Senate Dems claim ‘broad agreement’ on public option

story by The Hill
written by Jeffrey Young

A group of liberal and centrist Senate Democrats have come to a “broad agreement” to resolve intra-party disputes over healthcare reform legislation, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Tuesday evening.

The terms, outline and content of that agreement, however, remain highly uncertain. Reid would not disclose any information about what the group of 10 liberal and centrist Democratic senators had settled upon.

Nevertheless, Reid portrayed his announcement as a major milestone on the road to healthcare reform – and flatly denied that Democrats had jettisoned the proposal to create a government-run public option insurance program.

“It’s been a long journey,” Reid said. “But tonight we’ve overcome a real problem that we had. I think it’s fair to say that the debate [at] this stage has portrayed as a very divisive one and many have assumed that people of different perspectives can’t come together. But I think that what we were able to work out the last few days, culminating tonight, belays that.”

Separately in a statement, Reid said the consensus Democrats had reached included a public option that would ensure competitition for insurance companies and choices for the public.

Reid will send a proposal to the Congressional Budget Office Wednesday for a cost estimate before senators take any additional steps, he said. “Hopefully we’ll know something from them by the end of the week,” said Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), a centrist who supports the public option.

Democrats were mum after their negotiating session broke prior to Reid’s remarks to the press. Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), a staunch proponent of the public option, indicated that both sides made concessions. “You’re going to find nobody who’s happy,” he said, adding “I’m smiling.”

Despite Reid's sunny assessment of the state of the negotiations between centrist and liberal Democrats, one of the liberals who participated in the talks swiftly issued a statement reemphasizing his commitment to the public option -- and introducing a hint of skepticism into the proceedings.

“While I appreciate the willingness of all parties to engage in good-faith discussions, I do not support proposals that would replace the public option in the bill with a purely private approach," Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) said in a statement.

Reid last week convened the working group, led by liberal Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and centrist Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.), to seek common ground.

The major issue dividing the liberal majority of Democrats from a handful of centrist holdouts has been whether to create a government-run health insurance program. Efforts by Reid and others, including Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe (Maine), to devise compromise versions of the public option failed to bring centrists such as Sens. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) on board with liberals.

In recent days, the liberal-centrist working group seems to have set aside the public option. Instead, they are developing a set of new provisions for the bill with an eye toward satisfying all sides.

“What we’re trying to figure out here, certainly within our caucus and then maybe with Olympia, is: How much government involvement there should be in healthcare, how much private involvement. And there are disagreements,” Schumer said earlier Tuesday.

Apart from a public option, the senators are weighing proposals to establish private, nonprofit health insurance programs set up by the federal Office of Personnel Management (OPM) as backups to traditional insurance; require insurance companies to spend at least 90 percent of their premium revenues on health services; allow people between 55 and 64 years old to buy into Medicare; and expand Medicaid, perhaps to everyone up to 150 percent of the federal poverty level.

Flanking Reid at Tuesday evening’s impromptu press conference, however, Schumer cautioned against relying on earlier accounts. “You just know what was being talked about,” Schumer told reporters. “Things changed all the time.”

During the negotiating sessions in a conference room near Reid’s office, Schumer, Rockefeller, Feingold and Sen. Sherrod Brown (Ohio) represented the liberal Democrats while Pryor, Carper and Nelson represented the centrist Democrats, along with Sens. Mary Landrieu (La.) and Blanche Lincoln (Ark.).

Even if the Democratic caucus unites behind whatever the working group devised, they may not be able to win over Snowe, whose support President Barack Obama and other Democrats have intensely courted. Prior to Reid’s announcement, Snowe said that while the OPM-managed insurance program had appeal, she did not support either a Medicare buy-in or a

“It’s an expansion of government at a time in which we should be moving in the opposing direction, frankly,” Snowe said.