Unsatisfied with the state of the Affordable Care Act, former Democratic congresswoman Carol Shea-Porter returned to an old well Thursday for a potential fix: the public option.
That proposal – a government-run insurance plan similar to Medicare that would compete with private ones on the marketplace – was popular among progressives but ultimately proved unpalatable in the Senate when the law first passed in 2010, a time when Democrats held strong majorities in both chambers.
Nevertheless, Shea-Porter said it’s the first fix she would propose if she returns to Congress, even if it’s likely the partisan makeup there will be far less friendly than the last time the public option was rejected.
Shea-Porter, a three-term representative from the 1st Congressional District, spoke about the law the same week that millions of Americans who buy insurance on the marketplace learned their premiums will increase by an average of 25 percent.
Of the 10.5 million people who are insured through the Affordable Care Act marketplace, five million to seven million who buy insurance on their own don’t receive subsidies, the New York Times reported. They’ll be left to pay the increased rates on their own.
“There’s that group out there that are really struggling, and I think we need to fix it,” Shea-Porter told the Monitor’s editorial board Thursday. “Now how do we fix it? Okay, first of all, you put a public option in there.”
She suggested that people could be allowed to sign up for Medicare, which might also be allowed to negotiate prescription drug prices “because that would push the cost downward.”
Shea-Porter blamed Democratic Montana Sen. Max Baucus, who was chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, for killing the public option.
“It’s not like Democrats (in general) took it out,” she recalled. “He did with that committee.”
CNN reported at the time, however, that Baucus liked the public option, but knew it wouldn’t have enough support in the Senate to overcome a Republican filibuster.
“I fear if this provision is in the bill, it will hold back meaningful reform this year,” Baucus was quoted as saying.
The White House, too, seemed to punt on the public option. President Obama downplayed the importance of the provision a month before the House passed its version of the bill, which included the public option.
“The public option, whether we have it or we don’t have it, is not the entirety of health care reform,” Obama was quoted as saying in the New York Times. “This is just one sliver of it, one aspect of it.”
Shea-Porter said it was “frustrating” to look back, knowing that it could have gone differently.
“We felt when it was coming out of the House, and it was passed the first time, we had done something that would help keep costs down. And it didn’t work out that way,” she said. “But you have to come back again.”
Shea-Porter said it’s one of her priorities to reform the tax code, which she said rewards corporations and wealthy people through a complicated system of loopholes and squeezes the middle class.
But that’s not possible, she said, as long as candidates for Congress rely on campaign donations from groups that benefit from the current code.
“We need campaign finance reform,” she said. “If we stopped allowing corporate PAC money or lobbyist money to come to the Hill, I think it would free people to make better decisions.”
She said the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision also hinders independent thought. Candidates who take anti-tax pledges, for instance, fear repercussions if they consider any bill that could violate the pledge, she said.
“There are people who are paralyzed and afraid to take any chances or stand up for anything because they know . . . if they try to do anything, they know there will be an avalanche of outside money coming to take them down,” she said.
Shea-Porter herself accepts donations from unions and political action committees, but she says she refuses help from “corporate PACs,” which she sees as a clear distinction.
She’s raised about the same amount of money as her Republican opponent, Frank Guinta, according to the watchdog OpenSecrets. Her largest contributor, JStreetPAC, has donated $21,250, including donations from its individual members, employees, owners and those people’s immediate families. That total is more than Guinta’s top donor.
But while she criticized her opponent as being swayed by corporate donations, she explained her own donations, saying, “J Street is pro-Isreal, pro peace, people who contribute because they want people who share their views on Israel, and I do.”
She added: “Corporations have direct benefits, monetary benefits, that they are going for.”
On the other hand, she said, “If you have Sierra Club come in, they are working for environmental purposes for clean air – you can’t really sell clean air.”
The progressive blog Miscellany Blue reported in August that stolen documents from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee revealed Shea-Porter wasn’t the Democrats’ first choice for the district.
The documents showed that DCCC political director Ian Russell worked to get Executive Councilor Chris Pappas to run for the seat instead, and that he told House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, “we do not recommend encouraging (Shea-Porter) to run.”
“We recommend a fresh face for 2016,” Miscellany Blue quoted Russell as saying. “In-state political leaders, including Rep. Kuster and State Party Chair Ray Buckley are encouraging businessman and Executive Council Member Chris Pappas to run.”
Shea-Porter said Thursday that this came as no surprise because, even when she first ran for the district in 2006, she wasn’t the “chosen one.”
“Was I offended? No, not at all,” she said. “I knew it all along.”
She said she sees her relationship with the party “like an arranged marriage. I don’t necessarily like a lot of the things they do in Washington, whether it’s Republican or Democrat.”
“People said, ‘Were you shocked?’ I said, ‘Shocked? They’ve said it to my face’ ” she said.
Editor’s note: This article has been updated to clarify that the $21,250 that JStreetPAC contributed to Shea-Porter’s campaign includes donations from the PAC, its individual members or employees or owners, and those individuals’ immediate families.
(Nick Reid can be reached at 369-3325, nreid@cmonitor.com or on Twitter at @NickBReid.)