The Health Care State of Play

Photo by flickr user <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/okobojierik/2751434939/">Enrico Fuente</a> used under a <a href="http://www.creativecommons.org">Creative Commons</a> license.

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Liberals, prepare to have your hopes crushed. Harry Reid says he’s “close” to getting the sixty votes he needs in the Senate for a health care bill with an “opt-out” public option. But the White House seems to be worried that pushing even this weakened public option might cost them the vote of Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine). If they lose Snowe, conservative Democrats like Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) and Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) might bolt, too. The New Republic‘s Jon Cohn has some good analysis:

[I]t seems pretty clear (at least to me) that Obama really would prefer a strong public option—but that he, like his advisers, has serious concerns over whether such an option can pass. In other words, he wants a good public plan but he wants a bill even more—and he’s not sure that the former is compatible with the latter. So he’s being careful—more careful, in fact, than some of his Senate allies would like.

I think this gets at Obama’s biggest problem in this fight. Everyone knows that he needs to pass a bill. That makes it hard for him to hold out for his preferred solution and gives whoever is standing in the way a whole lot of leverage. The obstructionists have a lot more freedom. It’s really unclear that Ben Nelson, for example, needs the President to like him. If he’s savvy, he’s probably much more interested in paying insurance companies back for the $2 million in campaign cash they’ve given him. The President thinks he needs Ben Nelson more than Ben Nelson thinks he needs the President. That doesn’t bode well for the public option.

UPDATE: David Corn is writing about this, too, over at Politics Daily:

If Reid can indeed keep his 60 votes together on a procedural vote (blocking the filibuster), he can tell Snowe to take a hike. But Obama may still want her Republican cred attached to the final bill. That would place him and Reid dramatically at odds.

I don’t think Obama wants Snowe’s “cred.” He just wants (and needs) a bill, and he has many, many reasons to believe Harry Reid isn’t a strong enough leader to hold Senate Democrats together on a party-line vote. The President thinks he needs a Republican vote to make sure he gets all the Democratic votes. If the past 48 hours have shown us anything, it’s that Obama doesn’t have much faith in Harry Reid—and he has even less faith in conservative Dems like Ben Nelson. The push to get Snowe’s vote isn’t cosmetic (at least I hope not—if it is, the White House had better get its priorities straight). It’s strategic.

WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

payment methods

WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate