Harkin says Obama will sign bill with public option by Christmas

[babylonsister]

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/62063-harkin-says-obama-will-sign-bill-with-public-option-by-christmas


Harkin says Obama will sign bill with public option by Christmas
By Michael O'Brien - 10/07/09 02:30 PM ET


President Barack Obama will sign a healthcare bill including a "strong" public option by Christmas, the chairman of a key Senate committee said Wednesday.

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), the chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, boldly predicted that Democrats would prevail by the end of the year with a health reform bill largely resembling their original intent.

"I just want to reassure the American people that we are going to have a good health care reform bill," Harkin said during an appearance on MSNBC. "And it's going to be on the president's desk before Christmas. And he's going to sign it before Christmas."

"I can assure you that the bill that gets to the president's desk will have a public option," he added.

Harkin said that he did not know what the public option in the final bill would resemble -- whether it would include a so-called "trigger" mechanism, for instance -- but matched previous confident predictions that Democrats in Congress would largely succeed in their bid to overhaul the nation's health system.

The chairman also said that he has continued to let Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), who chaired the HELP committee in the absence of the late Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.), during negotiations to merge his committee's bill with the one to come out of the Senate Finance Committee.

"Well, because I have designated Senator Dodd to be the lead person on health care reform," Harkin said. "He started it. And I felt it was important to keep him on, Senator Dodd, as our lead person on health care reform."

[rurallib]

1. Harkin keeps saying that and I for one believe him.

[SPedigrees]

6. I want to believe!!!

Let's just say I'm hoping Senator Harkin is right.

[msallied]

2. If that happens--even if it isn't exacty what people want--I think we can firmly say

That the Obama presidency knows how to get things done, period. When Dubya tried to revamp Social Security, it was a colossal failure.

[bluestateguy]

3. And after that, from Day One the task will be to make the Public Option bigger and bigger and bigger

Good government programs often start off small and grow larger and more expansive as people come to appreciate their benefits. I hope that's the path the Public Option takes.

[rudy23]

5. Day one is in 2013---I hope Obama is still president, then!

It would really suck to have to work to expand an already undersized and ineffective Public Option under a Repub. president.

[scheming daemons]

7. I don't believe you

...when you say you "hope Obama is still president then".


I think you wake up every morning trying to figure out how best to go about working to defeat him.

[DebbieCDC]

4. I sure hope he knows something the rest of us don't

[WI_DEM]

8. I hope he knows something we don't because he keeps saying this.

[quantass]

9. It's a good feeling to think that way -- I hope it's a "strong PO" and not that weak sause trigger

but in the end...if it has a stupid trigger but a strong PO then, fuck me, i will still take it....its the hope that in the future if it does get triggered into law that it grows to become a very useful and critical program for saving america. But for now i hope there is no trigger at all.

If the bill passes (which doesnt take affect until 2013) and signed, and is respectable in its details then Obama has already secured his re-election. Bravo, is in order even now for him making it further than anyone else in history on the issue.

[senseandsensibility]

10. Harkin's from the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party

Go, Harkin!

[thatsrightimirish]

11. Another outrageous attack on the wealthy in this country

When will Harkin learn that its the governments duty to get rid of poor and middle class people, not help them.