My Heath Care Strategy. And Obama’s.
During last year's presidential campaign, both publicly and privately, I found myself second-guessing Barack Obama on how he should move ahead. Sometimes I kept my thoughts to myself. Sometimes I put it in print, laying out a playbook for him to follow, offering a counter-strategy to some grievous mistake I thought he was making.On at least two different occasions I wrote that I thought time had come for him to verbally punch out Hillary's lights or dare risking the nomination. Ditto with McCain/Palin.
I didn't and I certainly don't invest Obama with magical powers. But he and his campaign demonstrated impressive skill and strategic intelligence and each time I thought I was right, I was proven wrong. If Obama had acted in a way to please me, he most certainly would have lost the nomination and/or the general election.
Hopefully, we are again at one of those ha-ha moments.
I've watched the health care debate flare for weeks now and today it seemed crystal clear to me what Obama should do.
He should say to the Republicans (and to the Blue Dogs), thanks very much for all your input. I tried to meet you halfway on as many issues as I could without compromising the promise I made to the American people, but now time is up.
I would call the Blue Dogs into a private meeting, and with Rahm Emanuel standing at the door at with a Louisville Slugger, I would say: "Here's the deal. Both houses will now pass the national health care bill for which we have a mandate. It will have an affordable public option. It will have end of life counseling for those who wish. We will make sure that it covers at the rock bottom 95% of the population. We will pass it with exactly zero Republican votes and with a bare minimum of 51 Democratic votes if that is all we can get in the Senate. You all who choose to vote against it, Mr. Baucus and Mr. Conrad, well, good luck to you next year when you will have to explain yourselves to the electorate. Thanks and see you later."
Instead, we now read that the administration is apparently backing down on the public option.
I want to think that this is one more time that I am wrong and Obama is right. I want to think that either the White House has concluded, sadly, that is the realpolitik limit and that whether anybody likes it or not, a very-watered down bill, at best a down payment on national health care is just simply the best that can be had. Or better, that the compromises here are, in practice minor, and that at the end of the day there will be accessible and affordable coverage (under whatever name) for all who want it.
I sure do want to believe that. I'm having a lot of difficulty getting there.
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August 16th, 2009 at 10:55 pm
I’m having trouble with it too. I don’t consider myself more expert than the White House – but I’m wondering to what extent they are feeling overwhelmed. Also, I think that when a crazy person writing on her FaceBook page can get, if not the White House, key senators the administration is relying on in this process to back down on an utterly sensible, humane proposal by lobbing Goebbels-worthy lies designed to play on fear and vulnerability among the old, the sick and the disabled, the Republic is in mucho trouble. I’ve been deriding Sarah Palin as a wack job, which she is, but she’s a wack job who has been able to win at least one round in this debate and grab the spotlight even from saner critics of the plan.
We’re watching weak Dems being pushed against a wall by a minority of crazies, racists and hysterics. Lyndon-fucking-LaRouche’s zombies are out there with far-right activists – mostly from the “cut entitlements” crowd – egging on old folks who already have “socialized” Medicare to “keep the government out of it”, stirring rage against end-of-life counseling and professional evaluations of the most effective treatments as a euthanasia plot sponsored by the second coming of Hitler – and “centrist” Dems are bending over. This is scary.
I also just want to say that, having lost my mother not long ago, the kinds of discussions and preparations involved in that counseling are a blessing and are not the kinds of decisions you want to be second-guessing under the pressure and pain of a loved one’s terminal illness. The demagogy circulating around this is nothing short of evil.
August 17th, 2009 at 1:22 am
I’m baffled. Don’t understand how crazy obvious lies could derail important parts of the plan like public option so easily. Obama seemed to be recovering the arguement from the death panal and socialist labels and calming things down so why just drop the ball. And this is the day after SEIU makes a deal with PHArma to put $12M into supporting health care which didn’t smell right. I’ve been feeling like I was hit in the gut all day.
August 17th, 2009 at 5:40 am
One thing we need to keep in mind is that this thing is being driven from several different directions – what’s happening right now is very much in Max Baucus’ court. When the bill comes out of this committee, it will still be in play. Other senators can add amendments – like the “end-of-life” counseling – and the House will have a say again on the public option. The news of what’s in and whats out tends to very much “horse race” and reporters are looking for the simplest ways to characterize it. I don’t know where this thing will end up, but I wouldn’t take the spin of each morning headline at face value.
August 17th, 2009 at 6:00 am
Why is Obama dropping the ball, Nillo asks???? Ha ha ha ha aha ha
As those who actually do have progressive creds forecast, BEFORE THE ELECTION, Obama never had in his bag of tricks to pick up the ball on health care other than the comprise and comprimised crock of poo that the whole phony debate is going to devolve into.
Hillary (I loathe her) was right, though, about the health care and Obama’s plan.
Marc, you never mention the Conyers Bill or the net roots campaign to push it even BEFORE THE ELECTION– to pressure whoever got in to take on that one.
Obama is doing about health care exactly what he said he would: offer a shit plan that is nothing but an insurance industry wolf dressed up–barely–in sheep’s clothing.
Why all the surprise?
August 17th, 2009 at 6:18 am
Obama is retreating on health care reform because those who are for it have not built a strong enough mass movement to push it through. Once again, the right out-organizes the left even though we started out with a big majority of Americans in favor of a public option. Maybe next time…
August 17th, 2009 at 6:32 am
“I would call the Blue Dogs into a private meeting, and with Rahm Emanuel standing at the door at with a Louisville Slugger, I would say: “Here’s the deal.”
I often dream about what I read just before falling asleep. I wish I had read this last night.
Of course, that could be what Obama is scheming while he’s travelling on vacation. Let the grand standers grand stand, then read the riot act to them.
August 17th, 2009 at 6:55 am
What’s painful about this is that the “organizing” of the Right was taking positions so extreme, disingenuous and – frankly – bizarre that the media leaped on it as some sort of spontaneous mass outpouring over health care. Frankly, I think most of the hysterics we’re seeing are some sort of perverse rage over the results of the election, with health care reform as the target of opportunity. If groups of leftists pulled tactics out of the bag that were this incoherent and in which the most visible symbols were images of Hitler and talk of government-run “Death Panels”, the media would tar it as crazies at the margins. In this case there is an entire network, major newspapers like the NY Post and a vast network of talk radio that dwarfs the “Democracy Now” audience, feeding and pushing the most vile and irresponsible rhetoric of crackpot mobs. These people are “marginal” in the larger picture, but the sorry and scary truth is that the crazy rightwing is big enough in this country to create one pole of the debate while even a rational but programmatic left, i.e. the single-payer true believers, aren’t able to make the necessary noise. The right-wing brought a gun, bullhorns and death-threats to the fight and we brought an interview with Bill Moyers and a lot of handwringing about whether Obama would cave. Not that we could have won with their tactics, but serious proponents of across-the-board health care reform weren’t prepared for the brawl that this has turned into. Once again, nice people assume that being right about something is enough – not necessarily to win, but to feel superior even when we lose. I don’t have the solution to this perennial problem with liberals, but as Michael suggests maybe the biggest problem is that we didn’t get off of our asses early on and determine to do what it takes to win. It’s not really about Obama – he’s done as much as I ever expected to try to move the agenda in the right direction, but even operating out of the Oval Office he’s just one guy and, frankly, I can’t imagine waking up each morning having to face all of the shit that’s on his desk AND the PR tasks we’re expecting of him. I partly blame myself, because I haven’t been as engaged as the wackos that have turned up their volume since the election.
August 17th, 2009 at 7:06 am
A point that I should make clearer is that by “acknowledging” that single payer was “off the table” from the get-got (and I don’t think we could have won single payer) the Dems allowed crazy shit like “Death Panels” to creep onto the table. We should have had a vocal campaign pushing single payer, so that the “compromise” would be something like the House bill with a strong public option. It’s always wrong to assume you’re dealing with anything other than disreputable scumbags who will do or say anything to protect entrenched interests. I saw a clip of Dick Armey, who is behind one of these groups promoting “Tea Bag” and “Death Panel” protests, from Meet the Press and the guy has no problem with spreading total lies and hiding his true intentions, which is to ultimately get rid of Medicare and Social Security. I like Rachel Maddow and she did a good job of trying to counter him, but a nice, honest, well-intentioned, respectful person is at a total disadvantage “debating” an unscrupulous P.O.S. who doesn’t have a conscience. It’s one of those nasty facts of life.
August 17th, 2009 at 7:37 am
I’m not sure it’s quite that simple, Michael Balter. As has been noted in an array of places on the web, a single plan hasn’t existed that progressives can get behind. Given the state of five different plans in play, the best progressives could do is stake out a robust public option as a line in the sand and hammer for it. And, that’s what they’ve done.
First. There exists Rahm Emanuel’s cozy relationship with the Blue Dogs. We have the White House Chief of Staff informing liberal groups to stop running attack ads against Blue Dogs on health care. And, apparently, even went so far as to call them F_ing stupid. Alrighty, then.
Second. Hamsher and her troops have been doing the bulk of the work whipping the progressive caucus, and that effort may produce a defeat of any bill that doesn’t contain a public option.
Third. The beyond stupid town brawls. Without specifics with which to present to people, and foolishly armed with platitudes, our representatives were lined up for the hysterical and unhinged, but corporately supported, opposition to gin up eighty-five kinds of drama which the media dutifully reports.
Four. We have Senator Chuck Grassley worrying fulsomely about death panels which, once the option for end of life counseling is pulled, quietly allows he, does not think the House provision would in fact give the government such authority in deciding when and how people die. Oh? Good to know. Gee. Do you think the media will play that ‘reversal’ at the same volume as his earlier concern?
Five. Let’s consider these co-ops. Can you spell regressive tax? Sure. I knew you could.
There are dozens of other eddies in all this turbulence I could cite which have pushed and pulled the front line for this fight all over the map. And, lurking within all of those battlefields are corporate dollars. Reportedly, there are six lobbyists for each of the 535 members of Congress lobbying on the issue. Clearly we’d expect some of those lobbyists to represent progressive interests, but I’d really like to see the $$ breakdown for each side of the issue.
And, then, we have Teh Man himself. Obama picks fight with left on health reform.
No. It’s not just those who are for it have not built a strong enough mass movement to push it through. We have congressional representatives voting against the expressed wishes of their constituents and hoping it won’t matter because what they lose in votes, they hope to keep in corporate campaign dollars. I mean, the voters have to vote for someone, right? And, it could very well be “me” if I can get a big enough war chest in advance of the next election.
The charge that the Left fails to out-organize the Right only serves to obscure a deeper level of rot. A much deeper level of rot. And, I’d argue that it wouldn’t matter what the issue was. To the extent that progressives would like to reduce the influence of corporations on our material well being, we’re fighting a bit more than a few screamers on the right.
August 17th, 2009 at 7:38 am
You’ve nailed it, reg. The single payer crowd could have been a much more powerful force, essentially working as the ‘rudder of the argument’ trumping the crazy shit like Palin’s Death Panels and making the Obama – Public Option position the sensible fall back.
Image had say Conyers or Woosley or Kucinich been visibly beating the drum for the Insurance Industry to walk the blank and put itself into something akin to what GM & Chrysler had to do…
Image bills in congress being drafted demanding ‘hiring freezes’ with proviso’s on how insurance employees could get ‘retraining’ benefits…
Everyone could have ‘pushed’ harder.
From the big O to me.
August 17th, 2009 at 8:14 am
Listener – which part of this terrain wasn’t exactly what we should have expected ? I don’t understand the point. Rahm isn’t showing anything new, the corporate money has always been there, and we know that way too many Dem congressional reps are hacks. I was a bit blindsided by the level of dishonesty and vitriol at the town meetings, but that was naive and the town meetings should have been treated as organizing and media opportunities by reform proponents ranging from single payer to a strong public option. That space was ceded to the right – and that’s got nothing to do with the fecklessness of members of congress, which should be assumed.
Also, I’d be careful about lifting talking points about Obama from The Hill. The media is always promoting the inevitability of Obama selling out his base – it’s one of their essential narratives. Don’t take that at face value. And if we’re now dependent on Jane Hamsher, we’re totally fucked. That proves the point that the broad left was out to lunch when it should have been developing an aggressive public strategy.
I’m not putting myself over anyone else in terms of having a plan, but Hamsher pushing to pull the plug on any legislation is as dismal a prospect as anything else that’s come out of this in recent weeks.
August 17th, 2009 at 8:20 am
“A point that I should make clearer is that by “acknowledging” that single payer was “off the table” from the get-go (and I don’t think we could have won single payer) the Dems allowed crazy shit like “Death Panels” to creep onto the table.”
Congratulation reg. You get it…again. Too much too fast in a very unfavorable economic and debt spending environment, thanks to the ‘regime’, and the other big-change-bill the President is asking for at the same time, Cap and Trade.
I don’t have much time, but a few quick points to help others here get it.
End of life decisions for a member of ones family
is intensely personal and ‘private’. On the surface
it seems common sense and innocent to allow the
gov’t to pay for an End of Life counsel, and it
could be. In reality, what is the need to allow
an end of life ‘benefit’ to ‘pay’ a non-doctor and
non-family member to council an old person.
It is the problem of unintended, or for the
suspicious of gov’t with some reason as history
has shown, intended to ‘help’….. of course.
President Obama is over reaching, and this one End of Life Counseling idea, among several liberal pet payment ideas snuck into the House version(you all know what they are…uh, were) was just one more freebie that most people don’t want, don’t need, and think it is a little….well nutty.
Not to mention they are feeling broke…..ned.
August 17th, 2009 at 8:23 am
“thanks to the ‘regime’” was to be “thanks to the last regime”.
August 17th, 2009 at 8:30 am
“intended to ‘help’….. of course.” was to be “unintended consequences with the intention to help…”
August 17th, 2009 at 8:43 am
Rob Grocholski:
That’s the lesson of the stimulus plan you’re reciting. It was useful before we found out what kind of president we have. Now, we know. The lesson of thumping the table for something bigger, in order to have a fall back for something less auspicious, or to make the fall back seem reasonable by comparison, is so yesterday. Was never going to happen.
Reg:
Given Obama’s track record to date, I don’t find this: The media is always promoting the inevitability of Obama selling out his base … a bad bet.
As for, wasn’t exactly what we should have expected… I never said it wasn’t.
Dismal prospect? Not from where I sit. Some of us call it a credible threat. And, it’s about time for progressives – if they are to wield any power at all ever – to make their presence felt in ways in which they cannot be ignored.
August 17th, 2009 at 8:45 am
Rob G and Balter:
Conyers, Kucinich et al have been beating the drum–they just dont get air time only cyber space.
I signed the petitions…did you?
This is the big David vs Goliath issue. To suggest the “Left” didn’t do its job is just daft.
Its about shifting every paradigm and building block this nut house of a country is built on. Its gonna take more than a few months of the will of a new president whose idea of reform is tepid to turn things on their head.
Only the wisdom of the ages is gonna prevail here. Its all gotta break down before change can happen. And it is–breaking down.
THe coming few years are gonna rock your world.
August 17th, 2009 at 8:47 am
Jim – you’re not making much sense here. Just emoting. And if you want to see “broke”, allow the current health care system to continue unregulated and unreformed. That’s scary and its real. The shit you’re talking about is barely coherent. Do you know that there was a provision in the Bush Drug bill that Grassley and a bunch of these other guys voted for that funds exactly this kind of counseling for the terminally ill. Where was all of this insane hysteria when Bush was pushing it ? And, frankly, directing this counseling toward someone who is already terminally ill is fraught with more issues than having people consider it earlier on. Who is more vulnerable, if you really want to explore your paranoia.
Get a grip, Jim. You are displaying ignorance of existing legislation, falling for the most disingenuous crap – evil shit, really, when whack-job like Palin starts spewing garbage to feed her desperate narcissism – and ignoring the fact that without government programs like Medicare and Social Security our seniors would be much worse off, as they were before those programs existed. We were actually more “broke” when Social Security was instituted. I have long term faith in the vitality of the American economy of it’s not exploited by the top 1% as their personal piggy bank. Apparently folks on the right don’t have much faith in the economy, the possibility of responsive government, or the resiliance of the American people in the face of rough times. Very sad. I’m glad I don’t have that perennial loser mentality. What can one say about the type of people who are scared by Obama but felt secure with Dick Cheney. Personally, I think that racism is a large undercurrent in this hysteria among the 20% or so on the far right.
And how do you explain the consistently high polling numbers for a public option as part of health care reform ? It flies in the face of every one of your assertions. But we’re supposed to believe that crazues with Obama=Hitler signs and oldsters yammering about the “gummint” messing with their Medicare are evidence of something other than their own sorry mental state and – in many cases – retrograde notions about race bubbling to the surface.
August 17th, 2009 at 8:50 am
That should have been “if” not “of”
August 17th, 2009 at 8:53 am
“President Obama is over reaching, and this one End of Life Counseling idea, among several liberal pet payment ideas snuck into the House version(you all know what they are…uh, were) was just one more freebie that most people don’t want, don’t need, and think it is a little….well nutty.”
End of life counseling was originally proposed by a republican you dolt. And please proof read your comments before posting…
August 17th, 2009 at 9:00 am
Also, Jim, if you think that the “end-of-life” counseling is “nutty”, you’ve obviously never faced these issues in your own family. This is one of the least “nutty” things one could propose in the context of medical care. What is “nutty” is when people are facing the death of a parent and are totally confused as to how to respond to the prospect of “heroic” measures that keep someone alive in a vegitative state. Without some forethought, this is painful stuff. Sarah Palin is a monster for generating dishonest hysteria around this issue. If I ever see this nasty bit of work up close, the least I will do is spit in her ugly face for that one. If there’s anyone in this debate who is a demagogue competing with the Big Lies of the Third Reich, it’s Palin.
August 17th, 2009 at 9:11 am
Listener – Krugman, who spares no opportunity to excoriate Obama, has a column today suggesting that an acceptable health reform package is possible without a public option. I’m a believer in single payer – I’d copy France if I had my choice – but I want to see us move beyond the current unacceptable, unsustainable system, and if it’s “Swiss”, not “French” I’ll take it. Not sure though that Jane Hamsher’s ego could survive such an outcome intact:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/17/opinion/17krugman.html
August 17th, 2009 at 9:16 am
Two discussions Jim R should never, ever read.
You Do Not Have Health Insurance, and I don’t care what kind of employer coverage you think you have.
Wong Message
Absolutely, under no circumstances should Jim R touch either one of these with a fifty foot pole. Because, even with Jim R‘s tenuous grasp of economics, he runs the risk losing what little understanding of the economy he has. Don’t go there, Jim R. Just don’t.
August 17th, 2009 at 9:28 am
Yes, yes, Reg. I’ve been hanging around waiting for you to cite that. Frankly, I think Krugman turned right about April 27th. I’ve been catching a distinct whiff of trade off since then. The aroma getting stronger with every passing month, in fact.
BTW, I had no idea you were so jealous of Jane Hamsher. What an interesting discovery. I’d argue that green is an unflattering color for your counter arguments.
August 17th, 2009 at 9:46 am
OK, I’ll go ahead and pile on. JimR:
this one End of Life Counseling idea … was just one more freebie that most people don’t want, don’t need, and think it is a little….well nutty.
I find the objections to the idea to be a lot nutty.
If you’ve ever been there — with a family member in a slow, irreversible decline — you’d know that it’s really good to talk with someone who knows what’s coming from professional experience. Without getting too graphic, my family’s particular case had to do with congestive heart failure. It’s common — death by slow restriction of the amount of oxygen in the blood. The end of life counselor was the only one who was willing to say what the order of shutdown of organs was going to be, the signs along the way, and the amount of time that there was likely to be left.
It’s important stuff, and very real. The concerns on the other side — that a government-plan-paid, as opposed to insurance-plan-paid, counselor will advise to limit care to save money — seem like fantasy.
August 17th, 2009 at 9:51 am
Listeners says:
“I’m not sure it’s quite that simple, Michael Balter. As has been noted in an array of places on the web, a single plan hasn’t existed that progressives can get behind. Given the state of five different plans in play, the best progressives could do is stake out a robust public option as a line in the sand and hammer for it. And, that’s what they’ve done.”
And then goes on to give a lot of excuses for why progressives have not won the day. In fact, progressives have been behind a single plan: it’s called single payer. A serious mass movement around that principle would have produced a much better compromise than we are going to be stuck with now. The big mistake was not realizing that it was going to take a serious mass movement to make as big a change as health care reform, sad as it is, requires in the United States. Instead, there was too much reliance on Obama, his election victory, his mandate, etc. A lot of folks have done a lot of good things, but nothing that could be called a mass movement. And the organizing of it should have started 15 years ago when the Clinton health care plan failed. What about the way that the health care industry killed that effort did progressives not understand? Just being right about something is not good enough. You have to want it badly enough and fight for it hard enough to get it.
August 17th, 2009 at 10:02 am
Noting reg’s preference for the French system: I suspect that the reason neither Obama nor opponents of health care reform (who are fixated on UK, Canada) mention France very often is because it is the single payer system that would probably work best in the United States. Private doctors, total freedom of choice over what doctors you see, but reimbursed with public funds. If Obama talked about it, he would have to acknowledge that single payer is a realistic option; if opponents talked about it, they would have to admit that the French govt has not taken over health care. But how many Americans know anything about how the French system works?
August 17th, 2009 at 10:07 am
Listener – I’m beginning to scent the whiff of some of Woody’s dysfunctions in your arguments. I could give a shit about Jane Hamsher – I’m not particularly impressed with her. Big deal. But your bit about Krugman is discrediting…of you. I’m not as much of a fan of Krugman’s as most folks on the left – I thought some of his columns during the campaign were disgraceful. But you show real ignorance of who Krugman is. Krugman is and always has been a techonocratically-oriented moderately liberal economist. He worked in the Reagan administration in a non-political job. He was absolutely dreadful on free trade long before that fated day of April 27th when he ate Obama’s roast beef. But he got blindsided and embarrassed by just how bad things could go under Bush and claimed some religion. He’s been a very useful voice, but not because he’s innately progressive but because he’s innately pragmatic. That most recent column is totally consistent. For what its worth, I want to see the House Dems put up as much as a front as the Blue Dogs. I think its disgraceful that the media doesn’t give them at least equal attention, given that they represent a larger base. But when push comes to shove, you really don’t believe that Barney Frank is going to vote against a reform bill that has significant positives, regulates the industry and establishes the principle of universal coverage, do you ? I think that “taking the pledge” is a great tactic. But you’re naive if you think it’s more than that.
August 17th, 2009 at 10:20 am
Hamsher is irrelevant to the debate. Sorry.
August 17th, 2009 at 11:52 am
There is no right to health care. None. With Obama’s bill, what you folks want to do is to redistribute wealth that was earned by others — not protect any right.
There are plenty of solutions to help people with their health that exist within the private sector and without a government takeover. But, the Democrats have shot down every attempt in that area. Compromises from Obama that Marc Cooper mentions are fairy tales.
For every person who goes another day with rotting teeth and spastic colons (probably some of you), blame Obama and the Democrats who put Democratic power and control over people above the real needs of our nation and its citizens.
August 17th, 2009 at 12:16 pm
“what you folks want to do is to redistribute wealth that was earned by others”–Woody
Seems that is what corporate executives do when they take home millions but pay the minimum wage to their workers.
As for a right to health care: Each society can decide whether it wants to make health care a basic right or not. Nearly all industrialized societies in the world have done so, the US is the exception. Unless, of course, one thinks that the rights of humans are given by God and not by humans themselves. In which case I wonder what kind of health care plan Jesus would opt for? It’s funny that those who profess to be Christians are often the most callous individuals on the earth.
August 17th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
“Instead, we now read that the administration is apparently backing down on the public option.”
Uh, Marc, when did you start believing everything you read in the la la times?
—-
From: Jim Dean, Democracy for America
Sent: Monday, August 17, 2009 10:36 AM
Subject: House won’t pass Healthcare without a Public Option
Over the weekend Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said the Obama administration was open to considering co-ops in a healthcare reform bill. Immediately, insurance-funded media went on the attack. Some reporters called the public option dead — others “off the table”.
The media is wrong… again.
Let’s be clear: A Healthcare bill without a public option is D.O.A. in the House. Period.
To pass any bill in the House they need at least 218 votes but 64 House Democrats have stood up and said they will not vote for a bill without a public option. That means a bill without a public option would only have 193 votes.
It’s up to us to make sure these Democrats stand strong and never back down in the face of pressure from the insurance industry and insider Democrats. Will you join me in thanking Healthcare Heroes like Donna Edwards from Maryland CD-04 and Chellie Pingree of Maine CD-01 right now?
Thank House Healthcare Heroes who will not back down
THANK HEALTHCARE HEROES WHO WON’T TAKE NO FOR AN ANSWER
Should we be surprised that the media got it wrong?
How many times did they count Obama out when he ran for President? For years, Hillary Clinton was a fait accompli as the Democratic nominee, yet we all know how that turned out.
Democrats nationwide stood up and voted. When the chips were down, we didn’t change our message or back away from fighting to win. We re-doubled our efforts and we backed the winner all the way into the White House.
That’s what we’re going to do with our fight for a public healthcare option. We will not back down. We will stand up and get the job done. We will, more than ever, re-double our efforts to deliver the change America needs.
ADD YOUR NAME IN SUPPORT OF HEALTHCARE HEROES WHO WILL NOT BACK DOWN
There are 64 House Democrats with the guts to lead the way. After you add your name, we’ll deliver these signatures to every single Democratic member of the House. We’ll make sure they know who the House Healthcare Leaders are. And we will support those who stand and deliver real reform.
For those who won’t, it will be a strong reminder: if you stand against the 76% of Americans who want a choice of a public health insurance option, you will stand alone for re-election.
This is a campaign and right now we are in the dog days of summer. But we’re in this for the long haul. When we’re through, we will remember who stood with the American people. We will remember who stood with the insurance industry.
Don’t despair because the media doesn’t get it. Take action and get the job done.
Thank you for everything you do.
-Jim
Jim Dean, Chair
Democracy for America
August 17th, 2009 at 1:15 pm
Michael,
Many of them, it appears, don’t pay much attention to Matthew Chapter 25, Verses 31-46.
It’s also funny how apparently the only type of Darwinism the far right believes in is the social one.
August 17th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
“There is no right to health care. None.”
In the same way that there’s no right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
“what you folks want to do is to redistribute wealth that was earned by others ”
And here I thought it was those pushing for the F-22 who wanted that.
“For every person who goes another day with rotting teeth and spastic colons”
Or tertiary syphilis, in Woody’s case.
As for the blaming of “progressives”, I wonder exactly which of us it was who didn’t want things badly enough or fight hard enough, and what makes those (who are themselves progressive and left) who blame “the progressives” and “the left” better than the rest of us.
There are reasons why we don’t live in a progressive utopia. It’s fantasy thinking and poor political analysis to suppose that “progressives” would have “won the day” if they had just been as wise and had wanted things as badly and had fought as hard as oneself.
August 17th, 2009 at 1:49 pm
There is no right to health care. None….
For every person who goes another day with rotting teeth and spastic colons (probably some of you), blame Obama and the Democrats who put Democratic power and control over people above the real needs of our nation and its citizens.
Woody is a walking talking self-contradiction. You have no right to health care, and it’s Obama’s fault that you eat junk food and don’t brush your teeth.
August 17th, 2009 at 2:07 pm
passing through – I’m not laying blame at anyone else’s door, but I do think we need to look at our side critically and consider how we might have been or might become more effective. It’s an uphill battle for progressives when some idiot like Palin can gain credibility for monstrous bullshit and create paranoia among Beltway Dems by dropping a load on her Facebook Page – but we need to factor that crap in and move forward.
August 17th, 2009 at 2:27 pm
It’s problematic dealing with rightwing assholes who, on the one hand acknowledge in forums like these that they believe grandma has no right to health care if she can’t cough up the dough, and then piggyback on arguments that the only institution that guarantees her access to medical care is the one that wants to kill her. But I applaud Woody’s scant moment of brutal honesty about his beliefs.
I wish rightwingers weren’t such shameless liars and cowards and would just admit that they don’t give a shit about grandma and would rather she die in the gutter than allow the cardinal sin of “redistributing wealth.” Show up at the town halls with that “Fuck Grandma, and fuck the disabled if they can’t pay – No one has a right to health care!” sign – and let the debate turn honestly on that, Woody. Also, “Throw the freeloaders out of our emergency rooms – no cost shifting by beggars to the affluent and insured!” might be another argument that cuts to the chase of cost containment. Also, “Let them buy BandAids!” Shed some bright light on yourself and your comrades true colors for a change, rather than hiding behind the bullshit and cheap, dishonest rhetoric.
August 17th, 2009 at 3:22 pm
Michael Balter is right. It is up to Americans whether health care is a right guaranteed to all Americans of all ages and financial conditions. We have decided that people over age 65 do have a right to health care. We have decided that all full-time federal government employees have a right to health care. We have decided that all persons have a right to emergency health care, without considering their ability to pay (though hospitals reserve the right to bankrupt the patient later, and in any event to add the cost of unreimbursed care to the bills of those who do pay). The question is whether we are going to extend the right to all Americans, and, if so, how we will pay for it. The separate but equally important question is whether, how and to what extent we are going to try to control health care costs.
There are a number of important subsidiary questions, but these are the key ones. They do not, in and of themselves, require adoption of a “public option.”
August 17th, 2009 at 4:11 pm
re PT/Reg discussion, while its perfectly true that leftists spend lots of time worrying about why our movement is so ineffective, it’s also true that we have not found the answers yet, and that we’re not going to accomplish anything until we do.
Re Jim Dean letter: of course the liberals will cave in, as they always do. In fact, even if they manage to get public option back into the plan, they’ve still already caved in. Public option was never more than a way to coopt single payer advocates. Sure, it’s abundantly obvious that the government is better at health care financing than the private sector. But there is all the difference in the world between universal, tax-funded health insurance and a premium-financed public plan that poor people and small employers still won’t be able to afford.
August 17th, 2009 at 4:12 pm
I note two things:
1. Social Security got passed in 1935, after the 1934 mid-term elections. For a variety of reasons, perhaps the administration is deciding to play this sort of long game. (Though it’s beyond me to see what they can offer to the public during next year’s campaigns apart from “trust us, we averted economic disaster for you”)
2. For me, Obama’s accession bears some resemblance to that of Brazil’s Lula da Silva, who inherited an IMF program that he pledged to respect. The left’s hopes for Lula were as modest as his promises: they hoped that a Lula/Workers’ Party administration would work on the margins to reduce corruption, start antipoverty measures, and start a new more progressive tack for Brazilian foreign policy, all of which could be strengthened in a 2nd term for Lula. Perhaps this is the general plan that Obama is following?
August 17th, 2009 at 4:52 pm
Rights are enumerated in the Constitution. If you want to make healthcare a right, then pass an amendment. Good luck.
The healthcare issue is similar to the failed ERA amendment (thank goodness). The left says it means one thing, but the implications of the wording says that if goes much further and is much worse.
If I went to a townhall meeting, my sign might read something like “People who buy illegal drugs but not health insurance deserve neither.”
August 17th, 2009 at 4:58 pm
but there’s a big political difference. Lula is a social democrat from a leftist party who may judge that the situation will not bear pushing too hard. We might argue on the left about whether he is correct. I can’t imagine what circumstances may come down the pike in Latin America that will be more auspicious for a dramatic social democratic program than those of 2007 or so, when neoliberalism had collapsed, the US was busy in Iraq, and Hugo Chavez was off on the left flank, drawing what fire Uncle Sam could muster away from Lula. No doubt, though, Lula is also restrained by the risk of a nightmare scenario that doesn’t need to be described here.
But Obama is not a social democrat who’s restrained by situational considerations. He’s a centrist heading a centrist party. It’s really impossible to imagine better circumstances than we have right now for, say, setting up national health insurance, slashing the military budget, making the tax system more progressive, dramatically raising the minimum wage, making it easier to organize unions, etc. Obama doesn’t want to do these things in the first place. That makes all the difference analytically.
August 17th, 2009 at 5:51 pm
PS, Michael, here’s a counterexample to yours on Social Security. LBJ pushed through both the 1965 Civil Rights Act and Medicare very early, getting his highest priorities done before the vast mojo he came in with wore off. That’s a very good thing for African Americans and old people, too, because a couple of years later LBJ couldn’t get arrested.
I predict that, by early 2011, Obama will be hurting badly. He’s already lost the opportunity to withdraw from Iraq and let GWB take the blame for his stupid-ass war. Obama’s escalation of the war in Afghanistan guarantees a big spike in US casualties over the next couple of years. Despite all the happy talk in the press lately, the credit markets are still frozen, still posing a risk of real economic disaster. If Obama was going to push for a real restructiring of health care, it would be now or never.
August 17th, 2009 at 5:55 pm
BTW, reg, you won’t shame me into accepting a crazy left-wing proposal on the premise that I want grandma dead when the main reason is that government won’t run healthcare right and will take away our freedoms and choices. In the meantime, I’ll take care of my own grandmas without Obama advising them to die quickly.
August 17th, 2009 at 6:03 pm
Woody’s grasp of civics as usual, is lacking.
One need not have to amend the constitution to enumerate a right to the citizens. It did not take an amendment to abolish segregation, nor did it take an amendment to ensure that governments could not impose any “voting qualification or prerequisite to voting, or standard, practice, or procedure … to deny or abridge the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color.” It’s called the Voting Rights Act.
August 17th, 2009 at 6:26 pm
You guys need a dose of reality. VIDEO
August 17th, 2009 at 6:28 pm
Randy, there is NO RIGHT TO VOTE in the Constitution. Your “grasp of civics, as usual, is lacking.”
August 17th, 2009 at 6:31 pm
passing through – I’m not laying blame at anyone else’s door
I wasn’t referring to you (as should have been obvious from the phrases I repeated and quoted).
Michael Balter is right.
a) Odd, since you said quite different things. b) Like him, you treat groups as if they were individuals with single minds and wills.
“It is up to Americans …”. Ok, you and I are Americans. What exactly should you or I have done differently than we did?
it’s also true that we have not found the answers yet, and that we’re not going to accomplish anything until we do.
We do accomplish some things. But it’s true that we haven’t found the answer to how to reshape the powerful political, institutional, and social forces that oppose us.
Rights are enumerated in the Constitution.
Woody, you’re such a shameless ignoramus. But again, I can’t find anything in the Constitution guaranteeing that your teeth won’t rot and your colon won’t spasm, or explaining how it’s Obama’s fault if they do.
August 17th, 2009 at 6:35 pm
Randy, there is NO RIGHT TO VOTE in the Constitution.
That’s what HE said, you fucking moron. It’s not in the Constitution, it’s in legislation. You’re simply wrong that “Rights are enumerated in the Constitution”, and you’re especially wrong in your implication that rights are only enumerated in the Constitution.
August 17th, 2009 at 6:41 pm
P.S. Although facts and logic demonstrably have no effect on Woody’s shriveled little brain, others might benefit from what the Constitution itself says on this matter:
“The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”
August 17th, 2009 at 6:42 pm
Woody, I am quoting directly from the text of the legislation. It is the law. Your silly-assed attempt at tu quoque misses the mark as usual. I did not say that there was a right to vote in the constitution. Allo me to dumb it down for you.
While individual states grant their citizens the right to vote in elections Federal, state and local, the Voting Rights Act, specifically forbids those states from imposing “voting qualification or prerequisite to voting, or standard, practice, or procedure … to deny or abridge the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color.”
If you want to split semantic hairs, you’ll just bore us to death, arguably one of your talents.
However, an amendment to the constitution is not required in order to enumerate a right. In the example the right enumerated is to be able to vote in your state of legal residence without restrictions that were devised based on race.
Do you deny that the Voting Rights Act effectively abolished such things as poll taxes and tests in order to vote?
Having lived my a sizable chunk of my life in the Deep South I can tell you that it is the troglodyte mentality of people such as Woody who ensure that the region will remain backwards.
It’s sad in a way, because some of the most brilliant writers of fiction in the 20th cedntury came from the South: Flannery O’Connor, Eudora Welty, Robert Penn Warren, William Faulkner, Walker Percy, etc. More’s the pity that the mouthbreathers seem to have a grip on political power.
August 17th, 2009 at 6:48 pm
What is interesting is the emphasis on the end of life rather than an emphasis on radical preventative healthcare measures.
That goofy “end of life” counseling becoming such an issue…it seems to me a lot of that type of information reveals itself organically. To make it a target issue with the clear reason of cost issues makes it suspect.
Why weren’t people able to grab on to the idea of preventative health care being emphasized?
I am not debating the line being taking out of context and blown up by the Right.
I am noting the lunacy of the emphasis on worrying about dying rather than making issue with constructive, progressive health care out of the shoot.
Here is an analogy: free spay and neuter services for cats and dogs would make so much more sense then the gazillions spent on animal control and what charities have to contend with treating, and sheltering unwanted and abused animals.
Even many humane societies offer free or budget preventative care for one’s pets.
August 17th, 2009 at 7:05 pm
Already been covered, but there are 4 constitutional amenedments designed to protect the right to vote, which in turn is regulated by the states themselves. While I suppose it is technically true that the right to vote is not in the constitution, that doesn’t mean there is no right to vote.
Anyway this stupid quibble is over your analogy between health care as a right and the right to vote. I have not seen anyone say that there is a right to health care in the constitution. We’re asserting that it ought to be a right to receive health care and that it not be tied to your level of wealth. Happy to have you disagree with that assertion Woody, but the fact that it’s not listed in the constitution is no argument at all.
The constitution was designed the other way around–to circumscribe the power of the government by spelling out what those powers are, reserving the rest to the people. Any good conservative knows this…
August 17th, 2009 at 7:07 pm
Woody, you’re a crank and nobody gives a shit what you think – because you don’t think. You ooze slime.
August 17th, 2009 at 7:09 pm
pt – I was just making a general point from my own perspective…
August 18th, 2009 at 6:52 am
The best that reg can ever do is a personal attack, and who cares about that?
- – -
Dan O.: Anyway this stupid quibble is over your analogy between health care as a right and the right to vote.
Randy made the analogy.
Health care is not tied to wealth but is tied to priorities and choices of individuals. I choose to spend money on health care rather than fancy cars, drugs, booze, etc., and I didn’t drop out of school, get tattoos, and join a gang to make my earning potential less.
But, what I see isn’t liberals being compassionate with the poor but rather using the poor to further a political ideology. When it’s convenient to invoke the homeless for political purposes, the liberals and liberal media are all over it.
When it’s not convenient, such as when Democrats are in charge, then the issue disappears and the liberals couldn’t care less. Same with deaths in the mideast conflicts.
If liberals really cared about people rather than just themselves and political views, they would be out helping people in need who aren’t the cause célèbre.
What’s the next “right” that Democrats can manufacture…free cell phones? Oh, wait. They’re doing that now.
- – -
Randy: the right of any citizen of the United States to vote
Randy, if my kid is a citizen but fifteen years old, he can’t vote. If reg is a felon, he can’t vote. Voting is not a right and is not available to every citizen. But, it appears to be a right to the community organization formerly known as ACORN which creates voters out of thin air.
Randy: If you want to split semantic hairs, you’ll just bore us to death</i.
Splitting hairs? Well, discussing correctly what is in the Constitution is less hair splitting than your typical demand for five independent sources for my own opinions.
August 18th, 2009 at 7:37 am
Randy made the analogy
Actually, you did. I responded to your comment.
You are of course right that fifteen years old can’t vote, but the full quote read that states cannot “deny or abridge the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color.” You brazenly distorted the en tire meaning of what I wrote.
In other words, when you have nothing else, you just make shit up.
August 18th, 2009 at 7:52 am
Randy, my comment didn’t mention voting. There you go again, making upstuff.
Quit your movement and join the latest trend: Conservatives Now Outnumber Liberals in All 50 States, Says Gallup Poll. Thank you, Obama.
It’s like my grandfather once told me, “Extremes breed extremes.”
August 18th, 2009 at 8:02 am
I take back that comment that liberals now don’t care about deaths in the mideast conflicts. There is one.
But, where are all you people who were cheering her on before?
August 18th, 2009 at 8:03 am
All the intellectual rigor of “I know you are, but what am I?”
August 18th, 2009 at 8:47 am
Randy, please provide five independent sources for your conclusion.
(Most guys use quotes from “The Godfather” while Randy sees things through the eyes of “Pee Wee’s Big Adventure.”)
August 18th, 2009 at 10:09 am
“We’re asserting that it ought to be a right to receive health care and that it not be tied to your level of wealth.”
Could you please explain how, under such a collectivist model, what incentives there will be to incentivize people to make healthy choices? With the levels of obesity in this country, this is not an insignificant consideration. Other countries do not have the levels of obesity that we do, which is perhaps one reason their national health care systems are able to work.
Could someone please explain how, under single payer or other government plan, you will not end with a system that transfers resources from those have invested in their health to those who have chosen not to? Are you going to charge higher rates to those who actively choose to eat junk on a daily basis? How absurd. Any government plan is impractical for this reason. Better to put resources in the hands of people (thru forced savings / HSAs) and let everyone make their own lifestyle tradeoffs. I say this as a compassionate liberal Democrat who voted for Obama.
August 18th, 2009 at 10:11 am
Woody, you are such a little boy.
August 18th, 2009 at 10:17 am
“I know you are, but what am I?”
August 18th, 2009 at 10:18 am
Will someone with intelligence please respond to Lorrie’s requests?
August 18th, 2009 at 10:42 am
Lorrie, I don’t see how further government involvement in health insurance changes the “incentive” balance in any meaningful way. Just how does the market incentive to stay fit work in the current insurance environment. The incentives you apparently perceive don’t seem to be producing a svelte citizenry.
The reality that so many aren’t seeing, and certainly aren’t discussing, is that few of us have real choices now. Do you have a choice of insurance plan now? Some do, many do not. Within your plan, do you have an unfettered right to consult the doctor of your choice, and have that consultation covered? Some do, many more do not.
We must take control of health care and health care costs. It’s not because we want government to be more involved in health care decisions. I don’t. Most of us don’t. But even more we want to prevent the cost of health care from remaining the anchor that prevents our economy to move forward.
August 18th, 2009 at 11:59 am
What happened to BO’s grassroots army that propelled his campaign (along with huge financing from the health insurance industry). It’s probably only a matter of time before BO caves on the yearly out-of-pocket cap. The ‘collectives’ are just another way of funneling money through the health insurance industry.
August 18th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
Micahael – I don’t deny that the current system is in dire need of reform. The question is how to get there. Many on the left seem so emotionally attached to single payer or public option, and refuse to consider other possibilities.
Personally I would favor reforms that would open up competition amongst providers, and take insurance out of the model altogether for everything except catastrophic, and put responsibility for health in the hands of the individual.
Make the health care industry face the consumer in a way that will ensure that value is provided. i.e. where we pay for health care services directly to the provider (funded by individual HSAs).
This recent piece in the Atlantic lays it all out in a way that is pretty compelling. It is written from the perspective of a businessman who lost his father after 2 days in hospital from a preventable infection, whose mother is then billed $636,000 for the pleasure.
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200909/health-care
Right now Medicare just reimburses seemingly without limit. Extending this to the rest of the country is just going to bring us to the brink of insolvency, and take us further away from a prevention-oriented model.
Moreover, under a collectivist approach, where you have one group paying for the medical care of another group, should, in fairness, give the paying group some kind of “say” in the lifestlyle choices of the non-paying group. Is that not fair? (Alternatively you charge more for those making poor choices but that is impossible to implement) This would have to be a world in which we had outright bans on smoking, alcohol, junk food amongst other poisons. Is this the world you want to be in?
Ultimately the most compassionate, sustainable model is the one that brings us closer to a prevention-oriented system. I don’t see how you get there with a collectivist approach.
August 18th, 2009 at 12:20 pm
“How absurd. Any government plan is impractical for this reason.”
That seems to be empirically false as there are any number of advanced countries who provide universal health care coverage for their citizens.
On the risk of people being unhealthy. This seems like a non-issue. Ameicans, generally, are terribly unhealthy and they have private insurance, so what’s the point being made here?
You want to worry to worry about unhealthy choices? Go after the USDA, not the notion of publilc health options. Go after the decision to feature the cholesterol-fat-heart disease link, which increasingly appears to have been based on pretty weak science. I think you’re barking up the wrong forest.
August 18th, 2009 at 12:36 pm
If having insurance led people to get fat, we’d expect Americans to be less fat, not more so, than people in other rich countries (if we are still in that category.)
As to why Americans are fat, I’d get my first hypotheses from various family-unfriendly aspects of social policy here, like longer work hours and the lack of affordable child care. Who has time to cook a healthy meal? Maybe its the lack of public transport-people in, say, Japan would walk to a subway or bus stop and then walk from the other stop to their place of work, where Americans drive door to door.
Or maybe it’s because we don’t drink or smoke as much as Europeans or Japanese, so our mouths are available for eating
August 18th, 2009 at 2:46 pm
“# Woody Says:
August 18th, 2009 at 10:18 am
Will someone with intelligence please respond to Lorrie’s requests?”
That plea was an act of heroic self-awareness and restraint on Woody’s part. Kudos…
August 18th, 2009 at 4:10 pm
Someone might have mentioned this (I am late to this discussion, but I read Reg’s first few posts and I am in complete agreement with him), but at least there are 50 or so members of the House with a backbone, having issued a letter saying they won’t vote for a bill that doesn’t at least have a public option.
The problem with this “Democratic super-majority” is that so-called blue dogs make up a number similar to the 50 who wrote the aforementioned letter. My fear is that some or a lot of the 50 progressive housers who wrote the letter are bluffing so that they don’t have to be faced with the prospect of deciding on whether or not to vote for a final bill with no public provision (i.e., they are hoping that the house and senate leaders, and/or Obama, kill a bill that doesn’t include these provisions).
What is missing from this debate is one of fairness….all we hear is, “Leave the government out of it, and leave MY Medicare the way it is.”….this is as principled as saying, “I am a vegetarian, and my three favorite foods are beef, pork, and chicken.” And not to beat up on seniors too much (I’m glad they have health care), but it is senior’s Medicare to the extent that two younger workers support him, as the program is no longer self-sufficent. In other words, Medicare itself is no less a welfare or “socialistic” program than AFDC. But try to find a politican, including Obama, with the brass to point this out. It is the dirty secret that politicians keep their mouths shut about, for fear of offending tens of millions of seniors who vote. So, what we are left with are millions and millions of blue collar workers paying taxes for someone else’s health care.
….And I haven’t even gone into the National Institute of Health, which takes in billions of taxes each year to socialize cost of medical and prescription drug research…including from tax payers who are denied the benefits of that research.
What Obama, Sebelius, and Spector should have done was bring up entire families who struggle to make ends meet, who don’t have coverage, and challenge the crowds to boo down the very people paying for their dad and grandpa’s Medicare. But again, no guts in this department either.
August 18th, 2009 at 5:33 pm
Kudos indeed, Reg. Glad to see he recognizes his seemingly limitless limitations.
August 18th, 2009 at 6:09 pm
Dems getting the message ?
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/19/health/policy/19repubs.html?_r=1&hp
It’s about time.
August 18th, 2009 at 8:42 pm
Go Barney! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYlZiWK2Iy8
August 19th, 2009 at 12:09 am
Actually, you did. I responded to your comment.
Actually, on this matter you’re wrong — you (validly) brought up voting as an example (not analogy) of a right that is not enumerated in the Constitution, contrary to Woody’s idiotic claim.
August 19th, 2009 at 3:51 am
Fair enough, but you’re right. It wasn’t an analogy.
It is a right not enumerated in the constitution, but is protected by legislation (the Voting Rights Act).
The larger issue was Woody’s assertion that in order to confer a right, one must amend the constitution. The only thing that amending the constitution would do would remove the possibility of judicial review.
August 19th, 2009 at 11:31 am
“Go after the decision to feature the cholesterol-fat-heart disease link, which increasingly appears to have been based on pretty weak science.”
And out right lies and fabrications. Sugar and other refined carbohydrates are the real killers in western diets.
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