The White House has released the full opening remarks of President Obama, Senator Alexander, Speaker Pelosi, and Senator Reid at the bipartisan health care summit. See our live blog of the day's events here, our curated twitter list here and HuffPost's selection of expert analysis here. Remarks are continued from part 3 below.
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February 26, 2010
February 25, 2010
February 19, 2010
Reid Will Push For Public Option Through Reconciliation
Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) announced on Friday afternoon that he would work with other Democrats and the White House to pass a public option through reconciliation if that's the legislative path the party chooses.
"Senator Reid has always and continues to support the public option as a way to drive down costs and create competition," said Reid aide Rodell Mollineau in a statement provided to the Huffington Post. "That is why he included the measure in his original health care proposal. If a decision is made to use reconciliation to advance health care, Senator Reid will work with the White House, the House, and members of his caucus in an effort to craft a public option that can overcome procedural obstacles and secure enough votes."
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"Senator Reid has always and continues to support the public option as a way to drive down costs and create competition," said Reid aide Rodell Mollineau in a statement provided to the Huffington Post. "That is why he included the measure in his original health care proposal. If a decision is made to use reconciliation to advance health care, Senator Reid will work with the White House, the House, and members of his caucus in an effort to craft a public option that can overcome procedural obstacles and secure enough votes."
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February 18, 2010
Public Option, Medicare Buy-In Could See Senate Floor Fights
Real health care reform is threatening to emerge from the ashes of the Massachusetts special election that exploded the effort in January. A growing movement in the Senate to urge Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to reinsert the public option into a health care reform package that would move through the chamber under majority-only rules depends on just how many votes backers can muster.
"Senator Reid remains a strong supporter of the public option, but it's always a question of where the votes are," Reid spokesman Jim Manley told HuffPost.
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"Senator Reid remains a strong supporter of the public option, but it's always a question of where the votes are," Reid spokesman Jim Manley told HuffPost.
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January 12, 2010
January 11, 2010
December 21, 2009
Lieberman: Obama Never Pressed Me On Public Option
Senator Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) insists that the White House did not pressure him to get in line behind either a public health insurance option or a Medicare buy-in compromise during the health care debate this year.
"Well, no. I think I got pressure from the president to be for health care reform," Lieberman said when asked by HuffPost about any pressure from the administration to support either the public option or the Medicare buy-in. "I'd have to think about this, but I didn't really have direct input from the White House on this."
He added that Nancy-Ann DeParle, a top administration health care aide, downplayed the public option's significance early in the debate.
"Early on, Nancy-Ann DeParle came in, I told her my argument, I said, 'Nancy, I don't remember this ever being in the presidential campaign debates -- or discussions. I don't mean just the debates. And she said, 'You know, it's interesting. We went back and checked and there's one mention in the bottom of a paragraph of an Obama presidential policy statement on health care where it's mentioned as an option.' But most of the negotiation I had on that was with Senator Reid."
When Obama addressed the Democratic caucus towards the end of the debate, as the public option was teetering on the brink, Lieberman said the president told him simply to work it out.
"When he came to the caucus he said, 'Just try to work this out as you get to the end here.' And I said, 'OK,'" explained Lieberman.
On Sunday, Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.), blamed the administration's decision not to push for the public option for its eventual demise. "Unfortunately, the lack of support from the administration made keeping the public option in the bill an uphill struggle," he said.
One of the first times that the White House was closely involved in public option or Medicare buy-in negotiations was two Sundays ago, when Lieberman told Reid he would filibuster the buy-in compromise, Lieberman explained.
"Most of my dealings were with Senator Reid until the very end, that Sunday, when I went in to his office and Rahm Emanuel was there," said Lieberman. Rahm, said Lieberman, "was relatively quiet."
Reid and Emanuel met privately before Lieberman arrived at Reid's office; HuffPost previously reported that sources familiar with the meeting said that Emanuel pressured Reid to drop the Medicare buy-in. Regardless of whose decision it was, by the time Lieberman got to Reid's office, Reid was ready to drop the Medicare compromise, said Lieberman.
"The truth is that the meeting was really run by Senator Reid. And at that point he was basically trying to put it together and he said, 'I hear you. I understand you don't want the public option, which is out, and now you don't want to expand Medicare. I understand your reasons. I don't agree with them. We've got to get to 60. And so we'll take them out,'" Lieberman recalled.
"Most of our active discussion that day was about this OPM [Office of Personnel Management] national private plan idea, because I wanted to make sure there wasn't any sort of fall-back public option in there, which had been in an earlier iteration, and he promised me there wouldn't be."
Emanuel didn't weigh in much on the Medicare compromise, said Lieberman. "He was relatively quiet. He asked a few questions about the national private plan discussion," he said.
Ultimately, said Lieberman, the president wasn't attached to the public option and repeatedly made clear that it was simply a preference.
"Personally, I feel that the bill does what the president set out as his goals: contain costs, expand coverage to some of the millions of people who don't have it now and regulate insurance companies so they treat consumers and patients more fairly. And I remember the president, in his address to Congress earlier this year, said 'I prefer the public option but what I'm really interested in is my goals. If you can achieve my goals in health care reform without a public option, then that's fine with me.' And I think that's what this bill does," said Lieberman.
UPDATE: Reader Bluesue points out that if Lieberman's correct that DeParle searched campaign documents for reference to a public option, she didn't do a very thorough job. The public option -- referred to in the campaign's platform as a "new public plan" -- is mentioned throughout the campaign's health care literature. (PDF)
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"Well, no. I think I got pressure from the president to be for health care reform," Lieberman said when asked by HuffPost about any pressure from the administration to support either the public option or the Medicare buy-in. "I'd have to think about this, but I didn't really have direct input from the White House on this."
He added that Nancy-Ann DeParle, a top administration health care aide, downplayed the public option's significance early in the debate.
"Early on, Nancy-Ann DeParle came in, I told her my argument, I said, 'Nancy, I don't remember this ever being in the presidential campaign debates -- or discussions. I don't mean just the debates. And she said, 'You know, it's interesting. We went back and checked and there's one mention in the bottom of a paragraph of an Obama presidential policy statement on health care where it's mentioned as an option.' But most of the negotiation I had on that was with Senator Reid."
When Obama addressed the Democratic caucus towards the end of the debate, as the public option was teetering on the brink, Lieberman said the president told him simply to work it out.
"When he came to the caucus he said, 'Just try to work this out as you get to the end here.' And I said, 'OK,'" explained Lieberman.
On Sunday, Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.), blamed the administration's decision not to push for the public option for its eventual demise. "Unfortunately, the lack of support from the administration made keeping the public option in the bill an uphill struggle," he said.
One of the first times that the White House was closely involved in public option or Medicare buy-in negotiations was two Sundays ago, when Lieberman told Reid he would filibuster the buy-in compromise, Lieberman explained.
"Most of my dealings were with Senator Reid until the very end, that Sunday, when I went in to his office and Rahm Emanuel was there," said Lieberman. Rahm, said Lieberman, "was relatively quiet."
Reid and Emanuel met privately before Lieberman arrived at Reid's office; HuffPost previously reported that sources familiar with the meeting said that Emanuel pressured Reid to drop the Medicare buy-in. Regardless of whose decision it was, by the time Lieberman got to Reid's office, Reid was ready to drop the Medicare compromise, said Lieberman.
"The truth is that the meeting was really run by Senator Reid. And at that point he was basically trying to put it together and he said, 'I hear you. I understand you don't want the public option, which is out, and now you don't want to expand Medicare. I understand your reasons. I don't agree with them. We've got to get to 60. And so we'll take them out,'" Lieberman recalled.
"Most of our active discussion that day was about this OPM [Office of Personnel Management] national private plan idea, because I wanted to make sure there wasn't any sort of fall-back public option in there, which had been in an earlier iteration, and he promised me there wouldn't be."
Emanuel didn't weigh in much on the Medicare compromise, said Lieberman. "He was relatively quiet. He asked a few questions about the national private plan discussion," he said.
Ultimately, said Lieberman, the president wasn't attached to the public option and repeatedly made clear that it was simply a preference.
"Personally, I feel that the bill does what the president set out as his goals: contain costs, expand coverage to some of the millions of people who don't have it now and regulate insurance companies so they treat consumers and patients more fairly. And I remember the president, in his address to Congress earlier this year, said 'I prefer the public option but what I'm really interested in is my goals. If you can achieve my goals in health care reform without a public option, then that's fine with me.' And I think that's what this bill does," said Lieberman.
UPDATE: Reader Bluesue points out that if Lieberman's correct that DeParle searched campaign documents for reference to a public option, she didn't do a very thorough job. The public option -- referred to in the campaign's platform as a "new public plan" -- is mentioned throughout the campaign's health care literature. (PDF)
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December 16, 2009
Tom Coburn Demands 12-Hour Reading Of Single-Payer Amendment On Senate Floor
The GOP mantra, repeated at Tea Parties all summer, was that lawmakers and voters ought to "read the bill" in order to truly understand the many ills of health care reform.
Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), on Wednesday, did his part to help out those who can't read legislation themselves, and asked the Senate clerk to read a single-payer amendment from Sen. Bernie Sanders out loud on the Senate floor. The reading of the 767-page amendment is expected to take about 12 hours. [UPDATE: Several hours into the reading, Sanders took the Senate floor and withdrew his amendment.]
Sanders, an independent from Vermont, first filed his amendment on December 2, so the GOP has indeed had two weeks to read it.
By jamming up Senate business, Coburn's move prevents a vote on a funding bill for the Department of Defense. The current funding provision expires at midnight on Friday.
Coburn said he was doing Americans a favor. "I admire Senator Sanders for his willingness to fight for publically [sic] what many advocate only privately -- a single payer health care system funded and controlled by bureaucrats and politicians in Washington. Every American should listen to the reading of this amendment and pay careful attention to its vote tally," Coburn said in a statement.
"The American people deserve to understand the competing approaches to reform in the U.S. Senate. It's unfortunate that Senator Reid waited until the last minute to introduce his bill and now wants to rush it through the Senate. This reading will provide a dose of transparency that has been lacking in this debate."
The group, "Senate Doctors," a Republican coalition of lawmakers with medical backgrounds, re-tweeted that Coburn was "a rockstar."
Senate Democrats are powerless to prevent the full reading of the amendment due to parliamentary rules. And they don't appreciate the favor. "The only thing that Sen. Coburn's stunt achieves is to stop us from moving to the DoD appropriations bill that funds our troops -- not exactly the kind of Christmas gift that our troops were expecting from Dr. No," said Jim Manley, senior communications adviser to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.).
Coburn has a long and unapologetic career of standing in the way of Senate business.
Sanders provided a summary of his amendment to colleagues: "This amendment would establish a single payer health insurance system that would cover every person legally residing in the United States. The single payer system would be regulated and funded by the federal government through a payroll tax and an income tax, but it would be administered by the states. It would replace the coverage and revenue titles of the current bill, but it would leave in place most of the provisions in the quality, prevention, and workforce titles of the bill. This amendment starts from the premise that health care is a human right, and that every citizen, rich or poor, should have access to health care, just as every citizen has access to the fire department, the police, or public schools."
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Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), on Wednesday, did his part to help out those who can't read legislation themselves, and asked the Senate clerk to read a single-payer amendment from Sen. Bernie Sanders out loud on the Senate floor. The reading of the 767-page amendment is expected to take about 12 hours. [UPDATE: Several hours into the reading, Sanders took the Senate floor and withdrew his amendment.]
Sanders, an independent from Vermont, first filed his amendment on December 2, so the GOP has indeed had two weeks to read it.
By jamming up Senate business, Coburn's move prevents a vote on a funding bill for the Department of Defense. The current funding provision expires at midnight on Friday.
Coburn said he was doing Americans a favor. "I admire Senator Sanders for his willingness to fight for publically [sic] what many advocate only privately -- a single payer health care system funded and controlled by bureaucrats and politicians in Washington. Every American should listen to the reading of this amendment and pay careful attention to its vote tally," Coburn said in a statement.
"The American people deserve to understand the competing approaches to reform in the U.S. Senate. It's unfortunate that Senator Reid waited until the last minute to introduce his bill and now wants to rush it through the Senate. This reading will provide a dose of transparency that has been lacking in this debate."
The group, "Senate Doctors," a Republican coalition of lawmakers with medical backgrounds, re-tweeted that Coburn was "a rockstar."
Senate Democrats are powerless to prevent the full reading of the amendment due to parliamentary rules. And they don't appreciate the favor. "The only thing that Sen. Coburn's stunt achieves is to stop us from moving to the DoD appropriations bill that funds our troops -- not exactly the kind of Christmas gift that our troops were expecting from Dr. No," said Jim Manley, senior communications adviser to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.).
Coburn has a long and unapologetic career of standing in the way of Senate business.
Sanders provided a summary of his amendment to colleagues: "This amendment would establish a single payer health insurance system that would cover every person legally residing in the United States. The single payer system would be regulated and funded by the federal government through a payroll tax and an income tax, but it would be administered by the states. It would replace the coverage and revenue titles of the current bill, but it would leave in place most of the provisions in the quality, prevention, and workforce titles of the bill. This amendment starts from the premise that health care is a human right, and that every citizen, rich or poor, should have access to health care, just as every citizen has access to the fire department, the police, or public schools."
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December 14, 2009
Rahm Emanuel Personally Pressed Reid To Cut Deal With Lieberman: Sources
Rahm Emanuel visited Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in his Capitol office on Sunday evening and personally urged him to cut a deal with recalcitrant Sen. Joe Lieberman, two Democratic sources familiar with the situation told the Huffington Post.
Emanuel, President Obama's chief of staff, has long been identified as leading a faction of White House advisers who have been pushing the Senate simply to pass any health care bill, no matter how weak.
His direct message to Reid (D-Nev.), according to a source close to the negotiations: "Get it done. Just get it done."
Politico reported Monday morning that the White House had pressed Reid to cut the deal after Lieberman (I-Conn) insisted the Senate drop a provision, which Lieberman himself has long favored, to allow those 55-64 to buy in to Medicare. Lieberman is threatening to join a Republican filibuster of the bill if the provision isn't dropped.
The White House denied the report. "The report is inaccurate. The White House is not pushing Senator Reid in any direction. We are working hand in hand with the Senate Leadership to work through the various issues and pass health reform as soon as possible," White House spokesman Dan Pfeiffer wrote in an e-mail to the Plum Line.
The report, however, according to the two sources, was entirely accurate. "We're long past time for these kinds of games," one source said. White House spokesman Reid Cherlin stuck to the denial: "Our statement is true," he said.
Senate Democrats plan to meet Monday evening to see if it is still possible to hash out their differences.
This story was updated to make clear that the sources spoke to the Huffington Post. They may or may not have been the same sources who spoke to Politico.
Emanuel, President Obama's chief of staff, has long been identified as leading a faction of White House advisers who have been pushing the Senate simply to pass any health care bill, no matter how weak.
His direct message to Reid (D-Nev.), according to a source close to the negotiations: "Get it done. Just get it done."
Politico reported Monday morning that the White House had pressed Reid to cut the deal after Lieberman (I-Conn) insisted the Senate drop a provision, which Lieberman himself has long favored, to allow those 55-64 to buy in to Medicare. Lieberman is threatening to join a Republican filibuster of the bill if the provision isn't dropped.
The White House denied the report. "The report is inaccurate. The White House is not pushing Senator Reid in any direction. We are working hand in hand with the Senate Leadership to work through the various issues and pass health reform as soon as possible," White House spokesman Dan Pfeiffer wrote in an e-mail to the Plum Line.
The report, however, according to the two sources, was entirely accurate. "We're long past time for these kinds of games," one source said. White House spokesman Reid Cherlin stuck to the denial: "Our statement is true," he said.
Senate Democrats plan to meet Monday evening to see if it is still possible to hash out their differences.
This story was updated to make clear that the sources spoke to the Huffington Post. They may or may not have been the same sources who spoke to Politico.
Congressional Black Caucus Chair Backs Reid
"I have had an opportunity to speak with Senator Reid and he apologized for his unfortunate remarks concerning the President and he understands the gravity of such remarks. There are too many issues like the economy, job creation and energy for these regrettable comments to distract us from the work that must be done on behalf of the American people," Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), the CBC chair, said in a statement.
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