Better Than Ever

The Kent Conrad chicanery continues down its lurid, prideful path.

On the Rockefeller amendment (robust public option) to the Senate Finance version of health reform, authored by health insurance sympathizer Max Baucus, the committee voted 'no' 15-8. Here's Jon Walker at FDL with the break down:

All ten Republicans on the committee voted against the amendment. Five Democrats (Kent Conrad, Max Baucus, Blanche Lincoln, Bill Nelson, Thomas Carper) also voted against the amendment. Eight Democrats (Jay Rockefeller, Jeff Bingaman, John Kerry, Ron Wyden, Charles Schumer, Debbie Stabenow, Maria Cantwell, Robert Menendez) vote in support of Rockefeller's amendments.

Then Walker spots our man Kent, petulantly flaunting these co-ops he's pushed as the honest way we can achieve the ever-popular bipartisan compromise. Kent is still getting his European health-care comparisons wrong. This time it's the Netherlands:

Kent Conrad was very upset that Rockefeller's public option would be tied to Medicare schedules given that North Dakota has one of the lowest Medicare reimbursement rates in the country.

He also clearly lives in a fantasy world. Conrad talked about how some systems (Beligium, Netherlands) technically have universal coverage provided by private insurance funds. Yes, it is possible to have a good universal health care system with only private insurance providers, but it needs to be highly regulated. Baucus's bill doesn't come anywhere close to the level of government regulation that kind of system requires to work.

If Conrad offered an amendment copying the robust regulation, generous subsidies, strong bad practice penalties, and powerful risk equalizer of the Netherlands' system, then we can talk about the possibility of reform without a public option.

Who does this guy think he is? And it looks like Kent's junior squad showed itself scared to utter a word of explanation for their votes:

Olympia Snowe, Thomas Carper, and Blanche Lincoln cannot be bothered to publicly debate one of the committee's most important amendments. It seems neither Olympia Snowe, Thomas Carper, nor Blanche Lincoln thought they needed to explain their opposition to a robust public option in the official Senate record.

I'll let Snowe slide since she's a Republican and has little incentive to still be around other than for attention-mongering. But Carper? Come on Delaware. Blanche Lincoln is just scared of Wal-Mart. Let's ask rural Arkansas how they feel about health insurance companies.