Even without public option, health-care bill still an improvement: Harkin

By James Q. Lynch

The Gazette

Sen. Tom Harkin, champion of a “robust public option,” turned to Shakespeare to explain his newfound enthusiasm for passing a health-care reform bill without a government-run insurance program.

“What's in a name?” the Iowa Democrat quipped when asked Thursday about his role as one of 10 senators negotiating an alternative to the public option that reportedly will expand Medicare to allow people age 55 and older to enroll rather than offer a government-run insurance program.

Harkin declined to talk about the specifics of the compromise until the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office tallies the cost off the compromise. In case the cost is unacceptable, Harkin said, senators want to be able to “turn some dials” before the public gets involved in the debate.

He's not happy about compromising on the public option and he's not happy that a few senators are holding the Democratic caucus hostage with their opposition to key parts of the bill. Harkin didn't name names, but didn't deny Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska and independent Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, who caucuses with Democrats, are the flies in the ointment.

“When you have two or three people who have their own agenda and are taking a ‘my way or the highway' approach and you have to have 60 votes to move it, well, you have to deal with realities and those are the realities,” Harkin said.

He prefers the bill passed out of the Health Committee that included the public option, but said “there is still more good in this bill than bad.”

“By and large, it's still a significant improvement in the way we do health care deliveries in this country, so I will support it and work to push it through,” he said.

As distasteful as he might find it, Harkin said Democrats will have to cater to the dissenters in their caucus to be able to break a likely Republican filibuster, Harkin said.

“Every single Republican has joined together to try to sink this … to stop Obama and make this his Waterloo,” he said. “So we have to cater to two individuals who are driving a pretty hard bargain.”

If Democrats can't convince both of them, they will seek support of a Republican, most likely Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine.

“But if we have to get a Republican, we'll have to make more changes,” he warned.

Still, Harkin said, he's come too far to quit working for passage of the legislation.

“Once we break back of the status quo, we can move ahead in the future,” he said. “But we've got to get over this hurdle. If we don't get all we want, that's life. At least it's progress.”