Tweet
In a brief statement before her Finance Committee colleagues, Senator Olympia Snowe (R-ME) announced that she would vote in favor of this committee’s version of health care reform, often called the Baucus Bill or The Max Tax. Snowe made it clear, however, that this vote was for the committee mark only. “My vote today is my vote today,” Snowe said. How the Senator intended to vote on whatever merged bill came before the entire Senate was left most pointedly as anyone’s guess.
Committee chair Max Baucus was noticeably pleased.
Update: The New York Times (via twolf1):
Senator Olympia J. Snowe, Republican of Maine, said Tuesday that she would support the Democrats’ landmark health care legislation.
“Is this bill all that I want? Far from it,” Ms. Snowe declared. “Is it all that it can be? Far from it. But when history calls, history calls.”
Ms. Snowe’s speech, shortly before the lunch break, came as the the Senate Finance Committee edged closer to approving legislation that would reshape the American health care system and provide subsidies to help millions of people buy insurance.
20 Comments
Support this site!
Subscribe to the newsletter
Advertise on Firedoglake
Send
us your tips
Make us your homepage
About Firedoglake
laughable, and cruel. True sociopaths at work. Get em while their hot.
You can always count on a Republican to do the wrong thing at exactly the wrong time. This vote supports the AHIP feakout as kabuki argument.
That’s exactly what I was thinking. I had high hopes that they would just kill this thing but Snowe, in true Republican fashion, does the wrong thing.
Yes, hurry up and put this trash out so we can get rid of it!
What this does is ups the number of No votes it takes to stop it. Rockefeller and Wyden will likely vote for it now (they might have before Snowe’s declaration, but tactically obstruction no longer gains anything).
It puts Snowe informally at the table in negotiating any Senate bill. McConnell will not be surprised when the floor bill comes out.
Lieberman has strongly hinted at his opposition even to the Baucus bill. Conrad is still wanting ND Medicare rates increased (can we jiggle that formula, please, to take away that excuse).
If Lieberman and Conrad vote for a filibuster and are punished by stripping them of their chairs, most likely Carper replaces Lieberman and Murray replaces Conrad.
And yes, anything in the Senate is kabuki, even down to the thanking of the chair for moving the bill forward.
Snowe job?
What’s really funny is that the GOP had alredy threatened her with not voting for her when Jud Gregg’s commerce and transportation committe chairmanship comes up for a vote. They threatened not to vote for her. I guess she wasn’t moved by her party’s lack of power either. I’d say she might want tothink about switching but, we’re all stocked up on fake ass Democrats!
Long time no see. Glad you’re here.
I’m still hoping Wyden and Rockefeller vote against it!
“Is this bill all that I want? Far from it. Is it all that it can be? Far from it.”
An uncanny premonition of what we’ll hear from Obama when he signs whatever POS bill emerges from the corporate puppets in Congress.
Olympia Snowe needs to get the f*ck out of the way. Same for Baucus.
dems getting played once more.
pathetic.
snowe will do her best to make the bill as bad as it can be.
and then it won’t matter if she votes for it or votes against it.
enough dems will vote for it to pass it.
republicans will have accomplished exactly what they wanted.
they got a bill passed that makes their sponsors very happy, a bill that could have very well have been written and passed by a republican congress.
AND they will still be able to run against the fact that the bill itself for any number of reasons.
higher taxes, the individual mandate, scaring the heck out of seniors…
the list of targets will be long and extremely vulnerable.
once voters realize that they will have to buy crap insurance for inflated prices, under penalty of law…
well, the natives will be plenty restless.
and the fact that most provisions don’t take effect until 2013 makes it easy as can be for republicans to lie and distort without voters actually having personal experiences that contradict those lies and distortions.
this is all a sick joke.
but of course, obama will be happy, cause snowe’s coming on board allows him to weaken the bill in exactly the fashion he’d promised the “stakeholders” he would weaken the bill.
what a joke.
one more thought…
the blowback for passing really bad legislation that makes voters really mad may be so extreme that dems could easily lose one or more of the houses in 2010 or 2012. if that happens, even if obama wins in 2012, that would make it almost impossible for any meaningful changes to the legislation to be done.
so all of the incrementalists, the ones who are saying that dems should pass any old POS because one can always amend it later…well those folks will be in for a rude surprise, and we’re going to be stuck with this turkey for a long time.
Obama is probably, as I write this, providing her an office next to his in appreciation of her bipartisanship.
Unlike most here, I see this as a good development. Snowe is showing some courage.
Given that AHIP has essentially said “we’re going to increase charges if this passes” can the other bills now be promoted to “check” this by increasing the regulation of the insurance industry.
Seems the AHIP just made the biggest case for the “public option” to be included in the committee concurrence before the vote…or floor Amendments.
Whatever Her Royal Highness Queen Snowe does is of serious importance to me. ABC News’s lead story is always, “What do republicans think?”
Somebody please email me when Queen Snowe takes a dump, as it will be another blessed event.
Conrad said point blank that a public option is a non-starter for him. Lincoln said basically the same thing. I think the two of them are the best guesses as to who will join the repubs in a filibuster.
I would agree with you, oldgold, if, there were not 60 votes for cloture in the Senate for a bill with a PO. (Jane has written a couple posts reporting that there are 60 votes there.)
But why settle for this crappy version of reform when a much better bill could be put to a vote?
There are 60 votes available, but at this point we don’t have them.