A good question

Recent polls say up to 70% of Americans would prefer to have the choice of a public policy plan to compete with private insurance.

Add to that this from former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich on HuffingtonPost:

I really don't get it. We have a Democratic president in the White House. Democrats control sixty votes in the Senate, enough to overcome a filibuster. It is possible to pass health care legislation through the Senate with 51 votes (that's what George W. Bush did with his tax cut plan). Democrats control the House. The Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, is a tough lady. She has said there will be no health care reform bill without a public option.

So why does the fate of health care rest in Grassley's hands?

It's not even as if the gang [so-called Gang of Six who are trying to forge a bipartisan bill in the Senate Finance Committee] represents America. The three Dems on the gang are from Montana, New Mexico, and North Dakota -- states that together account for just over 1 percent of Americans. The three Republicans are from Maine, Wyoming, and Iowa, which together account for 1.6 percent of the American population.

So, I repeat: Why has it come down to these six? Who anointed them? Apparently, the White House. At least that's what I'm repeatedly being told by sources both on the Hill and in the administration. "The Finance Committee is where the action is. They'll tee-up the final bill," says someone who should know.

That is a very good question. Obama's handling (I'm close to saying mishandling) of health care reform has done more to shake my faith in him than anything else. I just don't see any reason for it other than (1) a foolish over-commitment to bipartisanship way beyond any reason to expect the Republicans will let it happen or (2) he and his top advisers have been bought out by the health care corporations? Apparently Tom Daschle has been, but they ditched him at the last moment, but maybe only because they had to and not out of principle. I don't want to believe it's #2, but someone please prove me wrong.

I truly believe that we could have a public plan written into law, if Obama would really make the case for it and push it. Why not, especially given that it's supposedly what he wants.

Ralph

Looney tunes

Don't these people even think about what they say? Well, no. Foolish question.

My favorite Republican congressional clown, Michele Bachmann (R-MN) entertained on the Sean Hannity show a few days ago and tried out her new line:

"That's why people need to continue to go to the town halls, continue to melt the phone lines of their liberal members of Congress, and let them know, under no certain circumstances will I give the government control over my body and my health care decisions."

Oh, Michele . . . Michele ! !

Aren't you forgetting something? You very much want the government to have control over pregnant women's bodies and their health care decisions.

Ralph

One more -- but this is a big one

News of george bush's politicization of our entire government is hardly new.

But this one should bring outrage from even his conservative supporters. As reported by Rachel Wiener on The Huffington Post:

In a new book, former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge reveals new details on politicization under President Bush. . . Among other things, Ridge admits that he was pressured to raise the terror alert to help Bush win re-election in 2004.

Ridge was never invited to sit in on National Security Council meetings; was "blindsided" by the FBI in morning Oval Office meetings because the agency withheld critical information from him; found his urgings to block Michael Brown from being named head of the emergency agency blamed for the Hurricane Katrina disaster ignored; and was pushed to raise the security alert on the eve of President Bush's re-election, something he saw as politically motivated and worth resigning over.

How about that? Not something revealed by an enemy but by Ridge himself. Wow !!!

Ralph

Absence of rational thinking

In a YouTube video, the man who carried a semi-automatic assault rifle outside yesterday's presidential event tells fellow demonstrators:

"We will forcefully resist people imposing their will on us through the strength of the majority with a vote."

And it's the same sort of thinking that screams loudest about the rights of the people.

Excuse me, but who are "the people," if not those who are empowered to decide on how our government is run -- by "the majority with a vote"?

It's the kind of immature thinking that says "if I don't get my way, then I'm being discriminated against," and therefore the government is the problem. What a difference it makes when you split off "the government" from "the people," ignoring that it's "government of the people, by the people, and for the people."

Ralph

Sen. Grassley

Senator Grassley should no longer be taken seriously as a partner in bipartisanship. All these months, the Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee have wasted valuable time, laboring to find compromises that could gain his support and produce a bill with at least some token bipartisan support.

And now he's at home touting the right-wing talking points about "end of life consultations" as a threat to "pull the plug on grandma." And saying that he won't support any health care bill that doesn't have a majority of Republicans supporting it. That is, he's not even going to provide any leadership with his own people for bipartisan support -- just follow the angry mobs.

But his latest (New York Times) puts him out there with the wingnuts:

Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, called President Obama and Speaker Nancy Pelosi “intellectually dishonest” on Tuesday, saying that Democrats were using the flap over end-of-life consultations to divert attention away from health care legislation currently being considered in the House.

Excuse me? Who created the flap? Who keeps it going? Were Obama and Pelosi supposed to just ignore the blatant lies and distortions? Including those of Grassley himself?

He should no longer be taken seriously -- on anything. He, like all the Republicans, likes to play the game of being the go-to Republican on bipartisanship, get the Democrats to make concessions, and then say -- no, it's not enough. We can't support it.

Enough !!! It's time to call them on it and go our own way to get effective health care reform. I think even Grassley must realize the jig is up and so he might as well play to his base.

So be it. The line is drawn in the sand. Let's do what the people voted Obama into office for.

Ralph

More good reasoning on health care

Robert Creamer's article on HuffingtonPost today gives three reasons why a strong public plan is likely to be part of what eventually gets passed and signed into law.

1). A Public Option is the most elegant and politically viable solution to a major practical problem. And he makes a good, detailed case to back this one up.

2). The politics of Congress and the White House. Now that it's clear that Republicans are not going to vote for it, no matter how many concessions they make, they are free to pursue a good bill that really works. And it will be essential that health care reform passes. If Obama and Democratic leaders of House and Senate stand firm on public option, the Blue Dogs will come on board rather than be responsible for defeating health care reform.

3). Inclusion of a public option is necessary to assure a mobilizable base to counterbalance a highly-motivated right wing and make passage of any health insurance reform possible. This is now recognizing that by catering to the conservatives, they will lose support from progressives. So why not do the right thing? Better to please your supporters than your opponents, especially when your opponents are committed to killing your plan in any case.

The reasoning in this article adds to my growing, but still cautious, optimism.

Here's the link to the article:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-creamer/three-reasons-why-a-stron_b_261829.html

Ralph

The come-back

There are some hints that the Democrats may be just about to pull a Lazarus, as in "coming back from the dead" on health care reform.

Yesterday, the House Democratic Caucus met via conference call, and there was uniform support for the public option. No one spoke up for the co-op. In fact, two members from Wisconsin, which has both a public option and a co-op, said that the co-op hasn't saved the state any money at all, while the public option has cut costs by 2/3.

Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich is calling for a March on Washington in support. Lawmakers at home on August break also said that they are hearing from constituents who want them to stand fast on the public option and not give in.

And, at the same time, key Republicans are signaling that they're even more hardened against genuine reform. As Rahm Emanuel puts it (NYT):

“The Republican leadership has made a strategic decision that defeating President Obama’s health care proposal is more important for their political goals than solving the health insurance problems that Americans face every day.”

It looks like, as of yesterday and today, that the momentum is going back toward public option. The White House is sending out signals that it is about to unveil a new strategy, emphasizing the moral imperative to provide health care for everyone and making it clear that it is the Republicans who are pulling out of bipartisanship. Relieved of that impossible burden, maybe they can bring the Blue Dogs on board and really get a decent bill passed.

So maybe saying the public plan was not essential was a trial balloon after all -- and it worked.

Ralph

Damned mad about it

Dammit, I still think Obama is the best thing that has happened to the presidency since JFK.

But, dammit, I'm disappointed that he seems to have given up on the important centerpiece of effective health care reform.

It's time to stop sitting around negotiating with Senator Grassley and start negotiating with the progressive Democrats in the House and Senate !!!!!

We need a new champion for the cause. I nominate Howard Dean. He's got the fire in the belly for it. Unfortunately, he got on the wrong side of Rahm Emanuel and has been marginalized, in D.C. anyway.

Ralph

The market speaks

Worth more than 10,000 words was the swift reaction of the stock market yesterday, apparently to news that the public plan for health care reform was dead.

Stocks for health-related industries shot up, while the rest of the market went down.

Anybody have trouble interpreting what that means? Seems pretty obvious to me that the health industry (as opposed to health care) saw this as good for them (= profits). And they're probably right. Without a competitive public option, the bill will be a big bail-out for these corporations.

There's no question in my mind: this is a win for insurance, drug makers, and for-profit hospital corporations, because there will be an increased demand for their services.

Unfortunately, it's a big loss for the people and for health care reform. Without it, the costs will just keep going up, and then opponents will claim the reforms didn't work and just created a new gigantic entitlement.

But not everyone has given up. Sixty-five progressive Democrats have said in no uncertain terms that they will not vote for a bill without a public option, all the way through Conference.

Firedoglake blog is raising campaign contributions to reward them for their courageous support. I just made a contribution. You can choose which ones you want it to go to.

Go to http://www.actblue.com/page/theytookthepledge

Ralph

Money talks

Money talks. In politics, the big guys with the money and their lobbyists. Right now it's the drug companies, insurance companies, and for-profit hospital chains who have bought off congress and killed the public option plan that was the only hope of a reform bill that might actually reduce the costs. Sure, the right wing crazies are scaring the people; but the money guys already had it sewed up in congress.

Well, maybe two can play the game. Another eight corporate sponsors have joined the ten others who have pulled their tv ads from running during the Glenn Beck Show.

Will that get results? Does FOX care? TV producers are usually very responsive to public opinion for fear that advertisers will bail out. What's taking them so long to pull the plug on Beck?

I guess it must be his viewer ratings remain high, and they figure the ads will come back or be replaced by others that don't care.

Ralph

A clear choice

OK, folks, the news is in. The U.S. General Accounting Office has done a study of the so-called insurance cooperatives that are being touted as the compromise instead of the government sponsored public plan.

And the answer is that cooperatives will not save money. So, of course, that's what we're going to wind up with. A single-payer plan would save the most money, but we can't have that because it's more important to protect the business of health care than to provide health care.

The next best option would be the public plan. It would save some money, but not as much.

And now we're told that the cooperatives won't save any at all.

So that's what we'll get. And then Republicans will say the plan is a failure because it doesn't save money.

Only in America.

Ralph

The Switzerland-ization of health care

A majority of Americans want affordable health care available to all citizens. There are disagreements about how to get there, how much government should/shouldn't be involved. And we are the only wealthy nation that does not have it.

As Paul Krugman puts it this morning in the NYT:

At this point, all that stands in the way of universal health care in America are the greed of the medical-industrial complex, the lies of the right-wing propaganda machine, and the gullibility of voters who believe those lies.

He goes on to show which other nation the Obama plan most closely resembles: it's not Britain, Canada, or France -- but Switzerland. They have universal coverage, but it's not exactly a hotbed of socialism. Their plan uses regulation of private insurance, plus subsidies for those who can't afford it, but the government does not run the health plan.

It's clear we are not yet mature enough as a nation to do the sensible thing and go to a single payer, government sponsored plan for true universal health care. That would involve deciding that the health of our nation is not a business but something the government should provide -- just as we do education, libraries, and police and fire protection.

Why not? Is health care less vital to the well-being of our nation? Has private industry made us the healthiest people in the world? Far from it. Perhaps we do have the best health care possible in the world for those who can afford it. But in all measures of general health (life expectancy, infant mortality, etc.) we rank way down the list.

So Krugman's statement about what stands in the way of universal coverage is true by 10-fold about those same forces preventing us from having single payer coverage.

Why is that better than what's proposed? Because it is the only way to significantly reduce the cost. The administrative savings alone would pay for insurance for the 46 million people who are uninsured.

Ralph

"Sarahcuda"

"Sarahcuda." As in Sarah-barracuda (as in Palin). I like it.

Credit goes to Maureen Dowd. The gist of her column in the NYT today is that Sarahcuda is very skilled at "tap[ping] into her visceral talent for aerial-shooting her favorite human prey: cerebral Ivy League Democrats."

It may be sport to her, or just political infighting; but what she and others are doing is grabbing some minor point, turning it into fear or outrage to stir up the paranoid fringe, and driving the debate over the cliff. It's hard to have rational discussions when such things grab the headlines.

Sarahcuda has discovered Ezekial Emanuel -- health care adviser to Obama, oncologist, and thoughtful medical ethicist who, in calmer times, has written about the problems of how to decide on the use of scarce medical resources. Such as: suppose there is one liver available for transplant and three who need one. Who gets it? And how do you decide? Would it be the youngest? The one waiting the longest? The one whose overall condition gives him the best chance for surviving the surgery?

These are serious questions that need to be discussed in a serious way, but they are not part of the current proposals for health care reform. Such issues are, of course, live hot ammunition for those who are trying to paint Obama as proposing that the government is going to "pull the plug on grandma" and force people into euthanasia when they get too old to be useful. Sarahcuda's sensationalizing distortions create the noise that drowns out serious discussion. So, there'll be no provision in the final bill for living wills.

There's one thing the Republicans are good at: they sure know how to kill legislation they don't like, even when they're in a clear minority. Looks like the public health care plan is going down the tubes the same way. Just make it look like the "gummint" is gonna control your life or destroy your business -- and the paranoia comes out of the woodwork.

I'm trying to remember that we'll still get some improvements and be better off than we are now. But I'm not so sure. Without the public plan, it won't save enough money, and then the Sarahcudas will say: "see, we told you it wouldn't work. Now the Democrats have just put in another vast entitlement program that will bankrupt the nation." Just keep hammering back: it won't cost any more than george bush's war in Iraq. We couldn't afford that either.

Ralph