Moving Forward on Health Care

Is it believed that Baucus is plugged in and this is part of a coordinated strategy? Having witnessed the exactitude of Obama's planning, it's hard for me to believe this isn't part of a scripted initial playbook, even if it's only a loose collaboration.

Mad Max is the Master of the Universe and will save the world.

I think it could be done this year, maybe. Snowe, Collins, Specter, and Voinivich sign on. If Dems win Alaska, and or Minnesota it will be more likely. The Bush dog democrats have lost some power in the house because of the size of the margin there.

The blue dogs will be wallowing in Big Pharma and Big HMO money though. Good luck to any primary of GE challenger who tries to fund a campaign against them.

The leverage is going to come from big business who is getting destroyed by health care. I could see President Obama changing GM's mind in exchange for some bailout money.

The thing about policy provisions in campaign promises is that they are not meant to be taken literally. They are signals. They say "This is where I will fall on the spectrum." Obama was saying "I will do what is possible." Clinton was saying "I'll fight to the edges of possibility."
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Mandates will not be a showstopper for Obama, unless he thinks he can't clear the Senate with them in place.
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I agree with Hillary here. Now's the time. Look to FDR's 100 days. With people losing jobs, and worried about losing jobs, the ability to not have to worry about health care coverage will resonate very well.
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It could even spur a burst of entrepeneurship.
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Stuff snowballs. Momentum builds. Make Mitchipoo stand up and say that Americans who are out of a job don't deserve health insurance.

Having witnessed the exactitude of Obama's planning, it's hard for me to believe this isn't part of a scripted initial playbook, even if it's only a loose collaboration.
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Much has been made of the disadvantage of running for President from the senate. There may be some advantages stemming from being a Senator if you're gonna be President. Staff relations if nothing else.

What remains to be seen is whether Congress and the new administration see health care reform as a priority is secondary to an economic recovery, or one that is crucial making that recovery happen.
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That's the question, isn't it? To me, the answer is clear. The American economy is operating with a huge burden that none of its industrialized competitors share: an extraordinarily expensive and inefficient health care system. Asking the economy to recover without seriously addressing this problem is not quite asking the impossible, but it is making things needlessly difficult.
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It's so important that people remember that the decline in real incomes over the past 8 years would be a gain if health care prices had not risen so dramatically; Health care costs are erasing gains in productivity.
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And thanks KT for writing about this.

@jay - I see signs of Obama's influence on leadership in the Senate, House, and on the lame duck White House. What I find interesting is that I am seeing NO sign of any influence on Treasury. I understand there is only "one President at a time," but I expected to hear in Paulson's words today a sign or two that I recognized as Obama-like. Didn't see it.

No way health care reform takes precedence over the current economic and financial crisis. Obama and the Dems can't take on their preferred agenda until the major crises are at least handled as some sort of token effort.

http://www.political-buzz.com/

I think it could be done this year, maybe. Snowe, Collins, Specter, and Voinivich sign on. If Dems win Alaska, and or Minnesota it will be more likely. The Bush dog democrats have lost some power in the house because of the size of the margin there.
The blue dogs will be wallowing in Big Pharma and Big HMO money though. Good luck to any primary of GE challenger who tries to fund a campaign against them.
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Trifecta--
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The blue dogs are the issue here. I honestly don't think the Senate will stop anything like this even if filibusters are attempted. The "Oh my, we can't do anything without the republicans" bit was a plan to tie Bush around their necks if they continued to vote in bloc.
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To my mind, firing up the GG/FDL Accountability project, targeting Steny first, is the best thing to do. Make the folks in the safe seats fear primaries. This will force the Blue Dogs to stand alone in opposition to making sure their constituents can get health care after they are laid off.
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This brings Rahm back to mind. What are his real motives? LBJ was a pragmatic ballcutter who turned out to be an idealist when given the shot. Let's give Rahm a chance to shine.

yeah, Rose, I think he should frame it that way. The negative thing is that people will lose health insurance when they get laid off, and we have to address it. The positive thing is that people who get laid off, or who think their current employer doesn't offer a bright future, can go for that business plan they've always had in the backs of their minds.
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Policy wise, this is a great time for a fermenting small business private sector. Much of what's wrong is related to powerless taxpayers and choiceless consumers funding companies that deliver crap products and services at high prices.
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Universal health care, tied to creating opportunities for actual plumbers with actual licenses hoping to get out of the wage slave treadmill is a really powerful message.
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Man, do I want preview right now. If this makes no sense, well, sorry.

In terms of the blue dogs , another advantage to going for it early IS the economic crisis. No one I know understands where we are getting the gazillions to fund all the bailouts is coming from - there is a sentiment that we are already in Neverland and if we're taking things on faith let's let the guy we elected solve the problems we asked him to and not just fund AIG hand relief with happy endings. Now is the time. We are already in the booth, might as well look up and participate.

Health care leaves people slaves in their jobs. I think some employers like this too much. There would be so many people starting small businesses except they have a family member with a pre-existing condition, so they are trapped.
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If health care was treated as a right, there would be people leaving dead-end jobs and creating companies that would help grow the economy.

[...] Moving Forward on Health Care TIME - USA As Hillary Clinton told me in an interview shortly before Election Day this year: "It's important to move simultaneously on several fronts and I know how … See all stories on this topic [...]

I'll repost here my comment to Joe Klein's post:

I never thought in a million years that I'd be saying this, but Max Baucus' health insurance strategy is better than the Obama campaign's. I should probably say that this "plan" starts where Obama's left off, and brings those policy goals into the realm of the feasible, responsible and the possible.

If this is the Democrats' vision of the future of health insurance, then we as a country can truly begin to be hopeful about where this new government is going to take us.

We don't agree about much, Joe Klein, but you and I and tens of millions of Americans are counting on Baucus' last word to knock down once and for all this great obstacle standing in the way of our nation's fullest potential; the absurdly chaotic, hyper-inflationary and compassion-less rule of shareholder-driven bureaucracy over individuals' health care fulfillment may finally be at its end.

Here's the key from E Klein's analysis:

The plan sets up a Health Insurance Exchange -- similar to the exchange envisioned by Obama -- where the government would set up a market pitting regulated private and public insurance options against each other. The plan specifically says that individuals and small businesses could buy into the market. As for midsize and large businesses, more on that in a moment. Importantly, the Exchange is not the only space where insurers will find themselves subject to new regulation. "Under the Baucus plan, insurance companies could not deny coverage to any individual nor discriminate against individuals with pre-existing conditions...[this] would apply in the Exchange as well as the private non-group and small group markets." In other words, everywhere.

You mean to say that we individuals can essentially join a pool, and get a pool rate on individual coverage, much like our big-company employed fellow citizens?

You mean to say that coverage can be affordable for individuals, by allowing them to join up to get a group rate, just like the group plans offered by insurers to businesses?

...that means that we can quit our jobs, and start small businesses without fear of bankruptcy or for our childrens' health, doesn't it?

This is change I can believe in.

[...] Moving Forward on Health Care TIME - USA In 1993, Bill Clinton decided to put off health care reform until his second year, focusing instead on putting some points on the board with his … See all stories on this topic [...]

Stuart - nice to see you back. Hope the moderation fix brings others back too.
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Re the "rapidly congealing conventional wisdom": "rapidly congealing" is probably the operative state. Haven't seen a lot of evidence Barack worries overmuch about the CW.
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As he said re the first debate: A president should be able to do more than one thing at a time. My bet is he'll be addressing this in some fashion in the first year, dependent on how far south the economy sinks.

Stuart - have you figured out a way to do a space between paragraphs without typing in a period, the way the rest of us are doing it??

If this proves anything, it's that the committee chairmanships are crucial in getting progress moving forward. In that vein, could people please contact their reps and get that old fart Dingell out of the Energy chairmanship and Waxman in? Dingell, the stooge of the auto industry who's fought CAFE standards and fuel efficiency standards and has driven the industry to bankruptcy?
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We need real energy reform in this country, and Dingell will use all his power to stop it.

Well let's first assume that Obama has a plan for his presidency. there is a reason that he ran with such urgency as opposed to waiting until he had more experience, more time in Washington or waited his turn. Thee is clearly something big he wanted to accomplish that couldn't be done in Illinois, or the Senate. My money is on big bold strokes. He's studied successful and unsuccessful presidencies and he is aiming for success.

For the kids unfamiliar with Time magazine: When Time magazine announces "Moving Forward on Health Care", that's Time magazine's euphemism for socialized medicine.

And for kids unfamiliar with the Swamp, when textee shows up that means his medication is wearing off.

Teste and Rusty you just don't have your heart in it anymore. I get it, I felt that way in 2000.
No shame.

the rapidly congealing conventional wisdom of the Washington pundit class is that health care reform is a non-starter next year.
KT, Can you name one time the Washington pundit class has been right about anything?

The more I read about this the more I think having Baucus come out with a policy paper to get the health reform process going would be an excellent way for Renegade to buck up all of the hand-wringing, Pavlov-like Democrats who can't help but respond to the rights's desperate pleas to take it slow and act like Republicans. I would think that this would be the perfect play of a president-elect who is really good at chess and has to wait for the current president get off stage. And it ought to keep the punditry class in check because they have been wrong so often they ought to be fearful of continuing to pooh pooh health care.

For the kids unfamiliar with Time magazine: When Time magazine announces "Moving Forward on Health Care", that's Time magazine's euphemism for socialized medicine.
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Um, high fives all around for socialized medicine?