Tweet
As I read this morning that Massachusetts Rep. Stephen Lynch is seriously threatening to vote no on the final health care bill, his rationale reminded me of something. Here’s Lynch:
Lynch said his biggest objections in the Senate bill are a proposed surcharge on so-called “Cadillac” health-care plans, anti-trust provisions favoring insurers and lack of cost restraints.
“I continue to be opposed to the bill,” Lynch said, noting he doesn’t see how it can realistically be changed in coming days to win his support.
Lynch said he was under intense pressure from Democratic leaders and union officials yesterday to vote in favor of the bill.
Labor leaders have called and even visited Lynch – even though unions have opposed the prospect of their members possibly one day paying a “Cadillac” surcharge on their health plans as part of extending insurance coverage to millions of other Americans.
Matt Yglesias said on Twitter yesterday that he doesn’t “understand how Lynch can survive a primary without union support.” On the surface, interesting question. But Lynch very well may be looking at what happened in the Massachusetts Senate special election, and what voting union members said about the tax on their health care plans. From the AFL-CIO’s own polling on the issue:
The election also should be a wake-up call for those in Washington who support taxing working families’ health care. Voters who thought their health care would be taxed voted by 64 percent for Brown, while those who did not think their health care would be taxed voted by 54 percent to 40 percent for Coakley.
While unions are pressuring Lynch to support the bill despite the excise tax, it’s clear that at least union member voters in Massachusetts do not want to have their health care plans taxed; those that fear such a tax flocked to the Republican candidate.
My guess is that Stephen Lynch is looking at these numbers and making a calculated decision that he’ll stick with the voters on this one.
6 Comments
Support this site!
Subscribe to the newsletter
Advertise on Firedoglake
Send
us your tips
Make us your homepage
About Work in Progress
Matt Yglesias is a smart guy but doesn’t know squat about how unions do electoral politics.
Lynch has been rock solid on labor issues for many years, and the unions are not going to try to kill him for going off the reservation on this one vote. You might hear some threats from SEIU or others, but they are not serious, and Lynch knows it.
Maybe he’ll be our kucinich/stupak and hold out for real reforms or better yet, force a fail in which case the dems will be dispirit to pass something.
I’m in California and if this legislation loses by one vote I will be donating four figures to his primary opponent. How can this Representative make the near-perfect the enemy of the good.
Representative Stephen Lynch, you have my profound admiration and respect for standing your ground on behalf of your constituents, and the nation as a whole, in the face of backroom political pressure from self-serving Party leadership, and their unprincipled cheerleaders, who are mostly mindful of their own private agendas, not the greater public good.
Rep. Lynch is absolutely right that this pernicious, far-less-than-average bill is a “surrender,” not any sort of “compromise” worthy of the name. And I’m very sure that the voters of Massachusetts, regardless of Party, are going to notice and appreciate that someone in Washington, D.C. took note of, and honorably heeded the message they sent loud and clear in January about this very bill even before the excise tax provisions were formally proposed to it as an extra little garnish.
As on all politically “tough” (as Party insiders see it) votes in Congress, many of Lynch’s Democratic colleagues are probably privately cheering him on, knowing full well that he’s right, but lacking the courage of their convictions to publicly say so, as Lynch is doing, in no uncertain terms. And, unlike most Americans, from whom the media conceals so much, they all know that, despite the doomsday warnings, there’s a “non-perfect,” but at least not destructive, “Plan B” bill waiting in the wings should this bill fail. That “Plan B” bill could be incrementally improved upon later, if need be, because, unlike the pending Senate bill, it’s not a giant step in the wrong direction, but instead a small step in the right direction.
All of this backroom Party “pressure” in lieu of public debate is no way to run a legislative body. It makes a mockery of democratic self-government, and if “representatives” don’t soon start standing up for themselves and their branch of government, as Stephen Lynch is doing, it makes me wonder if the day is not far off when no public deliberation will take place in the chambers and hearing rooms of our Legislative Branch. Those debating chambers and rooms are already disturbingly empty much of the time these days when the House and the Senate are both formally “in session.” If Members of Congress are allowed to get away with letting the Parties shut the doors and turn out the lights on public process and public accountability in our national legislature, by limiting themselves to the occasional roll call vote with a predetermined outcome – as the House is edging ever closer to doing on a regular basis – private Wall Street/CEO merger-style dealmaking, without benefit of public debate, may well fully supplant the conscience of the Congress that’s supposed to be publicly speaking and acting on behalf of the American people, instead of merely saluting and accepting the latest private “deal” presented by the President, or by Party leaders (deals which of late seem to involve the abandonment or reversal of core tenets of the Party platform, to add insult to injury).
I’ve read speculation elsewhere that Lynch’s opposition to the bill has nothing to do with the excise tax, but is really about his strong anti-abortion views.
Lynch has a strong anti-abortion record and he is said to allied with the Stupak faction in demanding ant–abortion language in the final bill.
Lynch is probably the most vulnerable Dem from MA from one of the most conservative districts. My guess is that they gave him a pass.