Monday, October 26, 2009

Harry Reid For The Win

Great News.

As Chris Bowers says, this changes the conversation from "will there be a public option?" to "what type of public option?".

TPM:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced what we've been reporting today - the merged health care bill will include a public option allowing states to opt-out.

"Under this concept states will be able to determine whether the public option works best for them," Reid told reporters. He said it was the "fairest" way to go.

Reid (D-NV) said after "countless hours" of talking to his caucus, there is a "strong consensus" for this plan. He said he will not submit a plan with a triggered public option to the Congressional Budget Office.

"As we've gone through this process, I've concluded, with the support of the White House and Senators. Dodd and Baucus, that the best way to move forward is to include a public option with an opt out provision for states," Reid said.

Reid said he was "disappointed" the public option had "frightened" Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) but that he hoped she would "come back to the Washington in 2013 as a tourist rather than a Senator."

"I spoke to Olympia on Friday...and at this stage she does not like the public option of any kind. And so, I told her that she'd definitely outlasted her importance both as a part of these negotiations and more generally as a Senator. I also told the President that if he liked her so much that maybe they should get just get fucking married and stop wasting our time making her feel good about herself."

Reid also responded to White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel's reported anger at the death of his "triggers" proposal. Reid said he could "suck it", and that "he should stop trying to kill progressive policy with crappy ideas that no one is willing to support."

Reid then stepped away from the podium and appeared to point to his crotch in a series of vulgar gestures before he exited the stage yelling a string of obscenities towards the assembled press corps.

Way to go Harry! With talk like that you may win reelection after all!

4 comments:

  1. WOW! Go Harry! He must have gone to one of the Smithsonian warehouses and found a spare spine. Finally! I LOVE that he told her she'd "outlasted her importance ... as a Senator." If only we had begun here, but at least we're here now.

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  2. I should also probably state for the record that I made up the entire second half of that article. But still way to go harry! That part remains true!

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  3. @jj. Good. I was scared for a second that the world was a much better place where you could tell public officials to suck it and actually get away with it.

    But seriously this is brilliant. Put the responsibility of enforcing the public option in the hands of the states. There is no way that most states could get away with denying the public option and still hope to hold office for another term. Plus at the same time it takes some of the pressure off the obama administration. Now uber conservatives can blame their own state elected officials for killing their grandmas. Obama only gave them the gun to do it.

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  4. Yeah, seems like this is the best realistic outcome we could get at this point, although I think our definition of realistic would have been different if obama and company had come hard out the gates for even stronger reform a few months ago.

    nimsofa- thats really the best part, opt-out leaves conservative politicians in a pretty nasty spot either way. abandon small government rhetoric, or face angry voters once the rest of the country gets its public option on?

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