Via Jon Walker, The Hill reports:

Pelosi [. . .] said in the meeting she believed she has the votes now to pass her more “robust” version of a public option. But she said that she wants to show unity among House Democrats rather than passing a bill with 218 members, the bare majority of the chamber.

Shrewdly, imo, she wants more votes than that and has offered the Blue Dogs a bone:

Speaker Nancy Pelosi is seeking to modify the House healthcare legislation to bring centrists around to the more liberal government-run insurance option, hoping that will give her the strongest negotiating position with the Senate. In a closed-door session with a diverse group of Democrats on Wednesday, Pelosi (D-Calif.) offered a $20 billion tweak in hospital reimbursement rates to rural lawmakers.

Pelosi also argued to the Blue Dogs that she can give them increased rural Medicare reimbursement rates if they send her to conference with more political bargaining power. I think that's true. And it is smart of Pelosi to talk to them this way. It is also smart of her to let them know she has the votes without them. Good political bargaining by the Speaker.

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Ezra really does not get it:

A lot of people are concerned that Sen. Olympia Snowe is going to have an outsized role on health-care reform. It's a fair concern. Indeed, it's a virtual certainty. But it's worth comparing Snowe's outsized role to the alternative: Ben Nelson, the 60th least-liberal Democrat, being in the driver's seat on health-care reform.

Ezra is simply wrong here. Ben Nelson, a Democrat (albeit a very very conservative one), does not provide High Broderist cover for capitulation on health care reform. Olympia Snowe (no question less conservative than Ben Nelson) does. "Losing Snowe" will be treated as a catastrophe in the Village. Having Ben Nelson oppose you, even to the point of joining a Republican filibuster, is not nearly so damaging.

If Ben Nelson opposes you to the point of filibuster, then a BETTER bill through reconciliation is possible. Nelson, knowing this, will be easier to deal with than Snowe, who knows she has more power than Nelson. Snowe in the room means Obama will capitulate to her and the Village will rejoice. Nelson in the room allows for the threat of reconciliation hanging over him. It just is not there for Snowe. We have seen this movie before. Apparently, Ezra has forgotten it already (more likely Ezra is unconcerned about the capitulations that Snowe will demand (on the public option.))

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Despite everything the federal government has done to prop up Citigroup, it remains very troubled:

The banking giant said that it had a loss to stockholders of 27 cents a share or $3.2 billion, compared with a loss of $2.9 billion, or 61 cents a share, in the third quarter a year ago.

The federal government owns 34% of Citi and pumped $45B into it. At this point, Citi looks like another AIG, propped up to save other Wall Street behemoths, like Goldman, which earned $3.2B in the quarter, in the midst of a severe recession. What's wrong with this picture? And how about this?

In part to allay criticism of its profits and bonuses, Goldman announced a $200 million contribution to its foundation, which promotes education. [. . .] Goldman also disclosed how much it had set aside for its annual bonus pool. It said that it had earmarked $5.35 billion in compensation and benefits, an increase of 84 percent from the year earlier period, putting it on course for a record payout to its executives by the end of 2009.

Sheesh. That does not even reach tithe levels. It is submedieval. The need to raise taxes on the super rich is manifest.

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Thursday's child has far to go.

This is an Open Thread.

President Obama, it has been reported, "looks favorably upon" the Snowe trigger. Snowe says that the public option should only be triggered if the private health insurance fails to reform itself. A Sword of Damocles sort of idea.

Supposing we accept that premise, why should it not also be applied to the individual mandate provisions of health care reform? Why should government mandate that individuals purchase insurance from private health care insurance companies before we know they will not if health care reform is successful in holding down insurance costs? Why not have the government imposed individual mandate also be subject to a trigger?

If government intervention in the health insurance market is so anathema to some, shouldn't that also apply to government imposed mandates on individuals? If not, why not? Why not a trigger for government imposed mandates?

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Booman revisits his theory that the "some" Left blogs are too mean to Obama. This stood out to me:

As a general rule, White Houses defend themselves against criticism, regardless of whether it is coming from the right or from the left. [. . .] I don't think the White House adviser's remarks were aimed at us. They were aimed at other bloggers who have extremely negative interpretations of the president's motives and policies.

I could not care less that the White House took a shot at bloggers. That's just words. What I care about is policy. Booman argues for "favorable" interpretations of policy. What does that mean exactly? Obama is gonna escalate in Afghanistan, imo. I SUPPORT that policy. What "interpretation" should I apply to that? Obama seems poised to embrace the Snowe triggers on health care reform. I vehemently oppose that policy. What "interpretation" should I apply to that? Is Booman's point that we should all concede Obama is a good guy? Conceded. So what? WHY Obama does things is irrelevant. WHAT Obama does is the issue. I return to my constant refrain, pols are pols and do what they do:

As my post below seems to indicate, the endgame for the Obama Administration is Snowe's Trigger as the "public option." But there are still political bargaining actions that progressives in the House and Senate can do to stop the Obama/Reid/Snowe plan. Of course the Progressive Block in the House needs to reiterate that it will not vote for such a proposal. But in the Senate, Progressives have options too.

One would be to offer an amendment to the likely Obama/Snowe/Reid bill that would make the inclusion of individual mandates be dependent on the inclusion of a public option (Steve M. refines my idea and makes it much better - make the mandate be subject to the Snowe trigger.) Why would Republicans vote for this you ask? Because they SAY they oppose individual mandates and this would be a way to strip them out of the bill.

Do the Republicans mean it? Probably not. But their bluff can be called. If 25 Democrats (assuming some Republicans vote for mandates - Snowe, Collins and Grassley to name 3), then mandates without a public option can be stripped from the bill.

At the very least, this would be a smart move politically, making Republicans own the mandates with the centrist Obama Democrats. Then the crappy health care reform bill that Obama seems to favor will be the High Broder (Obama/Snowe/Ben Nelson etc.) bill, not a progressive bill. My suggestion is based on my view that health care reform without a public option will be a disaster. If you think the public option is not an essential element of health care reform (the view of most of the Dem wonks, like Ezra Klein and Jon Cohn), then you would disagree with this proposal.

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NYTimes:

Two senior administration officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the White House looked favorably on the Snowe [trigger] plan.

I believe this and think it makes the point Glenn Greenwald and myself have been stating for months now - pols are not your friend. As Glenn put it yesterday - "Shouldn't health care activists care more about the public option than Obama's political standing?" They should and they should send the message that the Snowe trigger is unacceptable and, progressive legislators should say health care "reform" without a real public option will not pass. In that sense, Progressive Block leader Raul Grijalva's reaction is the wrong one:

“It’s one vote, she won’t make the commitment on the final product, and she says she’s got to have the trigger,” said Representative Raúl M. Grijalva, Democrat of Arizona, who is leading an effort in the House to round up votes for a government plan akin to Medicare. “I think the administration has put her in the driver’s seat; it’s very disconcerting.”

(Emphasis supplied.) The only way Obama can put Snowe in the driver's seat is IF progressives let him do it. Just say no to the Snowe Trigger. Nonnegotiable. It really is that simple.

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Your turn.

This is an Open Thread.

Not very effectively though:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid scoffed at the suggestion--articulated last night by Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY)--that the public option is simply in his hands. "He would rather say anything so it wasn't up to him," Reid said, before departing for a meeting with White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, and Sens. Max Baucus (D-MT) and Chris Dodd (D-CT). The four will hold the first meeting about how to shape a health care bill that will soon be introduced on the Senate floor.

(Emphasis supplied.) When the Senate Majority Leader is stepping into a meeting with the WH COS and the representatives of the relevant committees, it is damned hard to pass the buck to a guy not even in the meeting.

Memo to Reid - if he wants to pass the buck, he'll need to pass it up - to the President.

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if they are right about Obama in every respect? That he is not a pol, like the rest of them? That he really does have an 11 dimensional chess strategy that will deliver every progressive dream? Wouldn't it be nice?

Maybe if we think and wish and hope and pray it might come true
Baby then there wouldn't be a single thing we couldn't do

In the meantime, just in case they are wrong, may I suggest we keep fighting for those policies, not pols, that we believe in.

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Glenn Greenwald:

Everyone is free to do whatever they want with their columns and blogs, of course, but I personally have never understood why someone would want to turn themselves into an arm of the Obama White House -- to "carry water" for the Party apparatus, using Rush Limbaugh's confessional. Barack Obama has a massive communications team already devoted to that function. They even have their own website and blog that fills that role. The DNC, DCCC, and scores of other huge, massively-funded institutions already exist to justify whatever he does, attack the GOP, and generally promote the Party and administration line. Blogs which replicate that function can't add very much.

I've always seen the unique value of political blogs as applying outside citizen pressure on Beltway institutional political power -- which now resides primarily in Barack Obama and the Democrats -- to reject or at least resist the standard Washington influences. Every well-funded institutional faction is working feverishly using every means they have -- lobbyists, money, advertising -- to pressure the Democratic Party to serve their agenda. Why shouldn't "people on the Left" do the same? Shouldn't health care activists care more about the public option than Obama's political standing? Shouldn't gay rights activists be agitating aggressively for concrete action rather than pretty speeches? Shouldn't civil libertarians be constantly protesting an administration that has stomped on their beliefs? Shouldn't anti-war activists and empire opponents be objecting to the obvious incompatibility between escalating a war and being deemed the earth's leading peace activist?

(Emphasis supplied.) Yes they should. And on Glenn's last point, even those of us who support the President's policy on Afghanistan should, through sheer intellectual honesty, understand that escalating wars, whether I think such escalation right or not, should pretty much disqualify you from consideration of a peace award.

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