Frank: I Hope Some GOP Senators Will Support Health Care Reform -- Because Without Them, Bill May Be

[HomerRamone]

Source: Talking Points Memo

Frank: I Hope Some GOP Senators Will Support Health Care Reform -- Because Without Them, Bill May Be Toast

Rachel Maddow read a lengthy -- and surprising -- statement on her show tonight from Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA). Reacting to Republican Scott Brown's win in the Massachusetts' special election for Ted Kennedy's senate seat, Frank said it would be wrong for Democrats to try to muscle health care reform legislation through Congress now that they only had 59 Senate votes.

Brown's win gives Republicans 41 votes in the Senate and robs Democrats of the fragile 60-vote supermajority.

Frank seemed to suggest that without support from at least some Republican senators, health care reform, at least in this iteration, wouldn't happen.

Here's Frank's statement, as presented by Maddow:


I have two reactions to the election in Massachusetts. One, I am disappointed. Two, I feel strongly that the Democratic majority in congress must respect the process and make no effort to bypass the electoral results. If Martha Coakley had won, I believe we could have worked out a reasonable compromise between the House and Senate health care bills. But since Scott Brown has won and the Republicans now have 41 votes in the senate, that approach is no longer appropriate. I am hopeful that some Republican senators will be willing to discuss a revised version of health care reform. Because I do not think that the country would be well served by the health care status quo. But our respect for democratic procedures must rule out any effort to pass a health care bill as if the Massachusetts election had not happened. Going forward, I hope there will be a serious effort to change the senate rule which means that 59 are not enough to pass major legislation, but those are the rules by which the health care bill was considered, and it would be wrong to change them in the middle of this process.

Read more: http://tpmlivewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/01/frank-i-hope-some-gop-senators-will-support-health-care-reform----because-without-them-bill-may-be-t.php

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Some people expect the Dems to get *bolder* now??!!

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. I am going to start like reaching for my tinfoil

with statements like this...

[Wapsie B]

2. With the Bluedogs there was no supermajority anyway.

[thereismore]

3. 60? 60!? We need 60? Since freaking when. Only if Barney secretly wishes for this to FAIL. nt

[cascadiance]

40. So, why did we not fillibuster Alito? Right! GOP threatened to go nuclear! Time to go nuclear NOW!

and get RID of the filibuster! No more "60 vote" excuses! If some of those Senators who say they want to vote for real HCR and claim they are blocked by this 60 votes nonsense, time has come to get rid of this rule so that they have to step up to the bar and vote the way they are talking! If they don't and we have more than a few blue dog votes to get rid of, we need to know NOW before the primaries come up to get someone in that doesn't BS us and backs up their talk with actions to support the people's wishes!

[Generator]

46. If you are paying attention

it sure looks like one mighty big con. There are no Democrats left.

[kayla9170]

4. No Health Care Reform.....this year

Or any year. Its' done.............

[still_one]

11. Unfortunately I believe you are right, at least for a long long time /nt

[Name removed]

16. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[dflprincess]

44. We've known that ever since the public option was dropped

and Senate produced the Insurance Profit Protection Act.

[Unvanguard]

5. I am no longer a fan of Barney Frank's. Fuck this idiotic servility to the filibuster process. n/t

[pattmarty]

30. Well that isn't a reason to not like someone. If you really want............

............to "no longer be a fan of Barney Frank" then dislike him for not being more forceful on the bankers/Wall st mess. The so called healthcare "reform" has been a fucking YEAR LONG disaster that should have been passed in some form by fucking June. What you have is a Democratic party that does not support the VAST MAJORITY of workers and middle class people who are their base. When 60% of the people in this country make under 50K then where is the party that supports that MAJORITY?

[Unvanguard]

35. No, it is a good reason, and it is the right reason.

The Senate passed the bill. The House should pass the Senate's version, and then the bill can be fixed via reconciliation. That's the strategy that makes sense. It abuses the procedure a little, sure, but that abuse is nothing compared to the genuinely grievous abuse of procedure, which is the use of the filibuster to make a Senate majority meaningless. To not do that is simply cowardice of the highest degree, whatever moral posturing might be invoked.

[pattmarty]

48. This bill is a piece of shit. It's fucking dead already after hearing..............

..........that Pelosi says she doesn't have the votes. I don't know, but it seems as clear as shit after the Mass fiasco that ALL the voters are mad that NOTHING is getting done/passed. When it takes a fucking year and the goddamn bill still isn't passed then what the fuck? The Dems have done shit in a fucking year with large majorities in the House/Senate. And, you say it's because they didn't just rubber stamp a (Republican) piece of shit bill? That's fucking funny.

[Unvanguard]

49. What's funny is that you call a bill that NO Republican voted for a "Republican" bill.

And it's dead not due to some law of nature, but because House Democrats--and the Democratic leadership in general, apparently--won't do the sensible thing, which is pass it, and fix what must be fixed via reconciliation.

If they did that, in the past year they would have enacted both the largest fiscal policy initiative in decades (the stimulus package) and the largest social policy reform in decades (health care reform). That hardly qualifies as doing nothing.

[grahamhgreen]

6. Don't worry, big insurance will buy a GOP vote within a fortnight.

[Guilded Lilly]

7. I respectfully...

and yes, I mean respectfully...disagree with Mr. Frank.

Peace,
Lilly

[customerserviceguy]

8. This toxic steaming pile that bears the label of healthcare reform

is now like nuclear waste to touch. Nobody's going to do anything but run like hell from it.

That's good, it stunk to high heaven. The minute we lost a robust public option, all it became was a shoveling of money towards the very firms that caused the problem in the first place.

[winyanstaz]

17. I agree with you.....

[uberblonde]

9. That's Barney. Good for a funny quip...

But spineless when it comes to standing up to the corporate power structure.

[Kweli4Real]

10. I'm Afraid You Are Correct ...

Now, I wonder if Democratic/Progressive critics of PRESIDENT OBAMA will sack up and claim this loss?

[rpannier]

15. Polls continually showed the public favored a gov't health care alternative

Yet, the White House and Congress were too cowardly/corrupted/whatever to do it.

There was a decided lack of public leadership displayed by the White House and a lot of idiocy on the part of Congress (see Conrad Burns).

To blame progressives/liberals absolves both the White House and Congress of this failure

[mikehiggins]

24. Claim credit for this loss? Why?

Do you really fantasize that the voices on the left had anything to do with this, or the HCR mess at all? What do you base this on? TV pundits?

How about the progressive agenda was undercut, sabotaged and sold out from the "I do" at the inaugeration?

So the people wanted health reform? Like that really mattered?

I really think you ought to reexamine what has taken place since 2008 before you imply any blame for anyone to the left of, let's say, Rudy(911)Guiliani.

[nsd]

12. Oh crap ...

Just hold your noses and pass the Senate bill!

[tomhayes]

13. I agree

If not now when will any meaningful healthcare reform ever take place.

Let's START now.

[ProgressOnTheMove]

14. I think Barney isn't fooling us, he's just saying truthfully how he see events playing out...

He's not majority leader he's working under how the Senate led right now. Also Randi Rhodes did say that procedures cannot change unless it's the start of a new session. I don't the details exactly myself but sounds true. THis is totally why Pres. Obama kept reaching out as he knew this day would come and it has, sadly even with all his efforts they won't come along.

[Oregone]

18. Masterstroke chess move

Prepare yourselves for a bill that creates the best of all possible worlds



Maybe people can finally ditch that nonsense and start having real debates here

[Soylent Brice]

39. "a bill that creates the best of all possible worlds"

do you believe we may get something better now?
this is an honest question. i'm really curious how it may be possible to see something good come from all of this.

[Oregone]

42. Im just throwing the Panglossians a bit of sarcasm

[Soylent Brice]

43. stop getting my hopes up. : (

my sarcasm detector is broken today.

[420inTN]

19. What part of "majority" does Barney not understand?

59-41 is still a majority! If you can't get the deal done with even a 51-49 majority, wtf are you doing in office?

[TheeHazelnut]

20. "make no effort to bypass the electoral results" -- what do you call a FILIBUSTER?

Barney, Barney, Barney...

Then again, I hate this piece of crap bill with its tax on union health plans. So maybe he knows what he's doing. Hell if I know.

[countmyvote4real]

21. Today's filibuster requires little effort, if any at all. n/t

[tomm2thumbs]

22. it makes me wonder if having 60 in the first place was a mistake

which only made it seem like they could do something huge, slowly... when they really needed to just do something important, quickly

[Hubert Flottz]

26. Bush had the power to destroy the country with less than 60 votes.

Everything screwed up thing Bush wanted, was stampeded through congress without a "super-majority"

Time for the "Nuclear Option" threat...("MAD")as Hell

[TankLV]

28. Gee - somebody who "gets it"!!!

too bad too many excuse makers don't...

[jimbot]

23. No Real Finance Reform

I've always believed that unless there is real campaign finance reform that completely negates the effect of the lobbyists, we will be perpetually voting for the lesser of two evils with a constant drift towards evil :(
--JT

[spicegal]

25. Won't happen. Once again the country gets screwed. Thanks Mass.

I thought Massachusetts was better than this. My father's side of the family is from Mass, and I was proud of that fact. But now it appears that the good folks in Mass are just as easily bamboozled as their southern counterparts. The Republicans wreck the country under Bush, and when the Dems can't fix it quite fast enough, a Herculean task by anyone's measure, they revolt and put back in someone from the Party who screwed things up so badly to begin with. Our country is doomed by American stupidity.

[TankLV]

29. The country is literally INSANE.

Doing the fucking SAME THING, over and over, and expecting a DIFFERENT RESULT, is the textbook definition of it...

[TankLV]

27. VERY disappointing! Frank's plan is exactly what NOT to do!!!

But the spineless dem leadership will take this course, as sure as the sun will rise tomorrow...

And Obama will be a one termer...which might actually be a GOOD thing...

The dems and the country is like a fucking alchoholic that keeps getting "rescued" without "hitting bottom" and never LEARNS or RECOVERS - we have still not "hit bottom" yet, and until we do, no REAL "change" or correction is possible.

[groundloop]

31. DON'T NEED 60 - It should be obvious how to do it

Why can't the Senate write a series of specific bills, without any amendmant BS, that most republicans would have to support or face backlash at home? Start out with a bill which prohibits insurance companies from denying claims based on pre-existing conditions. Even most republicans couldn't argue with that. Then another bill which prohibits insurance companies from dumping patients when they get sick. Another to outlaw a lifetime cap per patient. And so on until most of the needed insurance reform is accomplished. People might think they're against "Obama-care" or however the repukes happen to be framing healthcare reform, but not many are going to argue against any of these individual points because they're easy to understand.

THEN, go the budget reconcilliation route, to avoid a filibuster threat, and pass a public option or Medicare expansion with 51 votes.

[cascadiance]

41. ... or go nuclear and get RID of this filibuster rule nonsense!

The time to get rid of this undemocratic rule in the Senate has come!

[high density]

32. Nah, the GOP gets a free pass on being obstructionists as the country declines around us

Plus the Democrats don't seem to care about anything beyond pandering to the weakest members of the party and those that have left it, like LIEberman.

[depakid]

33. Getting high past time for Frank to retire.

[peacetalksforall]

34. What it all means is a fabulous win for the rich benefactors of the present system.

There must be cases of champagne being purchased.

Whether Dems try to start over with something better, the money is rolling in for the lobbyists and those who pay them.

That's all the want - anther six months, another year, another six years.

They don't give a crap about anyone else. They don't care about the country. The country is a wealth source, that's all.

[bemildred]

36. So they think they finally have their excuse to do nothing. nt

[hatrack]

37. Right, Barney - because all this "bipartisanship" has worked SO well to date . .

Sheesh.

[Javaman]

38. So does this mean...

that instead of just sucking up to the blue dogs to get a tissue paper health care bill passed, they dems now have to resort to oral sex with the repukes to get and even more watered down version of a health care bill passed?

sorry, but we didn't have the votes before.

What we had before was a grand fucking over of the public by throwing us a rotted bone and calling it reform.

more bullshit and bluster.

[WhiteTara]

45. who are these people and how did they get there?

I saw them grill those two wanna bes this morning. What a SHOW! :popcorn:. Of course, I could only :puke: because I have never seen any committee act like that with any war criminal, treasury thief, bank fraudster, no one who mattered. Now I want to :cry: and :hide: because there is no after, only now...and it is bleak and beautiful. :grouphug: to everyone you love. It is all we have.

[w4rma]

47. Shut up you Wall Street suck up, Frank. (nt)