Public Droption

BOOOOOO!!!
I can't say I'm surprised, but now I have to ask: So what is the plan, Mr. President?

This is Joe Klein going back to vague waffle on subjects where he really knows nothing, on the basis of one, anecdotal argument in the Times. And how you found Lyall's piece excellent, when one considers that it lacks any sort of statistics to go with its portentous claims, God only knows. Would it be asking too much for you to actually write something with hard content, as in facts and figures, rather than this sort of vague character-assassination plus claims of a quid pro quo - for which you offer no evidence? As for your discussion of single-payer, versus the public option, cut out the empty adjectives and the baseless rhetorical claims, and put some facts on the table. 'The perils are obvious and immense". Fine, specify them, show us what these "perils" are. We all know you aren't a liberal, because you so proudly made that clear last time around. How about actually delivering some news and insight, rather than empty rhetoric about how terrible hypothetical futures must surely be, and empty claims about a health service which you have not experienced or lived with? I don't care which side of the debate you support, Joe. I just cannot stand this empty, pompous excuse for journalism you keep offering.

Joe I watched all the shows including the Presidents speech yesterday and I think we have an over anxious press trying to find something out of boredom. When the President announces this I will believe it. I see no change from anything he has said. I think we have a major poker game going on.

I do wonder if the press is right what are the Republicans compromising on?

I'm going with what I told JC-San below: when it actually GETS dumped (keeping in mind it's in five bills that have made it to the floor so far) then I'm gonna give Obama a huge amount of flak. But to say that (and BTW Joe he's said that before and there hasn't been this pearl-clutching from the MSM) the public option is now dead in the water on one speech in one location when the sausage says otherwise is at best premature.

"Meanwhile, I never had much interest in a public option. I think the perils of government-delivered (as opposed to funded) services are obvious and immense."

*forehead slap*

The public option is

DEFINED AS government-funded health insurance. There is no option for government-run service on the table.

Did you think the PO was, like, a mini-NHS? No wonder you didn't like it.

This is already being walked back by the White House, so I suggest you find something better to write about, Joe.

I think they drop it in the Senate, and the bill passes and gets zero to two Republican votes.
Obama can then point to Grassley and explain to the American people how Grassley stabbed them in the face, and the Dems tried bipartisanship but Republicans simply hate America. Then the option from the House Bill is added in conference and Republicans whine mightily and get many spots on the Sunday news shows but it doesn't matter.

" .. I never had much interest in a public option."

Sure, you have the choice of interests.

" .. I think the perils of government-delivered (as opposed to funded) services are obvious and immense. "

Hey, JK on the woodpile by the fireplace, don't chortle in your joy. There are perils in your present coverage, JK. For instance, should TIME fold up or otherwise cast you aside .. Should a pre-existing condition be discovered in you or your loved ones ... ... Should the economy get worse and your carrier re-evaluates its coverage of the old people - defines, according to a veritable Woodstock dictionary, as anyone over 30 years old ....

But, cheer up.
Look at it this way: You can keep your private option that you love. No one is taking that from you.

In addition, there will be a another option for those WHO CHOOSE to take it.

So, why do you object? Don't you want others to have options - or don't you want too many options. or certain options you proscribe, to be available to the American citizens?

What would be your response if an edict went out declaring that there will be no shops that sell used items of clothing in our land and that we either trek to buy new stuff on Rodeo drive and on Champs Elysées or we don't shop at all? Good guess: I never had much interest in a cheap option.

What bigtrain@5 said. Confusing the concept of the public option, which is government-provided health insurance (Medicaid for all or at least Medicaid for more), with a US version of NHS (VA for all, I guess) is on par with "Don't let the government get its hands on my Medicare" in its cluelessness.

And "single-payer" is not a system where you get a tax credit to choose between a government health insurance program and one of several private options. Single-payer means there is one government-run health insurance entity, which pays for all medical expenses and private health insurance goes away (or only exists to provide supplemental insurance a la Medigap).

" I think the perils of government-delivered (as opposed to funded) services are obvious and immense. "

What is wrong with the guy who pays for it calling the tunes?
We may assume, for the sake of effectiveness and efficiency in delivery, that one who funds it knows what is best, and has a say in what goes.

So what is wrong with the funder delivering it? {Unless you assume that either the insurance companies are staffed with the leading expert doctors - or that they can access the experts and expert services that will not available to the government in the marketplace.}

How does it work in the government's VA health care/insurance option - that is recognized to be the best in the area?

Are inefficient, wasteful private companies - that have been feeding and waxing obese at the government trough - scared that they will have to measure up to a VA-like health care/insurance delivery system?

You know it doesn't really matter as long as they get the foundation for reform passed. Once the public figures out the changes being proposed are in there best interest we'll get a chance to improve it. That's how everything else including social security and Medicare happened. Why should we expect anything to change.

I am one of those who think that a country like our good old USA - a superpower that is a beacon of opportunity and prosperity the world over - should not be flaunting its high ideals and wealth in far flung places of the world (among the downtrodden and the starving) while 50 million Americans live at risk and starve.

Was it said at one time that we - with the enthusiastic support of the gleefully treacherous un-American Palinoids who hate our sick and our poor Americans - were spending over $ 10 BILLION A MONTH on gratuitously killing grandmas in Iraq while Americans starved and died from diseases, hunger and neglect?
What can $10 billion a month do towards providing universal health care for 50 million of "we, the people" who are at risk?
What do we understand by liberty and pursuit of happiness for all we, the people? Where does "seek ye FIRST the pursuit of happiness for belligerent, lazy hateful foreign Israelis who despise us" come into our constitution?

Find the funds to re-invest in the security and health of our people.
-Cut the foreign aid stuff until our sick and starving are catered for by our republic.
-Cut the wanton harvest of souls through military expenditure in Israel/Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan.
-Stop wasteful capital funding of factories that manufacture spares for our military aircraft in (the British-American Bush's) UK - which can be manufactured efficiently by our unemployed starving people in USA.
-Cut the militarization of Africa and the opening up of new killing fields for military expenditure.

In addition to the stated recovery of funds now subsidizing insurance/health care providers in corruption and efficiencies, less than 20% reduction in spending in the unsavory areas listed can cover more than the shortfall in the estimates of funds needed to provide universal care - and still leave us a leading and respected superpower ..

Joe Klein:
.
This post of yours borders on the incoherent.

I'd really like single-payer because I'm educated enough to know that it would solve the problem of 16 percent (and skyrocketing) GDP health care spending, but as long as something passes, I'm okay with an infinitesimal step in the right direction that solves no long term problems, but does mandate that every American now has to buy something extremely expensive from huge private companies that they hate and who routinely tell them they can't have health care.
.
I really hope that that kind of sh*tty, do-nothing-for-the-majority, written-by-Republicans-and-the-insurance-lobby-to-fail, worst-of-all-worlds, reason-why-public-hates-Washginton plan opens the door to the real solution that nobody in large majorities in both houses or elected to the Presidency with a huge electoral mandate for change can reasonably be expected to openly advocate at the present time.

Is there a point at which even centrists like you realize that incrementalism isn't a rational approach to solving urgent national problems, Joe Klein?
.
If there isn't a choice for people in this deal that lets them get out of the private system's trap when it doesn't work for them (when they need it), and there are only regulations (for which insurers will devise work-arounds) and mandates for tax-payers (which they will resent if there are no obvious benefits for their families), then people will discover all over again why they shouldn't trust Democrats to run things. People (quite reasonably) want solutions to their problems, not doors open to what might be politically possible some other time.
.
If electing Democrats to super-majority in the Senate, and overwhelming majority in the House, and the Presidency doesn't open the door six months after an election to what people want, then don't blame them when they believe the other party when it trumpets how inevitably bad Democrats (and government in general) are at solving real people's problems.
.
This is simply ineffective governance, Joe Klein. It's a lack of leadership and real solutions. It's kicking the can down the road, instead of doing what the electorate expects (and desperately needs right now).
.
When the fire chief stands just outside of a neighborhood in which people's houses are burning down, and where folks can see for themselves that lots of their neighbors' homes are in flames, and says that he'd really like to see a plan that opens the door over the next few decades to a simple system in which folks paid taxes and then got government-run fire departments put out fires, then don't be surprised when that fire chief gets run out of office at the next election.
.
It's business as usual for centrist, incrementalist Democrats in Washington, Joe Klein, but it's a very bad way to: A) solve the nation's problems, and B) get elected again to solve the nations problems.
.
If, at the end of the day, John Q Public and myself don't even get an escape route out of the 10-percent-unemployment-for-the-next-two-years insecurity of employer-based coverage, i.e. a public insurance option at affordable rates for individuals no matter how much money we make, then don't expect us to buy that "change we can believe in" crap again when Democrats come around to sell it. Expect that at least a significant majority of us will believe Republicans when they tell us "you keep more of your money, don't trust the government to spend it well on your behalf", and the rest of us will either go about supporting the primary opponents of incumbents, or will just stay home.
.
By settling once again for (maybe) inches of progress instead of miles, incrementalism instead of real change, you're making a big, big mistake, Joe Klein, both in terms of what's needed to help our people and our country, and what's needed to re-elect Democrats to public office.
.
Thanks so much for reading and considering this.

http://politics.theatlantic.com/2009/08/administration_official_sebelius_misspoke.php
.

An administration official said tonight that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius "misspoke" when she told CNN this morning that a government run health insurance option "is not an essential part" of reform. This official asked not to be identified in exchange for providing clarity about the intentions of the President. The official said that the White House did not intend to change its messaging and that Sebelius simply meant to echo the president, who has acknowledged that the public option is a tough sell in the Senate and is, at the same time, a must-pass for House Democrats, and is not, in the president's view, the most important element of the reform package.
.
A second official, Linda Douglass, director of health reform communications for the administration, said that President Obama believed that a public option was the best way to reduce costs and promote competition among insurance companies, that he had not backed away from that belief, and that he still wanted to see a public option in the final bill.
.
"Nothing has changed.," she said. "The President has always said that what is essential that health insurance reform lower costs, ensure that there are affordable options for all Americans and increase choice and competition in the health insurance market. He believes that the public option is the best way to achieve these goals."
.

A third White House official, via e-mail, said that Sebelius didn't misspeak. "The media misplayed it," the third official said.

.
Play particular attention to that last line Joe Klein, "follower of the health care debate"
.
Funny but I bet if your life depended on it you couldn't explain the function of a public option in health care reform Joe but you aren't hesitant at all to accept it being dropped. What does that say about you as a journalist?
.
You can't imagine the perverse pleasure I will take in coming here and shoving it in your face when this health care bill goes through with a public option some time this fall inspite of all of your spouting of conventional wisdom.

Matt Taibbi, making me miss my bubble:

"I'll say this for George Bush: you'd never have caught him frantically negotiating against himself to take the meat out of a signature legislative initiative just because his approval ratings had a bad summer. Can you imagine Bush and Karl Rove allowing themselves to be paraded through Washington on a leash by some dimwit Republican Senator of a state with six people in it the way the Obama White House this summer is allowing Max Baucus (favorite son of the mighty state of Montana) to frog-march them to a one-term presidency?"

" .."Let them eat cake," so these treacherous Repugs/Palinoids may say.. .."

"Let them eat cake," so these treacherous Repugs/Palinoids may say of those (poor, uninsured, newly-unemployed, employed-but-unable-to-cover-deductibles ) we saw during the past week trekking afar, perhaps hundreds of miles, to camp overnight at a site of a clinic offering free health care they cannot afford to their family ...
Third World people? USA goesThird World poor? Haiti-grade even? Gosh!

We remember that during the primaries and into the presidential campaigns, the Obama machinery seemed to be ill-adjusted to fighting the propaganda war of the crazies on the right.

The reform crowds are either short of banners and markers or they are so shocked that they don't know what message to wave at the YouTube cameras and the rabid, open-mouth-breathing zombies.

So this afternoon we sat down (in a boisterous get-together) to put down what we would write on those banners we would waved in the ugly ruddy faces and blood-shot beady eyes of those clueless, camera-totting, anti-reform Palinist rats at the town hall meetings.

All of us, the people of goodwill to all, cannot fight this asymmetric, hit-and-run propaganda warfare on the moral high ground as if it is a gentleman's war: Some of us must take the fight to them - in their gutters.

On Selling America. Selling a Gentler, Caring Nation. {The slogans need polishing}:
Reform Is More Choice
Reform:You Make Your Choices
Yes to Reform, Yes to Choices
Health For All Americans
Reform is Security
More Choices in Reform
Reform Says Yes to Choice
Yes to Choice: Yes to Reform
More Choices, American Way
Medicare helps Grandma
Reform Because Grandma Wants Choice
If You Love your Medicare You will Love Reform
If You Love VA, You will Love Reform
Reform Revamps Health Care
Reform Good for Your Health

Reform Cuts Waste
Don't You Hate That Insurance Company
Reform - If you worry About Insurance
Reform - If you fear Losing Insurance
Health Care for All
Healthy America - Yes We Can
Pursuit of Health for All
Care for America, Reinvest in Health
Reform For Healthier America
Reform, Choice for All
Reform, None Left Behind
ObamaCare is Care for All
ObamaCare=AmericaCare
Reform: America Cares
Reform: EOL with Dignity
Reform: EOL Your Way
(Reform: Europe Spends Less for More)
Reform: Spend Less for More
Seniors Love Reform
Government: Thank you for Medicare
Government: Thank you for VA
Medicare is My Public Choice
Government VA is My Choice
Veterans Love Government VA
I Love My Public Medicare
Reform And Keep Your Health Care
I Love My VA
Grandma Says Medicare is Great
Big Biz Denies Coverage
Private Denied Insurance
Pre-Existing? No Reform, No Cover
Laid Off? No Reform No Cover
Secure health Future? Reform Now
Out of Coverage? Reform Now
Dropped? Playing Dice with Health Coverage? Reform Now
Must Have Coverage? Reform
Secure Coverage? Reform Now
For Secure Healthy Future, Reform Now
Hands Off Medicare, We Want Socialism
We Want VA, We want Socialism
All Seniors Want Health, All Seniors Want Socialism
Reform for All, GOP for the Rest

May need Explaining:
Reform: What the Doctor Ordered
GOP Drafted EOL, GOP Wants Reform
Poor Get Health. No to Eugenics. Reform Now
Health For All. Yes to Reform
Kill the Poor - That is GOP
Panels? GOPCare Denies Some. Hitler Denied Some. ObamaCare Covers All

This is yet another vapid, "Saddam has WMDs" post.
.
Is Karen back yet? Amy's recent posts notwithstanding, this blog needs some material worth the time spent reading it.

YOU ALWAYS THINK THE (PRESUMPTIOUS AND ELITIST) OBAMA DOES EVERYTHING "QUITE WELL".
EVAN AS HIS APROVAL RATINGS ARE IN A DEEEEEP SLIDE.
BECAUSE OF YOUR REVERENCE TO OBAMA YOU'LL BE SAYING THE SAME WHEN HIS NUMBERS ARE IN THE 20S...

YOU DON'T CARE DO YOU?

This doesn't mean opponents who have decried a "government takeover" will suddenly quiet down and let "reform" pass.Dropping the public means the White House now has a toothless bill for the mobs to twist and distort as much as the old one.

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

[...] SHOULD understand that the whole idea of a “public option” — which Time’s Joe Klein reminds us was never really defined — has been a bargaining chip to be cashed in late in the [...]

Hey Joe, I agree with a lot that you wrote, but you completely lost me on the public option. The public option is simply a type of Medicare for non-seniors, but self-supporting from premiums. In most states, one or two health insurance companies dominate the market. They really do need competition. On the positive side, you do seem more enlightened than most of your journalistic colleagues and media pundits. Blogging has improved your writing and thinking.

Joe, I have to disagree with you on this one. Obama is adjusting his rhetoric so that he can get the Senate Fincance Committee to break its gridlock and pass a bill; Obama's real aim here is to get the process as quickly as possible to Conference. I suspect everyone will be surprised to see that A public option (although possibley not quite THE public option that is dreamed of) will be in the final bill. The major problem will be costs-how to pay for this option without adding to the deficit. I don't think the President is jettisoning the public option at all--he is essentially speaking to Kent Conrad and Max Baucus.

The reason for this health care issue mess is because the Health Care Lobbyists are paying out millions of dollars to the white house to get what they want.

Sandy

Gawd, Joe.

Sometimes, I really like you. Sometimes, you actually seem to have a moral compass. But then, you get to a hard thing that relies on you to actually understand the facts and you simply fire prematurely.

This is, of course, the worst sin of Village journalists. Is it a coincidence that this fuzziness comes on a Monday? Were we at a Village cocktail party this weekend?

So, could you go back and actually get straight on the facts. Try this Krugman thing, where he explains that VA (top user satisfaction in US) is like Britain, and Medicare (second in user satifaction in US) is like Canada, and the House proposal with a public option is like Switzerland's private delivery, private insurance-dominated scheme.

Here's the link. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/17/opinion/17krugman.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss. Please take the five minutes to read, then take ten to rework your post with your new conclusions. We'll wait.