| Friday Morning Update: Politico reports that Speaker Pelosi is conducting a "public" whip count of the entire Democratic caucus on the Medicare +5 bill this morning, "behind closed doors in the Capitol basement."
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Roll Call reports that House Democrats have are confident they have the votes they need to pass a "robust" public option:
House Democratic leaders sounded bullish Wednesday after launching an all-hands-on-deck effort to win support for a "robust" public insurance option in their health care bill.
"We think we have the votes now," Democratic Caucus Chairman John Larson (Conn.) told reporters. "We have the votes to pass a robust public option."
Larson cautioned that the details were still being worked out, and Democratic aides said Members were still being whipped at press time and did not release a tally.
If true, this is encouraging news for any number of reasons, not the least of which is that progressives in the House led by Speaker Pelosi have stood their ground, helped by the fact that the "robust" public option reportedly came back scored by the CBO as reducing the deficit more than any other plan:
This new CBO estimate, which aides caution is not final, is significantly less than the $1.1 trillion price tag of the original House bill that passed out of three committees this summer. More importantly, it comes under the $900 billion cap set by President Obama in his joint address to Congress last month....
Senior Democratic aides told CNN that House Democratic leaders are likely to put this version of the public option favored by liberal Democrats in the final bill they are drafting. While no final decision has been made, on Tuesday night Speaker Pelosi made the case to House Democrats that this approach saves the most money and would put the House in a better negotiating position when it comes time to negotiate a final health care bill with the Senate.
The whip effort described by Larson is an internal one, making it difficult to discern who the holdouts in the Democratic caucus are. And as Larson points out, the count is still ongoing, making this one of the very last moments in the process in which pressure can be effectively applied before the House bill goes to the floor.
Open Left has attempted to compile a list of Democratic targets in the House on the "robust" public option -- Representatives who are deemed to be undecided or either "leaning" yes or no on the matter.
While the provenance of the Open Left target list is unclear, it's all activists have to go on at this point. The only "undecided or leaning" name from Connecticut on the list (pdf here) is Jim Himes. While this does not at all signify that Congressman Himes would vote against a "Medicare +5" plan, he did seem to indicate in his op-ed on health reform in August that his preferred approach was the "level playing field" public option.
Reached for comment today, Rep. Himes' Communications Director Liz Kerr confirmed that he is still undecided on the Medicare +5% public option:
"The Congressman, as he has stated before, supports the inclusion of a public health insurance option that operates on a level playing field with private insurance companies. He is still studying this specific proposal."
We are at the point in the process where every lawmaker's opinion and every moment counts in order to makes sure the House passes the strongest possible bill going into the inevitable conference committee compromise.
If you want to urge Rep. Himes to support a House health care reform bill with the robust Medicare +5% public option, you can call his DC office at (202) 225-5541. |
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