...The Senate version is not worth passing, former Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean told POLITICO, referring to plans to strip the latest compromise from the bill, a Medicare buy-in. I think in this particular iteration, this is the end of the road for reform.
Dean said there are some good elements in the bill, but lawmakers should pull the plug and revisit the issue in Obamas second term, unless Democrats are willing to shortcut a GOP filibuster. No one will think this is health care reform. This is not even insurance reform, he said.
The White House pushed back hard at liberals complaints Tuesday, with Obama talking up whats in the plan but not saying a word about whats been left out:
A single-payer plan, a public option, a state opt-out of the public option, a trigger and a Medicare buy-in all ideas pushed by Democrats and blessed by Obama at various times but now gone from the bill.
But its not just the liberal base thats feeling unsettled. Obama has also proved frustrating to moderates, who simply wanted to know where Obamas core principles on health care stood, all the better to cut a deal to the presidents liking.
Time and again, he rebuffed Democrats requests to speak up more forcefully about what he wanted a strategy that allowed Obama to preserve maximum flexibility to declare victory at the end of the process, no matter what the final bill looked like.
He began that process in earnest Tuesday after a meeting with Senate Democrats, who are resigned to dropping a Medicare buy-in compromise to win the vote of Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and get the 60 votes needed to pass a bill.
...Obamas need to pass a reform bill ahead of the 2010 elections drove the political calculus as the calendar turned to December, when the days grew short and the pressure to sign something, anything, began to take precedence. Otherwise, Democrats risked facing voters next fall with little to show for a full year of twin congressional majorities. Its what drove White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel to urge Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to cut a deal with Lieberman.
The final bill isnt even close to a bill then-U.S. Senate candidate Obama spoke of in 2003, when he said, I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer, universal health care plan, using the terms that commonly refer to a government-run health insurance system.
...But whatever Democrats can pass now if they can pass anything at all also will fall short of ideas Obama discussed during the year to create a public health insurance plan to provide competition to private insurance companies and keep them honest.
Yet perhaps what angers liberals the most is that Obama himself never seemed willing to push hard enough for the public option and, in fact, all but took it off the table in August when he said he could sign a bill that didnt include it.
Once Obama said he didnt need a public option, these progressives argue, there was no cost or penalty to be paid by a Lieberman or a Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) or a Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) for taking to the Senate floor and opposing it, too.
Progressives feel betrayed, but are not surprised, by the Senates move to drop the Medicare buy-in and the public option. They blame Reid and Obama for not exercising their power to fight for the provisions.
Obamas failure to demand a public option and Reids decision to take reconciliation off the table emboldened moderates who might have thought twice about challenging a popular president or a Democratic majority comfortable with using Senate procedure to pass a bill with 51 votes.
...If Obama was hoping for a triumphant announcement out of a rare White House meeting with the entire Senate Democratic Caucus Tuesday, his measured tone and acknowledgment that differences remain showed how much work is still ahead for Democrats eager to wrap up by Christmas.
Reid was still awaiting a price tag on his bill from congressional scorekeepers, and Nelson said he still cant support the current version of the bill, which lacks the tough anti-abortion language he seeks.
But after leaving the White House meeting, even some of the staunchest public option advocates seemed resigned to passing a bill without it or the Medicare buy-in, a sort of public option for people ages 55 to 64 a sign of a split between liberal elected officials and the activist base. Obamas argument that Democrats shouldnt pass up a once-in-a-generation chance to achieve reform appeared to be sinking in.
Brown, who has said several times throughout this process including two weekends ago that the president needed to get more involved, brushed aside any introspection about what the loss of the public option says about Democrats or the president.
It says something about the math here, Brown said. Youve got to get all 60 Democrats and independents, and it is hard to do. I want to continue to talk to people. ... I like the bill. I just think we could make it better. ...