Pine Tree Politics

Washington Post Looks At Collins On Healthcare

By Matthew Gagnon
October 22, 2009

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The Washington Post is out with an article today – highly speculative and devoid of any real hard facts – that the Obama administration is lobbying Senator Susan Collins on the healthcare reform bill, and theorizes that Collins “could be a critical crossover vote”.

That Obama is lobbying Collins and other moderates is known by observers, though I would hesitate to argue he was pressing her “hard”.  The article itself mostly focuses on Collins’ many faces – from Senator representing a poor state supportive of healthcare reform, to the pragmatist concerned with cost above all else, to the skeptic who doesn’t like the public option.

But more than anything, the article attempts to point at Collins as a vote that could potentially be peeled off – yet doesn’t seem to provide much to back that up.

The Post’s academic exercise seems to be build on a house of cards of stale, old news, and a lot of fluff.  For example, they attempt to read the tea leaves thusly:

Already the courtship has entailed dinner with administration budget chief Peter Orszag, an invitation to confer with Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) and an hour-long session with White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, during which the president “dropped by” for 25 minutes. On Tuesday, Collins met with a group of centrist senators who are trying to forge a middle ground.

None of this is news, nor is it even timely.  As we noted last week, Collins herself has talked about those meetings, although she repeatedly referred to them as minor and mostly “catch-up” discussions – hardly intense lobbying.  The rest of the article simply weaves in a story of home concerns and Collins’ past to paint her as, in their words, “the fence-sitting Republican in President Obama’s sights”.

It does not contain any kind of hard facts or detail that would suggest she is on the fence – and indeed, I don’t believe she is.  Last week we pointed out that she had no plans to vote for the Baucus bill, and as the bill she will eventually vote on will be to the left of that legislation, I see no reason why anyone would point at her as a current fence sitter.  The entire thesis of the story seems build on either wishful thinking, or perhaps simply a slow news cycle.

Still, there is some useful information contained in the piece.  The Post then highlights Dirigo, and how it has shaped Collins’ opinion of a public option:

Unlike most states, Maine has a government-sponsored insurance option, which Collins calls a disappointment. The program, named Dirigo, has limited enrollment to 10,000 people because of high costs. Rather than reducing the uninsured rate, it has drawn many out of private plans.

Defenders say Dirigo’s shortcomings prove that states cannot solve health care alone. But Collins views it as a cautionary tale. She opposes a public option on the federal level and calls Snowe’s idea to “trigger” the option if cost targets are not met within several years a “hair trigger.”

And it concludes:

For Collins, who was reelected last year with 61.5 percent of the vote, the health-care decision appears to be low risk with the potential for high reward. Maisel and other analysts predict that she will use her leverage, as she has in the past, to extract special considerations for her state.

In Maine, opposition to the health-care overhaul has been muted, almost deferential to the two political powerhouses: Snowe and Collins. Even skeptics such as Cyr say that in the end, they will trust the women they know as Olympia and Susan.

Highly earth shattering stuff here.

I continue to view most coverage like this as white noise in the healthcare debate – I do not believe it is at all representative of Collins actually being a swing vote, only the media’s obsession with the horse race and process, and invention of stories where none exist.

If and when Senator Collins takes some steps to signal her willingness or intention to actually support some legislation, I’ll take this kind of thing a lot more seriously.

Tags: Healthcare Reform, Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, US Senate