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   Dan Savage, the brilliant and foul-mouthed sex columnist, has become one of the most important ethicists in America. Are we screwed?
 The federal government is supposed to issue new rules about debt levels for students in for-profit colleges. In the meantime, the states are working on their own regulations.
 Washingtons budget hawks want to decimate the federal workforce to shrink the deficit. It will have the opposite effect.
 There arent nearly enough counterterrorism experts to instruct all of Americas police. So we got these guys instead.
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August 29, 2009
THE SENIOR SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF MAINE.... For all the recent talk about trying to strike a "deal" on health care reform, the truth is, the outline of an agreement isn't hard to imagine. As Kevin Drum noted yesterday, "In theory, a deal should be fairly easy. Keep the insurance reform stuff and the increased subsidies, dump the public option, add in a few other goodies here and there for both sides, and voila. Dinner is served. But who's going to join us at the table? Are there any Republicans left who will vote for any healthcare plan at all, regardless of what is or isn't in it?" Put aside, at least for now, whether that seems like a worthwhile deal for Democrats, and whether the idea of pursuing a deal has merit. The point is, for all the efforts this year, the barebones of a deal are right in front of lawmakers. Kevin's question, then, deserves an answer: if there are going to be negotiations, who will join reformers at the table? Eyes turn to the senior senator from Maine.
The arithmetic is obvious. There are three Senate Republicans talking about a bipartisan deal. Two of the three -- Iowa's Chuck Grassley and Wyoming's Mike Enzi -- have made it painfully clear that they oppose health care reform. Whether Snowe likes it or not, that leaves a Group of One. The NYT's Carl Hulse added, "This has given Ms. Snowe a high degree of leverage as Democrats ask, What does Olympia Snowe want?" To her credit, Snowe is nowhere close to Grassley's and Enzi's position. She believes the status quo really does represent a health care crisis, that the uninsured should be covered, and that those with insurance may not appreciate what's around the corner. "They may say they are satisfied now," Snowe told Hulse, "but it is going to get worse, given the skyrocketing increases that are only going to persist. Something needs to be done to remove the deep anxiety that people find themselves in because of the lack of health insurance." She even sees the value in a public plan competing with private insurers, though Snowe prefers a "trigger" that would kick in later. Snowe, in other words, supports some kind of health care reform -- which makes her unique in the Republican caucus. The Gang of Six charade has become farcical. If the goal is to strike a deal, the White House should probably go around it and invite her over for a detailed chat. —Steve Benen 9:25 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (18)
Comments
How much damage to the stimulus package did concessions to Snowe cause? I think this should be brought out and studied. for example, was she one who wanted the funding of cash for clunkers cut back from $4 to $1 billion? Posted by: Johnny Canuck on August 29, 2009 at 9:29 AM | PERMALINKIf the goal is to strike a deal, the White House should probably go around it and invite her over for a detailed chat. But if the goal is to pass good health care reform, the WH should be figuring out how to get to 51. Posted by: PeakVT on August 29, 2009 at 9:35 AM | PERMALINKThey'll get to her, somehow. She'll cave and start repeating health reform nonsense. Just wait. I am tired of waiting for Republicans to "do the right thing." Posted by: terraformer on August 29, 2009 at 9:40 AM | PERMALINKDemocrats need to keep the public option and go to reconciliation. If the public option is 'dumped,' then I will give up on Democrats. What's the point of working to elect them? Why should they get any more of my money? This is put up or shut up time, and inclusion of a real public option (not some fig leaf) is the test. Otherwise, I'm a new Independent. It's becoming clear that Obama has to make this happen. GWB would have done it in a flash. Posted by: nyc on August 29, 2009 at 9:46 AM | PERMALINKgang a'6 did their job... hrc is sounding ridiculous... even on this site -- shadowing kevin drum might be sane, but it aint progressive... this is what reaching the height of the arc feels like, my friends, seems it's all downhill from here... (a'course, magic happens, too, at any second...) Posted by: neill on August 29, 2009 at 9:46 AM | PERMALINKTo paraphrase Yglesias--if Baucus wants to pass a bill he should write one he likes, find out what kind of massive lobster subsidies Maine wants and add them, and pass the damned thing. Posted by: riffle on August 29, 2009 at 9:53 AM | PERMALINKSEIU's Andy Stern summarized it best: It passed that limit--especially with Grassley's dishonesty about the plan pulling the plug on grandma. Time for Democrats to get off this one way street. Just what you'd expect from a lukewarm liberal who overfeeds his cats... "In theory, a deal should be fairly easy. Keep the insurance reform stuff and the increased subsidies, dump the public option, add in a few other goodies here and there for both sides, and voila. Dinner is served. But who's going to join us at the table?" You mean for a serious helping of luke warm shit that accomplishes nothing? Public option or nothing. Drum is one of those quasi-left-leaning people who the right quotes when they need an alibi for something egregious. From everything I've read, the public option -- and only the public option -- would provide real reform for people who most desperately need it. No public option, and insurance companies continue to screw people over, make obscene profits, people still go bankrupt over medical bills, and our health-care related spending continues to spiral out of control. Hell, yah, dropping the public option is coolies. Posted by: zhak on August 29, 2009 at 10:13 AM | PERMALINKSenator Snowe is worried about the anxiety that people without health insurance face? She doesn't understand something fundamental about her party. The central if unspoken tenet of Republicanism is that insecurity and anxiety are good because they keep the hoi polloi pliable. I don't necessarily think that the GOP caucus will get Olympia Snowe (or, for that matter, her colleague Susan Collins) to march in lockstep on this issue. Neither of the Maine senators has anything to worry about in terms of winning elections-- they are both essentially Senators For Life, having won by large margins in 2006 and 2008, respectively-- both of which were Democratic years. So, while exploiting people's insecurity and anxiety is a reliable tactic for the national GOP, it isn't necessarily the modus operandi for the Mainers. With all that being said . . . the Democrats definitely need to figure out how to get this through on their own. What good are outreach efforts to Snowe and Collins if Nelson, Landrieu, Lincoln, Bayh, and Lieberman won't budge? Posted by: The Caped Composer on August 29, 2009 at 10:55 AM | PERMALINKIn 1994 Clinton's final version of the bill, the Mitchell compromise, didn't even come to the floor. Prediction: This time it will come to the floor and lose, and we'll get the status quo again. But hey, that's progress. And zhak will be every bit as proud and happy as Sen. Enzi. Posted by: Davis X. Machina on August 29, 2009 at 11:17 AM | PERMALINKSnowe should accept reality and join the Democrats. They could give her a nice chairmanship to keep her occupied and she would finally be able to vote her conscience without worrying about retribution from a hidebound party leadership. She could be a Blue Dog one day and vote with the majority the next. No pressures no worries. It wouldn't be like she was leaving the GOP, it was the GOP that left her. Posted by: majun on August 29, 2009 at 12:28 PM | PERMALINKSec 116 baby. Steve's 'obvious' compromise on Health Insurance companies trade off between universal mandate against limits of Sec 112 (no exclusion of pre-existing conditions) and 113 (ratings rules) runs up against the profit controls under Sec 116. The real fight is revolving around 'Sec 116' and 'medical loss ratio'. All else is Kabuki. Posted by: Bruce Webb on August 29, 2009 at 6:09 PM | PERMALINK
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