It's been a long and frustrating summer for Oregon citizens who have been hungry for some indication--any indication, really--of Senator Ron Wyden's true position on health care reform. We've covered it at LO ad infinitum (and some in Wyden's camp may change the last word to nauseum), and have gotten no further than where we started: Wyden claims to "be open to" an unspecified public option, although his first preference is for his own bill, the Healthy Americans Act--which doesn't have a PO. And as we reported last week, one of his colleagues claims that Wyden has let them know he's perfectly willing to "get off" the public option when the time comes.
So is he supporttive, coercable, against, waffling? As I've heard the various staffers say at various times, "The Senator is not willing to speculate at this time." Sucks to be us, I guess.
But we're not giving up, and we need your help to continue reminding the Senator who he works for, and that it's entirely reasonable to expect him to be clearer on his position. I also think given his status as a senior Democratic Senator from a blue state that surely mirrors (at least!) the high level of approval for a PO that exists nationwide, he could go crazy and declare his support for the HELP bill already out of committee, pledge to vote against any bill in his Finance Committee that doesn't include a robust PO, or pledge to vote for any bill in conference that contains a PO. But let's not push his delicate buttons too firmly just yet. First things first.
And this is where you come in. A major push has been underway by national bloggers like Jane Hamsher at FireDogLake, and Chris Bowers at Open Left, along with progressive groups like Democracy for America and Health Care for America Now. Through various pledge letters covering what they will and won't go for, over 60 House Democrats and 45 Senate Dems have made their stand for real reform. The House Gang is enough to hold the line there, and if five more Senators can be signed on by the time they return to DC next month, there'd be enough in that chamber to pass strong reform under reconciliation.
Junior Senator Jeff Merkley is one of those 45, and has been pretty clear about it. Senator Wyden? Not so much. And so he's made the list of Sens on the Hot Seat for this issue, the focus of a national campaign to get those final five committments and stand strong when recess ends.
What would we like you to do? It's so easy a Cave Junction* man could do it! Send Wyden a fax! "But I got rid of my fax machine the same year I stopped having to carry around a big plug-in box for my cell phone," you may be saying. Not to worry, the Toobz can now do all that faxing stuff for you, right online. Here, click on this hyperlink! It will take you to a page to enter your information (so Wyden knows who he's getting it from and it's not just a vacuous form fax), and then submit your message. (If you'd rather call or send a snail mail, that works too!)
Below the fold I'll show you the example, and then what I wrote for my comments. Obviously, it will be more effective and taken more seriously if you don't use the form version, but your fax will still count if you do. It's probably just fine to use the questions verbatim, but think about using your own words if at all possible. If you're fired up and ready to fax, get cracking, otherwise click below decks...
Daily Kos' mcjoan got herself a bit of a scoop the other day, somehow getting her hands on what is normally a private list--an insider's Congressional whip count, this one from the House Congressional Progressive Caucus on health care reform, pledging to vote AGAINST any bill without strong reform principles. I noticed a key Oregon omission from that list, and asked--with reply--why that was. Meanwhile, over on the Senate side the GOP's primary goal of slowing down health care to kill it is being given a boost by none other than our senior Senator. We'll take a brief look at both, below. {really, go below!}
So in yesterday's Medford Mail Tribune, one of the featured op-eds was co-written by a 50-year nurse and OHSU professor--and her writing partner is a small business owner, another group we should be listening to on the subject. I'll let you read the whole thing, but they bring up some points about Wyden's bill that we haven't touched upon here, so I'll reprint those:
Wyden's legislation contains substantive problems beyond its lack of a public health insurance option. It eliminates two successful public programs: Medicaid and S-CHIP, health insurance for poor adults and children, respectively. In their place, Wyden would provide subsidies for the poor to purchase private insurance. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities concludes, however, that neither the level of the subsidies offered nor the annual increases allotted will adequately cover low-income individuals and families, leaving them worse off than they are now.
Ron Wyden has championed his own brand of health-care reform for years. He claims his approach is winnable because he has bipartisan support. Look again. Wyden wrote his bill during the Bush administration. It was an innovative idea at the time. But, over the past three years, he's recruited only 14 of his colleagues to sign on as co-sponsors. And five out of the seven Democratic co-sponsors have come out in support of a public option.
We believe there can be no real health-care reform without the option of a public health insurance plan. Even Maine Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe says, "We can't entirely depend on the private insurance market to deliver. They haven't delivered thus far; that's why we're in the predicament we're in today."
I had not heard about the CBPP analysis of Wyden's plan with regard to subsidies for the poor; if their take is accurate, then it's one more reason to see why the GOP likes it so much: not only does it not create good public health care, it takes away some of that which we already have.
The 90s were a festival of "block grant" bills, where long-standing traditional funding of national priorities were dismantled and replaced by bulk subsidies to states, within certain parameters to use (or not) however they wished. In some cases it does allow states to experiment and tailor the funding to their specific needs, but in others it's simply an excuse to cut previous funding levels and divert the money elsewhere. For health care--where the insurance industry has been very successful in gaining favorable state legislation--it stands to be a disaster.
Interestingly, the authors cite Wyden as "opposing" the public option bill in Jeff Merkley's HELP Committee, something Wyden would probably object to with his standard "I support it, if..." rejoinder. But after repeated attempts from media and constituents alike to pin the Senator down on his specific views, maybe it's not so inaccurate. If you support something, generally you say so. If you don't support it, but there is political risk for that stance, generally you avoid saying so, perhaps even while trying to make it seem as if you DO support it. Like, by saying you support it, if...
Here's one more paragraph that aptly sums up the argument for a strong public option: it's effective policy:
A public option significantly can decrease costs by increasing competition, emphasizing prevention and primary care and streamlining paperwork. Just as important, we would all receive quality, affordable health care while choosing between keeping our current insurance, shopping the private market for the best deal or enrolling in a public health insurance plan that cannot be taken away.
In this topsy turvy world I find myself in, where I've spent the last couple of months holding Senator Wyden's feet to the fire on health care while repeatedly praising my weak 2nd choice of 2008, Jeff Merkley, here's another round: while Barack Obama and Harry Reid try to hint Wyden into dumping his Health Americans Act, Merkley is back from recess with a renewed committment to substantive reform, and wants you to know about it. So in full, Merkley's statement (and note once more his strong advocacy for a full and robust public option, which I call FRPO):
At the beginning of July, I held town hall meetings in Umatilla, Polk, Clackamas, Linn, Marion, and Multnomah Counties. At each meeting, the most prominent issue of concern was health care.
People of all walks of life are paying dramatically more for health care than they used to. These high costs are hurting our families and our small businesses. Last year, we spent 17 percent of our gross domestic product on health care; in the last nine years, costs have doubled for the average family. In May, Oregon’s largest insurer announced that the average small business premium was going up 14.7 percent -- on top of a 26 percent increase last year. Health care costs are an increasing drag on our economy and the pocketbooks of working families.
In my role on the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, I’ve been working with my colleagues on a plan for health care reform that will lower costs, provide consumers with more choices, and increase competition.
The change would work like this: Americans who are happy with their current health plan can keep it. But if you don’t like your plan and you want to look at other options, we’re going to make sure you have a choice of quality, affordable health plans. This will lower costs and it will also force insurance companies to provide better services to their customers.
One of those options will be a community health insurance plan offered by the federal government. This public option will be an additional choice to increase competition, lower prices, and keep insurance companies honest, so families won’t be entirely at the mercy of the insurance companies. Most Oregonians I’ve talked to – and about three-quarters of Americans according to the polls – like the idea of having a choice of what type of plan they want rather than having the federal government make that decision for them.
Over the next few months, we’ll be engaging in a nationwide discussion about the direction of health care in our country. We’ll have before us a choice between a system that gets more and more expensive every year, leaves middle class families one pink slip from losing their health coverage, and makes our businesses less competitive, or an improved model that increases health care options, expands care, and lowers costs. I don’t think we can afford to do nothing.
We have a once in a generation opportunity to remake our health care system for the better. I invite you to contact my office and talk to your friends and family about your opinion because we can only enact real change if you make your voices heard.
A bit delayed, given that the rally was Friday, but I did go down and cover the event in front of Senator Wyden's Portland office, snapped a couple of photos, and talked with Lisa Caballero, the volunteer organizer while getting a copy of her statement and testimonials from ordinary Oregonians about their strong desire for a public option.
See, that was the reason for the rally, to try and push Wyden towards a full and robust public option (FRPO). Here's a picture of them doing that!
The shot I have here is cropped a bit; the strength of the rally was a definite 50+ and closer to 75 by my headcount. (That's easily double or triple the group who came out for single payer, although I did recognize some overlap). They spoke, chanted and got honks for about 20 minutes before dispersing, but they did deliver their petition (more on that below), raise some awareness and earn media attention (WWeek and the Merc).
Here's the transcription of the audio I got talking to Caballero after the rally, which wasn't really conducted as a formal interview--but she does make some good points which echoed her speech:
People don't quite understand the politics of what's happening. Wyden keeps making these statements that are quite confusing to someone that's not bothering to dig and be informed. I have had people just from this event say, "why are you out here? Wyden is supporting a public option." Well actually he's not; if you listen to what he's saying, he's saying he supports a public option if it's "sustainably financed." And then he doesn't describe what that is.
I would be happier if he just said, "I disagree with you; we don't see eye to eye on this and this is what I'm supporting, can I convince you?" But instead, he's deliberately not being straightforward to people that aren't up to their neck in this issue It's confusing to people. So I think we're really getting down to the point where he needs to come out and make a statement. This week Sen. Kennedy's committee has come out with a bill. There's something on the table. It's been vetted by the Congressional Budget Office, and so they've got a number on it. My question to Sen. Wyden is, does he consider the finances of that bill to be sustainably financed?
The problem that starts happening with someone like me is I'm not a professional. I'm not an economist, I'm not a policy wonk, I just read the newspaper. So I can't argue policy with complicated answers like that about Senate procedures. But I just get the feeling that I'm not being dealt with straightforwardly.
As nothstine aptly noted this morning, there's some national blogger blowback hitting Senator Ron Wyden in the face today: Atrios has named him the Wanker of the Day, and Digby goes into somewhat more detail that concludes the same thing--the continued obsession of Wyden for bipartisan results on health care reform is bizarre, pointless, and decidedly NOT conducive to getting effective reform passed.
The original source of their ire is a piece published last night by Huffington Post's Sam Stein, showing that indeed, Wyden continues to operate under the assumption that inter-party comity is the prime directive. That may have been relatively stomach-able when it was Gordon Smith and Mt. Hood Wilderness, but it's just damned foolish on health care. Some relevant bits from Stein:
In an interview this week with the Huffington Post, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) maintained that there was still "great interest in the Finance Committee for a bipartisan bill on both sides of the aisle" and he urged lawmakers to continue to pursue a collaborative path. He would not comment directly on news that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had urged the Committee's Chairman, Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) to drop efforts to attract Republican support. But he also didn't hide his own preferences.
"I'm committed to the priority that the president laid out," said Wyden. "I think the president got it right. He said 'I want to get it done this year' and he also indicated that his first choice is to have a bipartisan bill because he recognizes that a bipartisan bill allows the country to come together."
Asked whether he would support cloture on health care legislation that he would ultimately oppose -- so as to preempt a Republican filibuster -- Wyden was noncommittal.
Funny thing, how the President's directive on bipartisanship is to be heeded no matter what--but his directive on including a public option to be ignored, much like his opinion that Wyden's bill is 'too radical' to be considered among reform options. Does anyone else find it extremely weird for an otherwise intelligent Senator to brush off contending with serious policy choices, but is ready to go to the mattresses over process--and a fully meaningless process at that?
What really chaps me, however, is the last line of that excerpt: asked whether he would support cloture, Wyden could not commit. Every Democrat in Congress, House or Senate, from ultralib Keith Ellison to newjack freak Arlen Specter, should be compelled to have a kneejerk answer ready every time this question comes up: Of COURSE I'll support cloture, even if I might vote against the bill. Failure on this point is to allow that maybe the absurd manipulations of a rump regional party have some merit, and should possibly be supported.
I have to say, while I've showed repeated and strong disappointment with Senator Wyden on this issue, I've defended his integrity and committment to doing his job in the best way he knows. As much as I think he's dead wrong and showing a seriously poor grasp of what Democrats were elected to do the last two cycles, if he thinks Broderism reigns supreme all I can do is bitch. But there is no logical justifiation--NONE--for hemming and hawing over whether you'd vote for cloture so that the concept of majority rule can actually start getting applied like it used to be. Under what circumstances could he possibly see for voting to prolong debate on a Democratic health care bill?
Reid, whose leadership is considered crucial if President Barack Obama is to deliver on his promise of enacting health care reform this year, offered the directive to Baucus through an intermediary after consulting with Senate Democratic leaders during Tuesday morning’s regularly scheduled leadership meeting. Baucus was meeting with Finance ranking member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) Tuesday afternoon to relay the information.
According to Democratic sources, Reid told Baucus that taxing health benefits and failing to include a strong government-run insurance option of some sort in his bill would cost 10 to 15 Democratic votes; Reid told Baucus it wasn’t worth securing the support of Grassley and at best a few additional Republicans.
As I said, if you're among the 3/4ths of Americans who would like a full and robust public healthcare option (FRPO), this is potentially very good news--a bloc of Senators has apparently made it clear to Reid that they will not support any bill that fails to provide a FRPO.
But what does this have to do with Oregon, specifically? Look at the particular positions Reid is redlining in his "advice" to Baucus: a "strong government-run insurance option"" and "taxing health benefits." Who can think of an existing health care proposal that lacks a FRPO and taxes health care benefits?
If you said "Ron Wyden's Health Americans Act," you've been paying attention. Despite protestations that his bill allows for states to create their own, much smaller public exchanges, and that only people with "Cadillac benefits" will see their benefits taxed, what you still end up with is a non-FRPO plan with a benefit-tax funding structure (among other things that I DO in fact like, such as capital gains and estate tax reform--but those things should be happening anyway).
I've said all along that a plan failing to include what Americans most want (FRPO) and including what they do NOT want (a tax on benefits), is not going to make much political headway. And now Reid has validated that analysis, declaring 10-15 immediate defectors on those grounds alone. Couple that with the evisceration that the President did on the central feature of HAA--shifting the insurance process from employers to individuals--and Wyden's plan starts to look an awful lot like the Black Knight in Monty Python's Holy Grail:
{more, including fresh comments from Wyden in today's WWeek, below}
I have rather obviously been laser-focused lately, on what I consider the most compelling and achievable task of this most important year in President Obama's tenure, and of the (ostensibly) now-fully-Democratic Congress--meaningful health care reform. The push and pull of influence is in full swing, and one of the most heavily targeted Members is Oregon's senior Senator, Ron Wyden.
Of course, he's being targeted because he's one of the coy Democrats when it comes to the signature shift in mind for the majority of the caucus: a full and robust public option (FRPO). In a nutshell, he claims to back a public choice in some format, but invariably undercuts it with a deep concern for fiscal reticence that apparently threatens even the idea of a FRPO in his mind, because he'll finish it off with another plug for his own plan, the Healthy Americans Act--which has at best a weak allowance for a de-scaled choice offering and so undercuts his "support" even more.
But maybe it's me, right? Maybe I'm just the extremist harpy blogger who can't accept the pragmatics of the situation, and the obvious need to forge bipartisanship with a collective group who have almost literally vowed in public to kill meaningul reform of any kind this Congress. Call it my Broderian blind spot.
Come to discover, it's not just me. Others are asking him the four questions of reform, and he's not doing much more than repeating the above dance. And these people don't seem like cranks...but you be the judge.
(Bumping to the top as a reminder--apparently there is also a rally today at 1230p for his Salem office, Federal Building, 310 W. 6th St, Rm 118... - promoted by torridjoe)
If you're feeling itchy about where Senator Wyden stands on a full and robust public option (FRPO)--and why shouldn't you be, considering he continues to press his own bill that doesn't contain one?--here's a chance to represent:
Public Option Now! Health Care Rally
Sen. Ron Wyden's District Office, 1220 SW 3rd Avenue, Suite 585 (Map) Portland, OR 97204
Thursday, July 09th, 12:00 PM
MoveOn is sponsoring the rally, and has been working furiously to get its membership out on the hustings, trying to fulfill FDR's imperative when asked to support progressive policy: "Make me do it." The only way that Wyden will come out openly and strongly for a FRPO, and finally ditch his weaker alternative, is the same way that Arlen Specter, Ben Nelson, Dianne Feinstein and Kay Hagan have been made to come around: they've been shamed and warned into it.
Two interesting and potentially game-changing happenings went down yesterday, both of which would seem to be positives for the drive to see a full and robust public option (FRPO) included in any health care reform bill that passes Congress. Plus I've got news of a demonstration in Portland that goes even beyond that, and continues to press for action on a single-payer plan.
First, the President made front page news in The Oregonian this morning, by commenting at some length on the health care bill being carried by Senator Ron Wyden. Obama was as usual polite and mostly glancing in his criticisms, but he was indeed critical of the plan:
"There are a lot of good concepts to what Ron's proposing," Obama said. But despite his professed agreement with "90 percent" of Wyden's thinking, he said parts of the plan are too "radical" for the country.
Wyden argues that linking health care costs to individuals will promote competition and drive down costs. But Obama said that is too sharp a departure from what workers have known -- and become comfortable with -- for generations.
That fundamental shift, along with the major changes in the tax code that Wyden proposes, are too "radical," Obama said, when aligned with all the other changes that must take place to provide health insurance to 47 million Americans who don't have it.
The president said his discussions with Wyden are similar to those with people who advocate a single-payer system. In theory, those plans work, he said. "The problem is, we have evolved partly by accident into an employer-based system."
A "radical restructuring" would meet "significant political resistance," Obama said, and "families who are currently relatively satisfied with their insurance but are worried about rising costs ... would get real nervous about a wholesale change."
Oregon does have one Senator who's willing to come out and stake his claim for a full and robust public option (FRPO)--junior Senator Jeff Merkley. In this video recorded today at Pioneer Square outside KGW's new studios there, Merkley affirms his support for a public option, one that competes directly with private insurance and cuts costs using Medicare-style bargaining rules with providers. He also takes time to parry some of the built-in skepticism of his interviewer, who seems awfully concerned for the health of private insurers (as opposed to say, the insured or those who would like to be). Watch the video, below:
Two weeks ago today, we joined with Dr. Howard Dean in asking Oregonians to stand with him and petition their Senators for a full and robust public option (which I call FRPO for short). Oregon is one of the key states in building support for a FRPO, given Senator Ron Wyden's reticence to fully back a FRPO that would directly compete against his own health care bill, which does not include one.
A couple of days later Health Care for America Now began running ads asking constituents in a number of states contact their representatives asking for a FRPO as well. Wyden was unmoved, even a little hostile about it:
"I get an election certificate from the people of Oregon," said Wyden, whose bipartisan health bill picked up its 14th co-sponsor last week. "As far as these ads are concerned, I pay them no attention."
So we joined HCAN in their efforts as well, and encouraged readers to contact Senator Wyden in writing and ask these four questions:
Do you support a public healthcare option as part of healthcare reform?
If so, do you support a public healthcare option that is available on day one?
Do you support a public healthcare option that is national, available everywhere, and accountable to Congress?
Do you support a public healthcare option that can bargain for rates from providers and big drug companies?
(There's still time for you to ask, of course; here's some contact info):
We tried ourselves to ask the questions, contacting State Communications Director Tom Towslee by email and posing them on June 17th, and again on the 19th after no reply. The second time was the charm, sort of--Towslee's reply to the specific questions was to re-send quotes from Wyden denying he supported a trigger, claiming he wasn't "married" to his own plan, and would support a public option that was "responsibily and sustainably financed." Pressed twice more to reply to the specific questions posed--crucial to determining whether Wyden supports a FRPO or a watered down version like the non-robust state option he touts in his bill--no further reply has emerged over the following week-plus.
What to conclude? It's fairly simple, really--Senator Wyden apparently doesn't want you, his constituency, to know whether he supports a FRPO or not. He isn't willing to tell you whether he supports a national plan. He isn't willing to say whether he supports that national plan on day one, and whether he supports a national plan that could directly compete with private insurers.
There's certainly no political risk in declaring his support; overwhelming majorities of Americans have shown in repeated surveying that they definitely want some kind of FRPO in their health care reform. So why the reticence? Maybe that should become the fifth question you can ask...and maybe the sixth can be: "Whose interests are you representing by remaining coy on the issue?"
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