This is going to be a very telling meeting.
TPM: At 2:30 this afternoon, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will host Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT), Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT), and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel in the first of several meetings presaging the merger of two major health care bills. The foursome is expected to discuss key issues at the heart of the reform process--affordability, Medicare, the public option, revenues--but no decisions are expected today.The talk has been about Reid and how he'd better not exclude a public option in the bill they are proposing, but just a couple of hours ago I heard Ed Shultz on his radio show saying he trusted Reid and quoting him as saying this on the Senate Judiciary Committee floor:
So it would seem that Harry Reid, being in favor of revoking anti-trust exemption laws favoring the insurance companies, would have no trouble increasing competition and adding a public option to the bill. Unless Rahm helps him changed his mind.Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) joined the push to eliminate the [insurance industry's anti-trust] exemption Wednesday morning, saying at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, “It’s something that should have been done a long time ago.”As for insurance companies, “There isn’t anything we could do to satisfy them in this health care bill. Nothing,” Reid said. “They are so anti-competitive. Why? Because they make more money than any other business in America today. . . .What a sweet deal they have.”
ShareThis
1 comment:
I will believe it when I see it so far he has been straddling the fence.They say one thing in the morning another thing in the afternoon and something else in the evening.Heres all I know,he will keep secret the name of any democrat who goes along with the republican filibuster.Hows that for leadership?Instead of threatening to strip them of chairmanship to key committees,he protects them!Which means hes deceiving the pro public option crowd by criticizing the insurance cos.but won't go the extra mile.
Post a Comment