Pelosi Warns (Again): "No Public Option, No HC Reform Bill"

Politico----

Pelosi's trump card: the Public Option

(Both Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi & Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid comment on Pres. Obama's upcoming Health Care Reform "Game Changer" speech.)



(The Huffington Post’s Lawrence O’Donnell talks about whether President Barack Obama’s speech to a joint session of Congress Wednesday night will reunite his party on health care reform and include a Public Option.)

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Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi finally has a trump card.

Tired of watching helplessly as House bills are carved up to win support from conservative Democrats and moderate Republicans in the Senate, the speaker has a message for President Barack Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid: Take the public option out of health care reform, and you may not have a bill at all.

“Every time we have had a negotiation, Reid and [White House chief of staff] Rahm [Emanuel] say you have to accept this or that because we need the 60 votes [for cloture],” says a senior Democratic aide in the House. “That’s true this time. The difference now is that Pelosi can turn right back at them and say, ‘I can’t pass this in the House without the progressives.’ And that will be true, too.”

Pelosi’s leverage in her perpetual push-pull with Reid has been boosted by a rebellion among Pro-Public-Option progressives, African-American and Hispanic House members, who say they are tired of being shortchanged by the White House and will vote no rather than OK a bill without the public option.

Democratic insiders say Pelosi is intent on harnessing that liberal power play as the only way to keep the public option alive, even if it’s in a watered-down form.

Last week, in the hours after Obama announced his Wednesday health care speech, Pelosi, the Congressional Progressive Caucus and the Congressional Black Caucus issued a volley of statements and letters warning the president from throwing the option overboard in the name of deal-cutting.

Dozens of members from those groups have signaled their intention to vote against any bill without a public option — and the bill could, indeed, go down if a sizable proportion of them join the GOP and conservative Democrats in opposing the package.

“They’re for real this time,” said a Democratic senator, speaking on condition of anonymity.

House liberals, including Pelosi lieutenant Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), are still smarting from February’s stimulus negotiations, when Reid stripped out hundreds of millions in House projects, including school construction funding, to secure the support of moderates such as Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine).

Progressive lawmakers are intent on avoiding a repeat, arguing that they — like conservative Democrats — got an earful from angry constituents during the August break.

The difference is that their enraged audiences came at them from the left, pushing for universal coverage, a crackdown on insurers and a public plan to keep private insurance companies honest.

“Frustration is frustration, and we’re the ones there,” Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.), co-chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said of the little-covered liberal ruckus.

Pelosi met with Reid and Obama at the White House on Tuesday, and she emerged in a defiant mood, vowing to keep the public plan alive, even as the Senate Finance Committee released a draft bill with no such provision — and her No. 2, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), suggested the option could be ditched.

“I believe the public option is essential to our passing this legislation out of the House,” Pelosi told reporters after meeting with Reid and Obama.

Later in the day, Pelosi cut Hoyer off as he hedged about the need for a public option. “In order to pass a bill in the House, it must have a public option,” she said.

Pelosi also warned insurance companies to accept a public option without a trigger, arguing that a public plan triggered by high premiums or other insurer bad behavior would be much harsher than one negotiated now.

“They’d be better getting a Public Option now. ... They’ll have a tougher public option to deal with later,” she said.


Sources: Politico, Whitehouse.gov, MSNBC, Countdown with Keith Olbermann