Mary Landrieu Flips on Public Plan
Mary Landrieu (D-LA)
Mary Landrieu (D-LA) is now saying that she “is not open to a public option” in health care reform, though she is “open to a compromise – a full compromise.” It’s hard to know what that really means, but Ryan Grim observes that in the past Landrieu had promised to support such a plan:
“HCAN principles embody an approach that actually delivers a solution of guaranteed quality, affordable health care for all in America. Under this approach, everyone gets a choice of health insurance plans, including the right to keep your current insurance, choose another private plan or to join a public health insurance plan,” she wrote in April.
“Again,” she concluded, “I support the HCAN Statement of Common Purpose, and I oppose the ‘on your own’ approaches to health care reform that go against these principles. And, I salute the efforts of the broad grassroots coalition represented by Health Care for America Now to advance this most critical of issues.”
The HCAN Statement of Common Purpose explicitly advocates for a public option, calling for “a choice of a private insurance plan, including keeping the insurance you have if you like it, or a public insurance plan without a private insurer middleman that guarantees affordable coverage.”
I suppose my main takeaway from this kind of thing is that progressives in congress ought to make their initial “bid” on the public plan quite high. There seem to be a certain number of members with somewhat hazy views on the subject, but a desire to take whatever “the public option” is and trim it down with a compromise of some kind. But all kinds of different things could count as “a compromise” and the important thing, from a progressive point of view, is not to be uncompromising but to get a public option that can do some real good.
28 Responses to “Mary Landrieu Flips on Public Plan”
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June 10th, 2009 at 11:33 am
Actually, I would say that the “initial bid” should be the best one — a single-payer system. Then if you can’t get that, you bargain down to the compromise — a robust public option system.
If you listen to PhRMA and kick single payer off the table, you’re not going to end up with a good public option either. It’s the nature of left-right bargaining politics.
June 10th, 2009 at 11:35 am
Ex-fucking-zactly! These “moderate” chowderheads always do the same thing- they take whatever starting point they’re presented with(regardless of whether they even understand it)and whittle it down in some way just so they can preen themselves on their “moderation”. So as long as they’re the critical votes, bidding high is ALWAYS the right strategy.
June 10th, 2009 at 11:42 am
progressives in congress ought to make their initial “bid” on the public plan quite high.
This should be obvious. A lot of progressives and Democrats seem to try to short-circuit the debate by jumping to what they believe would be an acceptable compromise, and are then shocked when the bargaining process simply starts from there.
Let the centrists whittle. Just give them that much more to do it with.
June 10th, 2009 at 11:43 am
They got to her, too, huh?
Wanna guess whether or not her fundraising is helped by this? I’m giving odds.
It is truly shocking how corrupt our political system is.
June 10th, 2009 at 11:44 am
Judging by her picture, she’s about 14 years old. It’s probably unrealistic to expect too much consistency from any teenager.
June 10th, 2009 at 11:46 am
Mary’s always been a bit of a mystery to me (I just lived in Louisiana for three years). She should be a case study for a politician who survives in a hostile political climate for her perceived “moderation” but whose voting record doesn’t actually align with the nature of the state’s electorate. For example, she has never wavered on her commitment to LGBT rights, despite the fact that Louisiana’s religious right is extremely powerful and are at their absolute apex now with Gov. Jindal in Baton Rouge. But she sells out on something like this. I doubt there’s a huge swath of Louisianans clamoring for a “no public plan healthcare bill.” It’s a mystery.
June 10th, 2009 at 11:51 am
For example, she has never wavered on her commitment to LGBT rights, despite the fact that Louisiana’s religious right is extremely powerful and are at their absolute apex now with Gov. Jindal in Baton Rouge. But she sells out on something like this. I doubt there’s a huge swath of Louisianans clamoring for a “no public plan healthcare bill.” It’s a mystery.
Just substitute “corporations” for “Louisianans” and it will all make sense.
June 10th, 2009 at 11:51 am
The answer to such mysteries generally turns out to be “follow the money”.
June 10th, 2009 at 11:57 am
Zaid: I’m not sure the dynamics work in that case. You can negotiate your way down from a great public plan to a merely okay public plan; there’s a fairly smooth continuum of compromises between the two. But single payer is a fairly bold break from other proposals, it’s hard to gently work your way from a public plan to something that can get enough votes.
June 10th, 2009 at 11:59 am
Matt makes a good point and it underlines just how important Obama’s opening position is in this debate. He and his staff well know the “divide the baby for its own sake” tendency of Senatorial compromise. Remember, Obama’s initial proposal for stimulus was basically the result the Senate came to after “moderates” insisted on a compromise to make arbitrary cuts. Many of us felt that the Obama’s initial bid was too small and too reliant on huge tax cuts. So I hope that Obama is listening to the right people on health care (he certainly has good taste in magazine articles) and, if he is, I think we have a real shot at the inevitable “compromise” including a meaningful public option. As much as I love Obama (and it borders on the awkward), if he screws up on health care reform, I will probably vote for Newt in 2012. No false hopes with him.
June 10th, 2009 at 12:00 pm
The Democrats: Proving themselves ever more useless since 1988.
Progressives should just leave the party. We aren’t getting anything we want. Let the Democrats find out just how unappealing neoliberalism really is to the general populace.
June 10th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
They got to her, too, huh?
They never had to “get” to her. She’s always been a corporatist. She’s like Specter. She’ll make pleasant noises often enough, but will always, always, vote to please her corporate masters.
June 10th, 2009 at 12:05 pm
Look, health care will be fixed when poor people that get sick crawl off to someplace private and die. Quit taking up space and beds in the emergency rooms and wards of public hospitals. If you can’t make it to work every day because of your illness quit so someone else on the vast unemployment roles can have a job. Bottom line is we’re propping up poor people that otherwise would perish and that isn’t the free market system at its best. Similar to prolonging the death of GM or Chrysler, we as a nation are denying established economic wisdom in artificially saving the lives of the poor. Once we end this practice our medical dollars can be directed to helping those of proper social and financial standing able and deserving of receiving it.
June 10th, 2009 at 12:13 pm
I haven’t been this shocked and stunned since I learned that Rush Limbaugh wants Obama to fail.
June 10th, 2009 at 12:13 pm
If Sen. Collins can determine how much stimulus we get, certainly Sen. Landrieu can decide what health care reform looks like.
I mean, she’s a Senator, right? Isn’t that what they do?
June 10th, 2009 at 12:14 pm
It’s worth remembering that there’s someone besides Obama who can make high bids – the House. That’s what happened with the stimulus, which someone mentioned above.
June 10th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
Wanna guess whether or not her fundraising is helped by this? I’m giving odds.It is truly shocking how corrupt our political system is…
It’s not shocking, and it’s really not even “corruption” — at least not as how most people understand it (and it’s almost certainly more about her potential opponent’s fundraising and support than her own). Landriue represents a conservative state, and generally can count on facing a tough reelection fight. She naturally has to be careful to choose her battles. I favor a robust public option and loathe the medical industrial lobby — but I think even Evil and Nasty lobbies ought to be able to spend their money to loudly make their case. If Democrats were savvy, they could still win even in the teeth of vociferous opposition. I think it’s Baucus and Reid who will end up being real heroes or villains here depending on the outcome. I keep hearing about how they want to insist on a bipartisan bill. And that — cowardice is what I call it — is the real culprit here. Why the eff cares whether or not the final bill has GOP votes if those GOP votes (thanks to reconciliation) aren’t needed? There’s this big supposition out there that says a narrowly passed “partisan” bill is an untoward thing. But that’s just stupid. This being a democracy, if a given bill’s effects prove to be undesirable or unpopular, and said bill has mostly one party’s fingerprints on it, the other side will soon get a chance to make the case that it can do better. Democrats have to learn to stop being fearful of success. If they could learn to do this they’d find they could allow for the occasional red/purple state turncoat-ism, because they only need fifty votes.
June 10th, 2009 at 1:23 pm
Bidding high is a boneheadedly obvious strategy, but the Democrats are like Graham Chapman at the market in Life of Brian: they don’t want to haggle. It’s mystifying that they don’t understand this very basic concept.
June 10th, 2009 at 1:31 pm
Bidding high is a boneheadedly obvious strategy, but the Democrats are like Graham Chapman at the market in Life of Brian: they don’t want to haggle. It’s mystifying that they don’t understand this very basic concept.
fumphis: it has absolutely nothing do to with lack of understanding and everything to do with political cowardice. Especially high opening bids (”single payer”!) allow potential GOP opponents to scream “So and so is a pinko!”
I blame it all on the first Johnson administration.
June 10th, 2009 at 2:41 pm
“Progressives should just leave the party. We aren’t getting anything we want. Let the Democrats find out just how unappealing neoliberalism really is to the general populace.”
Yes, because taking our ball and going home worked so well in 2000.
June 10th, 2009 at 2:42 pm
The ethnic cleansing of Louisiana seems to be having its desired effect.
June 10th, 2009 at 2:48 pm
Landriue represents a conservative state, and generally can count on facing a tough reelection fight.
In 2014, since she won re-election last year. This isn’t about electability.
Landrieu is just fucking useless, and that’s all that needs to be said about her.
June 10th, 2009 at 4:19 pm
In 2014, since she won re-election last year. This isn’t about electability..
But pseudonymous, what was her margin? Maybe it was wider than I’d thought, but I doubt it was much of a landslide. I agree that a number of purple/red state Dems are basically useless on certain issues, but a) it’s better than having the seat held by a Jeff Sessions clone; and, b) (my main point) if it weren’t for the maddening insistence on “bipartisanship” a few such senators could be allowed to stray, as they’re votes wouldn’t be needed. In other words, it looks to me like the strategy of Reid/Baucus is going to be to craft a bill that is sufficiently “moderate” to get 50-something Democratic votes and eight or ten (or more) Republican votes. Hence the strong likelihood of a not very progressive piece of legislation. The strategy ought to be to craft a bill that is no more “moderate” than is necessary to get fifty votes, period. I’m assuming we can count on the tie-breaker from Biden.
June 10th, 2009 at 4:47 pm
But pseudonymous, what was her margin? Maybe it was wider than I’d thought, but I doubt it was much of a landslide
She faced a former Democrat, and won 52/46 — enough to avoid a runoff, unlike 2002, and so a better result overall in spite of the population shift post-Katrina.
That doesn’t matter. The whole point of the Senate having six-year terms is supposedly that senators can be shielded somewhat from the permanent campaign. The downside is that they’re less easily squeezed or bought off in return for bennies to their states. Landrieu is the worst of both worlds; she’s as much use as a sugarcube levee.
June 10th, 2009 at 6:23 pm
Re: Just substitute “corporations” for “Louisianans” and it will all make sense.
Why should corporations (other than the insurance industry itself) be opposed to a public healthcare plan? That’s something that could be favorable to their interests in the long term, and certainly is not inimical to them in the short term.
Re: But pseudonymous, what was her margin? Maybe it was wider than I’d thought
It was definitely wider than the GOP had hoped. Initially
Landrieu was on their (very short) list of Democratic senators they had some hope of beating. But by summer 2008 she was far enough ahead that they gave up on that prospect.
Bear in mind too that Lousiana may be a conservative state, but there’s still a lot of Lousianans who vote GOP for president but call themselves Democrats, and they realize they have to vote for some Democrat somewhere on the ballot to keep up that fiction in their own mind.
June 10th, 2009 at 6:56 pm
FWIW, Landrieu was on Larry Kudlow’s show last night advocating off-shore drilling, and voicing the mildest support for alt-energy. So now on healthcare and energy, we know where she stands.
She did contradict Jindal on the stimulus funds, though.
Really, though, bi-partisanship needs to be re-evaluated in accordance with a very simple principle: a bill’s legitimacy depends upon how many people vote for it, not the party those people belong to. If out of 100 people, 60 agree to pass a public plan, that’s obviously a solid majority. This is not naivete, it’s a refusal to accept the current state of party politics as a reflection of our country’s political DNA. If there were five healthy parties, a bill could pass with support from three of five overall parties. That wouldn’t make it less legitimate. The people have already voted.
June 10th, 2009 at 11:56 pm
Someone ought to ask HCAN what they’re going to do, now that Landrieu’s used them and screwed them. I’d think this would be pretty embarrassing for them.
Somehow, I don’t think Grover Norquist has this problem with Republicans who promise not to raise taxes and then raise taxes.
June 11th, 2009 at 6:24 am
Re: Somehow, I don’t think Grover Norquist has this problem with Republicans who promise not to raise taxes and then raise taxes.
Any Republican tax increase is always on working people, never on Grover Norquist and his friends.