Sen. Schumer says "moderates" will "become more relieved and comfortable" with Senate public option

[Better Believe It]

Liberals seeing cracks in centrist skepticism of public option
By Jeffrey Young
October 31, 2009

Though public option supporters have not secured commitments from the 60 senators they need to even begin debating the healthcare reform bill on the Senate floor, they are just a few votes shy and believe their reticent colleagues can be brought around with reassurances that the proposal on the table already meets their demands.

“I’ve spent a lot of time talking to the moderate members about what a level-playing field public option is and I think as they learn about it, they become more and more relieved,” said Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), a prominent supporter of the public option.

The exact details of the opt-out compromise, originally conceived by centrist Democratic Sen. Tom Carper (Del.) and heavily promoted by the liberal Schumer, have not been disclosed by Reid or any other Democrat as they await a Congressional Budget Office analysis of its costs and impact on the healthcare system.

But hints dropped by Carper, Schumer and Reid seem to indicate that the misgivings expressed by centrist Democrats may already have been answered by the opt-out proposal, or could be with minimal modifications.

“As the members learn the details of what’s in it, they’re going to see that it is a true attempt to be a level playing field, not some covert way of getting single-payer, which as you know is what the right-wing drumbeat has been, and they’re going to be very comfortable with it,” Schumer said.

“Once the actual text of the bill is out,” said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), “I think we’ll be able to successfully make the case to Sen. Lieberman that there is not a subsidy here and that it is not an entitlement.”

“We don’t want the secretary of Health and Human Services running this operation,” Carper said just before Reid announced he had included the opt-out public option in his bill. “We want to distance the federal government from running whatever nonprofit option is offered and we don’t want to have the federal government there as the financial backstop in case it goes bad.”


Please read the complete article at:

http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/65739-liberals-see-cracks-in-centrist-skepticism-of-public-option

[Warren Stupidity]

1. By 'moderates' I assume that is code for 'insurance company executives'. nt.

[Better Believe It]

2. And also conservative Democrats bought and paid for by the insurance industry

[Laelth]

3. Schumer is a liberal? Since when? n/t

:dem:

-Laelth

[Better Believe It]

4. That's how he's portrayed by many "liberals"

[Clio the Leo]

5. One reassuring thing through all of this...

... is that Schumer and Reid have both had this tone of "I know something you dont know!" when speaking of the CBO score (which cannot get here soon enough IMO.) They seem VERY optimistic the the CBO score will be very pleasing to everyone.

[ej510]

6. Schumer is a Wall St. whore.

[eridani]

7. Shit.

Not that I didn't know that the Senate version was going to be worse than the House version.