Blue Dogs Backsliding On Health Care

By Ryan Grim
Huffinton Post
First Posted: 06- 8-09 04:58 PM | Updated: 06- 8-09 05:17 PM

Conservative House Democrats agreed to a set of health care principles late last week that angered advocates of a overhaul of the health care system.

The Blue Dog Coalition issued a statement that said it would only support the public health care option as a fallback measure that would be triggered sometime down the road if private insurers don't meet a particular set of goals.

(26 Dems Editorial note: Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, a member of the Blue Dog Coalition, was not one of the 20 signers of the HCAN pledge.)

The backsliding took advocates of reform by surprise because 20 members of the coalition had previously signed a pledge expressing their support for a public option without a trigger. The statement was written and organized by the reform coalition Health Care for America Now (HCAN), which strongly opposes a trigger and sees it as an industry plot to strangle a public option in the crib.

Blue Dogs, by their charter, need two-thirds of their 51-member caucus to approve a position before it can be officially adopted. With 20 Blue Dogs backing a public option, they would be short several votes if everyone stuck to their pledge in the closed-door meeting.

A senior Blue Dog staffer, however, said that when the coalition first met to discuss the set of principles, they decided to stake out a negotiating position rather than draw a firm line.

"The sense in the room when these principles were drafted was that the coalition was shooting a bit past where they want to end up," said a top Blue Dog aide. "The final product is obviously going to be delivered through a negotiation and an ultimate compromise meaning the principles listed are much more of a starting place for the negotiation than they are an intractable position."

Another Blue Dog aide whose boss signed the HCAN pledge said that Blue Dogs have told staff that they are not against a public plan and want to see health care reform happen this year. The principles laid out last week are just the beginning of negotiations, the aide said, and an attempt to hold the industry accountable for its pledge to trim $2 trillion from health care spending. The trigger the Blue Dogs support would be pulled more readily than one the industry might prefer.

The Huffington Post contacted the 20 Blue Dogs who originally signed onto the public option but have begun to backtrack in the days since. Unfortunately, the calls yielded little response. Click here to continue the story.