Re: Not So Fast
Pushback on yet another front: The emerging deal the bipartisan negotiators of the Finance Committee (whom some of their colleagues have begun to refer to as "the Coalition of the Willing") isn't going over so well with all the Democrats on the panel.
Senator Jay Rockefeller, who chairs Finance's health subcommittee (and who hasn't been in the room with the bipartisan group), isn't enomored with their idea to substitute a private "cooperative" arrangement for the public plan that liberals would like to see in the health bill. “There are real concerns about the potential impact of health care co-ops on consumers, and we cannot afford to hang our hat on any unproven, unregulated, or unreliable model for health insurance coverage. At a minimum, we need to know more of the facts," Rockefeller said in a statement today. He also has sent a letter to the GAO asking it to look into just how well existing cooperatives have been regulated. Here are some of the questions that Rockefeller would like to see answered:
Rockefeller has sent similarly pointed inquiries to the National Cooperative Business Association and the Department of Agriculture.
I think these are some pretty good questions. The truth is, I haven't been able to find anyone (including the member of the Finance Committee I asked) who can tell me exactly how these co-ops might work. And these details are important. When I asked President Obama on Tuesday afternoon whether a cooperative would meet his definition of an acceptable public option, here's what he had to say:
Well, I think in theory you can imagine a co-operative meeting that definition. Obviously sort of the legal structure of it is less important than practically how can it operate. There are concerns that in the past, attempts at setting up co-ops have not been successful because they just haven't been able to get off the ground; sort of the start-up energy involved may not exist if you're doing a state-by-state co-op effort as opposed to a broad national plan.
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1
The president's right. The insurance industry has plenty of re$ources to restrict co-ops on a state-by state basis, and would love to go up against fragmented efforts to establish effective not-for-profit alternatives.
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2
Thanks, Karen. And thank you, Jay (Rockefeller, and JNS too, KT). Am I reading his first question right when he's asking about medical liability and recourse? In a much cruder form, I've been asking about non-doctors / pharmacists in HC biz – especially insurance cos. – making medical decisions and accepting liability / even practicing without a license. No answer received, not once, not even from the trolls. Maybe this isn't a silly or trivial matter after all. Good q. about state health rules. (sorry for ranting)
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3
I haven't been able to find anyone (including the member of the Finance Committee I asked) who can tell me exactly how these co-ops might work.
Maybe because the only intended function of the co-ops is to scuttle the public option?
But keep on 'em, and thanks for your good work on this issue.
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3.1
Agreed Art:
I see the function of co-ops as follows:
1. Offer American overpriced crap insurance.
2. Tell American if they don't like it they can go start their own co-op with the rest of the hippies (begin evil, maniacal laughter).
3. Remind American that crap insurance is now mandatory, so they can either buy it or pay a fine.
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4
Here's the question I think a lot of people would like to have answered:
Why is the health care policy of the United States (and discussions thereof), affecting 300 million Americans, being substantially determined by 6% of the US Senate, representing 2.8% of the population?
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4.1
Because of how the Dems go about seating committee chairmen by seniority and because they don't have term limits nor a meaninful system of removing chairmen who sell them out.
See also Joe LIEberman and Majority Leader Reid.
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4.2
189,000 people voted for President Enzi, what more do you want?
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4.3
I don;'t know, sw, it's called the Constitution. Something in there about the houses of Congress getting to set up their own rules . . . .
But hey, don't you guys run everything?
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4.4
Well, I was looking for an answer that made some sense. Not sure what I was thinking...
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5
Liberals around here will like this:
HCAN Statement on House Blue Dog Deal
Washington, DC – Health Care for America Now (HCAN) – the nation's largest health care campaign – issued the following statement on news that several Blue Dog Democrats have cut a deal to move health reform legislation through the Energy and Commerce committee:
Richard Kirsch, National Campaign Manager, Health Care for America Now:
“The demands made by some Blue Dog Democrats will result in higher costs for families. First, they will weaken the public health insurance option's ability to drive down prices, and second, they will shrink the amount of assistance provided to middle-class families who buy health coverage.
We are confident that the House ultimately will pass legislation that includes a strong public health insurance option that lowers prices and provides financial assistance so that health insurance is truly affordable to all.
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6
I don't know about anybody anybody else but I just find it hilarious that Enzi and Grassley p*ssed all in Baucus' face today after he bent over backwards to make the bill as Republican as possible. What a dummy. I guess nobody ever told him the story of the scorpion and the frog.
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6.1
I hope when he hears that fable BHO is sitting nearby.
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6.2
Now there's a pleasant reference . . . . that's ok, I wasnt planning on eating anything for the rest of the week.
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Sure you weren't projecting, sg? Didn't know the dudes in county were into that too. You can admit it--you liked it. -
6.3
I called Baucus's office today and said that although the idea of crooks like himself, Enzi, and Grasserly negotiating on the most profitable way to kill Americans was sort of like a couple Mafia Dons negotiating how to split up the prostitution business in a city, I was at least thankful they were making it humorous. I told them I was getting a big kick out of a corrupt creep like Bauchus getting stabbed in the back by even more corrupt creeps. I said good day and have a great time fishing with your corrupt insurance industry buddies.
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6.4
Okay, SGW, give us the story. don't make me Google it!
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7
" When I asked President Obama "
Such a name dropper! I keed I keed.Seriously, it is taken a while but push back from the progressives is long overdue.
There are more of them than Blue Dogs but they are treated as automatic support for whatever is getting produced.
Harkin issued a veiled threat about Baucus' Chairmanship yesterday and now this.I wonder what's changed?
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8
KT, what's up with Pelosi going guns-ablazin' against the insurance cos? Hasn't she taken a lot of cash from them in the past?
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8.1
Not appropos to anything but I thought you'd be interested in the 'local' perspective on that Rum deal you mentioned in the other thread:
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8.2
PD, Rangel is a crook. Pure and simple. It's time for libs to say enough is enough.
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8.3
Lets just say that he was abolutely on the wrong side of the EDC audits. The fact that people were taking advantage of the VI's tax stautus without any semblance of actual residency was a big problem. Thankfully it has been addressed.
The Redstate link on the other hand is pretty thin. The arrangement wherin the VI receives a rebate of all the excise tax collected in the US on Cruzian Rum is a longstanding one and an important source of revenue for the VI government. Keeping it in place doesn't require some nefarious motivation. It's simply the right thing to do.
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9
KT:
Are you sure that isn't the "Coalition of the Shilling?" As in shilling for the insurance industry or I'll do anything if you pay me – even in low-denomination, no-longer-in-circulation British coins. Take your pick.
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10
...still no answer, again. Also.
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11
After reading Joe's centrist b-s earlier, why not read someone on the people's side:
Are Liberal Netroots Groups Helping Obama Fail?
by Jeff CohenI've started deleting them as spam.
I'm not talking about the enlarge-your-penis emails or “You've Won the Lottery” notices.
I'm talking about the increasingly-urgent emails coming for weeks from liberal Netroots groups calling for a “public option” for healthcare – a government insurance plan citizens could choose to PAY FOR instead of private insurance.
Never has so much passion been so misdirected. If what these liberal groups ultimately wanted out of President Obama and corporate-funded Democrats in Congress was a topnotch public plan to compete with the first-rate private plans, the wrong way to get it was to make that THE demand.
Especially of a President whose instinct is toward conciliation and splitting the difference with big business and the rightwing.
Sure, Obama was a community organizer once. That was decades ago when Russia was still our mortal enemy, Nelson Mandela was still an official State Department terrorist threat and the White House was still funding Islamist fanatics in Afghanistan.
For the last dozen years Obama has been a politician – and a consummate compromiser at that. Have we failed to notice?
Activists must recognize the surest way to get a strong public option that could compete with the Cadillac of health plans. We needed to mobilize millions of Netroots people, almost every union and 150 members of Congress to endorse a maximum demand: National health insurance . . . enhanced Medicare for All. In other words, a cost-effective single-payer system of publicly-financed, privately-delivered healthcare that ends private health insurance (and its waste, bureaucracy, ads, sales commissions, lavish executive salaries, profiteering).
Had liberal groups sent out millions of emails building a movement that posed an existential threat to the health insurance industry, Sen. Baucus and Blue Dog Democrats and their corporate healthcare patrons might well be on their knees begging for a comprehensive public option – to avert the threat of full-blown Medicare for All.
As things stand now, as writers like Bob Kuttner and Norman Solomon have warned, a weak public option would institutionalize a two-tiered system with healthier, wealthier citizens getting the best (private) plans, and sicker, harder-to-treat people getting an inferior (public) plan. Newt Gingrich couldn't dream up a better scenario to discredit an enhanced government role in healthcare.
To win serous reforms, we need activist leaders who are tough-minded progressives making maximum demands for reforms that truly address our nation's problems. Leave the inside-the-Beltway deal-making to the politicians, properly frightened and moved by the roar of mass movements.
We need activist leaders who have a clearer idea of who Obama is. He's not one of us. He's one of them – a politician bent on placating corporate interests. We knew all we needed to know about his current worldview from all the corporatists he put in top jobs.
And from the fact that he felt the need – six weeks into his administration, after the middle-class bailed out Wall Street – to call up the New York Times and assure the world that his policies were NOT socialist but were “entirely consistent with free market principles.” At a time the corporate greedsters and free-market ideologues had been exposed as having threatened the economic well-being of the world, they weren't the ones on the defensive. They weren't doing the apologizing. Obama was on the defensive; he was apologizing to them!
When Democratic leaders start borrowing rightwing rhetoric, we know our activism has not been strong or progressive enough. At the AARP townhall Tuesday, Obama described a public option as “controversial, I understand people are worried about that.” He went on to assure his audience that “nobody is talking about . . . government-run healthcare” or “a Canadian-style plan.” At one point, he further assured seniors that no “bureaucratic law in Washington” would interfere in their healthcare decisions – seeming to adopt the faux-populism of anti-government rightists. Yet he seems incapable of anti-corporate populism, even with despised industries like Wall Street and health insurance.
I have huge respect for the smart young activists who built up the Netroots, unleashing all sorts of progressive possibilities for our country. But I'm bothered by their often ineffectual, Beltway-originated, halfway demands.
I became active during the Vietnam War. We might still have troops in Vietnam if – instead of militantly demanding “All Troops Home Now” – we'd organized behind polite Beltway initiatives like: “Let's begin negotiations” or “Let's set a timeline for phased withdrawal.”
I fear that Netroots leaders are doing the same dance with Obama today that they did with Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid in 2007-08. Instead of demanding that Democrats in Congress bring our troops home from Iraq by using the power of the purse to defund the war, Netroots leaders rallied behind weak, non-binding timelines and other halfway measures cooked up with Congressional leaders.
Without a loud, clear demand for “troops home” from the large online antiwar forces, Democratic leaders started retreating and succumbing to Republican rhetoric. Reid proclaimed: “We will never abandon our troops in a time of war.” Pelosi declared: “We will have legislation to fund the troops!"
And the corpses kept piling up.
Great social reforms have occurred in our country not when social movements took their lead from what the White House deemed possible, but when the White House was pushed by powerful movements demanding reforms bolder than what the president was comfortable with. Leading abolitionists pushed Lincoln toward ending slavery by demanding immediate abolition. Socialist and workers movements in the '30s sufficiently scared elites so that FDR could pass New Deal reforms far short of socialism. Martin Luther King and civil rights activists continuously pushed and prodded JFK and later LBJ.
And these movements didn't have the Internet.
In 1993, a National Health Insurance bill gained 100 co-sponsors in the Democrat-led House, plus endorsements from many unions, even Consumers Union. There was unfortunately no Internet then when the Clinton White House undermined this growing movement by pushing an incredibly complex plan that left big insurers dominating the system. Clinton's plan inspired few and confused many. After it went down in flames, talk radio host Jim Hightower asked President Clinton why he didn't back an easily-explained Medicare for All approach that had so much support in Congress. Clinton said he'd thought it was politically too difficult but now wondered about that judgment.
Here we are 16 years later. Neglected by Netroots groups, John Conyers today has 85 House co-sponsors for HR 676, the Expanded Medicare for All Act, as well as the endorsement of many unions and Obama's longtime personal physician. If all those emails I've received lately had been about building the HR 676 movement and a public system instead of a “public option,” the bill would have many more co-sponsors and could be pressuring Democrats to stand tough today.
For Obama to feel secure about reform and standing up to the right, he needs to feel that he's in the center pushed by noisy forces to his left. He's admitted as much. The way to help him succeed is to mobilize seriously to his left.
The way to help Obama fail is for Netroots and liberal groups to collapse toward him from the get-go.
And if Obama does fail, we can quit laughing at a Republican Party in disarray due to Bush, religious extremism, hypocrisy and anti-intellectualism.
Because in this period of crisis and fear, unless a progressively-prodded White House delivers reforms that actually improve lives soon, rightwing reaction could rebound more dangerous than ever in 2010 and/or 2012.
Jeff Cohen is an associate professor of journalism and the director of the Park Center for Independent Media at Ithaca College, founder of the media watch group FAIR, and former board member of Progressive Democrats of America. In 2002, he was a producer and pundit at MSNBC (overseen by NBC News). His latest book is Cable News Confidential: My Misadventures in Corporate Media.
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11.1
Jeff Cohen is pretty excellent.
Years ago I came across him on, of all places, FNC which used to have a weekly news criticism show.
It was miles ahead of Howie Kurtz (small praise I know) and Cohen was always ready to fight. -
11.2
Thank ye, jcapan!
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Be it too late t' re-set th' bar?
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If only pr'gressives'd be takin' advantage o' th' lack o' "progress" b'fore th' August break t' be launchin' a real, concentrated, united offensive t' be gettin' back t' single payer durin' th' time off, a weepart o' me still be b'lievin' thar be a chance.
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Bein' a pirate o' th' Catholic persuasion, per'aps I should be startin' a couple o' novenas t' Sts Jude an' Rita!
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It couldn't hurt ;0!
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YARR!
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12
On the contrast between journalism and "journalism":
"There is a word for what Democracy Now!'s Amy Goodman and PBS' Bill Moyers are doing when they interview some of the many prominent medical professionals who favor single-payer--people like doctors Quentin Young and David Himmelstein of Physicians for a National Health Program.
Journalism is what many people would call it.
Yet the practice stands in marked contrast to what's been going on at ABC, where FAIR, Healthcare Now!, Physicians for a National Health Program, the Private Health Insurance Must Go coalition, and the Raging Grannnies delivered our petition on Tuesday, signed by over 12,500 people including filmmaker Michael Moore, former MSNBC host Phil Donohue, and actors Mike Farrell, Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon.
As we pointed out to the ABC representative sent to receive the petitions, ABC has not had one single-payer advocate on air all year." -
13
I had toyed with this “idea” yesterday but didn't post, as if ranting here makes a difference. Now after reading #11 jc's Cohen piece, I'll just go for it and post into the void anyway:
…maybe to get our HC public options we need our own lobby. Pool all uninsured millions + empathetic folks, chip in, and pay off the Blue Dogs. Literally. Imagine the TV / web ad: “It's time to stop playing nice. Congress needs to understand already that health care is neither a privilege nor a prom dress to buy; it's a public safety necessity like fire and police protection. For $5 – that's five value menu items plus change – you can help buy a US Senator to ensure a public health option…or even…are we allowed to say this on TV or in Corporate Media print?...SINGLE PAYER!? (cue scary organ music) Donate today by Paypal or snail mail to ‘Karen's Cause' c/o K-PAC….”
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13.1
I hope by "Karen's cause" ye're not meanin' KT, who were makin' it plain th' other day tha' since th' powers tha' be were takin' single payer off th' table, she were no' goin' t' be "wastin' 'er time" askin' no more questions 'bout it.
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She done some good work in this area, bu' tha' just shot 'er credibility wi' me...kind o' li' how Lukasiak's birther tendencies did.
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YARR! -
13.2
PW...
here's the difference between me and a birther. The birthers want a specific outcome (i.e. "proof" that Obama was born overseas). I just think that the relevant original documents should be part of the public record.
_
And given that I've done extensive research based ENTIRELY on original documents (spending hundreds of dollars on travel, etc to access the ORIGINAL policy and procedure manuals) in investigating Bush's military records, I think my interest in original documentation is legitimate. -
13.3
Not only do I think that Obama was born in Hawai'i, I hope that he was. I don't even want to think about the consequences if this guy were actually born in Kenya.
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That said, I don't understand why the originals are not simply produced. Who was the attending physician etc. etc. -
13.4
"I don't even want to think about the consequences if this guy were actually born in Kenya."
Well that's just one more reason the birthers are so stupid they're funny, isn't it. There are no practical consequences as long as Obama was born to an American; Kenya, Kansas or Kathmandu.
Plukasiak, I'd be interested in your findings on Dubya's military records. I think I know everything I need to know about the cover-u...I mean history, but it's fascinating nonetheless. It looks like a demonstration project for their later work in Washington - just shred the evidence and count on the accountability-free establishment elites to help weather the sh*tstorm.
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14
...pirate, how about some other woman from Texas named Karen whose family has been royally screwed by insurance cos. over medical treatments? With millions of uninsured / underinsured nice people, there must be many Karens out there? (I just got a new private policy; my wallet needed whatever Michael Jackson last took for the pain.)
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14.1
She'd 'ave t' be named somethin' other than Karen.
B'cause, despite th' screwin' 'er own family be receivin' (an' t' be clear, I be havin' truly th' utmost empathy fer 'er situation), she still no' be able t' be crossin' th' line an' askin' th' uncomfortable questions 'bout th' one system tha' would'a been coverin' 100%, an' avoidin' th' screwin' in th' first place.
Arrgh.
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15
PW, is KT's family really appropos here. She's a journalist, not an advocate. If you want a shill for one side, go read Daphne Eviatar over at the Washington Independent, a left-wing hack.
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15.1
thanks spob for recommending Daphne. I didn't think you ever read liberal writers, I was wrong. Now you are a secret fan of Jane Hamsher and Christy Hardin Smith, yes? You also tape all of Rachel Maddow's shows? Listen to Stephanie Miller?
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16
I think it's time to accept the fact that Democrats are incapable of ruling as a majority party. I consider myself a liberal, and there isn't a single Democratic Senator that I would vote for. With their complete inability to pass a single piece of legislation, they have turned the Senate into a farce. At this point I would welcome Republican rule just to see things get done in the Senate and to see a Senate leadership capable of getting the votes it needs from its own party. I have become completely disillusioned with the Democrats.
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16.1
You're right that the Dems are failing to lead. However, giving control back to the gopers gives it back to the very same people who got us into this mess (and don't have any desire to change their ways). If the keystone cops are trying to clean up the city and failing, do you give the city back to the mob?
The next political fight has to be between the progressives and the blue dogs. The dogs are merely Republicans who get elected using the Democrats' campaign apparatus. They need to be defeated at the polls, and people like Raum need to stop pandering to them.
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16.2
"At this point I would welcome Republican rule just to see things get done in the Senate and to see a Senate leadership capable of getting the votes it needs from its own party."
Of course, you may call yourself whatever you like. But you, my friend, are no liberal.
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17
appropos should be apropos--comes from the French, the language of the civilized.
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17.1
All the way to their nationalized, government-run, universal health care system.
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18
KT wrote: 'Senator Jay Rockefeller, who chairs Finance's health subcommittee (and who hasn't been in the room with the bipartisan group)...'
How did this happen? Did somebody change the locks on the door and forget to give Rockefeller a key?
Did Rockefeller agree to this or did Baucus and the other senators involved simply stage a mutiny and hijack the healthcare reform issue for themselves? Either way it makes Rockefeller look like an ineffective fool.
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19
Thank you Karen, I am glad they finally let an adult in the room.
I thought they had a complete bill scored by the CBO that loved it?
What happens now? Do they work through until they finish or go fishing?
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20
jcapan, thanks for posting the Cohen article.
It helped confirm my recent change of opinion on health care reform: I now believe that no significant health care reform in America will be achieved until the adoption of single-payer, probably in a generation or so when medical costs imminently threaten the economy.
What I've realized is that anything other than single-payer is so complex, and so obviously inefficient and flawed, that it would be impossible to sell. Disastrously complex, inefficient and flawed systems evolve organically, like the current health care system. They can't be created artificially.
Part of the problem is that reform proposals are compared to perfection rather than the status quo, and the flaws in the general Democratic plan are obvious and serious. You can't sell a significant reform (and for all its flaws, it would still be significant and a great improvement) on the basis that it protects special interests by having built-in inefficiencies and opportunities to satisfy corporate greed.
The current paradox is that single-payer is both politically unfeasible and the only potentially feasible model of significant health care reform.
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20.1
rose -
I don't be b'lievin' it be automatic political' unfeasable, 'cept tha' th' Democrats be just as much in th' pockets as th' Repubs.
Wi' a concerted effort, it'd be a whale o' a lot easier t' present an' explain than th' current mess they be f*ckin' 'round wi'.
Here's wha' people be needin' t' be told:
1. We be transitionin' t' a single payer INSURANCE system.
2. Ye'll be covered 100% fer medical, dental, vision, etc.
3. None o' ye will have t' pay premiums no more.
4. None o' ye' will be havin' deductables no more.
5. Ye can see whoever ye want, whenever ye want, wherever ye want.
6 Ye an yer doctor will be makin' all yer medical decisions. All th' single payer system be doin' be payin'- it no' makin' any medical decisions.
7. Ye'll always be insured, whether ye be well 'r sick, workin' 'r no'.
8. Some o' yer taxes be goin' up some, bu' fer most, not as much as ye were payin' in premiums, deductibles, an' out-o'-pocket expenses b'fore.
9. Done.
I were tryin' t' make it 10 points, bu' I need t' get out o' 'ere. I be sure I be fergettin' a point 'r two - ye'll all correct me, I be sure.
ARRGH!
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20.2
10. Fixed fees / pay scales, no incentive to run extra tests / procedures to make extra cash. It's sorta like financial planners on salary (good) vs. commission (bad).
10 1/2. Give back Medicare the power to negotiate directly with drug companies – and make new public HC systems do the same.
(wanted to translate these into Palinspeak but didn't, alas)
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20.3
Rose, did you read Nate Silver yesterday (I think yesterday in the US)?
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/07/obama-democrats-flunking-health-care.html
What is one to conclude from his obvious (& depressing) rubric?
That A) the Obama admin. has totally screwed the pooch in their sales pitch. That their strategic ineptitude is of epic proportions (particularly given the lessons from '93-'94). This first conclusion demands that we view these men and women as rather stupid political novices. While Obama could be said to be somewhat naive/inexperienced as far as national office is concerned (compared to most presidents, not W.), he is otherwise simply brilliant, we can agree, not to mention surrounded by seasoned heavy-hitters.
So that leaves me with another possible view.
B. That they were never determined to sell this successfully, nor willing to spend much of their political capital. That it was, in fact, not in their interests to fight for this. That they consciously decided it was infeasible. But it wasn't b/c they thought it was impossible. It's b/c they felt fighting for true reform might jeopardize their political fortunes. Thus they booted it to a wholly impotent congress lead by milquetoast and corp-o-whores, knowing all along that the result would be watered-down faux reform.
Call me cynical, but I think Obama knew all along what would result. He knew that the estab, that the Broders and Kleins and Brooks of Versailles would pat him on the back in the end, that a signif. enough portion of dems, so excited to have one of their own back in the WH, wouldn't turn their backs on him, at least not before Nov. 2012. IOW, he made a cold, calculated decision that an utter abdication of responsibility/failure to lead would be far less damaging to his political future than fighting for the people who put him there.
Trust that this brings me no joy, as someone who was passionately opposed to Clinton in the primaries. And to answer a question I've posed on more than one occasion: 'if not now, then when?' Never. His congressional margins shrink over the next few cycles, he leaves office in Jan. 2017, and the buck gets passed to the next generation.
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20.4
PW and deconstuctiva, that list is so obviously sensible and efficient that if progressives just stayed on message and pushed that plan it would eventually succeed. I still think it would take years, but at least it would happen eventually.
jcapan, I can't believe the WH actually wanted health care reform to fail because he'll lose so much political capital. It won't end his Presidency, but it's not going to help his legacy or his chances in 2012. My perception - and I admit that it's impossible to verify any of this - is that Obama was reluctant to waste his poll numbers and energy on a reform attempt he felt was both unfeasible and not really consistent with his strengths. And by not consistent with his strengths, I mean that any health care reform attempt is going to be nasty, partisan, guaranteed to push disapproval ratings up, and facilitated by an aggressive rather than conciliatory stance with Republicans and "moderate" Democrats: not Obama's specialties.
But he couldn't actively block a reform attempt. He had to at least try. And then congressional Democrats - including some who appear to actually care about this - grew frustrated with his lack of involvement and even the media started on the "Obama won't get his hands dirty and say something specific" narrative. So now he is risking his political capital but he appears to have no real plan about what or how to sell, and the political landscape has become less favorable than it was a couple of months ago.
So basically I'm going with the stupidity explanation. And naivete: the WH thought they could avoid risking Obama's political capital on health care and that was clearly never going to happen.
I would be surprised if Broder et al. give Obama any credit for a sincere and "moderate" effort. They will blame him for trying to expand the government in a bureaucratic and inefficient manner and cite this as an example of his weakness to raise the hopes of the GOP.
IOW, he made a cold, calculated decision that an utter abdication of responsibility/failure to lead would be far less damaging to his political future than fighting for the people who put him there.
Agreed. I just think the decision was naive in addition to cold.
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20.5
Where are the paragraph breaks?!
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21
geez, talk about your complete nonsense post....
Jay (Standard Oil) Rockefeller is not interested in health care reform. Jay Rockefeller is extremely interested in piggybacking "tort reform" on the back of health care reform -- and that's really what this letter is all about.
But the real question isn't about Jay Rockefeller -- anyone who has followed the health care reform debate knows that he's working for the parasites. The question is why, on a day when Nancy Pelosi denounces the insurance companies, and FIFTY THREE PROGRESSIVE CONGRESSCRITTERS SAY THEY'LL VOTE AGAINST THE BLUE DOG COMPROMISE, Karen reports on "Jello Jay's" technical objection to co-ops.
This is precisely how progressives are denied a voice in the public debate. Beltway media types like Karen ignore progressive voices, and progressive viewpoints, and promote the agenda of special interest parasites.
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21.1
It wasn't 53. It was 57 congresscritters.
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21.2
B'cause KT don't want t' be "wastin 'er time", since she were instructed fr'm th' beginnin' tha' th' progressive option were "off th' table."
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Aye, lassie, ye'll be regrettin' ye ever said tha'!
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YARR! -
21.3
it was 53 when I typed that, bob (according to TPM!) http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/07/progressives-say-they-have-53-signatures-on-letter-rejecting-public-plan-compromise.php
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22
Errr, can someone tell me why the paragraph breaks are sometimes working? That tome I posted earlier by Cohen looks fine, but my last post is a blob. And the Nate S. link I threw in also didn't go red. WTF?
PS PW, can you return to Italy? How's their health care? Does Berlusconi have hidden cameras installed in all the ladies' clinics?
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22.1
Only in th' young ladies' clinics, me hearty, only in the young ladies'!
I'd be movin' back t' Italy in a bloody second if th' cap'n didn't need t' be workin' 'ere a few more years - I likes t' collect lots o' booty, so's 'e needs t' fill th' coffers! When he be done, I be plannin' t' become an expat!
Naples were a bit diff'rent from Rome an' north, bu' folks there seemed satisfied wi' their health care. I be no' an expert on their system, tho' since we were wi' th' US military an' used tha' system, wha' Billy Kristol thinks none o' th' rest o' us be deservin'.
As anyone can be tellin', Silvio likely uses th' option o' private clinics fer all 'is hair plugs and nips an' tucks...things li' tha' no' be covered. Lots o' folks can afford t' use 'em tho - there be billboards all o'er th' place (I were noticin' this in other counrties o'er there, too) advertisin surgeries an' treatments o' th' plastic variety! Meloni be partic'lar pop'lar, an' big clowny collagen lips, too!
An, I also be havin' problems wi' me paragraph breaks!
Arrgh
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23
Thanks for the reply Rose. I think we're in basic agreement. But let me clarify that it wasn't my contention that they wanted HCR to fail. In fact, I think Obama would be thrilled to sign progressive legislation ... if it were someone else's capital lost in the process.
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What would be damaging, from Rahm & co's perspective, is a failure to pass anything. So sure, they want the "victory" of getting a bill with HCR printed on it, but that's as nebulous a "victory" as our recent boondoggles abroad. Their ultimate goal is a photo-op: Obama signing a bill in the oval office, Brooks there to snap it, us clapping like seals. Obviously, the quality of any prospective legislation, as concerns working-class Americans, is a secondary consideration (at best).
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What I've been wondering for months already is what in the hell is he saving that evaporating pol-cap for? Name me an issue where he's thrown down the gauntlet. I mean, sh!t, can you trade cap. for chips in Vegas or what.
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BTW, ever read Lessing? I've finally managed to get to The Golden Notebook and in the bio sketch at the back she says: "I have to conclude that fiction is better at 'the truth' than a factual record. Why this should be so is a very large subject and one I don't begin to understand." I'm so often struck by this widely held literary notion when I read what passes for facts in the MSM.-
23.1
So you've given up on paragraph breaks? Sad. I'm not quite ready to take that step.
Well they will pass something but if you're right I think they are too optimistic about the benefits of passing ineffective health care reform that doesn't address serious problems. The right will be happy to cite any problems as an example of Democratic ineptness and the actual results of health care reform are not something suited to PR efforts: you can pretend a war in a distant country is going better than it is but you can't tell people that actually their neighbor has no problems with their HMO.
I'm also thinking that any health care reform legislation that is passed will be very weak. Maybe we differ a little there? With public opinion turning I can't see a likely scenario where anything particularly significant is achieved.
Yes I've read some Lessing including The Golden Notebook. An overwhelming book in the best way... I'm not sure I agree that fiction is better at getting to the truth, but in practice it seems that way. I wonder if great novelists have a gift/skill for discovering truths, like great journalists. But since there are so few great journalists for obvious reasons - like the rise of TV: they have to be conventionally attractive and the women have to be young or botoxed - perhaps novelists as a profession are more successful in reflecting the truth.
And empathy. It's present in most great literature and disturbingly absent in most MSM journalism. We only get fake empathy, like news anchors pretending that Michael Jackson's death is a global tragedy on a greater scale than a fatal military engagement in Afghanistan.
I suppose that the MSM emphasis on a "great man" view of history is another factor. Novelists can devote hundreds of pages to ordinary people while journalists parse the words of Robert Gibbs. That inevitably makes journalism more oriented toward the perspective of rich white men. Is it possible to cover a war well if most of the coverage is focused on political and military leaders and largely neglects the experiences of civilian women on the ground? Probably not.
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24
[...] Swampland | Leave a Comment Here’s something I found on TIME’s Swampland blog (see comment #20.1–thanks, pirate wench) that clearly outlines the idea of a single-payer system that has been so demonized that it [...]
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25
Pirate Wench, thanks for that single-payer list up top. Stuck it in my blog. (Translated...I'm a weak-kneed novice in pirate speak!)
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25.1
'Appy t' oblige...pirate speak 'r no
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Per'aps th' netroots ought t' start circulatin' a simple explanation...th' MSM certain' don't intend to be helpin' anyone understand, 'r else we wouldn't be 'avin' all this process political gamesmanship sh*t-fer-"journalisim"!
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It be amazin' t' me tha' so many 'ere be able t' be puttin' things into simple terms tha' get t' th' 'eart o' th' matter, bu' all th' "experts" bein' paid t' do it, can't (WON'T).
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I guess once ye be sweepin' somethin' off th' table, ye be figurin' it be just a waste o' yer time t' be lookin' 'round on th' floor in case ye dropped somethin' important - li' th' whole substance o' th' d*mn thing!
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I've found me a new mantra - thanks, KT!
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YARR! -
25.2
Shakespeare - I no' be familiar wi' yer blog, I don't be thinkin' - whar mi' I be findin' it?
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Thanks, matey!
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Arrgh!
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- ktumulty @KerryPicket for heaven's sake. newspaper now supposed to issue news release on story it hasn't published? - 14 minutes ago
- ktumulty @JohnFeehery Sigh! - 37 minutes ago
- ktumulty New Blog Entry, "Anthem Blue Cross Makes The Case For Health Reform" - http://tinyurl.com/yab3hjs - 3 hours ago
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