Personally, I think House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn is making stuff up and offering false hope by saying that the Democrats may revisit the public health insurance option if they retain their majorities. But I do think we’ll eventually have a public option both because the government will be desperate for the cost saving and because people are going to continue to complain about the individual mandate forcing them to purchase insurance from hated private for-profit corporations. The time for that has to be ripe, though. And it won’t be ripe until after the program is up and running in 2013. A more accurate prediction of what will happen if the Democrats retain their majorities is that they will be able to implement the new health care system without having it defunded by lunatic Republicans. And even that is iffy, considering the need to 60 votes. We’ll probably have to use the budget reconciliation process to fund the implementation.
About The Author

BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
Long time lurker here, but I decided it was worth it to set up an account in order to defend Jim Clyburn. He is one of the few politicians I trust and I just don’t see him making stuff up or saying something that isn’t true to give people a false sense of hope.
I like Clyburn, too. But we passed health care by the bare minimum of votes. We’re going to have less votes next year. A lot less votes. So, we won’t be revisiting health care to make it stronger, we’ll be trying to prevent its repeal and defunding. Clyburn knows this.
I may be remembering this wrong, but i thought that since the house had more votes than they needed, Pelosi let a lot of folks off the hook so they didn’t have to vote “yes” before the 2010 elections.
Call me crazy, but I believe that if we do keep the house then they will keep trying to make health care stronger. Once more benefits kick in, I think the health care bill will turn out to be a big winner for the democrats.
Maybe this is just my day to feel optimistic, but that’s what I believe.
you’re right that a few Dems voted no who would have voted yes if they needed to. We won’t have that luxury anymore. Plus, why bother when it’s going nowhere in the Senate?
In the longer term, I agree with you.
I just want to thank the dumbocrats for passing such a shitty bill with no safeguards against this. I almost think we deserve to lose in Nov. for being such cowards. Good grief.
Blue Cross to raise insurance premiums up to 47% in Connecticut
What a business model. What other industry can get away with increases like this during the worst economic period since the Great Depression? It’s a relief to Big Insurance that the White House folded on the public option. But hey, don’t let that stop the industry from calling him a socialist and anti-business. Yes, like Wall Street they wanted even more and will stop at nothing until they get it.
The state has given Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield the go ahead to raise premiums by as much as 47 percent for some members, and says health care reform is the reason why.
Attorney General Richard Blumenthal sent a letter to Insurance Commissioner Thomas Sullivan on Oct. 6, asking what he called “excessive” increases were approved without full consideration of all the facts. His letter mentioned rate increases for both Anthem and Aetna.
The bill as passed was pretty much all that was possible. And what Clyburn knows is that the folks who stood in the way are likely to be the ones who lose to real Republicans. So the coming Congress if Democrats manage to pull it out will be unlike the current Congress. There will still be a bunch of Blue Dogs and New Democrats who squeak through but fewer of them. The question is how many progressives Democrats can hold of those that are in trouble. And how many seats the Democrats can take from Republicans.
Between now an 2014, the implementation of rate increases is limited only by the routine actions of state insurance commissioners. If your state insurance commissioner is elected, you might have a choice in how those rate increases will be received. Turning out the vote for Blumenthal can also involve making sure he has some coattails in statewide offices.
but i hope and pray that the level of action in the senate will be lowered. We need to remove the ability of a single senator to block nominees from a vote. We need to reduce the level for action to “majority party – 1” or so. At this point, I am willing to eliminate many of the privileges of the Senate to see some action.
Perhaps they can set it up so that action only occurs if abuse is encountered. Some kind of club needs to be set up for the Repukeliscum.
Remember it may be a Republican Senate. There is a lot of money, perhaps as much as half a billion behind Republican candidates (estimate from Bloomberg News). The ads for Brady and Kirk here in Illinois are in high gear. They’ve gone from every half hour to three times in a haf hour. On Fox News (the other guys were watching football, I couldn’t change it and stay alive) one spot had a Kirk ad, then a Brady ad, then the same Kirk ad again. They have money to burn and for the next 17 days will be pounding their lies into people eyes. Kirk is an expert liar, but I think Brady is overdoing it. Luckily he has face with his used car salesman grin prominently featured. Even Republicans are starting to comment on how phony he looks. He was on the news (Fox affiliate of course) talking about how the state is drowning in debt (true) still with his plastic grin. One Teabagger I work with even said, “God! What is he smiling about!”. Teabaggers take debt very seriously.
A shipload of money only works if people are persuaded or if there is fear, uncertainty, and doubt about a candidate. Meg Whitman seems to have squandered $140 million of her own money on her campaign; folks know who Jerry Brown is.
And oversaturation can anger voters who would like to watch their favorite TV.
I’m waiting for the foreign financing issue to bite the elephant’s ass.
is more like it.
let me see if l’ve got this; they’re going to fix the HIR problems…right after the cat food commision finishes fixing social security.
uh huh…sure…don’t hold your breath.
Two things to remember.
He didn’t say when. It is only an assumption that he means next year.
There might be court actions that require that they do something about the mandates for individuals.
It is a clear that he seeks to fire up turnout among folks who want to see a public option. After the deals necessary to get what was passed through, a number of these folks are cynical about promises made during elections. It will be interesting to see if his appeal can indeed turn out some Democratic voters.
It may not matter with these GOP frauds, but the public option did cut the deficit per the CBO.
What might be more interesting is if the mandate is ruled unconstitutional by SCOTUS.