Word: reided
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Until Senate Majority Harry Reid decided to scrap a government-run insurance plan in order to get the 60 votes needed to pass health care reform legislation, Sen. Jay Rockefeller was one of the chamber's most ardent public option supporters. Without a public option, the West Virginia Democrat feared, insurers - fattened by billions of dollars in new government subsidies and a new requirement that most Americans purchase insurance - would run rampant, jacking up prices and padding profits and executive salaries. But Rockefeller and several other Democratic senators also had their eye on a different way to keep insurer profit...
...would have to send rebates to customers. (MLRs are generally higher in the large group market because selling and administering one policy for many people at once requires much less overhead than designing, marketing and carrying out policies on an individual basis.) (Read "Health Reform's Senate Win: Did Reid Make It Tougher Than...
...Daschle, Reid's predecessor as Senate Democratic leader, says the calculation was far more complicated than that, and reflected the unique political rhythms of the Senate as an institution. One cliché about the job of the Majority Leader is that it is like carrying bullfrogs in a wheelbarrel. He never knows when one of his members is going to hop out, and unless he is sure he has all 60 of them aboard at the precise moment of the vote, he can't get anything done. (Read "Understanding the Health Care Debate: Your Indispensable Guide...
...Reid, says Daschle, had no choice but to offer the public option. "He was under intense pressure from the House [which has one in its bill] and the liberals in the caucus to at least make the effort." Also, by including the option, Reid gained a valuable bargaining chip - something he could give up in negotiations to win the votes of more conservative members like Connecticut's Joe Lieberman, an independent who is counted as part of the Democratic caucus, and Nebraska's Ben Nelson...
...Ultimately, of course, a win is a win. What Reid and President Obama can claim is an achievement that has eluded Democratic Presidents and lawmakers going back more than a half century. "The much-pilloried Harry Reid led an increasingly undemocratic and dysfunctional institution to a stunning victory for the majority party," the Brookings Institution's Tom Mann wrote in Politico. "He deserves an apology from any number of prominent Washingtonians." But if there's one thing Harry Reid has been in Washington long enough to know, it is this: He shouldn't hold his breath waiting...