Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Congress / Woods Cooper's Ideas Come to Forefront of Health Care Debate
Posted by Jeff Woods on Tue, Aug 18, 2009 at 5:17 AM
On Hardball with Chris Matthews last night, Cooper was upbeat about the chances for true reform and talking up co-ops as the way to keep insurance companies from gouging consumers. We'd all band together and pool premiums in nonprofit ventures like rural electric utilities. Liberals are getting all hysterical about this. They scoff at co-ops as weak stuff and threaten to vote against reform without the public option. Right. Isn't it about time somebody started counting votes in the Senate? Let's get real. Here are excerpts from Hardball:
Matthews: Democratic liberals keep saying we want it all. They keep losing it all. What's going to happen this time?
Cooper: I think we can get a good health reform bill done this year on the president's timetable. I think this dispute over the public option really depends on how you define it. I think we can get a good public option through that even the U.S. Senate would think is a good reform. It's very important that we define it carefully so that it appeals to folks in all 50 states. There's a lot of unnecessary concern about it today. A lot of of folks think there would not be a level playing field. It's very important that the government plan not have any unfair advantage. And I think we can construct one that does the key thing, And this is the most important issue and President Obama stressed it again and again, keep the insurance companies honest. We can put together a good public option that does exactly that.
Matthews: And you believe it could pass with 51 or rather 60 Democrats in the Senate, perhaps 60 including a couple of Republicans, and get 218 in the House. Could we get a bill?
Cooper: I think we can.
Matthews: This fall?
Cooper: This fall. The key hurdle, though, is 60 votes in the Senate because reconciliation will not apply to any real health care reform bill. So you've got to really be aiming as Tom Daschle said in his confirmation hearings for 70 or 80 votes. But you at least have to get 60 and that means it's got to be bipartisan to have a health care reform bill that'll become law.
Matthews: Well, you're talking against Kent Conrad who's chairman of the Budget Committee, and he ought to know on the Senate side, and he says you can't get a public option through the Senate.
Cooper: But it depends on how you define it. He's said that a co-op might work, and that's a real public option and that's a real public option if you define the co-op carefully so that it protects consumer rights. The key thing is not only keeping insurance companies honest but also benchmark pricing so you know what a fair deal is on a good health insurance policy. Today a lot of Americans don't know that.
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Cooper shares responsibility for killing health reform is 1993, crippling the Clintons & Democrats, & the resulting cesspool of Newt, Wamp & Tom Delay. Like the republicans, he will find some reason to vote against reform.
While he's a member of the Blue Dogs, he is more prominently a member of the Congressional Irrelevant Cranks Club. This club is headed by Ron Paul, with other members such as Dennis Kucinich and Michele Bachmann. They are 24-hour cable news darlings because they can fill time at no cost to the networks & their kooky ideas have some entertainment value. In practice, their loner image & kooky ideas place them well outside the group of effective members. When will Nashville get a congressman for Nashville?
Cooper may flatter himself by using the "uber-nerd" term, more appropriate for Nashville & Cooper is "uber-goober."
Congressman Cooper is flip flopping. He has stated to me and others in person that he supported a public option and the presidents goals as long as they remained deficet neutral. Nothing in the financing of the bills proposed has changed since he made this declaration. He is flopping for no other reason than he has his own proposal and is concerned about upsetting the republicans and blue dogs that live here in middle Tennessee.
What he forgets is that there are plenty of progressives in this area and if he is challenged as I believe he should be for the Democratic ticket I and many more mayvote against him for his part in killing this reform. He needs to remember that he is a Democrat and will need our support and we will not soon forget his role in this debate.
Michael Chapman, RN
