Health Care: What Would Teddy Do?

How possible do you think it is that "kill the bill" folks don't really want to blow up the process, but are just using these public outbursts as a means to bring the goalposts back toward a more progressive outcome?  In other words, the outbursts are a tactic toward a realistic, but unstated goal, and not a goal in themselves.  Or are we past that point on the timelime of negotiation in your opinion?

 

From where I stand, I just don't see what leverage the progressive wing of the party nor the President have over the 5-6 conservative Democrats in the Senate on this issue at this time.  And without leverage, there's no room for compromise.

It's been a rather disheartening few days, but the worst has been people I previously had respected threatening to take their toys and go home.  Thanks for injecting a dose of reality- you and Nate Silver are once again the voices of reason.  Hopefully you'll be as right as you were during the primary season last year.

In the meantime, OFA has hit over 1 million calls for healthcare reform (including mine).  Other than continuing that organizing work, what do you recommend as a course of citizen action?

 

 

Thank you for this Al.

I also want to give thanks to Ezra Klein, Nate Silver, and Paul Krugman for pointing out the very good in this (very flawed) bill.

I hope it passes.

It's become a small change bill at best - neither reform nor cutting costs over the long haul for the whole system. A mandate without a fall-back government program to catch those who can't pay is unconscionable (sure I loved mandates last year when the plans included the safety net!) and very enarly anti-American, as I view things. It's terrible. And it's a political embarassment to the White House and to Democratic leadership. It's not worthy of Kennedy nor Obama's lofty campaign themes.

But it's not bupkis - maybe it's the 'foot in the door' Al references. At best. Some coverage may actually increase for the poor (we'll see - where's the hammer over corporate power). And the moment is slipping away. I just don't think this was ever a true major priority for the White House because they simply refused to fight publicly for it (don't give me the pale OFA activities, which never amounted to much of a grassroots army - besides, what's an army with no general out front on the damned horse).

So Al's right - pass the watered-down (half-drowned!) mess and skulk away, to do something bigger and better down the road. And politically, a massive Obama "failure" (as decided by the beltway insiders) would cost us stuff like immigration reform etc. But I also think those who want to kill or put off the bill as presently constituted, from socialist Senator Sanders to Dean to even (gulp - can't stand him) Olbermann and bloggers like Markos and Hamsher shouldn't be mocked: they've got a good point. This is simply not a great chapter.

This whole thing has been driving me crazy.  I've been hoping to see an update from you to add some much needed context.

More than what's listed above, I want to add that to all the netroots what currently want Lieberman's head...you can get it in 2010.  You don't have to wait until re-election time.  His importance to the process and his ability to grind the wheels of Government to a halt lie soley on the fact that he is the magic #60.  Maybe bouncing back and forth with Ben Nelson.

If Dems gain 2 seats in 2010 - even if they are blue dogs - then the magic #60 becomes a competition between them.  Who will offer the most reasonable deal will get what they want, and the last 1-2 blues will be sitting out getting nothing.  Irrelevant.

If Dems lose seats, it makes the situation even worse...because now you're dealing with Republicans - and Lieberman can STILL be relevant then because of his close ties to Republicans for bargining.

What's most annoying is all the activists and netroots people who are saying now they will sit out.  Now they will stop working and not show up to the polls.  It's insane.  If we stay where we are, or lose seats...we're worse off.  Republicans haven't rebounded!  Dems are still seen as more trustworthy.  We are in a better position now than we were in '94.  The DCCC has 5 times the cash on hand as the RNCC.  If we push as hard as we did in '06 and '08, we could be looking at holding ground in the House and maybe gaining a few in the Senate - if we work hard enough.

If that happens, it will prove to everyone that the "blocking the evil socialist communists nazi Obama agenda" didn't work for Republicans, and that the American people aren't scared of change.  It would make the blue dogs more irrelevant, competing with each other for table scraps in exchange for the mighty 60th vote.  It would continue the Democratic domination in the House.

And it would open the door for some REAL progressive politics in 2011, giving the Dems and the President some great accomplishments to run on in 2012 - which will be a better year, structurally, for Dems anyways.

If only we could get this reasoning out there more.  If only those blind with rage could take a breath and realize what's in front of us.  If only...

God...it's long, but oh so simple.  Lieberman's pettiness is a reason to get MORE involved, not less.

Finally a voice of reason. I now truly realize why the so called "netroots" cannot be taken seriously.

"I now truly realize why the so called "netroots" cannot be taken seriously."

I don't know if I would go that far.  Working on their side is the fact that they have been right on a lot as well.  The biggest downside of the netroots is the echochamber effect, coupled with a tendency to knee-jerk.  Those two things tend to make freak-outs (like we're seeing) that much worse.

But on the flip side, if Creig Deeds ran his campaign like many in the netroots kept saying he should, he likely could have won in VA.  They were a big part of the organizing that helped in '06 and '08.  They certainly shouldn't get all the credit, but they deserve some.

I place realists like Al, Booman, etc. (I'd like to think I'm in there) at the top of the heap, followed by the "netroots" (taken as a whole, to weed some of the crazy out), followed distantly by the traditional media - in terms of who I take seriously.

All of which follow my own person opinion and judgements...because I'm an egomaniac. :-P

 

For the score settlers of the Political world, what better way to laugh off Year 1 of their humiliating demise with a scornful, derisive shot across the bow:

from a premature Nobel to an enduring No Bill, where is the beef...? 

 

Some people say that reconciliation is the answer. That pushing a progressive bill through with 50 votes (plus the VP) will get 'er done.

Unfortunately, some key parts of the bill, like controls on insurance companies will not qualify for reconciliation and will have to be dropped under that process.

Others say to split the bill into 2. One part with the reconcilable stuff, like the public option or expansion of medicare and the other with the politically passable stuff. The problem with that is that you still get the chance of irresponsible **** like Lieberman blocking the regular order bill as retaliation for splitting it.

In my opinion, the solution is to pass this bill in regular order. Do whatever deal you need to in order to get 60 votes (except the Stupak amendment....that would be a killer). Pass the bill and have the prez sign it. Give Joe his photo op.

Only then do you introduce a SECOND bill that only has one item on it. It could be a strong PO but my preference is for expansion of medicare since that is simpler and more immediate. It eminently qualifies for reconciliation so pass it that way.

Let Joe keep his chairmanship. The best revenge is living well.

 

Travis - The "collective wisdom" of the Netroots was right about the Iraq war. (So was I. And so what?) But what else?

It was wrong about its plurality (in DKos polls and such) that John Edwards would have been the strongest or right nominee for 2008. Considering his personal foibles came to light right before the '08 convention, that was a disaster averted, but not by the Netroots.

It was wrong in its Chicken Littleing in August and September of 08 that Obama was somehow "blowing" his campaign and doomed to lose to McCain-Palin.

It's been wrong about Palin, too, actually making her stronger through personal attacks on her family.

Might Creigh Deeds have won had he taken the Netroots' collective advice? Maybe. But maybe not. Virginia has been an exceedingly difficult state for Democrats (and only George Allen's meltdown combined with Mark Warner's conservativism, Tim Kaine's exceptionally unique talents and the Obama campaign's voter turnout model opened recent windows for it). The real thing that killed Deeds was low African-American turnout. The Netroots really isn't a player on that front.

Some deep thoughts on deep-sixing the sixty-vote rule:

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/12/how-to-nuke-filibuster.html

I believe that the collective wisdom to which I've gleaned might be different than that which you have.

Iraq, I believe, would be worth more than a "so what".

While I'll give you Edwards...that was a situation no one really saw coming, so I don't consider that a "failure" of the netroots.  Plus, once it was down to Clinton v. Obama, most fell to Obama.

While I recall lots of "Obama should hit McCain harder!" talk, I only remember a minority saying that he was "blowing it" and would lose to McCain.

The Palin family stuff is sad.  But again, I think the (warranted) ridicule of Palin vastly outweights the stuff that was out of bounds.

True, VA is a tough state to predict.  But also every time Deeds was presented a choice - many would say "do this, and it will help you...do this, and it will hurt you."  And much more often than not, they were proven right.  He didn't do enough of the former to tell if he would have won, but he did more than enough of the latter to say that not taking the advice hurt.  Even the WH stated frustration about his campaigning as a "moderate/centrist" - though that frustration is blunted by the obvious CYA factor.

More often than not, the netroots can give a good indication of what not to do.  Even on the PO.  They kept pointing to polls that showed how popular it was, Dems in DC pulled it, and then BAM a bunch of liberal support vanished - now you have a nation that polls against passing the current Senate bill.  The merits of passing it or not aside, or the politics involved - they said people wanted a PO and it's now clear a solid chunk of support for HCR was because of it.

But I guess everything listed above consists of who exactly the "netroots" is.  Generally I consider this blog a part of the netroots CW, as you have a certain amount of influence within it.  Booman is another fave.  FDL is there (I really don't like Jane, btw.  The attack on Lieberman's wife to boot her off a Cancer foundation was/is just absurd).  DK, of course.  538.com, Digby, MyDD, Atrios, BalloonJuice, OpenLeft, ThinkProgress.

I guess looking at it, that's a more reasonable group than what most would consider the "left-wing netroots".  But as much of an internet child I am, I just can't spend hours and hours reading blogs.  Gotta get out there and work some, ya know?

Here's what I don't understand about people who complain that Obama and the White House haven't been "fighting" for stronger health care reform: what does that look like anyway? And in what way is that going to help?

Do they just want Obama saying the words "I want a public option" a lot? How's that going to change anybody's mind in Congress?

Do they want Obama to "twist arms"? What does that even look like, and how would we ever know? It's not like arm-twisting is a very public activity.

I suppose Obama could have threatened to veto a bill with no public option. However, it's pretty clear that Joe Lieberman would have been all too happy to make sure no bill makes it to the President's desk. Just think of the grandstanding opportunity he would have had: "Get rid of the public option or you won't have my vote. Are you going to choose to appease me or the President?"

People seem to like to say "fight" and "take action" and "twist arms" a lot, but I'm not sure most of them have any idea what they mean other than, "Say words that I agree with in public."

You make a good point about compromise, and I believe that Obama is getting the best bill he can. But if this is the best we can do, then this is a sure sign of decline and ossification.

We bailed out the banks and insurance companies, but where is the WPA program for the rest of us? We're at an effective unemployment rate of 17%.

We're continuing the Bush war on civil liberties (it's a kinder, gentler war ... but egregious precedents are being reinforced and defended).

Military and private contractors are still being pushed to the limit in foreign wars.

Even if we get a climate change treaty passed, a 17% reduction from 2005 levels in 2020 is still going to push us out of the Holocene.

And now a health insurance bill which diverts massive resources into the health care sector is being proposed as the solution for the 30 million uninsured? The way it's written, this will create another market bubble because it will massively increase the amount of money in the health insurance market. But the cost is massive, the subsudies to poor and middle class families are vulnerable to looming budget contraints, and in the end it does little to provide for the health and welfare of the uninsured. It simply makes sure they have health care insurance for the time being. But what happens when the US government can no longer afford the subsidies, and US citizens can no longer afford to be insured, because no foreign government is willing to buy our debt anymore? What happens when we increase the size and power of the health insurance and health care sector, and they become even more difficult to regulate? How do we insitute cost controls on an industry that is 20% of the US economy, has a captive market via Federal law, and has a profound ability to purchase votes and influence public policy?

I don't believe Obama is a bad person, or a bad President. But the behind-the-schenes limitations he's operating under must be  profound if this is the best we can do.

thanks Al for finally weighing in on this issue. Aside from you and Booman, there is no intelliegent debate on this issue.  If a low information voter was searching for reasonable debate about healthcare they wouldn't find it on t.v. and they wouldn't find it on the blogosphere. I am undone by all the posturing, preening and look at me attitudes from all the white liberal progressives on t.v. From Mr "special comment" himself to the new and useless version of Zsa Zsa Gabor, Arianna huffington, I think that I will take a pass on watching any t.v. for awhile. Saying "kill the bill" to something that has taken 100 years to pass is amazing to me. What is Howard dean's endgame? Another run at president? If liberals are so fired up, why dont they get some busses and march around the capital? Go to Liebermans office and dont leave until healthcare is achieved? because its easier to be keyboard commando than to actually do something about healthcare. My head is spinning. How much of this is just straight up racism? Come on Al, tell me. my mother, who grew up during FDR's administration said that she has never seen any president catch this kind of hell in her lifetime. My own personal belief is that this healthcare bill is more far-reaching than any legislation that FDR could've passed because it covers ALL the people. When FDR was in office he had to throw blacks under the bus in order to appease the white, southern democrats so that he could pass social security. A lot of people are remembering FDR for the way it wasn't. Methinks that president Obama's being able to pass something that no other president has been able to pass might be getting under the skin of some "liberal" white folks. you tell me am I wrong?  anyway, please keep discussing this topic. we need your reason and we need your sanity 

I knew exactly what you'd say about all of this, and was still checking here obsessively to read how you'd say it.  You didn't disappoint, but I wish you'd write more.

The schism that is developing on the left is a combination of fascinating, amusing and sickening.  Playing the part of the rational team we have Nate Silver, Ezra Klein and Matt Yglesias; playing the part of the pouters is most of Daily Kos, Sirota and Hamsher.  (The usual lineups.)

Interestingly, even Chris Bowers seems ready to acknowledge that passing the bill makes the most sense, even though he is bitterly disappointed.

It's a little scary that some liberal-Congressman are making noises about voting "no" and Dean's performance is very disappointing.  But I still think a bill will be signed, that lives will be saved and that we will make continued, incremental improvements in coming years.

Now, if only I could be confident that Al will post more often...

Al,

Thanks for posting this.  The meltdown on DKos has been unbelievable.  Getting rid of the denial for pre-existing conditions alone is worthwhile.

The votes in the Senate for a public option just aren't there.  Lieberman isn't going to vote for a public option, and the Democratic caucus can't peel away a single Republican apparently.

So take what you can, when it's out there for the taking, and don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good (or the enemy of the "better than before").

 

"Getting rid of the denial for pre-existing conditions alone is worthwhile."

I would note, that denials for pre-existing conditions - while great - isn't the end of the story.  This just means they have to let you pay premiums and be "covered".  But there's still all sorts of loopholes that might allow them to deny you actual coverage/care when you get sick.

I agree, it's great to force them to insure everyone.  But we need the back end covered too...or they will just let people with pre-existing conditions boost their profits, then deny them later when they get sick for whatever reason they can find.

It's not over yet...

You and Mr. Silver keep me sane, Al. A lot of what I hear in daily life is exactly what you describe. Whenever I press them for why they think the way they do, they can never really come up with a coherent answer. The truth is, we won't know for a while just how hard Obama worked to get this thing done. We won't know a whole hell of a lot of things, but what I do know is that concluding that Obama is somehow working against everything he claimed to be for is asanine. I'm starting to hear the same stuff over McCain-Cantwell(basically, a reinstatement of Glass-Steagall). They take Obama's opposition as "proof" he's in the pocket of big business and Wall Street, never mind that it would never pass and that it's just McCain grand-standing for praise. These people just fundamentally don't understand the difference between saying and doing.

 For the simple fact that you, who are more politically experienced, seem to think this is our best chance for a improved health care system in my lifetime. The clincher was invoking Teddy and asking what he would do. You win. Hopefully someday this garbage of bill will be the catalyst for real health reform.

Meanwhile, the US Senate, after months of pushing and shoving, is on the verge of passing health care legislation that, for all its faults, would cover 30 million poor and working folks that don’t currently have health insurance,

This isn't true, what the legislation does, is order 30 million people to buy health care, it does not actually provide health care for 30 million (there's of course other provisions in there that have the goal of actually expanding coverage for people).

forbid insurance companies from denying coverage to those with pre-existing conditions and from dumping those who get sick while insured.

This is an area where serious work is still required, as loopholes have crept into the legislation, that allow insurers to put caps on expenditures on patients.

Are there things I don’t like about the bill? Sure. Let’s start with mandating Americans that they must purchase health insurance. I’ve spoken out against that here for the past two years to radio silence from so many who have suddenly – but many, disingenuously – come out strong against mandates.

I personally think the big problem with the mandates is, is not the idea itself, but the lack of (public) options. As long as there's no choice other than the insurance companies, I think it's shouldn't be introduced. I think changing this and the loopholes should be the focal point of progressive anger, instead of killing the bill entirely.

On the other hand, let’s briefly review the last six decades. Harry Truman proposed national health care but didn’t get it through Congress. Through the Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and Bush II presidencies, many attempts were made to get it. Not one succeeded.

But suddenly, today, we are on the precipice of getting that great big foot in the door, one that will open a thousand more doors once the point of no return is crossed.

This is a bit revisionist. Medicare and Medicaid suddenly don't count anymore? If this bill counts as a move towards national health care, then those were much bigger steps.

And I'm not that old, but I've read that they too were considered a foot in the door, so historical precedent doesn't exactly offer very good prospects on this point. I wouldn't be surprised if this bill will pretty much be it for the next ?10? years. Not that killing it now, would mean there'd be a quick do-over.

And, funny, I don't remember a single instance until now when Huffington, Olbermann or Dean raised a peep against mandates. I know, because having been one of those lonely voices, I kept track of the short list of those of us who did.

Perhaps the reason that you didn't hear criticism on that point, is because mandates a few weeks ago, came with things like a public option or a medicare expansion. This bill has been weakened so it's no surprise that for some people it went over the tipping point where they think the bill will do more harm than good.

At least with the backlash against the bill now, centrists will perhaps twink twice before mutilating this bill even more. Maybe this might be a good substitute for the pressure Obama refused to put behind the effort.

Methinks that president Obama's being able to pass something that no other president has been able to pass might be getting under the skin of some "liberal" white folks. you tell me am I wrong?  anyway, please keep discussing this topic. we need your reason and we need your sanity

This is just ridiculous, the people you claim are secret racists couldn't be happier if Obama and the U.S. Congress were able to pass something like a single-payer plan. They'd hail Obama as the second coming of Jesus.

It's just turning out to be not such a good bill.

So to summarize your arguments in favor of the bill...

1. Teddy is smiling down on us from Heaven and hoping we'll do the right thing.

2. Howard Dean is a hypocrite.

3. I don't want to give Rush Limbaugh the satisfaction.

Well, you've certainly alleviated all my concerns about the absence of cost controls, the annual cap that got sneaked in, and the legality of being forced to give money directly to a monopoly. Where do I sign?

How about not using hyperbole from HuffPo?

 

Also this is just one bill, there is a house bill that will be merged with it in conference.

 

So honestly, none of us know what will be in this bill.

 

I am with Al Giordano all the way on this one.

Joe - I make many more points than that, and since I don't believe in heaven or an afterlife I've certainly made no claims as to Teddy looking down from it. But if you believe in that sort of thing, feel free!

And, yes, Howard Dean is a dick and it is bad politics to give away morale to enemies like Limbaugh, an even bigger douchebag.

The main reasons I gave are that health care for 30 million currently uninsured people will be subsidized by more than $150 billion a year, that much of that, I repeat, will come from insurance company profits, and that companies will no longer be allowed to deny you insurance for a preexisting condition or drop you due to sudden illness.

Which brings me to Sloane's misguided points...

Sloane - Medicaid and Medicare, indeed, have been expanded and improved upon since first passed (as has Social Security and other similar social programs). You're making my points for me. Thank you!

As for the 30 million who will get health care (not because of any mandate but, rather, because of the $150 billion a year in subsidies) your statement that it "is untrue" is itself false.

Over at Daily Kos, where the front pagers are mainly dedicated to bill-killing rhetoric, the front-pager DemfromCT wrote a refreshingly reality-based diary today on how "mandates" have worked (and not worked) in Massachusetts, which has the lowest percentage of uninsured people in the country:

"The state's individual mandate alone does not explain this result, since it is not enforced against adults with incomes at or below 150 percent FPL or children."

Federal Poverty Level (FPL) is $10,830 for a single person in 2009. 150 percent of that would be $16,245. For a family of six (single mom with five kids, like the one I grew up in), FPL is presently $29,530. 150 percent of that would be $44,295. I don't know what the mandate exceptions are in the current legislation, other than that there are such exceptions (including for Americans living abroad). But if they are anything like those in Massachusetts - which aren't really enforced anyway - they're going to be evadable by many, many people. It is the subsidies that provide the greater incentive, much bigger than the less meaningful mandates.

As for the anger that Dean got criticized in front of the cameras, that's just poutrage. Dr. Howard Lieberman Dean brought it on himself. A betrayal from those who say they're on your side often has to be dealt with more harshly than the guy who honestly admits he's not on your side but might be willing to bargain. In any case, harsh words don't convince Dean or, say, Ben Nelson, to change their intransigence. You're just asking for symbolism over substance there. I myself will cheer at every Dean smackdown to come. It's not just the White House he's pissed off, but a lot of us down here at ground level, too.

 

 

The main reasons I gave are that health care for 30 million currently uninsured people will be subsidized by more than $150 billion a year, that much of that, I repeat, will come from insurance company profits, and that companies will no longer be allowed to deny you insurance for a preexisting condition or drop you due to sudden illness.

Can you provide a link describing this profits tax in the Senate bill?

And again, there's still a huge problem with the Senate bill allowing coverage limits:

http://wtopnews.com/?nid=116&sid=1837321

Sloane - Medicaid and Medicare, indeed, have been expanded and improved upon since first passed (as has Social Security and other similar social programs). You're making my points for me. Thank you!

I wasn't talking about small improvements, I was talking about expanding Medicare and Medicaid to cover every single American. Which obviously never happened.

As for the 30 million who will get health care (not because of any mandate but, rather, because of the $150 billion a year in subsidies) your statement that it "is untrue" is itself false.

Welp, turns out right. At least a CBO scoring claims so:

http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/107xx/doc10731/Reid_letter_11_18_09.pdf

Hopefully their estimate will turn out be right, and subsidies will allow for affordable health care.

As for the anger that Dean got criticized in front of the cameras, that's just poutrage. Dr. Howard Lieberman Dean brought it on himself. A betrayal from those who say they're on your side often has to be dealt with more harshly than the guy who honestly admits he's not on your side but might be willing to bargain. In any case, harsh words don't convince Dean or, say, Ben Nelson, to change their intransigence. You're just asking for symbolism over substance there. I myself will cheer at every Dean smackdown to come. It's not just the White House he's pissed off, but a lot of us down here at ground level, too.

I don't care what the White House says about Dean, I just used it as an example of how they're mainly concerned with getting a bill, any bill passed, not proper healthcare reform. They clearly have no problem knocking heads of progressives together when they oppose their agenda, but don't even bother when it comes to right-wingers.

Sloane - I'm not a policy wonk. Guys like Nate Silver and Ezra Klein have vetted this stuff already, and I know them not to be the sorts who just make shit up. If you want to read through the entire bill, be my guest. But don't ask me to do your heavy lifting for you.

If you don't want to read through the entire bill, consult those like Klein who have. 99 percent of everybody voicing an opinion on all sides have not read the hundreds of pages of the bill. Those who have tend to agree on what it says even when they disagree over whether it's positive or negative.

The existence of the excise tax on high-cost insurance plans has been debated by all sides, none of whom deny it is part of the bill. If you want to read the particulars, go do your own digging.

None of the problems with the bill you are listing - not one of them - will be solved by not passing anything and leaving things as they are. The status quo is worse than anything about the bill (except for the not-very-meaningful-or-enforceable "mandates" charade).

And again this red herring of whether the White House "knocks heads" on the right comes up. Discipline can only be enforced in one's own army. Anyone who has ever led a campaign or a movement or a party or a government or even a business knows: You can enforce discipline of your own. You can't enforce discipline in your rival or competitor's troops. All you can do is pick them off, provoke them into making mistakes, and that is not done through mere harsh words that play to the crowd. It is more often better done with a smile.

Dr. Howard Lieberman Dean is a big boy. He entered politics and the public vortex of his own volition. If he wants to dish it out, he had better be willing to take it, too. These are the big leagues. He's no victim because someone criticizes him, especially when his grandstanding is so morally indefensible.

Well, Bernie Sanders and Roland Burris are out there threatening to kill the bill, yet you don't see the White House strong-arming them either.  The reason?  Because the White House needs every single vote they can get, therefore they have to kiss the ass of every Democratic Senator and any other Senator who can help them get to 60 votes.  That goes for Lieberman or Sanders. 

As for the freshman Dems who got their arms twisted, the reason the hammer got put down on them is because they're freshman Dems.  They have no clout or leverage.  It's why according to a famous story, House Speaker Sam Rayburn used to be able to go to freshman Dems and order them to vote one way or the other on a particular bill, and they'd just fall into line.  Can't do that with a Senator, unless it's Lyndon Johnson circa 1950s, but no one has been able to hold sway over the Senate like that before or after Johnson. 

As US Senators, Lieberman or Sanders have leverage - they can kill the bill single-handedly by filibustering it.  The majority leader can't make them do anything, no one can, which is why they used to call the majority leader position "the nothing job". 

But, it should come as no surprise that many liberals don't understand how the Senate operates.  It's why the old Southern caucus, as awful as their cause was, used to run circles around Senate liberals all the time. 

Some things never change.

 

The latest health reform bill has some things progressives like removed and some things they dislike in it. That is neither a reason to support it or want to kill it on its own.

On a day when drug re-imports was removed and  the last vestige of a public option was removed, some progressives got very upset and said, to hell with it, the bill is not worth it. That is not a huge surprise even if the bill is worth passing since people were getting upset as things earlier on were removed (or things like a ban on abortion funding were added earlier in one version) and without some level of outrage the bill was likely to be made much worse due to pressure by conservative Democrats many of whom where probably bluffing when it came to the filibuster.

Once people decided they disliked the bill they started looking at things like the individual mandate which was already a bad idea even with the public option and was probably a portion that allowed for a populist like sound to some of the earlier anger from the right. There are some pretty smart policy analysis who have made arguments on why a mandate is good or needed but all just talk about a decrease in rates when everyone is covered without explaining the dynamics of how a mandate will make everyone covered (it wont in the cases of undocumented workers and probably homeless people I would guess).

What is needed now to convince progressives about why the bill is worthwhile is not attacks and name calling (which tend to backfire and make people defensive) but an explanation of how the mandate will work and how it won't end up mainly fining poor people if subsidies don't keep up with insurance rates. As far as I can tell none of this has been dealt with in the retorts by Krugman, Klein, etc... and their arguments for a mandate have tended to be theoretical ones about healthy young people being forced to enter the pool.

Answers to questions that could convince people would include:

-Are subsidies tied to insurance rate or just income? Would people with higher rates due to pre-existing conditions get more of a subsidy?

-How will enforcement of a mandate work and what recourse would people have if they felt that due to various circumstances they were unable to afford insurance (maybe getting fired from a job and having spent ones savings but having had a reasonable income before the job loss)? Would the recourse provided be easy to obtain for poor people who may not have easy access to lawyers, the internet, cars etc.., or for those who have problems understanding English.

-Will there be any risk that a mandate could discourage funding for programs that cover the uninsured, like state and county programs? What would the impact of this be on undocumented workers and those unable to get insured for various reasons even with a mandate.

-Will private insurance be an acceptable substitute for state and county programs for those given subsidies that pay for private insurance? Programs for the poor often pay for things that cost money even under good insurance plans plus there is the issue of having a high deductible and high copays under the cheaper plans poor people are more likely to be able to afford. Maybe such programs would still be available for those with such insurance, but in many cases they are not now.

-Based off the fine attached to a mandate what is the expected impact it will have? Most arguments for it assume it will decrease uninsured rates but you can look at state by state numbers of uninsured drivers and see that does not have to be the case even with the strong incentives that exist there. Subsidies could decrease the uninsured rates if they were high enough but it isn't even clear that mandates combined with subsidies will increase rates much,since for those completely covered mandates will likely have no impact and for those not completely covered the same reasons people feel they can't insurance now may apply even with an added fine.

Maybe Massachusetts is a good comparison case to see that bad things did not happen, although when it is just thrown out as an example people don't go into similarities and differences between the current Senate plan and Romney's one (did it have ways to address people who were likely to remain uninsured etc... or has those groups largely been left out of discussions since most debate on all sides tends to focus so much on middle class impacts).

The willingness for people to just trust that something bad wont get passed just for the sake of getting something passed was probably lessened by the troops surge in Afghanistan, the 9/11 talk in the Afghanistan speech, DOMA, Honduras, Palestine, slow movement on domestic civil liberties issues, and his stance on banning land mines (to name a few issues). There is no direct logical relationship, but the willingness for people to trust that Obama believes in a progressive agenda (and that this is his main motivation) was probably was hurt by those things (his support for the bill without a public option was probably the last straw for people in terms of trust much more than a logical reason for turning on the bill which doesn't seem to have been crafted with that much of Obama's input).People need arguments about the bill. Not ones saying it will insure 30 million people but ones saying how it will do that (I notice in a comment you begin to address that with talk of subsides but the total the government will spend is probably less convincing a number than the amount that will go to people based off their income, health etc...).

Humiliating Lanny Davis:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAMsNg_x9Uk

 

 

Al,

Was refreshing this page ever so often, waiting to hear your take on HCR, which is exactly what I thought it would be. I am so sick of the lefty blogosphere at this point that my daily blog reading has come down to you, Ezra and Matt.

To all the doubters out there - do you think there is a hope in hell of any health care reform passing in the next 20 years if this one fails? Idiots.

 

 

Al, it's always great to read your commentary on the political happenings on this side of the Hemisphere, and it's also good to have another person who gets it.

 

If so-called progressives really want to get a public option through the Congress, the best thing to do would be to get this bill passed and then perhaps in 2011, if the Democrats can do decently in the midterms, pass a public option and the Medicare expansion and any extra subsidies that might be necessary through reconciliation then. I'd grant that my option is probably not particuarly likely to happen, but it's a whole lot likelier if they can pass this (imperfect) health care bill first. That, I think, is also something that the late Senator Kennedy would be thinking as well.

Al,

Thank you for your comments . . . like other readers have expressed, it is always refreshing to get your rational and thoughtful words in the midst of the crazy health care reform chatter (I don't have cable, but just reading the blogs, online news and listening to the radio has been enough to want me to stop following the debate altogether). Democracy is messy, slow and unpredictable, but it's the system we have and while the process doesn't always fit into a sound-bite, it can work.  That being said, the bills our democratically-elected representatives craft are never perfect, but we are closer than we have ever been to passing a comprehensive health care bill, flaws and all, and I hope, and pray, it is able to become law.

hi Al,

I have been a lurker here for a long time and this is my first post here. I too have been waiting impatiently to read yor take on the healthcare circus taking place in DC.

I am usually not one for conspiracy thories, but something just does not smell right about the sudden wave of poutrage coming from the so-called left cheerled by Dr. Dean. The removal of the Public Option or Medicare buy-in alone is not to explain how the bill suddenly became something to be killed. Did they jus  t realize that a who lot of poor people are going to be covered by this bill in the form of subsidies?What made the mandates more palatable when there is a PO than when there is not. For a self-professed anti-war crowd, I wonder why we don't see this same level of indignation and threats on defense bills that dwarf the size of HCR (granted, the mode of purchase is not the same for healthcare and defense spending)

It started In september when pundit Howard Fineman made a comment on his MSNBC blog that the DC establishment and media had decided to take down this President, which decision he himself was partaking in. I think that wave has now engulfed the privileged lefties who believe that they now have no use for President Obama as the face and cash draw for them. As Arianna Huffington is now brazenly showing, vicious take downs of the President buy her more ad clicks. Anyway her liberal credentials were always dubious from the beginning.

It seems candidate Obama's sunny disposition at the time was for poutrage lefties and corporate interests a soothing placebo that tided them over during the frightening dog days of the financial collapse. Come to think of it the fascist corporate interests cynically loved the popular candidate whose campaign deflected attention from the orgy taking place on Wall street. He literally saved this country from a populist pitchfork in teh streets uprising. They mingled with people genuinenly seeking a real change all the while preparing to bail when catastrophy was averted.

It is quite intriguing that these lefties never took up the organizing structure that candidate Obama had gifted to teh Democratic party to develop their own grassroots  and street pitch for the causes they believed in. Where was the liberal army pounding the pavement in August when Dick Armey's rent-a-crowd teabaggers began tehir nonsense? When the vicious racial frenzy revved up against the President, NO-ONE from the left save Pres. Carter raised outrage. And today these pouters proudly proclaim their shared cause with teh teabaggers on dkos.

It makes me conclude that there is a segment of the Democratic coalition that is not interested in the nitty gritty of governing, they simply thrive on the "simulacra" of activism(from a safe disance from the streets of course). Navel-gazingly comparing notes about how outraged they are is much better for them than dealing with the messiness of picking from sub-optimal choices. Too much work that does not easily itself to sound bites.Their blog ranks have no doubt been infilterated by the rent-a-bloggers from wingnut groups posing as progressives. The spam-like nature of much of the blog entries and comments from the "kill the bill"  brigade was the dead give away.

Yes, president Obama has made mistqakes, but who doesn't and he expressly told us it would be long, steep, full of false starts. Sadly his own observation at the beginning ofthe campaign that he was a Rorschach Test onto which people projected their aspirations has now become the terrain for ideological civi wasrs. But I believe he will recover.

Thanks Al for indulging me this long post. For Teddy.

 

 

And that's to twist the words of Howard Dean.

To claim, as you and Rush do, that Dean wants to completely "kill" the bill, is an absolute abortion of what Dean said -- AND YOU KNOW IT.

Dean has said to kill 'this' bill -- the SENATE bill -- and to instead use the House bill as the template to then pass health care reform. He has said that over and over and over again, both on MSNBC and in the WASHINGTON POST. It's not hard to find out what he actually said, and instead of playing into Rush's hands by calling Dean a 'dick' simply advances the forces that really DO want to kill health care reform.

Rush wants health care to die. Dean wants A BETTER BILL. Is that so hard to understand?

Edgewater Joe - Howard Dean didn't make some side comment that got blown out of proportion. He submitted an op ed column to the Washington Post, published yesterday, that began with the sentence, "If I were a senator, I would not vote for the current health-care bill."

He walked right into the rake and it predictably hit him in the head. And when I point that out, I'm Rush Limbaugh. That's cute, but it is Dean who Rush is praising this week.

As is neocon Rich Lowry of National Review, who wrote, "Take Dean’s advice and dump the health-care bill."

Then there are the frickin' looney tunes over at Jane Hamsher's cesspool penning diaries with titles like, "Howard Dean is perfectly positioned to primary Obama in 2012." That's precious! But it's what they've wanted all along and Dean knew that by penning an op ed piece in the Post to spit on the health care bill he would be provoking that kind of chatter from the inmates at the asylum.

(By the way, I hope he tries. It will be far more humiliating for Dean and for his upper class white "progressive" base than his scream was in 2004!)

I did like the always observant Ronald Brownstein's take in The Atlantic on Dean's ambition and the faction he panders to:

Maybe one reason former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean and so much of the digital Left can so casually dismiss the Senate health care reform bill is that they operate in an environment where so few people need to worry about access to insurance.



The 2004 presidential campaign that propelled Dean to national prominence was fueled predominantly by "wine track" Democratic activists-generally college-educated white liberals. (In the virtually all-white 2004 Iowa caucus, for instance, exit polls showed that two-thirds of Dean's votes came from voters with a college degree.)…

The latest annual Census Bureau figures show that in 2008 just 5.96 percent of college-educated whites lacked health insurance. For whites without a college education, the share without insurance jumps to 14.5 percent (the number is surely higher for non-college whites who are not union members). Among African-Americans, the share of those without insurance rises to 19.1 percent. Among Hispanics, the share of those without insurance soars to a daunting 30.7 percent, the Census found.

Oh, snap!

Why can't he just pass comprehensive reform in one fell swoop like FDR did with Social Security?

I mean, when it was passed, it provided retirement security for everyone!

Well, everyone who wasn't a farm worker, maid, government employee, teacher, nurse, librarian, social worker, railroad worker, self-employed, clergy...

I was (uncharacteristically) watching Morning Joe this morning and Lawrence O'Donnell (who more or less comes down on the Howard Dean side) was, very politely, schooling Eugene Robinson (who is coming down on the Reid/White House side) about the slew of negatives to the *current* Senate bull, as we understand it.  Hopefully it will be up on YouTube soon.

Senator Coburn, ultra-Republican and physician from OK, was on C-SPAN (this is Dec. 18 BTW) making some very cogent, very un-Frist-like points about what he feels is more effective approach to reform.  He conveniently ignored the Republican party's commitment to obstructionism, of course; but he pointed out that mandates are unpopular (without a public option that is) and that the current bill proposes massive spending to subsidize the *private* insurance of the currently underinsured.

The Senate proposal as-is would be a electoral disaster for anyone who votes for it.  I hate to use hyperbole, but it would be a Munich Pact with the insurance companies.  Anything that expands their income stream is going in the wrong direction -- it simply gives them more leverage to derail future attempts at breaking their stranglehold.  And the public will (largely) despise it, which give Romney or whoever a strong chance to win in 2012.

I see that you are impatient and I doubt you are inclined to see just how big of a mistake a pay-off to the Health Care Mafia (not just insurance BTW) would be; but in any case I refer you and your readers to Robert Reich, Jon Walker at FireDogLake, and Ian Welsh at OpenLeft.  (There are equally intelligent opponents in Nate Silver, Jonathan Cohn, Ezra Klein, Paul Krugman, and Andrew Ross Sorkin, but these are all guys with much less direct experience with the process of creating policy.  I admit that Klein and Cohn are healthcare wonks, but they seem to have been carefully chosen by their publications for certain ideological traits.  In any case Robert Reich, Howard Dean, Congressman Weiner, and Larry O'Donnell are more credible on legislative issues.)

Read in particular:

http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2009/12/16/answering-nate-silvers-20-qu...

http://robertreich.blogspot.com/

http://www.openleft.com/diary/15922/where-health-care-reform-stands-now-...

http://www.openleft.com/diary/16535/20-answers-on-why-the-health-care-bi...

 

Right now my impression is that Obama is trying to get something done that he can call a "reform bill" without actually pissing off AHIP, PHRMA, etc. and giving the Repubs financial dominance in future elections.   That is an understandable approach given a certain narrative of how reform was defeated in 1994, but the situation has gotten a lot worse since then and this issue will not disappear for 10 years.  No bill may cost the Dems seats, but passing an unpopular bill will be a devastating blow to the Democratic Party.  (Anyone remember Bill Clinton still traumatized about his license-plate tax fiasco in Arkansas?) It would probably cost Obama re-election, as well as the careers of most who voted for it, but most importantly it will make the plebescite increasingly wary of future reform efforts.

All of this doesn't mean that nuking the Senate bill right now is the smart thing to do (and that's not exactly what Howard Dean said either BTW); it DOES mean that there has to be ruthless, unrelenting pressure from progressives to get worthwhile reform.  They have to be willing to draw a line in the sand, or else we have "reform" specifically designed by a variety of financial interests.  Just take a look at Geithner and Summers.

On both sides of this, questioning peoples motives and accusing people of being stupid will only harden people's stands and make them less likely to see the points of the other side. Someone is much more likely to change their opinions if you have not backed them into a corner and forced them to defend themselves since people in such situations tend to cling on to any argument they can find to argue their side rather than only being convinced by the arguments that they would have accepted before you attacked them.

Is something better than nothing if something could delay the push for something stronger? It is possible to support something that has good and bad aspects to it without being a sellout  or pushover and it is possible  to oppose it without having bad intentions or being a purist. Take the existing bill and drop the mandate and most of the noise from progressives will die down. Take the existing bill and add abortion restrictions and reduce subsidies and maybe some who think it is better than nothing will now conclude it is worse. There is room for debate without personal attacks or questioning motives.

Aside from the bill there is the question of negotiating tactics. Is constantly saying something is better than nothing a great way prevent more aspects of a bill from being manipulated? On the other hand demonization of the bill could spread in unpredictable ways that make it not possible to pass even if one is just trying to draw a line in the sand to prevent the bill from being made worse.

It would be nice if those who support the bill would link to or respond to concerns about it, and I am not just talking about the blogosphere. If the Democrats or Obama want to sell the bill to the public they need to address everyone and explain why the concerns are not valid. Explaining how a mandate can be guaranteed to be kept in sync with rate increases, regional costs of living, rate differences for those with pre-existing conditions etc... would be a start. Outside of a small segment of the population that it is probably bad for Obama to alienate since they are the ones he has used as volunteers, nobody really cares that much about all the personal attacks between politicians but people do have real concerns about the plan and those need to be addressed.

In response to those who think they see a conspiracy on the sudden turn against Obama, I think you have missed the undercurrent of the past year. Different groups from those whose main issue was LGBT rights to those whose main issue was opposition to war to those who main issue was domestic civl liberties have been becoming more and more disgruntled over the past year. Because health care has been such a focus of Obamas people were willing to give him some slack because perhaps he was giving in on other issues because his focus was on healthcare. The public option was sold to those who wanted single payer as the best we could get (not really clear why people bought into that though since it was always pretty weak), but when the Democratic leadership gave in on that issue (and within a week also give in one some corporatist things like drug reimports), all the anger that was building over other issues burst out. I was personally never a huge fan of Obama or any Democrats but I think those who were fans of Obama also felt betrayed which raised the anger level a bit as well.

Mason - The suggestion that the whiners over at FireDogLake and OpenLeft have more "direct experience with the process of creating policy" than the bill's proponents (including 57 US Senators!) needs to be laughed out of the room.

I also think your attempt to disparage Klein and Cohn as writers who "seem to have been carefully chosen by their publications for certain ideological traits" falls flat into the abyss of blather.

Finally, your pitch, centered around what *you* (and some of the loons from the permanent poutrage club you cite as authorities, who were discredited here long ago - their behavior on Health Care is identical and predictable to their behavior on all things Obama, who they resent for winning the nomination and the presidency from their own chosen candidates) think is good or bad for Democratic candidates electorally is unsubstantiated. And the track record of the people you cite is dreadful (all their electoral predictions have always been wrong, certainly compared with folks like Nate and I).

But most importantly your argument disregards 30 million uninsured poor and working folk, many of them black and hispanic, who seem invisible to you. They don't matter to you. What matters is what makes college educated white "pwogwessives" (as Cockburn calls them) "feel good" or not, and damn the poor and the minorities once again!

You're obviously not that familiar with this corner of the Internet, where we've been beating the losers you cite again and again and again on real battles!

Z - It's not complicated at all.

It is a class struggle.

Upper class college educated white "pwogwessives" see the Health Care debate as a chance to vent their frustration at Obama.

Working class and poor folks want health care and don't want the perfect to be the enemy of the good.

And don't tell me not to vilify the bill killers. I think they're vile. Pointing that out honestly is my birthright.

As always, your perspective is rational and therefore refreshing.   I find the behavior of some so-called progressives quite disturbing.  There was an interesting DKos diary earlier this week by an African-American women without health insurance.  She was appalled by Arianna Huffington's stance to kill the bill as she drives home to her LA mansion.

In addition, this is not the Administration's bill but you wouldn't know that based on some blogger posts.   This is Congress' bill - specifically, the Senate's. There's another bill in the House - which is also not the Administration's bill.

A genuine Progressive is also pragmatic. They realize that it's at times wiser to take the approach of two steps forward one step back.

First of all, while there may be some PUMAs, Naderites, etc. who have resentment towards Obama, I and Cenk Uygur and others like us were VERY STRONG supporters of Obama during both the primaries and general election.  I want him to succeed and handsomely so.

BUT.  Having "health insurance" can mean very little in the U.S..  As a reminder, many Americans who had to declare bankruptcy due to medical bills *HAD INSURANCE*.  About 75% of them, in fact (cf: Elizabeth Warren).  They had insurance -- and their policy was either too weak, or their provider decided to screw them over.  Take a look at the case of Nataline Sarkisyan -- Cigna was going to pay for her liver transplant, then changed their minds, and she died within a day of the operation finally being approved.

Being denied an expensive operation is just the tip of the iceberg.  Doctors have to be "in-network".  Insurer-deemed "experimental" procedures or treatments are not covered.  And most importantly, most of the people who are going to go from having no insurance to subsidized insurance are not going to have so-called Cadillac Plans that are reliable in almost any situation.  They are going to have junk plans, similar to junk bonds, guaranteed to be useless in any serious circumstance.  Sure people will be able to get regular check-ups, and their prescriptions, but if they get liver cancer...good luck.

What's more, the major benefits don't kick in until 2014.  If Repubs regain control before that time they could very well rescind most of the legislation -- Larry O'Donnell addressed this.  Republicans are obsessed with cutting entitlements, and subsidies for health insurance are going to be first on the chopping block.  So people will be forced to pay ever-increasing premiums for shitty plans with no financial support -- welcome to serfdom!  Yes it's a worst-case scenario, but within the realm of possibility.

The problem is that relying *solely* on for-profit insurance companies (and many of the allegedly "non-profit" insurers, e.g. Blue Shield, are as bad or worse in their business practices as the profitable ones) is a fundamentally unsound concept.  It works no better than tolls on all roads, or private security forces instead of police, or private fire departments.  Private for-profit options are are useful auxiliary service, but the primary service has to be either government-controlled or very strongly regulated and non-profit.  T.L. Reid proved this fairly conclusively, travelling throughout Europe, Canada, Asia, to countries with excellent health care.

I will repeat myself, that buying the insurance cartel off with increased revenue only strengthens their grip.  I also agree with Marcy Wheeler that it sets a dangerous precedent for corporations using government as its own law enforcement tool.

There are other options besides a public option -- using anti-trust lactions against dominating insurers, for example.  That seems even less likely to happen, however.

BTW, I get pretty irritated by the shrill Naderite despair-drama I find at Hullabaloo and FDL and some other sites.  But I analyze postings based on their quality of information and analysis, not on the quality of the responding comments.  Mocking the work that Jane Hamsher, Jon Walker, Marcy wheeler, et al have done at FDL (or what Greenwald has done at Salon) is akin to mocking Jeremy Scahill, Jane Meyer, Sam Stein, Matt Taibbi, and all the other dedicated liberal investigative journalists.  It's beneath you Al.  I say that with respect.  Leave the self-righteous scorn to the reactionaries.

Lets say you make $40,000 a year at an hourly job at a workplace with 30 employees that does not pay insurance now. You pay $1000 a month rent, $1000 a moth on food and with those expenses and aftertax income you have just enough left over to maybe go out to a movie once a week and put $100 in savings a month but you do not have enough for health insurance now. Which aspects of he bill will impact such a person and what will be their choices and when will they get to make them if the Senate bill became law today?

A few more cases.

Lets say you clean houses as an independent contractor and make $25,000 profit before taxes and have to pay self employment so you are left with barely enough for food and a $400 room in a shared house now. What will be the impact in this case?

Lets say you make $75000 and live in an expensive city with high rent and work at a job with insurance and you get fired and have only $2000 of savings since you were spending it assuming you would keep the job. Lets say you also have a pre-existing condition like lets say you had a heart attack the year before and were treated but are considered at high risk of getting one again. It is 2/3 of the way through the year and Cobra now would cost you $700 a month. What would be the new result in this case?

It would probably also be worth looking at families, those working as undocumented immigrants, those using public services provided by the county etc... but just having some simple examples would be interesting if one digs into how and when one would get a subsidy (and how long it would take between applying and getting it), how and when one could be fined for not having insurance and how one would go about finding private insurance and what it would look like at the level people could afford in terms of copays and deductibles.

Mason - I'm not posturing here. I truly loathe those individuals. Why should I censor myself from speaking my truth about them?

Z - In every single one of those cases, killing the bill will keep them with fewer options than passing it will. The status quo is worse. You can poke holes in an imperfect bill all you want but until you can show that leaving the status quo will be better for the kinds of folks you mention, it's an exercise in sophist futility.

We've got "Poutragers," "Children's Table," and "Chicken Littles."  Seems there might be a new one developing...

Rake Steppers?

Kinda like it...and yes, I do laugh when watching old Keystone Cops movies.

"Upper class college educated white "pwogwessives" see the Health Care debate as a chance to vent their frustration at Obama."

Most of those I know who will be most impacted by this because they can't afford or do not have insurance now do not care nearly as strongly about it as either side arguing now. Most people assume from past experience that for all the talk nobody really cares about their interests and things are unlikely to change for the better. In the neighborhood where I live which is largely poor and African American there are still some Obama signs in the windows, a few antiwar signs, some signs about Oscar Grant (who was shot by the transit police last year) and no signs about health insurance reform.

If I bike up to a richer neighborhood I would see far more Obama bumper stickers and signs for health reform (mostly in support of single payer though).

A few blocks down the street there is a memorial for all the kids who have been shot in Oakland in the past year and that is an issue many people really care about, but the healthcare debate a bit distant (maybe because its impact will be a few years away but also because most people still feel like their voices dont mater to those in power). There was some community concern when there is talk about state cuts for local hospitals that provide care those without insurance, but that is more direct a problem than a health care reform plan that is presented in a very abstract fashion and I think some people may hope they will get coverage under it but it is not presented in a way where people have a strong feeling they definitely will. I would guess the majority opinion is not antiObama but that if anything were to have a chance of passing that would help poor people it would somehow get killed (for the small numbers with strong opinons this would either be a view that there is a conspiracy to kill a bill that will help the poor or there is a conspiracy to pass a bill that will hurt the poor... but poor people will inevitably lose).

Bonkers - That's brilliant!

 

Barack Obama is a realist and an idealist. He can walk back two or three or four, and counting, steps for the extra one he’ll take on you. It is painstaking to watch for whoever sits on the sideline, or for whoever beholds a contradicting agenda.

A Community Organizer is a realist and an idealist. He can engage two or three or four, and counting, citizens for the one who will take generously what precious thing he or she offers. It is painstaking to watch for whoever sits on the sideline, or for whoever beholds a contradicting agenda.

Things seem to go nowhere and, on a realistic and idealistic time frame, some sort of spacetime Butterfly Effect, the World becomes slowly and surely more hospitable... to all.

 

You loathe FDL (and Glenn? and Jeremy? and Jane? and Woodward and Bernstein?)... Well, if drinking an espresso before work instead of pounding brewskis afterward is enough for you to condemn someone, have at it hoss.  Last I checked progressives were pushing to end the Drug Debacle and Repubs and corporatists were intent on sustaining it -- or am I not correctly remembering where you come down on that issue?

Note that the current Senate Bill is supported by Rahm Emanuel, of NAFTA fame; it is vociferously opposed by Richard Trumka and Andy Stern.  No one is talking about ending the push for HC reform except for Repubs, who would happily watch liberals in Congress start up trench warfare.

Final note -- when you assume you know my skin color, my social class, or my motivations... c'mon.

Mason - Jane Hamsher made it official today: She's a Tea Bagger! (Something many of us suspected all along.)

And your claim that the bill is "opposed by... Andy Stern" of the SEIU (something that only a gullible person that believes every yellow headline on HuffPo bought anyway) was debunked today by Stern himself in his column, Don't Kill the Bill, Fix It. He clearly rejects the obstructionist tactics urged on by the pond scum like Hamsher who now openly revels in her new-found alliance with Rush Limbaugh.

It doesn't really matter to me what demographic group you belong to or whether you sip espresso or Budweiser. Your ideas are shallow, they gullibly buy the false spin of demagogues, and I don't respect them or you at all, even as I've given you so much space here to voice them. People in your camp deserve to be rebuked and shunned for your willful sabotage of 30 million poor folks in the US. You are my enemy, not my ally.

The complete power some on the "left" have given the Public Option is rather ridiculous and reveals they care much more about anti-corporatism (which is a worthy cause btw) than health care. It didn't occur to me during the nascent stages of this debate that for folks like Markos/Arianna/Keith, etc. this battle was about not having to give another dime to a private sector health insurance entity. I was under the impression that our goal was to cover more poor/sick people with additional subsidies in addition to eliminating pre-existing conditions.

We should have gone the reconciliation route from the beginning, but we didn't. It's clear to me now that starting over with a reconciliation plan means the bill is done.  Congressmen won't do anything remotely controversial in 2010, and we're losing seats after that. This is our window to get our first step toward the health care we want.

From chapter 5 of Homage to Catalonia, describing the sectarian strife between Communists of the Third International and dissident combatants of the left, of which Orwell was one. Mutatis mutandis, Al’s distinction between activists and community organizers writ large:

“One of the most horrible features of war is that all the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting. The [Communist-dominated] P.S.U.C. militiamen whom I knew in the line, the Communists from the International Brigade whom I met from time to time, never called me a Trotskyist or a traitor; they left that kind of thing to the journalists in the rear. The people who wrote pamphlets against us and vilified us in the newspapers all remained safe at home, or at worst in the newspaper offices of Valencia, hundreds of miles from the bullets and the mud. And apart from the libels of the inter-party feud, all the usual war-stuff, the tub-thumping, the heroics, the vilification of the enemy—all these were done, as usual, by people who were not fighting and who in many cases would have run a hundred miles sooner than fight. One of the dreariest effects of this war has been to teach me that the Left-wing press is every bit as spurious and dishonest as that of the Right.”

 

This article describes what's ahead in the Senate. The 1 am cloture vote on the defense appropriations bill took place this morning (Friday) at 1 am. After the Democrats convinced Russ Feingold to vote in favor (the bill funds the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which he opposes) and wheeled poor Robert Byrd into the chamber in a wheelchair to get 60 votes, only then did Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, and Kay Bailey Hutchison vote for cloture.

Most of the time between now and next Thursday evening is spent waiting for various delay periods mandated by Senate procedure to pass. Sadly, this IS as fast as the Senate can move!

I think the most important vote is the cloture vote on the healthcare bill scheduled for 7 am on Tuesday. The set of votes after that seem to be largely procedural if 60 senators have agreed on that vote. If the manager's amendment fails, the original bill (with the opt-out public option) would go ahead.

I think you really hit the nail on the head here. It has been my observation for a number of months that many on the left are focused on the public option to the exclusion of almost all else, and imagine it to be something far broader and more powerful than it actual would be, even in the House bill.

The claim that Obama did not fight for what he thinks is important assumes that Obama has the same priorities as these people. I think the insurance regulations and the subsidies are much more important to him than the public option ever was.

While so much attention has been on the public option, notice that the insurance companies have almost completely failed to weaken let alone remove the regulations. Did any of you really imagine a year ago that this would be the case? I did not.

What I don't understand is how some people got such a confused and unbalanced idea of what the public option was like, as if it had magical powers. I have also been appalled (though no longer surprised) at how many factually incorrect statements these same people are making about the rest of the bill, and how much ignorance there is. And people who are proud of their ignorance in a "I know what I believe, don't tell me the facts" kind of way. We should leave that kind of behavior to the Republicans.

In my grassroots team we are persevering with fighting for this bill despite the problems. Change never happens easily and will take all of us moving the ball forward not stopping it midway.

I believe that the necessary changes can be built in through bills passed by reconciliation, but we have no chance if we drop the bill now. That is what the Republicans want. And I continue to believe that we can move change through the halls of DC. We are at a time of great moment and change in the world and it almost quivers at a standstill, as the people of "No" on both sides face off.

Let us all believe in the power of this new century. It will take a herculean feat to get it to move and that move always would start with a roll and pick up speed. Lets not expect speed and defeat ourselves because the ball starts to roll slowly. Truly, with all those Republicans and Dinosaur Democrats, there may be no other way.

So glad the Senator from Minnesota stood up against the whining empty windbag Lieberman (yea Franken). Then the Senator from Arizona starts puffing his outrage saying he doesn't know what's going on here, and that there is no real hurry to get this done (Health Insurance Reform).

"What's going on here" is that someone is finally kicking those constipated obstructionist butts.

And on the progressive side, it comes down to this. Are you a half empty person or a half full person?

"What I don't understand is how some people got such a confused and unbalanced idea of what the public option was like, as if it had magical powers. "

A mandate with a public option seems like it could slowly turn into a public insurance plan that could then slowly be turned into singe payer (since would have better cost savings and coverage than anything being proposed). This would assume one could achieve a first stup in having a mandate  turned into signing people up for a public option as a default if they did not have care rather than fining them. I'm not sure if that would be more possible with a public option withan without one but we will never know now.

I think  others feared (and fear) that a mandate without a public option will cause insurance companies to work together and raise their prices since they will have plenty of excuses (the requirement to offer group plans to those with pre-existing conditions being one guaranteed to raise prices) and no competition from people refusing to buy insurance or choosing a public plan that would hopefully not collude with private industry.

Still, the problems with the individual mandare existed even with the public option that was proposed so it was more a feeling that things had slipped to far that caused this outcry not a specific complaint about the last change that was made.

That said, the yelling and screaming now over the public option being dropped will be nothing compared to what could happen if anything else gets negotiated away. For example, if the bill contains a ban on subsidies going to pay private plans covering abortion, it is likely the outcry will kill the bill. Right now there is a chance it will still pass,  but Obama administration and its supporters are probably hurting rather than helping that chance by demonizing those angry about the existing compromises.

One last correction is that the anger at Obama is not loudest among rich white heterosexual progressives. The communities I have saw showing up to protest the Afghanistan surge or the US stance during the Honduras coup did not resemble that description. Poor communities and communities of color are not going to stick behind Obama longer than rich white progressives who care about inside the beltway politics. If the health bill passes and people gain benefits from it (unfortunately years away in the current bill?) people may support Obama even if they opposed the bill. But, patience is running out and the large turnout for Obama in nonactivist communities consists of people more apt to feel betrayed by lack of change as will rich white progressives (who largely ran his campaign). People are still moderately pro-Obama in most such communities in the US but look at polling data in the Middle East if you want to see communities that had a lot of hope and no longer do. I am guessing many people in Honduras have pretty mixed feelings about the Obama administration now too... (same is also true for Pakistan, Somalia, Venezuela, and other countries where Obama is not looking to be taking a largely different direction than Bush... maybe he is behind the scenes but the public does not yet see it)

Z - You keep trying to make this about Obama. My essay, above, wasn't about him. It is about the Health Care bill on the merits compared to the status quo if it doesn't pass Congress.

And I think those that want to make this about anything but the merits are toying with the lives and health of at least 30 million human beings to score political talking points. I find that highly disagreeable, and those are the nicest words I can find to express my disgust with them.

Al,

Excellent piece, filled with clarity, sanity & perspective.  Teddy Kennedy is missed in many ways beyond health care.  He'd also have Obama's back on so many issues.

Right now, Obama is out there pretty much alone -- taking slings & arrows from nutjobs on the right and the hysterics on the left, including the aforementioned narcissists like Hamsher & Matt Taibi, who seems to mistake his laptop for a molotov cocktail.

Very few elected Dems, including members of the Black Congressional Caucus, publicly offer support for his efforts on health care and every other monumental issue he's having to deal with every day.  Their shortsightedness, cowardice and impotency is staggering.

Not that I wanted her to be president, but Hillary wouldn't be all alone out there if she were in the Oval Office now. Women's groups would have her back no matter what.

Mel Brooks, when he received his Kennedy Center honor 2 weeks ago, spent a little time with Obama, whom he loves.  He couldn't believe how much shit he's had to take from friends and foes alike.  He felt the last president who was this besieged during his first year in office was Lincoln. He also believes that Obama will go down in history as one of our greatest presidents.

Then again, what does he know?   He has doesn't read Firedog Lake  every day or hang out with Arianna Huffington.

Al

 

I think you are wasting your time with Z and Sloan. Something about their phrasing reminds me of sophisticated interrogation techniques used to probe a subjects weak points with the object of using it against them. But in this case the hunters might find they are the hunted ;-)

I have no doubt that DKos is being astroturfed with accounts seeded somewhere in the August/September time frame.

 

Sid

Vicky Kennedy WaPo Op-Ed: The moment Ted Kennedy would not want to lose

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/18/AR2009121803506.html

Hi Al,

I've resorted to a lurker status here for so many months after the inauguration almost a year ago as I have nothing to contribute to  your posts on things south of the border as I unfortunately know so little of the politics there.

I've desperately missed getting your perspective of the politics stateside so it was great to check in here and see your refreshingly candid post on this toxic subject.  I'm so tired of the screamers like Slinkerwink on Daily Kos and the hysteria over the public option when in reality, at best it was going to help a million or two in 2014.  I mean really.   On the blogs it's been so tiring to see the former Clinton and Edwards  and Dean supporters almost gleeful at finding things to bitch about Obama and Rahm.  I used to check Daily Kos a few times a day and now I hate to even go there ----knowing that all I'm going to see are the front pagers  whining.  Of course they are all experts even though they seem to have no concept of the realities of the votes in Congress and that Obama can't click his heels and spin around and create magical healthcare for all. 

Nice post, Allie. Who has Obama's back. I'm having a little trouble getting use to this new format. I thought "Nice post, Allie" would just get tucked into the original and not show up at the bottom. I'm also having trouble getting paragraphs to post, although I see others are posting with paragraphs? I can clearly see paragraphs on the original I type, but it's showing up as one long paragraph when I hit the "post comment" button. In this post, for example I played around with editing it into 3 paragraphs in the typed copy, but it is now scrunched together as one. Can anyone tell me what I'm doing wrong?

Update III: Victoria Reggie Kennedy, our friend Ted's widow, penned these words today:

"He's not here to urge us not to let this chance slip through our fingers. So I humbly ask his colleagues to finish the work of his life, the work of generations, to allow the vote to go forward and to pass health-care reform now. As Ted always said, when it's finally done, the people will wonder what took so long."

And I really must add that it's getting to feel like "if it's December, my friend Markos must be making a blunder." This December, Kos is saying "kill the bill." Last December, he spent savaging the possibility that Attorney Caroline Kennedy had to be appointed as US Senator from New York.

A year later, his error is apparent: How much ground have we lost in the Senate version of the bill without a Senator Kennedy there on the floor shaming those bastards - most of whom delivered eulogies for Ted - by vocally reminding them of his wishes, and by being in a position to collect his chits and debts still today.

Instead we got Chuck Schumer's "Mini-Me," Kirsten Gillibrand (if you even remember her name, you're among a very few) as the new junior US Senator from NY, a completely inconsequential bump on a log with zero impact on this health care debate.

My friend Kos was wrong a year ago - that is now proven today - and he is wrong again today. But Vicky Kennedy stepped forward today to remind us of exactly how the Father of US Health Care To Come would be working it right here, right now. Today, in this hour of moral crisis, we are all Ted Kennedy. Do what he did. Sew together any coalition possible to get the bill passed.

And if it happens on Christmas Eve - still a possibility - well, then it might be one worth celebrating.

I left your blog about a year back on inauguration. I used to intermittently check in and even posted a few times when you were covering Honduras.

Now I can't believe that I'm back again for my chicken little shot. :)

 

We now have the 60 votes to pass healthcare reform in the Senate.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/19/AR2009121900797.html?hpid=topnews

We are on the verge of historic legislation folks.

I recommend a look at Yglesias today, on the topic of affordability:

http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2009/12/affordability.php

He has a chart that vividly makes clear how much of a progressive victory this bill will be, and the real benefit to poor people.

Finally, I feel like the time for celebrating is nearing.

"I think you are wasting your time with Z and Sloan. Something about their phrasing reminds me of sophisticated interrogation techniques used to probe a subjects weak points with the object of using it against them."

I wasn't intending to do that but who knows. I tend to stay away from electoral type things and usually argue against US foreign policy so it could come across weird when Im out of my usual area. Finding weak points in an argument is perhaps a way to get past things that make one uncomfortable with arguments one wants to agree with, but it is probably best done offline if the goal is just to convince myself (since ultimately that doesn't matter much anyways since I am a bit of a loner and the type of activism I do... Indymedia related... luckily doesn't depend a huge amount on my actual views since I cover protests more than analyze them...)

In any case, you don't need to approve this to appear as a comment. My original point was just that people I know have been turning against the bill and the back and forth attack stuff didn't seem likely to convince people otherwise (but maybe more specific arguments would). Since most people I know are Communists and Anarchists, it probably is out of the scope of electoral politics anyways since most people I know didn't vote in the last election or voted third party.

Great post again, Al and great discussion in general. I think the problem with the poutrage crew is they think you can go from an extremely right-wing government to a progressive one overnight. It is impossible even with a revolution. Our process is more like a scrum, and you have to get low and start pushing forward. We just started moving forward and now have to push our team, the other team and the ball another 80 yards. You stop moving forward, and the other team pushes you in the opposite direction. Our work is just beginning, not ending.

To act like you can get single payer in one bill, with the current make-up of Congress, is just insane. It would be nice, but that is not how our government works. Start with something and build upon it. Was social security in its current form instituted in one bill? No. Did even Canada get its current health system in one shot? No. The poutrage crew needs to stop acting like our healthcare bill will happen in one fell swoop because it won’t.

Also, they need to realize they are in a broad coalition. They are not the only people who voted for Obama. If they take their ball and go home, who is to say the other members of the coalition will vote for their candidate of choice? If you start a new party, you are still going to have to bring people in if you want to win.

The frustration with the corporate control of the government is very understandable. Remember the corporate powers want you to feel helpless and stay home, so they can control the political process and allocate more of our tax dollars back to their interests. That is how they became entrenched in the first place. We need to smash their influence by more political participation, not less. Who needs to manufacture consent when we have people on our own side spouting hopeless doom and paranoia every day on their websites? And for what, clicks? It is a political process, not your damn pony. You want change? You have now signed up for the long haul. Blaming one person when the problems are far more complex is pretty disingenuous, at best.

Remember the DLC (the Blue Dogs are the remnants) gained power partly because of lack of electoral participation, and that ended in electoral and fiscal disaster. Staying home is not an option, no matter how much the game stinks. If someone threatens that, you take him/her seriously at your own peril. While you sit home, the teabaggers, the right-to-lifers and the club-for-growthers will be in the voting booth pulling the levers for crazy-ass Republicans. And you think you have problems now. When you decide to participate again, you will have even more problems than you had before.

the stuff about Howard Dean saying he had soured on Obama were wrong, and Dean corrected them.  And it doesn't seem like Dean simply wants to kill the bill and not pass anything.  He's said he wants to pass basically the House version through reconciliation.  That's more nuanced than a simple "kill the bill".

Is there any evidence that we would get a better process by the Democrats having to start over again (in an election year) and try again? This seems like fantasy to me and has the effect of saying "kill the bill".

Edited: Nate Silver, who seems to have an infinite amount of patience, goes through the reality of the reconciliation process just taken on its own terms here.