Republican Diagnosis: Paddles
I'm writing this from the Phoenix airport after spending a week with Arizona Republicans. I will make this brief as I have to board a plane and I'm seeing right now that the House Democrats have the votes in the bag for HCR.
It's a bittersweet victory as the legislation coming out is so much weaker than many of us wanted. But it is, nonetheless, historic. Just as the passage of the Civil Rights bill did not end discrimination, neither will this bill remedy our health care woes. It is, however, a giant step ahead, the first significant push to get us closer to full coverage. Now, the battle to improve this bill will stretch before us for years to come.
The Democrats, no doubt, will pay some price for this. What we might politely call Low Information Voters will pull the lever against them, angry that we should dare to make even their own lives a tad bit better. Likewise, the Democrats inflicted heavy damage on themselves by spending a year exposing themselves as an inept, corrupt and obsolete gaggle hidebound by special interests.
That said, God help the Republicans. They now labor under the illusion that beginning tomorrow they can whip the horse over the November line by beating on a promise to repeal the new bill. This absolutely stupid strategy might inadvertently work in the short run. Inadvertently because the Dems will be punished badly in the midterms for no other reason than the ghastly state of unemployment.
Yet, a word of warning. Even those who are the most ardent supporters of health care reform are by now sick to death of the prolonged, ugly process to get where we are today. Once this vote is over, the entire country -- except for the Tea Bag fringe who believes we are living under a Nigger-Faggot-Commie regime-- will want to to hear about one thing and one thing only: jobs.
Republicans never had and never will have anything to say on this subject. They better come up with something fast. If they choose, instead, to continue beating the dead horse of health care it is they who will, eventually, pay a much higher political price. Granny won't be euthanized tomorrow. Your doctor will not be taken away from you. And a Soviet commisar will not replace those friendly insurance case managers any time soon. The Republicans better find something new with which to try to scare the beejezus out of the electorate.
Tomorrow we turn a page.
March 21st, 2010 at 2:35 pm
“And a Soviet commisar will not replace those friendly insurance case managers any time soon.”
I’m sure that’s the case…but how would we be able to tell ?
March 21st, 2010 at 2:44 pm
GOP gets to run on a platform of giving back to insurance companies the power to retroactively cancel coverage when patients get sick or deny coverage altogether for pre-existing conditions and so on..
March 21st, 2010 at 2:45 pm
The bright spot for the Dems in November is that the GOP has started hyping such a potential bloodbath against HCR supporters, that the typical mid-term loss of an incumbent majority party is going to look like a victory for Democrats. I don’t think the GOP can deliver on this scenario they’re painting and even if they pick up some seats they’ll look weaker for it. And, because the GOP has offered nothing but carping and threats the Dems can build a strong case that, as dismal as the economy might be, they’re delivering more than a bitter, hysterical opposition that did the lions’ share of driving us into this ditch. The noise made by Teabaggers is probably going to do the GOP more harm than good in the eyes of the average voter. Dem’s biggest worry is depressed turnout among their own base – and I think Obama’s starting to change that picture by being out in front on HCR…finally. If he comes on strong on the economy in the coming months, the picture can change a lot. This is going to be a very interesting mid-term. I’m actually looking forward to it.
March 21st, 2010 at 2:55 pm
From now on every election will be about health care, which will grow more expensive, scarcer, and delivered by stone-faced time-servers staring over our shoulders at the clock on the wall. Now we’re Greece, which was always the point.
March 21st, 2010 at 3:01 pm
“Now we’re Greece”
The right-wing just loves to make crazy slurs against their country when they don’t get their way. We have a “middle-of-the-road” Bob Dole-style health insurance reform that the country desperately needs and the public supports on the substance, and these characters go crazy.
March 21st, 2010 at 3:11 pm
“Now we’re Greece”
The road to Greece was paved by Alan Greenspan. And Gramm-Leach-Biley. And The Iraq war. And trillions of dollars of private debt, thanks to funny money and unregulated derivatives markets. Oh, and let’s not forget Reagan. He really got that proverbial debt-ball rolling.
To be fair, having to pay for undocumented immigrants’ healthcare has and will continue to add to our debt. Of course, it was Clinton who actually tightened immigration laws (1996)–GW Bush was threatening to liberalize them, and win some business–er, Hispanic votes. And Clinton ended welfare entitlements. That didn’t make him very popular among liberals, but the budget-in-the-black speaks for itself.
Heh, Greece. That’s cute–and cliché. And older news than you’re either aware or wish to admit.
March 21st, 2010 at 3:31 pm
I think there are now two big questions for the mid-terms. If we assume the Dems will lose some seats as parties typically do in the mid-terms, and because of the still bad economy, the question is how to mitigate it.
It’s probably best not to run away from this vote if you’re in incumbent Dem, and instead, should be forcefully making the case for why it had to pass.
Second, if they can get meaningful finance reform passed before the elections that would help too. I think it’s unlikely to happen, and I think they probably should have done that first thing before health care for maximum effect.
But if they can get the effort in now, and have another few months of the Republicans just saying no, and moreover, defending their Wall Street paymasters, it could be a huge boon in the fall elections. Of course, many of the Dems have the very same paymasters, so they may not have the guts for this.
March 21st, 2010 at 3:38 pm
The good news is, I can now drop my high-deductable policy and wait until I develop a pre-existing condition before I need to buy a new one.
March 21st, 2010 at 4:18 pm
@Bob,
Better hope you develop that pre-existing condition before 2012 – see item 12 on the FDL fact sheet.
I should add that even if everything in the fact sheet is %100 accurate, I think that passing the bill is still better than the status quo. Which is a pretty sad state of affairs.
March 21st, 2010 at 4:27 pm
Would a different approach early on by the Obama administration have yielded a better product and faster result? I’m guessing it was done correctly all along. Let the other side shout ’til their arguments ring hollow, looking like last year’s American Idol re-run..old news..not as good as we first thought. This was Karate. Using your opponent’s strength against him. Obama held his cards close to the vest.
Secondly, Obama checked his ego at the door and let congress appear to write the bill, making every public effort at appearing to be on the high ground. Then he stepped it up in the final two weeks.
Excellently played. Clinton’s health care was ping pong, Obama was martial arts.
March 21st, 2010 at 4:46 pm
The CBO was right on the money with the expected cost of Medicare…weren’t they? How could it be wrong now?
March 21st, 2010 at 4:48 pm
It’s really pretty bad reporting and commenting when a writer attempts to make a few out of line people appear as representative of the entire tea party movement. At least they’re people that don’t matter. It’s not like they’re a President who went to Rev. Wright’s chruch.
March 21st, 2010 at 5:27 pm
Fascinating commentary from David Frum on HRC: http://www.frumforum.com/waterloo
March 21st, 2010 at 5:29 pm
Stupak can rest assured that Our President will honor his executive order to ban abortion funding just as soon as he honors his executive order to close Gitmo.
March 21st, 2010 at 5:46 pm
As an example of Frum’s thesis, here is Congressman Nunes, a real dunce. The health care reform consists, evidently, of “totalitarian” tactics, and then goes on to say using nigger and faggot are understandable: http://www.politicususa.com/en/tea-partiers-nigger-faggot
What a piece of shit.
March 21st, 2010 at 5:56 pm
Scrolling down the thread one has to get to Bob Williams before one sees anything regarding HEALTH in the health bill.
The apparatchicks are preeing abouttheir win over thye perty of torture after some nine years.
Sad day for thr Republic. A country that could use their obvious talant for fixing the considerable ills facing the people. The saddest part is that the focus on just the two ruling political institutions insures that a boxing match mentality carries the day. Our host alluded to all that is missing in the bill yet it seems that the liberals wouldn’t mind even if the box was empty.
The saddest part is that these otherwise intelligent people begin to define themselves by distinguishing the opposition: Birthers, death panels, imperialist war mongers.
March 21st, 2010 at 6:03 pm
Williams.
Try to get your facts in order before you start tapping on that headache machine of yours, that the rest of us call a keyboard.
There is already language in the bill that prevents public use of insurance funds for abortions. See the section on abortions in this article: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20000846-503544.html
Your side is so desperate and so empty, that it’s just 96% lies all the time.
March 21st, 2010 at 6:06 pm
God dammit Pablo. Are you determined to be totally marginalized in all your political assessments? Can’t you appreciate the accomplishment even if it’s flawed.
This is a big freaking deal. Really. It is.
Are you the kind of guy who would ask for the receipt after being given the gift of happiness?
March 21st, 2010 at 6:27 pm
I’m wondering how far you have to scroll down in Pablo’s world before you actually get any expansion of health insurance to living, breathing people. Another hundred years ? (The first Presidential candidate to propose universal health insurance was Teddy Roosevelt.) I’m not satisfied with the current bill, but I’m very happy that we’ve starting moving rather decisively in the necessary direction of “universalizing” coverage and setting some terms for the insurance companies to operate. More will come. The door is open.
March 21st, 2010 at 6:34 pm
I’m not satisfied with the current bill, but I’m very happy that we’ve starting moving rather decisively in the necessary direction of “universalizing” coverage and setting some terms for the insurance companies to operate. More will come. The door is open.
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I agree Reg, thanks.. it seems that some here either take just a cursory read or can’t seperate their pugilist instincts from the HC Bill.
I was writing earlier about the apparatchicks not the flawed legislation ( of which is better than nothing… at least I hope so)
March 21st, 2010 at 6:36 pm
Dan O:
I was writing about you guys not the Bill itself. Look again.
Plus I assume that those most invested with identifying themselves with the Bill probably neeed it the least.
March 21st, 2010 at 6:47 pm
I was writing earlier about the apparatchicks not the flawed legislation ( of which is better than nothing… at least I hope so)
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(the Bill, not the apparatchicks)
March 21st, 2010 at 6:51 pm
[...] And just so this isn’t entirely lacking in political content, here are a couple of links on today’s news to two political thinkers I respect, neither of whom gets listened to nearly enough, onetime Clinton cabinet member and U.C. Berkeley economist Robert Reich and my favorite contrarian journo with radical roots, USC’s Marc Cooper. [...]
March 21st, 2010 at 7:09 pm
Pablo:
I know you were, and I’m reacting to the nihilistic pox on both their houses mentality which conveniently absolves the pure of heart for the responsibility of helping improve the lives of citizens whose lives could use some improving.
Plus I assume that those most invested with identifying themselves with the Bill probably neeed it the least.
And that may be the most obnoxious thing written yet. While the legions of the uber left reside in their comfortable academic dens, they presume to determine what’s good enough for the working classes, composed of people they’ve probably never met because those people can’t tell a Bordeaux from a Claret.
On the contrary, it’s the rich ideologues from privileged backgrounds that are advising us to wait for single payer, meanwhile the proles can suck hind tit.
March 21st, 2010 at 7:16 pm
The Democrats are so proud of their bill that the acting Speaker of the House refused to grant Rep. Boehner’s request for a roll call vote. He gave a great speech. Now, it’s time for the ’60′s radicals to take over the nation…until we take it back.
March 21st, 2010 at 7:20 pm
Wow. Boehner just got off the floor…
Poor John. Thought his head was going to pop off…
Actual comments were quite a whimper of an ending.
Nancy’s up now…
March 21st, 2010 at 7:27 pm
Nice tip of the hat to Teddy Kennedy, by Pelosi…
March 21st, 2010 at 7:45 pm
The Jelly is in the Donut…
March 21st, 2010 at 7:54 pm
The Republicans better find something new with which to try to scare the beejezus out of the electorate.
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How about the hidden dangers in escalators?
March 21st, 2010 at 8:01 pm
Stupak just argued against the Republicans’ motion to recommit.
Well played, Bart.
March 21st, 2010 at 8:59 pm
Dan O:
I don’t who has dibs on knowing me better; you or Marc:
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“Dan O Says:
March 21st, 2010 at 7:09 pm
Pablo:
I know you were, and I’m reacting to the nihilistic pox on both their houses mentality which conveniently absolves the pure of heart for the responsibility of helping improve the lives of citizens whose lives could use some improving.
And that may be the most obnoxious thing written yet. While the legions of the uber left reside in their comfortable academic dens, they presume to determine what’s good enough for the working classes, composed of people they’ve probably never met because those people can’t tell a Bordeaux from a Claret”
Quite a few stereotypes flying around here.
A cursory stroll down the wine aisle at COSTCO can educate the faint of pocket.
You otherwise seem like a bright guy… who wanted more from the BILL but did not get flustered when what you wanted (and were pomised wasn’t even offered)
The “working classes” would be better off with single-payer or a public option. I’d recommend a pouilly-fuisse to the working stiff instead; at least until Washington can find its inner Ottawa.
But this neo- paternalism towards those who toil doesn’t fit you Dan. Are there no prisons? And the workhouses, are they still in operation?
But since I am esconsed in loftier persuits why not share this piece on the state of US Health with the gardener in my stead?
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/18802 (From March 2006)
Once you guys get your backs up……!!!!! Again, and for the last time, my comments were confined to the observation that the content of the bill is subordinate to the existential need for a legislative victory… pls note that Marc hardly gets 75 words into his piece until the word “historic” comes up. It seems his prescience has lots of company and let’s hope those writing the history books someday (after at least next month) will be kind to an act of preservation when real change was at once within reach.
The fight was lost from the very beginning when the proposed legislation did not find a fundemental right to be incorporated under the 14th Admendment. Let’s be real here, Dems would never want it to go this far.
There was a cool breeze blowing in from the North but libdom thought it was coming in from the Urals. They got scared and offered “history” as the cosmetic for pallative reform.
March 21st, 2010 at 9:36 pm
I’m beginning to wonder if Stupak’s drama wasn’t a plant. He played it well at the end, in the context of the character he’d created in the previous week’s news. That was one of the more dramatic and interesting moments in this whole affair tonite. And if the GOP wants to own shouts of “Babykiller” on the floor of the house, against one of the major anti-abortion stalwarts among Democratic Catholics, they are truly pushing their luck with the electorate and their hate-fest opportunism. I think there might be a big backfire in the making here among independents and moderates who have tended to resist the bill and gave some credence to the Teabaggers, et. al. Boehner’s boys may be drinking too much of their own Kool-Aid. I certainly hope so.
March 21st, 2010 at 9:38 pm
I love the sound of wingnuts’ heads exploding.
March 21st, 2010 at 10:06 pm
Robert Reich:
(D)on’t believe anyone who says Obama’s health care legislation marks a swing of the pendulum back toward the Great Society and the New Deal. Obama’s health bill is a very conservative piece of legislation, building on a Republican rather than a New Deal foundation. The New Deal foundation would have offered Medicare to all Americans or, at the very least, featured a public insurance option.
The significance of Obama’s health legislation is more political than substantive. For the first time since Ronald Reagan told America government is the problem, Obama’s health bill reasserts that government can provide a major solution. In political terms, that’s a very big deal.
Most Americans continue to be suspicious of government. That distrust is deeply etched in our culture and traditions. Our system of government was devised by people who distrusted government and intentionally created checks and balances, three separate branches, and almost insuperable odds against getting big things done. The period extending from 1933 to 1965 — the New Deal and the Great Society — was an historical aberration from that long tradition, animated by the unique crises of the Great Depression and World War II, and the social cohesion that flowed from them for another generation. Ronald Reagan merely picked up where Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover left off.
But Reagan’s view of government as the problem is increasingly at odds with a nation whose system of health care relies on large for-profit entities designed to make money rather than improve health; whose economy is dependent on global capital and on global corporations and financial institutions with no particular loyalty to America; and much of whose fuel comes from unstable and dangerous areas of the world. Under these conditions, government is the only entity that can look out for our interests.
We will not return to the New Deal or the Great Society, but nor will we continue to wallow in the increasingly obsolete Reagan view that we don’t need a strong and competent government. Today’s vote confirms our hope that we can have both strength and competence in Washington. It is an audacious hope, but we have no choice.
March 21st, 2010 at 10:11 pm
Regarding Stupak…
I kinda got the same impression. Something about putting Stupak on the line to stare down the recommit motion seemed a tad scripted. But it worked, and you’re right, the Republicans just went ape-shit against a guy who’s well respected by Catholic Dems. He also won his district virtually 2-1. He’ll be back.
March 21st, 2010 at 10:28 pm
Honestly, as much as I am fervently pro-choice and was disgusted by what I saw as grandstanding by Stupak, his role in the finale convinced me it would be stupid for progressives to try to take him out. If a credible candidate can put up a robust primary challenge, that’s fine – as it always is. But I wouldn’t join any vendetta against the guy at this point.
March 21st, 2010 at 10:29 pm
Interesting take by Reich.
Just a reminder about what Obama and the Dems were fighting against: http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2010/02/federal-lobbying-soars-in-2009.html
$3.47 BILLION spent in 2009 to keep the status quo on health care in place. Of course, one could latch on to the cliche about the glass being half full or empty… Shoot, at this moment I’m relieved that there is some water in the glass. Add to that $3.47 billion that in all the resolution votes so far on health care, there has been only 1 (ONE!!) Republican who voted yes for reform. Rep. Weiner seems pretty much on the money (no pun intended) in calling the GOP a wholly owned subsidiary of the insurance industry.
March 21st, 2010 at 10:37 pm
I’m willing to bury the hatchet against Kucinich for his grandstanding. I’d rather put my time and efforts into helping Dems in swing districts like Gary Peters (Oakland County, MI –which is historically GOP turf). I think Michael Moore might do well to do the same against Bart: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-moore/my-congressman-bart-stupa_b_506649.html
March 21st, 2010 at 10:44 pm
Opps. Bad example by me 10:29 p.m. That’s $3.47 billion on all federal lobbying…
I’ll have to do a little more mining to find the insurance industry lobby tally….
March 21st, 2010 at 10:44 pm
Krugman nails the big picture here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/22/opinion/22krugman.html?hp
March 21st, 2010 at 11:37 pm
I’d rather have an export-manufacturing sector that makes a profit than a health insurance monopoly that makes a profit. If tonight spells the beginning of the end of the latter, then maybe the former will be possible once again.
March 22nd, 2010 at 4:00 am
Pablo:
Yes, I did go off with a few stereotypes that weren’t really directed at you. In fact, I had no idea you were in academia (lucky coincidence!), and the Claret line is a joke from Fawlty Towers.
I do recognize that you think the bill should have passed. However, you’ve got the paternalism coming from the wrong source.
In my experience the most radical leftists (which is in no way a defect in itself), come from privileged, suburban backgrounds, have the means to toil away at getting a PhD for several years, and know that if worst comes to worst, they can call up pops for a few thou to hold them over.
It’s these people, who have the safety net that let’s them pursue their degree and endure terrible pay, and forces them to move around the country several times doing adjunct work teaching Lacan and Kristeva while they look for a tenure position, who tend to be the most radicalized. This is almost always a choice of privilege and luxury.
And it is those people, again in my experience, who have what we might call the paternalism of ideology. If a policy or reform isn’t good enough by some Marxist or Trotskyist or whatever standard, than actual people who are victims of the current bad policy, are sacrificed in the struggle for the immediate full achievement of the goal.
That’s immoral, at least when it comes to people’s health. If people argue that we should have rejected this bill because it doesn’t go far enough, they are saying to the uninsured, the abused, the poor who don’t qualify for Medicaid, those with pre-existing conditions, “Wait. Wait while your cancer advances and you can’t get new coverage. Wait while bankruptcy looms. Wait until we can do it all at once. It’ll be better for you.” But they need it now, and telling them to wait is telling them to suffer for your ideals.
This *is* historic, and it’s the right thing to do.