Health care: Obama re-emphasizes he wants public option included

You can read the full text of today's letter from President Obama to Congress at this page on the White House site.

Jonathan Cohn has an interesting take on it at the New Republic's "The Treatment" health care blog.

Karen Tumulty's take at Time's "Swampland" blog is also worth a read.

In related news, the New York Times reported today that (surprise) the health insurance industry is balking at including the small business market in health care reform:

In other words, policy analysts and others say, unless the insurance industry is willing to give some of the same ground to small businesses that they have ceded to individual policy holders, a big part of what is wrong with the nation’s health care system may not get fixed.
More than 40 percent of the private American labor force works for companies with fewer than 100 workers. Leaving small businesses out of the federal effort to overhaul health care would be “a big hole in any reform proposal,” said Karen Davis, president of the Commonwealth Fund, a nonprofit health care research group that advocates significant changes to the current system.

As the president re-emphasized today, for-profit insurers need real competition from a public plan. Otherwise that kind of nonsense will continue.

Wash Post analyst: Poll should provoke 'outright alarm' for Specter; Pa. analyst: Sestak will need $10 million for primary

(h/t P-G Early Returns) Washington Post's Cillizza: at this early stage of the race, poll should provoke "outright alarm" for Specter

Pundit Madonna: Primary no ‘cakewalk’ for Specter, Sestak will need $10 million for primary (at last report, he had $3 million)

Op-ed by Tony Campisi, 1st vice chair of the Delaware County Dem Party (Sestak's district): Unlike Specter, Sestak stands for something

Worth noting - the Obama fundraiser in L.A. that Specter attended was for the Democratic National Committee -- *not* for Specter. Yes, Specter will probably reap some good fundraising contacts from having been there, but the $3 million fundraiser itself was *not* for him.

I Get Quoted Asking: What Are Dems Getting Out of Specter Switch?

Two nonpartisan PA politics sites interviewed me Monday and the coverage came out today.

Dan Hirschhorn at Pa2010 included a comment from me in a lengthy story today headlined "From the grassroots up, calls for a competitive Dem primary threaten to boil over":

...a grassroots infrastructure to hold Specter accountable to Democratic values—and perhaps eventually challenge him—has formed quickly. The Accountability Now PAC has been calling for a primary and laying the groundwork for helping to fund a challenger. At least two Facebook groups have been formed—”I support a real progressive against Arlen Specter” and “Keep Specter Honest.” And a Democratic activist has started Specter Watch, a blog that is closely monitoring the Senator’s every move.
“We’re talking about a state that President Obama won by 11 points,” said Ben Turner, who runs the blog. “This is not a state where you have to be timid if you’re a Democrat now. We know what the Republican base used to get out of [Specter]. They would get a year-and-a-half of votes from him before the primary. What is the Democratic Party going to get out of him?”

(Actually, the Republican base used to get more than that -- look at all the funding he brought to PA for "abstinence-only" sex education, to give one example.)

And Alex Roarty included this in today's PoliticsPA Daily Read:

PoliticsPA.com interviewed the founder of the blog Specter Watch, Ben Turner, on Monday. His bottom line: What does Specter support in the Democratic agenda?
“There's also the question of, ‘If he does support something now, how sure can we be a few weeks or months from now that he still will?’” Turner said in an interview over an instant messaging service. “He cosponsored EFCA, and then the Republican primary was approaching, so -- not. And now, stay tuned, I guess?”

(That instant messaging service, by the way, is Gmail Chat -- the address for me is specterwatch at gmail dot com.)

Specter Foot-in-Mouth Watch: Anita Hill, Jeff Sessions, Norm Coleman

Would that be a better name for this site? (Kidding.)

But -- sheesh. I'll get to the Coleman thing after 2 things that strike me as even more troubling.

1. This Sunday's New York Times magazine will have a Q-and-A with Specter that includes this:

(Q:) Many women can never forgive you for your aggressive questioning of Anita Hill during the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings. Do you regret your behavior?
(Specter:) No. When a serious charge is made like sexual harassment, the subject is entitled to question the accuser and find out the facts, and that’s what I did.

2. Politico reports Specter regrets his 'no' vote that helped keep far-right-winger Jeff Sessions out of a lifetime federal judgeship over questions about Sessions' race relations record:

Following his first lunch meeting with Senate Democrats on Tuesday, Specter told reporters that out of the 10,000 votes he has cast, he can now recall one that he regrets.
“I don’t expect everybody to agree with all my votes, and I don’t agree with all my votes, either, at this point ... and I was asked the other day what vote I regretted, and I couldn’t think of one that I wanted to publicly state, but I’m prepared to do that now in response to your question,” Specter said. “My vote against candidate Sessions for the federal court was a mistake.”

(Comment: As opposed to Senator Specter's 'no' vote on Obama's budget last week after switching parties, or his 'no' vote last week on helping struggling homeowners...)

3. In the same NY Times piece, Specter says Minnesota loser Norm Coleman should be seated in the Senate (or will we be told soon that's a misquote like the "loyal Democrat" bit?):

(Q:) With your departure from the Republican Party, there are no more Jewish Republicans in the Senate. Do you care about that?
(Specter:) I sure do. There’s still time for the Minnesota courts to do justice and declare Norm Coleman the winner.
(Q:) Which seems about as likely at this point as Jerry Seinfeld’s joining the Senate.
(Specter:) Well, it was about as likely as my becoming a Democrat.

Now earlier in the day, only the first Q and A had gotten out and not the Seinfeld Q and A that follows. So maybe that Coleman thing was a joke. Either way, Senator Specter needs to clear this up ASAP.

When was this interview given? Before he switched or after?

And in either case, will he put out a statement retracting his Coleman and/or Anita Hill comments? Not to mention, what is Pennsylvania's diverse Democratic electorate going to think of the Jeff Sessions and Anita Hill bits?

'Loyal Democrat' Quote Flap; Specter Meets with An Editorial Board

Greg Sargent's WhoRunsGov blog reported today that two different journalists are "sticking by the claim that Arlen Specter privately promised Obama that he’d be a 'loyal Democrat,' which Specter loudly denied yesterday."

Sargent also said: "If Specter privately fibbed to Obama about his loyalty to Dems, and is now publicly fibbing about having said it, perhaps it tells Democrats a thing or two about their new Senator."

David Shuster, guest-hosting MSNBC's Countdown tonight (typically they seem to post video around 10/11 PM Eastern or later), and his guest (Jonathan Alter of Newsweek, I think) made the point that the video clip of "I did not say I would be a loyal Democrat" could be damaging and stick in voters' minds in the Dem primary. They also discussed how strange it is that Specter and his office would leave the "loyal Democrat" quote out there uncorrected for 96 hours if it really is incorrect.

They also said it may depend what the definition of "loyal" is (I'm paraphrasing).

Specter met with the Harrisburg newspaper's editorial board today -- his first such meeting since the switch. Short writeup is online now - maybe there will be a longer version tomorrow morning.

New Republic Editorial

The NOT far-left New Republic's editors make some good points in an editorial posted this weekend for the May 20 edition -- the site alternately headlines it "The Runaway" and "Not So Fast, Arlen! You Need To Earn Your Spot In The Democratic Party":

...with Obama already vowing to campaign and fund-raise for him, it wouldn't be unreasonable for Specter to assume he can vote in ways that displease Democratic voters (and even the White House) on critical issues like health care since, at the end of the day, he has the ultimate political trump card: the support of Obama, whose approval rating in Pennsylvania is almost ten points higher than Specter's.
That is why it's essential that Specter not run unopposed in the Democratic primary.

It's also crucial that, once the primary battle begins, Obama makes sure the intensity of his support for Specter's candidacy is closely tied to the intensity of Specter's support for Obama's agenda. ... There's no reason Obama shouldn't make Specter swing left to secure his. It's one thing for Obama to endorse Specter's candidacy; it's another thing for him to record commercials and robo-calls, hold fund-raisers, and show up at campaign events for Specter. He should only do the latter if Specter comes through for him.

Hear, hear!

Specter Says No to Public Option in Health Care Reform

(h/t Nyceve at Daily Kos) Specter on "Meet the Press" today said he was misquoted about being a "loyal Democrat" and that he opposes including a public option in health care reform.

This is one of the biggest issues of the year and a priority for President Obama (and it's good policy, too, by the way). Including competition from a public option (think Medicare for people under 65) is one of the biggest things we can do to rein in out-of-control health care cost inflation.

It's a good thing that health care reform is apparently getting the anti-filibuster protection of "reconciliation," which would let it pass on a simple majority vote, because PA's new Democratic senator is sounding like the same Specter who helped kill the Clinton health care proposal in the 1990s.