By Chris Kromm
Cross-posted at Facing South
Last week, Jane Hamsher at Firedoglake reported that Democratic plans to push for a "public option" for health care reform -- a publicly-financed plan to compete with private insurance -- were hitting an unexpectedly difficult wall: newly-elected Sen. Kay Hagan of North Carolina.
From her perch on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, Hagan has kept a public option from even being introduced because Democrats fear she'll join Republicans in killing it in committee:
"We can't bring it up because we'd actually lose the vote," said the source. "They'd vote with the Republicans."
Bingaman and Hagan are in favor of watering down a public plan into Kent Conrad's co-op plan, which is supported by insurance lobbyists. "It gives them the appearance of supporting a public option without getting them in trouble with the insurance companies," said the source.
Hagan's position hasn't changed since that piece ran last week. Today, Mark Binker of The Greensboro News & Record reports that Hagan is still resistant to the public option, for two reasons. One is that Hagan thinks it would be unsettling to the insurance industry:
Hagan worries that such a federally run insurer may prompt companies to drop their private plans, or prompt individuals to run to a cheaper alternative, and destabilize the insurance market.
But as Adam Searing at Progressive Pulse points out, if any industry needs some shaking up, health insurance companies -- which currently leave 46 million people in the U.S. uninsured -- would qualify:
Isn't this the whole point of health reform, especially in a state like North Carolina where one insurer, NC Blue Cross, insures the vast majority of people in NC? People who like their Blue Cross coverage should keep it - but Blue ought to feel threatened by some competition finally in NC. They might get leaner, stop paying millions in salaries to top executives, and worry about keeping premium increases down to levels people can afford.
Hagan's other argument is political -- that the public option won't have enough support to pass:
"[T]he president would like to have a bill by October," Hagan said on her way to the airport. To get that bill, no one party to the health care debate can get everything it wants. "What I'm working on is getting a bill that can get to our president."
But critics point out that this line of argument is both circular reasoning -- "I'm opposing the public option because Senators might oppose it" -- as well as self-fulfilling prophecy.
As the website Stand with Dr. Dean -- an advocate of the public option -- reports, 37 Senators are on record as favoring the public option, with 22 undeclared. If all of the 22 moved into the "yes" column -- all Democrats -- the 59 votes would put the bill in an excellent position to pass, especially if Al Franken (D-MN) is seated.
Searing points out that Sen. Hagan's wavering is in line with her largely centrist, pro-business political career. As a N.C. state senator in 2005, Hagan pushed for a budget that cut taxes on the wealthiest North Carolinians while removing Medicaid coverage from 65,000 aged, blind, and disabled people in poverty.
But Hagan's position certainly seems like back-stepping from the fiery pro-reform rhetoric she used on the 2008 campaign trail. For example, the BlueNC blog found this Hagan statement in its liveblog archives:
Since 2001, premiums for family health coverage have increased 78%, and now an estimated 47 million Americans are uninsured. Washington is broken. We need to change the way we deliver health care by standing up to special interests and negotiating lower drug prices and lower premiums.
An interesting sidenote: While Nate Silver's analysis shows that, overall, the massive campaign contributions made by powerful health interests are related to how Senators vote, it's notable that Hagan hasn't been one of the biggest beneficiaries of the health industry.
Out of Hagan's top contributors, only one is health-related: Blue Cross/Blue Shield -- fierce opponents of the public option -- which has been responsible for $13,300 in contributions to Hagan as a federal candidate (IMPORTANT UPDATE: These have increased since she came into office and joined the HELP committee -- see stats in Update #2 below).
That compares to over $2 million Hagan has received from just three liberal causes: ActBlue, EMILY's List and Moveon.org.
I doubt that blocking the Democrat's signature health care reform proposal is what these liberal donors had in mind when they were financing Sen. Hagan's election bid last November.
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UPDATE: Thanks to ctsteve for pointing me to this in the comments -- Hagan certainly has a personal interest in the issue:
The first big congressional moment on health care comes Tuesday in the Senate's Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, which will consider a liberal-leaning proposal that includes the creation of a "public plan" meant to be a government-administered alternative to private health insurance.
On that 22-member panel, at least eight senators have financial interests in the health-care industry worth a minimum of $600,000 -- and potentially worth as much as $1.9 million. The investors include Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), a senior member of the panel, who holds at least $165,000 in pharmaceutical and medical stocks, and freshman Sen. Kay Hagan (D-N.C.), who holds at least $180,000 in investments in more than 20 health-care companies.
UPDATE 2: Courtesy of Scrutiny Hooligans, here's a North Carolina Health Care Index (slightly abridged version, read the whole thing here):
Percentage of North Carolinians who are uninsured: 21%
Rank of North Carolina among the states and the District of Columbia in the portion of residents that are uninsured: 15th
Average cost of an emergency room visit in Wake County, NC: $1,100
Percentage of the uninsured who say the emergency room is their usual source of care: 20%
Approximate percentage of US bankruptcies driven by medical incidents: 60%
Number of personal bankruptcy filings in North Carolina, 2007-2008: 19,113
Estimated annual cost to North Carolina due to productivity losses stemming from lack of health insurance: $4 billion
Amount BlueCross BlueShield of North Carolina (BCBSNC), a non-profit company, reported in profits in 2008: $186 million
Chances that a privately insured North Carolinian is covered by BCBSNC: 3 in 4
Amount Medicare consumes in administrative costs for every dollar spent: 3 cents
Amount BCBSNC spends on non-medical expenses for every dollar in revenue: 15 cents
Amount BCBSNC charged North Carolina this year for cost overruns in administering the state employees’ health plan: $200 million
Amount of money in BCBSNC’s reserve account: $1.3 billion
Approximate amount BCBSNC spent to sponsor the US Open in 2005: $478,000
Approximate amount BCBSNC CEO Rob Greczyn received in executive compensation in 2008: $4 million
Amount the BCBSNC PAC and individual employees gave to state political campaigns from 2000-2007: $643,000
Amount Senator Kay Hagan received from health sector PACs in 2005-2006,
expressed as a percentage of the money spent by her state senate campaign: 9%
Rank of health sector PACs among PACs donating to Senator Hagan in the 2008 election: 4
Rank of health sector PACs among PACs donating to Senator Hagan since her appointment to the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee: 1
Number of Democratic senators on the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee who have not yet announced their support for a public option: 1
Percentage of Americans who support a public option, according to a CBS News poll: 72%
Number for Kay Hagan’s Washington, DC office: (202) 224-6342
Note: I haven't personally fact-checked all these stats, so this is just FYI for further research.
UPDATE 3: To get a sense for how angry progressive North Carolinians are about this, James Protzman with BlueNC in North Carolina -- which has been watch-dogging Hagan's position on health care from the beginning -- has called for a strike on July 6 if the situation doesn't turn around. Read the DKos diary here.
UPDATE 4: Under the Health Care for American Now campaign umbrella, groups in North Carolina are organizing a health care "freedom ride" to Washington, D.C. tomorrow, Wednesday, June 24. Buses will depart from Greensboro, Raleigh, Pender, Durham and Charlotte. Contact state representatives Lynice Williams, NC Fair Share [ncfslrw AT aol.com] or Pat McCoy, NC ACORN [training AT acorn.org].
UPDATE 5: Several readers have reported in the comments the responses they've gotten from calling Sen. Hagan's office. They all seem to say the same thing: "We're looking into it." In my days as a community organizer, we viewed such a lack of commitment as a "no" response, and an invitation to turn up the pressure.