The talk is that we who want a real substantive health reform bill are unrealistic. We are being idealistic and we are putting the re-election of Obama in danger. We are not willing to meet in the middle. We are hell bent on destroying the Obama Presidency and handing over the future to the Republicans.
Well, I say Bull Shit!!! Enough is enough. There are moments in time when politicians must be pushed, shoved and guided by the people to do the right thing.
One of the most poingant moments of the primary, was when Bill Moyers opened up and talked about his time in the LBJ administration. Moyers was a young man then, but he was witness to one of the most incredible moments in American history.
Pushing the President to do the right thing is not a crime of treason. It is what the American people want and wanted when they gave the Democrats an overwhelming win. It is not idealistic, pie in the sky or lame brained to demand what the people want: Affordable universal healtchare. It is the President's job, as the leader of the Democratic party to make it happen.
The Obama administration is sending out its strongest signs yet that it's willing to scrap a public option in order to move a health care bill forward. White House adviser David Axelrod tells ABC News that what remains of Obama's desire for a public option is largely theoretical. "The spirit that led him to support a public option is still very much at play here and so you know he wants competition. He wants choice."
Mr. Axelrod, healthcare and you getting voted into the White House is and was not "theoretical word play". Big Tent Democrat has a great take of Obama as Don Draper, looking for the pitch, BTD calls it Eeu De Public Option. Looking for how to spin us and how to spin the story is not enough this time. "A speech" is not gonna be enough, the content of the speech needs to have substance.
So, we have to do what Dr. King did, push so that the President does what he should do. In Politico this morning I found these Obama Aide words rather disturbing:
On health care, Obama’s willingness to forgo the public option is sure to anger his party’s liberal base. But some administration officials welcome a showdown with liberal lawmakers if they argue they would rather have no health care law than an incremental one. The confrontation would allow Obama to show he is willing to stare down his own party to get things done.I don't know about anyone else, but the Moyer's vignette the President did not stand down, he encouraged the activism and the MLK, to push on. Will we see this kind of courage from Obama?
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Comments
You are right on about pushing Obama. He himself said so before inauguration. Wish the legislative process wasn't so glacial - need something real-time to take advantage of the way people really feel!
Dragonlady, thanks, don't believe those polls.
Lisa, we are all caught like deer in the headlights, time for him to lead on this issue.
Yesterday, it was leaked that Andrew Romanoff, a very popular dem who was the Speaker of the Colorado house was thinking about running in a primary.
Today, Bennet says he is for the public option.
Folks, this is the kind of pressure it takes. Real democrats pushing these cheesy blue dogs who know nothing other than how to feed on the corporate tit into taking positions that they would rather not take.
FDR once told someone he agreed with them on some unpopular policy point, and then said "Now get out there and make me do it." We need to hold our elected officials feet to the fire, but let them know we have their back if they do what we need them to do.
I am afraid that we are very close to losing our country to the $$$ of mega-corporations. The very definition of Facism.
Great piece Stellaa
Obama must move out of the safe middle and take a stand or he will show himself to be a lesser man than President Johnson And Dr. King. Promise is one thing. Delivering on promise is another.
There are plenty of heroes that can provide inspiration. Moyers is one of mine. Thanks for your voice and passion.
I scratch my head as I read the many articles about career/job trends and employment outlook statistics. Often, if not nearly always the prospects are described as poor, across the board, except in the "health care field." Now I do not claim an advanced economics degree but surely if everyone else is without a job except for medical personnel, well, how is that they will be paid?
I slap myself in the head with frustration over and over again, do "they" not realize that we are the ONLY first world country to not have state mandated, comprehensive health care for all of our citizens?
Did anyone else read the heart breaking editorial this past Sunday in the NYT, all about couples forced to divorce to preserve their retirement because of draconian laws (that will bankrupt them) often drafted to favor nursing homes?
The editorial was written by Paul Kristof and it is a well written testament to the sad measures that so many are driven to by the so called health "care" system in this country. I urge everyone to read it, but even more revealing (and heartbreaking) are the comments. Most of them should be read aloud when Congress gets together and pretends to figure this out for us. Big insurance has a lot to lose, but Americans are losing their lives every day, it's time for a change.
Until Medical Bills Us Do Part by Paul Kristof
Which is always much easier than trying to stare down the other side. After all, they're the ones fighting him. He and Rahm will make their deals and the Republicans still won't vote for them.
I consider a second term for Obama no more a requirement than he considers the public option. I'm getting too damn old to keep voting for the lesser of two evils. As someone with a firm grasp of the obvious (not so common as one might hope) said, "the lesser of two evils is still evil.".
Jim DeMint was right, health care reform will be Obama's Waterloo. Now all he has to do is decide if he'd rather play Wellington or Bonaparte.
Progress has been made only when someone stands up and fights.
No strong public option in health care reform means people will die. This is as certain as the sun rising in the east and to oppose it is just evil.
Moreover we have a new phenomenon abroad in the land since President Clinton tried to reform our "health care system"and that would be the Neocon/Fascists that have co - opted the Republican party.
President Obama your friends across the aisle have been co - opted by a movement that seeks power at all costs. Their slogan could well be Amerika Uber Alles. They oppose health care reform because they want you to fail and they want their rich backers to get richer and the rest of us to get poorer and society to destabilize so they can seize power.
So tell it like it is: a vote against real health care reform is a vote for the death of more of our citizens. A vote against real health care reform is a vote against the American people and our economy.
You might even mention that the Republican party has been taken over by really evil people.
Many thanks for writing another very helpful post!
Please don't assume that those of us willing to compromise on the public option are doing so because of anything related to Obama's chances of reelection. That has never, not once, come up in my thinking or writing. Is it so far fetched to imagine that some of us have the greater good in mind? That we actually want health care reform so badly that we will take a something over nothing at all? (I'd like to reiterate here that the "something" is really substantive, historically). I think I understand and sympathize with your position very well--I even admire it--so please at least give credit where it's due. Obama's reelection has nothing whatsoever to do with most moderates' willingness to compromise on this. We understand that it has been liberals--liberals--who have been responsible for the lack of good health care legislation, always because the proposals on the table weren't good enough.
The best arguments against incrementalism start from the premise that we all have the same values and ultimately want the same thing--something close to universal health care, period. I recognize the pitfalls, most especially the potential for complacency after something passes (like campaign finance reform), even if it's not the long-term goal--a complacency that may supplant a later, more successful effort. But I'm afraid that risk is going to be the cost of getting something.
This argument is academic, mostly. I would love universal health care. Short of that, a public option, not only for the moral reasons but to help the economy (functioning as a stimulus). The only difference is that I have another "short of that" to add, while you don't.
Anyway, I appreciate your passion and fight and as I said on Ben's blog, I truly am uncertain how to put the idealism and pragmatism together. I admire the work in the trenches you've done, and I get that everybody has a line beyond which they won't compromise. I *do* think MLK was a radical. His speeches attest to that. But he never lost sight of the legislative slog, a long-term mucky process around which he was always strategizing. The man was brilliant and calculated and used words like "No Compromise" as part of his meta approach. He knew their impact and largely used them as part of his larger vision. As an afterthought, by the way, one might contend that the nonviolence aspect of MLK's campaign was itself compromise. Malcolm X and his followers did. It's all in the way you view it, I guess.
I'm infinitely more interested in finally seeing the initiatives that will directly benefit the greatest number of Americans pass, with or without the Republican speed bump, than I am with seeing good bill neutered to avoid the "destruction" of the Obama presidency.
In 2004, Bush saw starting his second term by sewing up only a sliver over half of the popular vote (50.7%) as a complete endorsement of his policies and presidency and continued to govern, regardless of how the opposing party felt. With a win of 52.9%, the fact that Obama is too gun-shy to push the very issues he ran on seems like a bit of a cruel joke.
Great post. Rated.
Why do I want a public option? Number of reasons. If healthcare insurance will be mandatory, I want a provider that will be open to public scrutiny. I do not want people trapped into a system that is not transparent and has no public scrutiny. I want a system that if a policy is made on coverage, there will be a regulatory process, a review process, a clear public appeals process. A system that is not floating to the winds of "the free marketeers" the boyz that brought us the economic crisis.
As we have seen we are inept and we have little appetite at scrutinizing and regulating the private market. We have a system, we do not need to reinvent a system that will involve startup and set up costs. By using the existing Medicare system, we do not have to have the start up costs.
Not to mention that Medicare overhead is about half what the private insurers have as overhead.
1) It's affordable for the vast majority of people/families.
2) It's not free.
3) There is no co-pay.
4) There is no deductible.
5) It is funded in part by taxes (Taxes that people see tangible benefits from! Horror!).
6) No HMO-style restrictions on which doctors/practitioners/tests or treatments are covered.
7) No citizen/permanent resident can be denied coverage, regardless of age, medical history, chronic illness, etc.
8) No lifetime benefit cap.
9) Vision, dental, prescription assistance and non-reconstructive cosmetic surgery is not covered, but are offered as part of most extended medical packages offered by employers (through private insurance companies).
Am I close?
Todd, can we get you on the committee if and when we ever *do* do a public option? I'd buy that one. The funny thing is that the former head of the Canadian Medical Association was on C-Span the other day answering questions about their country's care. I loved how frank and nondefensive he was. He admitted that wait times is their biggest complaint, primarily because of a shortage of doctors that is the result of bad policy twenty years ago, and that they are trying harder to be more like Japan, France, and other European countries. He mostly extolled the virtues and dashed the negative myths of the Canadian plan, though. Anyway, I thought that that's the best thing about our situation now: we can take ideas from all the rest and create the best plan of all. Use medicare, Canada, France, whatever. If they are all as open as Canada about their flaws and successes, it shouldn't be that hard to figure out what works best. The biggest thing is that there are always costs, one way or another. People just have to be willing to pay for it. I think that's what liberals really need to do. In a big, general sense, we need to talk about how taxes are just the cost of membership in a great system.
nanatehay, no worries, it did look like I was insulting. I think I was projecting my own ignorance, actually.
No, the Canadian system is not perfect. And yes, there are a few kinks that the Canadian government have been making attempts to hammer out of said system. It's also true that, all the way up to the top, the government is very frank and honest with both the Canadian citizenry and the rest of the world about the shortcomings present in the current system. I honestly don't know if I would trust the U.S. government to be as honest about the state of any American system. They would see it as a sign of weakness.
I can't wait until Obama's speech this Wednesday. He needs to pull out all the stops. Maybe he can reach some of the centrists in this battle. It's painfully obvious that the Republican's will not be on board, though I still hold out hope for Olympia Snow.
Personally, I think that even if a bill is passed without any support from the right that people will like it and by 2012 Obama will have either regained support or there will be another issue for the right to jump on.
I have more problem with the Blue Dogs. This is war and war often requires someone to throw themselves on a grenade to save the troops. We will know more come Wednesday evening.
Though I don't think he will be pushed or prodded. I think he will inevitably kowtow to the powers that be, the powers that OWN this country, and make a muddied, lukewarm mess of it.
Some situations are meant to be black or white.
Wonder MLK example and photo. The photo says it all.
Well, I am not an economist, but I like to read a few of them, a guy named Krugman, the one with the Nobel and another guy Reich, they are strong believers that the public option will have an impact on prices. Face it, if it did not, why are the insurance companies fighting it? If it had no consequence why the big fight? It's not as if the insurance or pharmas care about the deficit or costs to the taxpayer.
I think that heavier controls on the insurance industry is the way Obama is headed. I'm a "single payer" guy, but I want to see health care reform pass. That said, I believe that you're absolutely correct about constituents doing their part by putting pressure on their representatives. And I do it, too.
Tom, I agree that the issues are important, but incrementalism is not what we voted for in the last election.
1. It needs to be open to all, but voluntary
2. It does not need to be free for everyone. I pay for insurance now, I expect to pay for insurance under the current system, I expect to pay for it under a public plan. I'd like to think the amount that I pay over what I actually consume would be used to help subsidize the cost for others.
That's just my description of the way I see the public option. This is separate from other facets of reform such as:
1. Everybody has insurance, those who can pay do. "Everybody" includes those under 30 who seem to think they're immortal. They help pay for the older and the unhealthy, in return when they're no longer young and immortal, they get help with their insurance. It's called a "social contract" and we use them for public education and social security, it's nothing new.
2. Private insurance companies are heavily, and I mean heavily regulated. The words "claim rejected", "prior condition", and "benefit limit" would become a thing of the past.
3. Health insurance becomes completely divorced from employment.
4. Medicare and Medicaid are able to negotiate prices with the pharmaceutical companies and other suppliers.
Yeah, you're right - I really would prefer single payer.
Obama has this year to get big change through. Next year, elections will make the Dems in Congress hide from every controversial issue. And they will probably lose some or a lot of their seats. After that, the fight for reelection begins. And no one is scared of a second term president. So if Obama has the real stuff, now is the time to show it.
But then, he always looked like a conservative Democrat. I'm not at all convinced he was ever really for the public option - at least not beyond the "it would be interesting to try it" level. He seems to prefer discussion over decision.
And why is it that your healthcare mess makes me more angry than the average American? Where's the outrage?
Up till now health care was the one issue on which I thought I could find consensus. Everybody thought the health care system was a mess. Everyone had a horrifying/heartbreaking anecdote to share. The opponents of socialized health care have successfully convinced great numbers of people that further governmental involvement in health care will make things worse rather than better.
Obama needs to get down to the 'real nitty-gritty' on Wednesday and lay it all out. It'll pass.
It is time for President Obama to learn to play hardball and stop acting as though there is a legitimate basis upon which to build or develop bipartisanhip or compromise.
1. He ought to have learned by now, that there is no bipartisanhip or compromise to be had with people who have decided to be uncooperative regardless of the nature of ANY proposal that he puts forward on health care or anything else for that matter.
2. He should know by now, that if he and the Democrats remove any significant element from the health care reform measures being considered, it will be the Republicans who will claim victory even as they continue to refuse to participate in the legislative process that brings a bill to the President's desk to be signed into law.
3. Any measure that is signed into law that does not include a public option that will signal a reduction of the runaway profits the insurers now enjoy, will be a capitulation to the insurance industry and other special interests that stand to gain from maintaining the status quo.
4. At this moment the Republicans have nothing to fear by resisting efforts at bi-partisanship and feel that they have nothing to gain from cooperating with the President.
5. It reqiures an entirely different set of skills to govern....The skills needed to get elected are quite different and not easily transferred....
6. Playing in the big leagues you have to learn and be willing to take bases with your spikes up. The people around him have to step up and give him the kind of advice he needs or his administration will be in the toilet before his first year is up.......
7. President Obama needs to be reminded the if LBJ and Dr. King had compromised and capitulated when the Dixiecratats and conservative Republicans were determined to derail Civil Rights and Voting Rights legislation he would not be in office today....
8. It's time to step up and stand up, have some guts and show some backbone. Many of the people who are being frightened into resisting change wouldn't be frightened if the President showed that he was indeed ready, willing, and able to fight with everything he has at his disposal to ensure that the health care system and health care insurance were reformed or changed for the benefit and good of the entire nation.
Great post Stellaa...Keep at it......
Thanks Ground x.
They can't ignore sheer numbers, can they?? Oh wait - yes they can, and have been for awhile now. Still, the march is the best idea. Single-payer NOW!
Do you think he will "change" his M.O. for this issue?
I wish he would, but you can shit in one hand and wish in the other...
If he stands up and says second term be damned, I am going to do the right thing and actually does the right thing (single payer), he would get that second term. Not that I would vote for him. I don't vote for war criminals that escalate the killing. Even if they do reform healthcare.