Why Olympia Snowe Won't Attend Health Care Summit

Why Olympia Snowe Won't be There




The White House specifically invited Sen. Olympia Snowe to the event. (She is the only Senate Republican to have cast a vote in favor of health reform in 2009 - for the Senate Finance Committee bill.) But since her own leadership apparently did not want her there, Snowe declined the White House's late invitation, and a spokesman said in a statement (h/t Chuck Todd):

"Senator Snowe did receive a call from the White House this morning to attend tomorrow's bipartisan health care summit. While she greatly appreciates the invitation, the Republican leadership understood the rules of the summit, as established by the Administration weeks ago, were that the Democratic and Republican leadership would select their own members to participate in the event.

The Republican leadership had long since selected their team and therefore, it would have been inappropriate for Senator Snowe, under those circumstances, to accept the invitation.

This is a summit between the leadership and the President and she believes it is a critical opportunity for the respective leadership teams to convey their ideas directly with the President. Throughout this process, Senator Snowe has been sharing her views with the White House and she assured the White House today that she will continue to play a leadership role on this vital issue in the days and weeks after tomorrow's event."

Sources: TIME

Harry Reid Breaks Senate Gridlock With Bi-Partisan Jobs Bill 62-30

Harry Reid Snags Victory On $15B Jobs Bill



Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid squeezed out a victory on a $15 billion jobs bill after a whirlwind day of frantic negotiations with Republicans.

Reid closed the deal with help from the man who cost him his 60-vote Senate supermajority: Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown.

The 62-30 vote to break a GOP filibuster avoided an embarrassing loss for the embattled majority leader, who faces a tough reelection battle in a state crippled by high unemployment and foreclosure rates. Final passage of the bill could come by Wednesday.

Reid also showed critics who have slammed him as a highly partisan, ineffective leader that he can break the gridlock in the Senate.

The Monday vote allows debate to proceed on the package, which has a range of tax credits and highway funds aimed at creating jobs. Winning passage of even a scaled-back jobs bill is critical for Democrats, who want to show they’re tackling unemployment, which stands at 9.7 percent.

“I hope this is a beginning of a new day here in the Senate,” Reid said immediately after the vote.

The vote came after weeks of tough negotiations that enraged not only Republicans but also moderate members of Reid’s own caucus.

As late as Monday afternoon, leadership aides and key senators were uncertain whether Reid would get the two Republican votes necessary to help the legislation clear a key procedural hurdle. In fact, Democrats were already preparing a Plan B if this vote failed and planned to relentlessly blame Republicans for falling short.

But Reid carefully worked the vote, and Democrats eventually won over Sens.Brown, George Voinovich of Ohio, Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine and Kit Bond of Missouri — enough votes to offset the loss of Nebraska Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson.

The Republicans who voted yes were drawn by a range of tax credits, and Voinovich and Bond specifically mentioned the highway funding in the bill.

The vote was not a sure thing until the very end, as Democrats continued their hard sell right on the Senate floor. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) had an energetic conversation with Collins just minutes before she voted, which he then reported back to Reid. As soon as Kerry walked away, Collins was immediately visited by Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) and Republican leader Mitch McConnell.

Reid made personal overtures to Brown, who based much of his campaign on being an independent voice in Washington.

“This Senate jobs bill is not perfect. I wish the tax cuts were deeper and broader, but I am voting for it because it contains measures that will help put people back to work,” he said in a statement. “I hope my vote today is a strong step toward restoring bipartisanship in Washington.”

Brown refused to say whether he has solicited a specific commitment from Reid in exchange for his support but told reporters to “stay tuned” for a broad-based payroll tax deduction proposal.

Reid picked up Voinovich’s vote with a promise to take up the re-authorization of the transportation bill this year.

“I spoke to Majority Leader Reid prior to this vote, and he assured me that he understands the importance of a surface transportation reauthorization bill,” he said.

Collins called the process a “mistake” but said “the fact remains that the provisions of the bill were acceptable to me.” But she noted that she’d had no conversations with Reid about the bill.

And while this vote was a rare victory for Reid these days, there is still anger over how he handled the process.

Earlier this month, Reid killed a bipartisan jobs deal cut between Sens. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), infuriating Republicans who spent weeks in negotiations. Even Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), the author of a tax provision that became the heart of the Reid bill, voted against the smaller package.

“I don’t know why any senator would trust Harry Reid after he just killed a bipartisan compromise jobs bill,” said a Republican aide. “He basically dumped a must-pass measure with $45 billion in tax relief and said, ‘You know what, screw you guys.’”

Leadership aides say Reid dropped the Baucus-Grassley bill after intense lobbying from liberals in his caucus who doubted Republicans would actually vote for the measure when it came to the floor.

Democratic aides said Schumer called Reid during the blizzard two weeks ago and pushed him to drop the Baucus proposal in favor of the smaller bill. “I find Republicans a moving target here,” said Maryland Democratic Sen. Ben Cardin. “I think the leader would have had problems on any bill.”

The Baucus-Grassley bill was favored by moderates like Arkansas Sen. Blanche Lincoln and Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh, who liked the inclusion of tax extenders for small business, doctors and other corporations and agriculture subsidies.

But those same provisions made liberals wary of the package, which they worried would be characterized as heavy on lobbyist-sought provisions after initial press reports characterized the jobs bill as low on job-creation initiatives.

Reid also killed the compromise measure because McConnell would not commit to supporting the package and insisted on including amendments to the package, Democratic aides said.

Reid then started building his own coalition, working the phones — reaching out a few times to Brown. His efforts were complicated by the announcement that Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) would miss the vote to receive treatment for stomach cancer.

Minutes before the vote, Reid sought to maximize pressure on wayward Republicans, including Bond, saying on the floor that he had received a letter from the Missouri Department of Transportation saying that federal funds to bidders for transportation projects would be postponed “until further notice.”

“Missouri is not alone,” Reid said. “With this bill, we’ll create the right conditions for the private sector to start hiring again, and we’re doing so in the right places.”

With that, he had won Bond’s support and a 2-vote margin of victory. Reid said he expects the jobs bill to pass within two days.


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Sources: Politico, Google Maps

Feingold Angry Over Loss Of Public Option, Snowe Voting No

Feingold: Obama Responsible For Loss Of Public Option

Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.) formally announced on Sunday that he would support the Senate's final version of health care reform. But in doing so he cast blame for the loss of a public option for insurance coverage partially on the president's shoulders and urged House and Senate negotiators to re-insert the government-run plan back into the legislation during conference committee.

From the Wisconsin Democrat's press office came the following statement:

I've been fighting all year for a strong public option to compete with the insurance industry and bring health care spending down. I continued that fight during recent negotiations, and I refused to sign onto a deal to drop the public option from the Senate bill. Unfortunately, the lack of support from the administration made keeping the public option in the bill an uphill struggle. Removing the public option from the Senate bill is the wrong move, and eliminates $25 billion in savings. I will be urging members of the House and Senate who draft the final bill to make sure this essential provision is included.


But while the loss of the public option is a bitter pill to swallow, on balance, the bill still delivers meaningful reform, and the cost of inaction is simply too high. This bill significantly expands coverage and helps protect Wisconsinites from high costs and insurance company abuses, such as denying or restricting coverage based on pre-existing conditions. The bill also improves a flawed Medicare formula that denies Wisconsin fair reimbursement rates, encourages the kind of low-cost, high-value care practiced in our state, increases access to home and community-based long-term care, and reduces federal budget deficits by $132 billion over the next decade.

One of the prominent progressives in Congress, Feingold's statement gives voice to the frustration that many Democrats have felt when watching the health care debate unfold. The Obama White House, quite consciously, refused to draw a line around the public plan even as Senate Democrats practically begged for them to do so.

The decision may have been strategically astute -- positioning the president appropriately for when the public option was to meet its natural sacrifice. But it also opens the president to criticism like Feingold's and it feeds the meme of Obama's timidity.




Olympia Snowe Will Vote Against Health Care Reform


Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), considered one of very few Republicans who might vote for the Senate health care bill, said Sunday that she would not.

"This process denies us the opportunity to thoroughly and carefully and deliberately evaluate what's at stake," she said on CBS.

She also told the New York Times it was a rushed vote on a "a take-it-or-leave-it package."

Democrats no longer need Snowe's vote -- but the Washington Monthly's Steve Benen points out that they courted her anyway only to have her object over the debate's speed.

I just can't figure out what on earth Snowe is talking about. She voted with Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee reform plan, but now appears to be looking for an excuse to oppose the effort. But to sound even remotely credible, Snowe will have to do better than this.

Snowe has been complaining about the speed of the legislative process since July, but therein lies the point: how could this possibl[y] get slower?



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Sources: Huffington Post, CBS News, The Hill, Washington Monthly, Google Maps

Public Option Is Slipping Away...Compromise Only Hope

Reid: Obama pledges to help pass health reform. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says that President Obama pledged to work with Senate Democrats to help pass a health care overhaul, in their closed-door meeting on Capitol Hill. Watch his news conference.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Republicans: Heath care bill "Partisan". Senate Republican leaders say President Obama's health care overhaul has become a closed-door, partisan effort that is aiding drug companies and other medical providers. Watch their news conference.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Chances shrink for pure Public Option


Senate Democrats in search of a health reform compromise Sunday zeroed in on a new alternative to a government-run insurance plan – signaling that the chances a final bill will include a pure public option are diminishing.

The new idea — for the government to create a national health insurance plan similar to the Federal Employee Health Benefits Plan – seemed to gather momentum as the weekend went on, and the differences between liberals and moderates on the public option became even clearer.

The proposal would take the place of a new government insurance plan currently included in the Senate version of the bill, according to officials involved with the negotiations.

The plan would be administered by the Office of Personnel Management, which oversees the federal plan for members of Congress, and all of the insurance options would be not-for-profit offered by private companies.

Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), a public option opponent who is participating in the talks, said the new proposal would do away with the government insurance program in Majority Leader Harry Reid’s current bill, which allows states to “opt-out” of a public option.

“Seems to me it would be in lieu of the public option,” Nelson said. He also said Reid’s “opt-out” idea “is no longer being talked about.”

If the Senate goes in this direction, the challenge for Reid (D-Nev.) is framing this alternative as an acceptable compromise for progressives. Politically, the idea holds appeal for moderates, who have opposed establishing a new government insurance plan, but might also satisfy liberal demands for more choice and competition to private insurers.

“The proposal under consideration can be said to provide access to the same type of insurance plans that members of Congress and federal employees get. People think of that as government health insurance; progressives could portray this in the same vein,” said a Democratic Senate aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the negotiations. “But moderates can simultaneously point to the fact that the government isn’t the payer and say competition was enhanced without growing the government.”

That feature – that the plan would offer policies similar to those members of Congress get – could prove a potent selling point for members of Congress to their constituents back home.

Progressive senators emerged from a three-hour negotiating session Sunday night declining to comment. Asked if the public option has been taken off the table, Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) said: “I’m not going to respond to that one.” Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) would say only that he was hopeful a deal could be reached Monday.

Aides familiar with the negotiations said the meetings are not focused solely on the public option, and that senators who want the public option are seeking other concessions, including stronger regulation of the insurance industry.

There is also discussion of including a public option "fallback" provision, which would trigger a government health plan if private insurers did not choose to take part in the program — an unlikely outcome.

Jacob Hacker, a Yale University professor who originated the public option concept, posted a blog item on The New Republic website titled “You Call This a Compromise?” He said the latest crop of alternatives, including the plan modeled after the federal employees’ health program, represent “abandonment of the public option altogether.” It appears to be nothing more than a new kind of insurance exchange, which is already in the bill, he said.

And Timothy Jost, a health-law expert at Washington and Lee University School of Law, wrote on POLITICO’s Arena that replicating the federal employees’ health plan “was the dumbest idea yet.” Nonprofit insurance plans currently dominate the market, and they haven’t reduced the cost of insurance, he wrote.

The group directed their staff to work through the night on the proposals in preparation for what could be a key meeting Monday afternoon.

“You have people of very diverse and strong views who are making a real effort to come together,” said Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), a public-option supporter who has become an intermediary between liberals and moderates. “But people have strong views and we’ll have to see where people end up.”

Progressives are represented by Feingold, Harkin, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.V.). The moderate side is represented by Nelson, Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), Sen. Thomas Carper (D-Del.), and Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.).

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), a public option opponent, did not attend the meeting but his staff was present.

The group came together only in the last few days, representing the first time in the months-long process that key liberals and moderates sat at the same table.

Earlier Sunday, President Barack Obama paid a rare weekend visit to the Senate as the talks heated up. Obama and Vice President Joe Biden called on Senate Democrats to set aside differences and pass legislation by the end of the year. “They’re doing great; they’re going to get it done,” Obama said as he departed the 45-minute closed-door meeting in the Mansfield Room.

On Sunday night, with progress being reported, the senators ordered Chinese food from Schumer’s favorite restaurant, Hunan Dynasty on Capitol Hill, and at one point, they turned on the Giants-Cowboys game. Senators later attributed raucous applause heard from the hallway to the football game, not a sudden breakthrough in the talks.

Reid said he had personally asked five moderates and five progressives to work things out on the issues that they care about, including the public option and small business coverage. “Progress is being made, and that’s not just talk. We’ve made a lot of progress,” Reid said.

“There are still a few things we have to work out [in] the bill, and the issues are being narrowed as we speak. We’re working toward a consensus. We’re not there, but we understand how important it is that we arrive at a consensus, and we’re going to do that just as quickly as we can.”

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said there are several options on the table that liberal and conservative Democrats are considering in order to strike a deal on the public insurance option in the health care debate — and that negotiations are still ongoing.

And Durbin, who is a big supporter of the public option, is very much open to striking a deal.

“I’m looking for an alternative that creates competition for the health insurance companies,” he said on “Fox News Sunday.”

Reflecting on the moment, Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) said that Democrats should be able to get a bill done when they have a Democratic president and a pair of congressional majorities. “We've got to get this done in order to demonstrate we can get something this substantial done, even in a difficult economy and a difficult political environment,” he said.

Reid doesn’t have much wiggle room if he expects to finish the bill by Christmas.

Under the best-case scenario, Reid could reach a tentative deal on the public option during the first half of the week and send the revised plan to the Congressional Budget Office for a cost estimate, which is likely to take several days.

Once he receives the estimate, Reid would seek firm commitments on votes, which he will want to lock in before taking the procedural steps necessary to cut off debate on the bill. Aides say the goal is to start taking those procedural steps by the end of this week.

Democrats would then need to hold together 60 senators on three procedural votes and three votes on the bill. The votes could unfold over a roughly nine-day period, ending just before the Christmas break.

Democrats remain seriously concerned about Nelson, who is considered less likely by Senate aides to vote for the bill than are Sens. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) and Lieberman, whose interests align more closely with the caucus. As long as the public option is sufficiently tailored to their liking, Snowe and Lieberman can likely be persuaded, aides said.

Snowe met with Obama on Saturday, and the two discussed her “trigger” proposal, under which a public option would kick in if private insurers didn’t adequately expand coverage. Snowe also met with moderate Democrats on the floor, and they plan to continue talks Monday. Snowe, however, is not part of the talks among Democratic liberals and moderates

Nelson is a tougher case. He has not only taken an uncompromising position on abortion, demanding stronger language to prohibit federal funding of abortion. He has also voted against all but one Democratic amendment so far, aside from those that received unanimous support from the body. Nelson’s voting record on the bill suggests a general dislike for key aspects of it.

Nelson’s position could become clearer after an expected vote this week on his anti-abortion amendment. Nelson has said he will not compromise, but he also signaled Friday that he wouldn’t do so until after the vote.

With Nelson as a wild card, the need to win over Snowe and Lieberman become all the more important — and that means progressives will be asked to make serious concessions on the public plan.

Obama’s visit came ahead of a busy time in his schedule that could make another Capitol Hill visit difficult, with a pair of trips to Europe for the Nobel Peace Prize and the Copenhagen climate summit. Then he’s scheduled to depart for Hawaii shortly before Christmas.

Despite repeated calls from lawmakers for more direction, Obama has picked his spots over the last 11 months. He has taken significant steps – a visit to the Hill, a major speech, a private meeting at the White House – only when he and his aides considered them necessary.

But given the decisions Reid needs to make in the coming days, Sunday may prove to be a pivotal moment.

Along with Obama and Biden were Deputy Press Secretary Bill Burton, senior adviser David Axelrod, health care “czar” Nancy-Ann DeParle, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, and chief legislative liaison Phil Schiliro.

The only speakers, senators said after, were the president and Reid.

“We're really pretty much staying out,” said Sebelius when asked if the administration would take a side on the negotiations over the public option. “The discussions are really among the members of the Senate.”

Sen. Roland Burris (D-Ill.) said Obama “said it would be the greatest legislation since FDR passed Social Security."

Lieberman, who is open to supporting the bill so long as it does not include a public option, noted that Obama didn’t bring up the idea: “He didn't. I don't think he once talked about the public option. He didn't. That's what I'm saying. I thought it was interesting.”

Reid, asked about the comment, responded, “the President didn't say a lot of things. Senator Lieberman said that to me after the meeting also, but that doesn't mean it's not an issue because the President didn't talk about it.”

But Lieberman said even the benefits of health reform legislation wouldn’t outweigh his concerns about a public option enough to vote for the bill if that provision stays in.

“No!” Lieberman told reporters. “That’s exactly what I’ve been saying to my colleagues who are pushing for the public option. This bill has so much good in it, and it does so much good — it’s deficit neutral and all the rest. Why are you insisting on getting a foot in the door for single-payer?”


Sources: Politico, MSNBC