But some of their members aren’t sticking with the pack. This afternoon, Marisa posted a video of Loretta Sanchez (D-CA) saying she believed a public option was the best way to achieve the Blue Dogs’ feigned stated goal of containing healthcare costs.
Sanchez isn’t alone. The Hill reported (and Scarecrow wrote here) yesterday on another letter circulating in Congress:
A band of 22 New Democrat and Blue Dog lawmakers say they support a “robust” government-run health plan, boosting chances of moving healthcare reform with a public insurance plan through the House.
… “We have a broader coalition to pass this than what was assumed before,” said Rep. Lois Capps (Calif.), a New Democrat who circulated the letter supporting a public option with Rep. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.)….
The 20 New Democrats on the letter represent nearly one-third of the 68-member caucus. It is signed by two Blue Dogs and three members who are both New Dems and Blue Dogs.
Capps is one of several New Democrats who think the group’s leaders have given House leadership an inaccurate picture of where the centrist, business-friendly caucus stands on healthcare.
This rebellion on behalf of the real center of American politics needs to be pushed further into the media conversation — and Sanchez’s argument on cost controls is an effective wedge that can be used. It neatly splits the Blue Dogs’ carefully maintained PR image as budget hawks from the reality of their pro-corporate actions.
It’s time to make them choose which is more important — providing affordable healthcare to more Americans, or protecting the profits of the big insurance companies? And if that sounds like the dreaded "class welfare," well, maybe it’s time for some of that, too.
Related posts:
- Democratic Staffer: Blue Dogs are “Hell Nos” on Public Option
- Blue Dogs Win Big for Health Insurance Industry; Public Option Now Less Robust
- Come Saturday Morning: The Blue Dogs That Won’t Hunt Together
- Public Option Expert Jacob Hacker on Why the Blue Dogs are Blowing Smoke
- 24 Blue Dogs Have Said They Support a Public Option
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Can someone post a list of ‘blue dogs’ who signed the stupid letter? my congressman, Mike Michaud isn’t on Jane’s whip list and i don’t know if he is on the letter, because i couldn’t read the freakin’ signatures.
Well said, Swopa.
wrt to the BlueDog letter, Igor Volsky has a good take down showing the contradictions in their arguments.
http://wonkroom.thinkprogress……og-letter/
My view is that the rhetoric they’re using is actually an opening to push for a stronger public plan that has the ability to push incentive payment reforms on the providers — there’s a deal sitting there, if the BlueDogs are serious, and not just throwing obstacles in the way. If I were one of the three House Chairs, I’d smoke the BlueDogs out on this one.
been tryin’ to get that list all day. No joy. I guess they’re too embarassed that they’re the bunch of tools that they are. Also, remember, two Blue Dogs defected and joined with 20 DLCers to sign Murphy’s (D-CT) pro-public option letter.
Check out page four here — I’m pretty sure that’s his signature, second place in the first column.
(And Swopa, I am not Marisa!)
Link here
I did love it how Loretta first talked about how the letter was the very bestest she had ever seen in her entire career of seeing letters, really a super-terrific letter, even though she had a disagreement with one small teeny-tiny part of it. Since she favors a public plan and all.
Paging Mike Stark.
This is more good news, thanks Swopa!
More pressure, on the Bluedogs, on all the House, on all of Senate.
And more scathing pressure however it can be applied to media for not COVERING this in full, in depth.
After all, 76% of the American People are for this public option.
This is a revolution in the making with that kind of majority, and the MSM are trying to duck it due to their corporatist obligations. Time to smoke THEM out, too! *G*
And as
I disavow all responsibility for that line… must have been some mysterious elf backstage. ;-)
Totally agree about the contradictions in the Blue Dogs’ letter. A bit of snark I failed to shoehorn into my post: The line about “finding savings within the current delivery system” sounds a lot like saying that instead of arresting Hannibal Lecter, they’ll urge him to watch his calories.
Kin to “destroy the village in order to save it.” Same mindset, anyway.
In the words of the immortal Will Rodgers:
“I’m not a member of any organized political party. I’m a Democrat.”
Seriously, when is Nancy Pelosi (and Harry, for that matter) going to sit down with these people and ’splain them a few things. Like:
(1) In case you haven’t noticed, public sentiment is running strongly in favor of doing something about the health care chaos.
(2) In case you haven’t noticed, it’s about 3:1 or so in favor of a government-run option being part of the something we need to do in (1).
(3) In case you haven’t noticed, the not-so-loyal opposition party is continuing to sulk in the corner and won’t come out and play.
(4) In case you haven’t noticed, your actions are making a difficult job much tougher.
(5) In case you are unaware, I am aware of your actions. This is a matter of party discipline, and your continued support from the House Democratic Campaign Committee and the National Democratic Party are contingent on your votes regarding this issue.
Am I being clear about that?
Well, yeah. Except that our system is so bloated, we could fund a very generous single-payer system and reduce the deficit if we could capture current health care expenditures.
Of course, these clowns don’t consider the admin overhead involved in denying people care, and the profits socked away for shareholders to be part of the waste in the current delivery system. So I withdraw my objection.
I just met with a good family friend yesterday (John F.) who is in the end stage of brain cancer. The same kind of brain cancer that Senator Ted Kenendy is suffering from. He served as an active Navy pilot and in the reserves for many years. He’s in his late fifties, has a wife and two sons, and grandchildren. He’s a genuine American patriot and a great tax lawyer and a good guy, but he’s alive only because he’s undergoing experimental treatment right now after having had to fight for the right to try to save his life in this fashion.
Our health care system does not need to be this way. How many people died this week from cancers that might have responded to experimental treatment? How many of them were denied that chance? Why do we so willingly accept political leaders, so-called, who say that this system is the best that we can do for Americans?
This is America, and we can do better, a whole lot better than that. But unless we all pull together and do whatever it takes to get a public option, which is, by the way, vastly inferior to single payer universal coverage, then it could well be you, your spouse or partner, or your kids or grandkids who draws the short straw tomorrow and has to fight a monolithic parasitical system for the right to fight an insidious disease with everything that the medical community has to throw at it.
Make sure these Blue Dogs know that if they scuttle the public option, then they scuttle their political careers in the bargain.
i think you are right. it looks like mike’s signature… after all the work we put in, this is how he repays us…. he’s going to hear from a lot of us mainers in the second district.
i live in Washington County Maine, where the live expectancy of women has declined, because of poverty and little or no access to healthcare, where the local hospital was taken over by the state for poor practice, where the unemployment rate is over 20%. Democrats worked had to elect Rep. Michaud i guess we can work to unelect him.
i’m just disgusted
I think that this is the best argument to use on the blue dogs, many of whom are deficit hawks: the public option is the best way to achieve cost controls. They aren’t really a unified group, and a lot of them can be peeled off. Want to reduce the deficit long term: get health care costs under control. To do that, stop insurance companies from being woefully inefficient and from skimming 20% off the top of every health care dollar.
StandwithDrDean.com lists some of those 40 Blue Dogs are supporters of the Public Option, even Mike Ross of Arkansas, who was the most notable of teh 40, and Jason Altmire of Pennsylvania who was also quoted.
This seems to be more of a cost concern, which is easy to alleviate…I’m not too worried as long as their constituents keep reminding them what they want.