{"id":191686,"date":"2009-07-08T14:04:00","date_gmt":"2009-07-08T19:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2009\/07\/08\/reid-shows-sanaty-on-healthcare-rahmbo-on-the-other-hand\/"},"modified":"2009-07-08T14:04:00","modified_gmt":"2009-07-08T19:04:00","slug":"reid-shows-sanaty-on-healthcare-rahmbo-on-the-other-hand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2009\/07\/08\/reid-shows-sanaty-on-healthcare-rahmbo-on-the-other-hand\/","title":{"rendered":"Reid Shows Sanaty on Healthcare, Rahmbo, on the Other Hand…."},"content":{"rendered":"

It appears that Majority Leader Harry Reid just<\/span> told finance chair Max Baucus<\/span> to stop moving the bill to the right in an attempt to get Republican votes<\/a>:<\/p>\n

According to Democratic sources, Reid told Baucus<\/span> that taxing health benefits and failing to include a strong government-run insurance option of some sort in his bill would cost 10 to 15 Democratic votes; Reid told Baucus<\/span> it wasn<\/span>\u2019t worth securing the support of Grassley<\/span> and at best a few additional Republicans. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This actually makes sense. Any healthcare<\/span> reform that works will cripple the Republican Party for at least a generation, so accommodating<\/span> the Republicans means that you are making sure that the plan will fail<\/span>.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, on the other end of Pennsylvania<\/span> Avenue, White House Chief of Staff Rahm<\/span> Emanuel is doing his best to kill a public option<\/a>:<\/p>\n

It is more important that health-care legislation inject stiff competition among insurance plans than it is for Congress to create a pure government-run option, White House Chief of Staff Rahm<\/span> Emanuel said.<\/p>\n

“The goal is to have a means and a mechanism to keep the private insurers honest,” he said in an interview. “The goal is non-negotiable; the path is” negotiable.<\/p>\n

President Barack Obama has campaigned vigorously for a full public option. But he’s also said that he won’t draw a “line in the sand” over this point. On Tuesday, the White House issued a statement reiterating his support for a public plan.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I think that Emanuel believes that a big war chest is the only<\/span> determinant to winning elections, and he does not want to offend the deep pockets of the insurance industry.<\/p>\n

His actions as the head of the DCCC<\/span>, when he decided to ran the hapless Tammy Duckworth<\/span> at the expense of Christine<\/span> Cegelis<\/span> in the Illinois Congressional<\/span> 6th<\/span><\/sup> district, where he dumped hundreds of thousands of dollars into the primary, and over a million in the general, keeping a Republican in the seat, are a good example of why his “campaign funds trump everything,” philosophy is a complete<\/span> lose.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It appears that Majority Leader Harry Reid just told finance chair Max Baucus to stop moving the bill to the right in an attempt to get Republican votes: According to Democratic sources, Reid told Baucus that taxing health benefits and failing to include a strong government-run insurance option of some sort in his bill would …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[998,1198,1020,1173],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-191686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress","category-health","category-legislation","category-white-house"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191686"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=191686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191686\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}