Maybe. But maybe not in its current form. That’s because the Democrats are far from united. Though the President spoke last week of his preference for the public option, the way he did it signaled that he will be open to compromise—a compromise that will be pushed not only by Republicans but by a number of Democrats.
First, a bit of background. The House has more than 250 Congressional Member Organizations—caucuses or coalitions formed to discuss and strategize about member causes. Most of them are specialized issue groups like the Hydropower Caucus or the Composites Caucus. There are also identity CMOs like the Black Caucus, the Hispanic Caucus, the Native American Caucus, the Caucus for Women’s Issues. Most important, there are the major Democrat and Republican caucuses.
But most relevant to the Health Care Reform debate are those CMOs that divide up the two major parties by where the members place themselves on the political spectrum. Republicans have their Republican Study Committee (right-wing) and their Republican Liberty Caucus (libertarian). Democrats have three sizeable groups: the Progressive Caucus, the New Democratic Coalition, and the Blue Dogs.
The Progressive Caucus is made up of 83 House Democrats most in favor of strong health care reform, including a public option. The NDC is the group of 63 moderate Democrats. The 52-member Blue Dogs are conservatives, especially when it comes to fiscal matters.
Republicans aside, the Blue Dogs are the House members most reluctant to vote for HR 3200. The public option—a budget insurance plan managed by the government, like Medicare—is a major sticking point for the Blue Dogs. While Progressives say that the public option is a very important feature that will help keep insurance and hospital prices down, Blue Dogs claim that such a plan would cost too much and would be unfair competition for insurance companies. The opposition of the Blue Dogs, coupled with that of some of the moderates, managed to postpone the vote on HR 3200 until after the August recess.
Interestingly, Blue Dogs are the biggest recipients these days of fundraising largesse from the health care industry. That’s not to say that members of the other Democratic caucuses aren’t also getting money from the industry; you can bet that whoever is currently in a power position, like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi—a Progressive—is going to be pulling down big contributions even from unlikely sources. Money doesn’t buy votes exactly; it’s not as simple as that. What it buys is a chance to rub shoulders with the powerbrokers. Nevertheless, the health care industry apparently figures its bucks are best spent with the Blue Dogs.
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Who Gets Whose $$$
If you ever have a free hour to spend investigating what lawmakers get what money from what sources, take a look at Open Secrets, a website that tracks contributions and even allows you to plug in individual lawmakers to see what they are getting from whom. For instance, click the Congress tab under Politicians & Elections. In the second gray box on the right, put in the name of a Congressperson and then check out who their big contributors were during what year.
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So in the end, what will the Blue Dogs do about HR 3200? That depends on the deals that can be made across party lines and across caucus lines. Will the public option survive the pressure from the Blue Dogs and their allies? Even now the Progressive Caucus is lobbying Democrats to find out who will declare the public option a must. If the count is not high enough, the public option will die in the House. Even if the public option gets through the House, and Democrats for a moment appear to be speaking with one voice, the Blue Dogs may yet prevail when the Senate and House have to work out a compromise bill. Whether there is anything in the final bill that will actually provide the competition and cost containment we need remains to be seen.
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Cartoon for the day
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