The health care debate may be long and frustrating but it can lead to some interesting moments. For example, Tom Coburn and David Vitter thought they’d be clever and cute and add an amendment to force members of Congress into the public option should it pass. Sen. Sherrod Brown decided to take their bait.
The Hill reports that Sens. Tom Coburn (R-OK) and David Vitter (R-LA) are preventing Democrats from co-sponsoring an amendment to the Senate health bill that would “force members of Congress into any public option health plan that becomes law.” The amendment was conceived by Republicans as a political stunt. As Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) said, “If [the public option] is good enough for the American people — and they don’t think it is — then it ought to be good enough for Congress.” But Democrat Sherrod Brown (D-OH) has called them on their gimmick:
Sen. Sherrod Brown (Ohio) said he is trying to co-sponsor the amendment — but that Coburn and Vitter won’t let him. … “They’ve not said yes to allow me to be a co-sponsor,” Brown told The Hill on Thursday. “I’ve called their office four times. I’m proud of the public option, I think it would be great and we ought to join it and show the country how good it is. I think my interest may be more genuine than theirs, but I’d like to work with them if they’ll let me. If they just want to score partisan points, I still want to work with them.”
LOL! Brown, Dodd and Mikulski added themselves as co-sponsors through anonymous consent.
If Arlen Specter keeps this up, I might begin to like him. Specter schools Collins and Lieberman on the public option:
This bill may be so good, look so good, to Senator Lieberman that he may be willing to make some accommodations.”
Lieberman and Collins both demurred.
“I do not support…a government owned, government run insurance company,” Collins
[…]“I think we have learned a lot from the Maine plan,” Specter retorted. “We know what not to do. We’re not going to adopt a Maine plan. That experience will stand us in good stead. We won’t make the same mistake.”
Specter went on: “And when Senator Lieberman talks about single payer, I think he’s putting his finger on the pulse of it. That’s what people have concluded [but] the public option isn’t single payer, and it is not going to add to the deficit, it’s going to be a level playing field. So I would like everyone to read the fine print and [for my colleagues] to re-read the fine print.”