would be more than offset by long-term increases in efficiency. How we could have a luxury "American" version of single payer health care for about half of what we pay now per capita.
Then the conversation turned to 'climategate' and how global warming was a maasive conspiracy that almost every scientist who has ever studied it is in on, somehow, and how the whole thing is a plot invented by Al Gore so he can get rich off of it. I told him he was projecting; money and power are the only motives he can believe in as a conservative, because that's all he knows. He can see no altruism, because he does not know it. then, I realized that we on the left tend to project as well; we attribute reason and compassion to a group of people who know neither.
This is genius. Every time they open their yaps about this they now get to include the great satan hisself, Senator Al Franken.
The scary thing is they're right, they SHOULD be forced to give up there Cadillac plan and take what they're (eventually) going to give us. They should also have to give their plan up the day they pass whatever gets signed - see how they like having to fill in the gap to 2098 or whenever this will actually begin.
I do believe that not one member of Congress would QUALIFY to join a public option.
My understanding is that only about two million Americans would qualify.
Too bad.
"The US has an army of 90,000 soldiers in Afghanistan and is spending $100bn a year, but has still been unable to defeat 20,000-25,000 Taliban who receive no pay at all." - Patrick Cockburn
...I was under the same impression, unless it only applies to private sector plans? I was thinking of an "insurance dumping" provision to prevent everyone from ditching what they had to switch over.
Having said that, I still wish we had a real reform bill. This one is just so watered down... I mean, there are some items that I like, but this is a slight improvement, not the reform it should have been.
w00t!
Congress frolics, fiddles, and festers.
I'm sure the health care industry will mosey on over, thumbs in belt buckles, and spittin' chew and say, "This town ain't big enough for the two us Sherrod."
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
Republican senators hoped to show no senator would want to be covered by the public option (it didn't work out), BUT that the amendment was proffered by two republicans, you could make the argument that the repubs like the public option so much, that even as they fight to keep the people from having it, they want it for themselves.
Should have put forth their own bill that does away with health care for Congress and Senate until we have single payer for everyone.
tea party right wingers... who HATE Franken. I'm sure they are CHOKING on their chicken soup right now. NICE GOIN" Al! You're gonna be one of the GREATS over time... I have no doubt!
Senator Franken scares the .............. out of Rethugs.
Weren't these two of the guys bitching because Franken was trying to make fun of them by forcing them to support rape?
Al Franken was a wrestler during his school days. I can see how that would help where he is now. Ordinary Americans don't have much of a voice in Washington. The few that are willing to stand for ordinary Americans have to be tough. But in the meantime, I laugh at those Republicans who are mad at him over this rape deal.
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