During the Senate Finance Committee hearing just now (which we’re liveblogging here), Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND) seemed to go farther than he has in the past in opposing a robust public option provision. His line previously had been that public option just doesn’t have the votes in the Senate, but now he’s saying he’s opposed to it on principle.
Late Update: TPM Reader SA has a different read, and one that our reporter Brian Beutler, on the scene in the hearing room, says is closer to the truth of the matter than what I suggested above:
I’ve been watching the Finance Committee hearing today, and reached a very different conclusion than David Kurtz about what Kent Conrad said regarding the public option.
He was speaking only about the idea of tying the public option to Medicare costs. Indeed, my reaction was that he was a sending a signal to his fellow Democrats about how they can get support from rural Democrats like him. I thought he left the door more open than he ever has to supporting some form of public option – but not one that would tie its rates to Medicare payments.
More than once, Democrats have found support for a public option among Blue Dog Democrats by compromising on the Medicare pricing, replacing it with the idea that the public option would negotiate for lower costs. It sounded to me like Conrad was saying what it would take to get his support on a public option, not that he was “opposed to it in principle.” He’s only opposed to tying it to Medicare pricing.
The President reacts to Olympia Snowe’s decision to support the Baucus bill. Watch.
Congress to hold hearings on those forged letters to Congress from Bonner and Associates.
The senators on the Finance Committee are wrapping up their statements on the Baucus bill. From what senators have been saying in their statements, it looks like the bill will be voted out of committee with a 14-9 votes. No big surprises there. The big unknown was which way Snowe would go, and she’s going to vote yes. Stay tuned.
Senate Finance Committee passes the Baucus bill.
Let the health care reform negotiations begin!
The RNC’s big relaunch of its website has not gone so well today. In the last hour or so, the site has been crashing periodically. The Obama campaign’s former online guru, Joe Rospars, tells TPMDC: “You know your web program is in trouble when your site can’t even handle the traffic bump from people making fun of your web program.”
Obama will make a Rose Garden statement on health care reform, presumably on the passage of the Baucus bill through Senate Finance, at 5 p.m. ET.
Michael Steele on the new GOP.com: “It’s not even really a website.”