Translation: Max Baucus would rather listen to the health-industry flacks who pay his campaign bills than listen to me or the 76% of Americans who want the public option, but I need to pass SOMETHING or my Administration is flushed down the tubes just like Clinton’s in 1994.

If you read the whole transcript, the media was pressing Gibbs to answer the question and he was trying to put it off, saying that he would talk to the health care team and get an answer. But as the question kept coming up again and again, Gibbs finally gave up the goods. Obama is impartial and would satisfied with either the public plan or the co-ops.

What makes this so outrageous is that (1)anyone could see any equivalence between them and (2)that President Obama was out there in town halls and in numerous speeches telling people that if they liked their insurance, they could keep it but if they didn’t, there would be other choices including a public option.

What exactly was our president doing out there? Was he lying or was he not? Was he spinning on the definition of “public option”? Or was he being truthful at the time and has now been convinced that the public option is the reason his poll numbers have gone down?

I lost sleep over this last night (and many other nights but particularly last night) and then I went to the White House web site “Contact Us” page and told him what I thought.

I suggest that you do the same.

The progressives are our last hope, but there is one person in this country who can make things right, if he chooses to exercise his power and some political courage, and that is Pres. Obama.

This is what he has told the American people for months now:

If you like the insurance you have today, you can keep it. If you don’t like what you have today, we’ll give you better choices, including a public option for health care.

I started sensing the bad momentum last week. And I think this confirms what I was sensing.

My whole life, I thought finally, a real shot at real reform. At least, IMO, a public option would’ve given hope for moving toward single payer (the only real solution, IMO), but this type of cop out (co-op) is exactly what is going to put it off for another generation (or two).

This is why they fought the public option so hard. They also knew it would be a likely stepping stone, and once again, I couldn’t wait to vote for a Democrat running for President who was running on health care, and once again I’m let down.

The Republicans are worse, but at this point it looks more and more like the Democrats aren’t the answer either. The most depressed I ever felt over politics in my life was in November 2004 (I still can’t believe this country re-elected Bush/Cheney, still can’t believe it), until now.

I see the writing on the wall. My grandchildren won’t live to see real health care for Americans. :(

okay, NOW my hair is on fire. i feel this public option so desperately needed by so many children, men and women in our country is slipping away and there’s nothing i can do.

i’ve already emailed my congress critters, and living in texas and working can’t make it to a d.c. demonstration.

joanneleon – thank you for the suggestion about the white house site.

If you like the insurance you have today, you can keep it. If you don’t like what you have today, we’ll give you better choices, including a public option for health care.

Obama has accumulated quite a track record by now of haven stated something that unequivocally means one thing, and then dumping it and then going on to treat those of us who call him on it like so much riff raff. Gibbs’ jaw-dropping, emotionless statement that Obama couldn’t give a fig one way or the other is a window of evidence of more of the same to come.

that is TRULY interesting, and begs a questions: if obama has no preference one way or the other, why has he been yappity-yapping about it for the past fucking year?

I strongly believe that Americans should have the choice of a public health insurance option operating alongside private plans. This will give them a better range of choices, make the health care market more competitive, and keep insurance companies honest.

If you don’t like your health coverage or don’t have any insurance, you will have a chance to take part in what we’re calling a Health Insurance Exchange. … And one of these options needs to be a public option that will give people a broader range of choices and inject competition into the health care market so that force waste out of the system and keep the insurance companies honest.

Obama told the physicians, “The public option is not your enemy, it is your friend, I believe.”

and another question: if the president is going to undermine his agenda, and agenda that’s got so many people working and volunteering their asses off to achieve, what the fuck is the point?

seriously: what is the fucking point of this entire exercise if the president himself, the guy who told everyone “yes we can” and who has been shooting off his fucking mouth about public options and single-payer health care, doesn’t really care one way or the other?

way to not lead, douchebag.

Having observed Obama over the past several months, it looks like he has an Achilles heel which impels him to seek consensus over all. Unfortunately, in this battle over health care reform, consensus or bipatisanship will lead to failure. Leadership with strong advocacy for his stated objective is what is required and we’re not seeing that. Otherwise, we’d see Rahm with his foot on the necks of the bluedogs. Sad to say, Obama is Hoover, not FDR.

The most depressed I ever felt over politics in my life was in November 2004 (I still can’t believe this country re-elected Bush/Cheney, still can’t believe it)

Same here.

But I don’t think you’ll have to feel that all over again this time; don’t throw in the towel just yet.

And, why didn’t I think of your handle first?

Brilliant in its simplicity!

What a terrible waste of money and support for the Dems. Should have spent the money on dubious health insurance.

Agree that money and support for Democrats is now officially absolutely ludicrous. On the other hand, I’m in awe of the energy and and dedication of the people who run sites like this. Now then: when are you folks going to support and organize SOMETHING NEW & DIFFERENT?

Yeah, I know. This visionary stuff is hard work — NOT! Scratch any sane, caring person and he/she will likely agree with the most radical progressive ideas if worded right. 70+% of the public supports a public health plan that we’re never going to see. Democrats control the executive and legislative branches but are still afraid to confront corporate power. Anyone who does confront it would rule the (new) world. Obama hinted that he would. He never will. Fine, I’ll never vote for another Democrat.

So where are my candidates, hmmmm?

My anger now far surpasses anything I felt for Bush and Cheney. After all, we knew they were bastards. These guys are supposed to be on our side.

This is fucking insane. Who would want to be a member of a “health care co-op“. That actually sounds like socialism without the virtue of being socialism. Why don’t they just advocate kolkhozes?

The fact that they never “branded” this effort in the obvious way a real partisan Democrat would — that they never made this about how much you hate your insurance company and how much you or your parents like Medicare — shows that the game was rigged from the start.

I came to the same conclusion yesterday. Obama is going to be to the Democratic party what Hoover was to the Republican party. And I was hoping Obama was going to be another FDR. Boy was I wrong. The question is whether the GOP will pull what FDR pulled off and eventually become what the Dems of the 60s became or another party come into existence. And just in case anybody doesn’t realize FDR kept the Repubs out of power for almost 25 yrs and if you look at Eisenhower as 1950s Democratic Lite he kept them out of power almost 40 yrs. The really old farts like in the Senate like Byrd and Kennedy may know this but idjits like Max Bupkis don’t know this. BTW is intrade taking bets on Max Bupkis becoming a healthcare related lobbyist next year? I would sure like to bet on that.

Perhaps Gibbs should have calibrated his words differently.

I asked Bupkis’ office phone answerer if Bupkis was gong to join this wonderful “coop”. She said she did not know “what the senators future plans were.”
Kent Conrad’s office anwerer lied and said that there was a public option. After i disabused her of the notion I told her I hope Conrad enjoyed being in the minority because that’s what he was going to be in the future. OH, and I forgot to ask him whether he was going to join the wonderful coop which is his idea or did he think he should get special treatment like he got with his home mortgage with Countrywide.
Harry Reid’s office answerer told me that there was not going to be a final deal till after the recess. I asked him why it was given to the Finance Committee. He said well they have to work out the finance details. Stupid me didn’t but should have told me that virtually everything has to be financed so why are there other committees at all? I also told him he could kiss my vote, time and money away if there wasn’t a real public option in the final bill.

baucus $2.8 Mil, demint $1.3 Mil, reid $1.5 Mil, conrad $2.1 Mil fr MEDICAL INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX

Follow the Money: Link

Call Congress and demand, Single-Payer Health Care for All Now!

Sign the Single-Payer Petition: Link

“Veni Vidi Vici”

Two models of Federal healthcare access/administrative/delivery/funding already fully exist.

Veterans Administration

Medicare

A third decades old Federal administrative/taxing/disbursement model exists in/with Social Security

What was so hard for Democratic Party in taking these models and putting in place Single Payer Plan for Americans to have equal access to?

What?

This co-op idea seems strange in conception and if not set up as a single national entity with adequate,independent funding and administrative capacity will surely not succeed or thrive. This co-op “idea” seems intended to provide a pathway for abject failure with which to demonize and derail any evolution to a American Single Payer Healthcare Plan.

Can we take current healthcare plan away from Congress and put them on this co-op scheme since they have worked so hard for it?

Today in front of the AARP, Obama — not once but twice — said there WOULD be a ‘public option,’ and there was not one peep about a co-op. Which as everyone knows is no public option.

Now, for me that’s not enough. I want Obama to us the V word — as in, “A bill without a public option is a bill I wil VETO.” But Obama didn’t seem to back down from a fairly powerful constituency today, so to me that means there’s still room to put pressure on to make sure a public option is in the final bill.

Obama is worthless.

Get rid of fat talking turdbreath and get either a machine that spits out text that the reporters can drool over, or get a press secretary that isn’t an idiot. We know we have never had a good press secretary, their job is to lie and implicate and confuse. This one needs to resign now and go discover his inner conscience. Do what they do in China and other countries Mr. Secretary, end the indecent ignorance that is your life.

Evidently he is not saying it loudly enough….

If he were, there would be no question…but there is. Even in Gibbs mind…

Thanks for the re-post on this Jane. It needed done…

You are doing a great job…

this was the case all along.

This MAY have something to do with the whole thing:
U.S. Budget Is Scrutinized by a Big Creditor
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07…..er.html?hp

Are we really a free nation after all? I know that’s a naive question, esp regarding the state of our government these past several decades. But when Bush sold US to China, how in the world did we not think that they just might wanna dictate our policies also?

Before anybody decides to make a run to the store for straight edge razor blades, we need to clarify the conflict between these two statements:

Gibbs at yesterday’s presser: “I don’t believe that the President has come down one versus the other in terms of denoting co-ops equal to or above public option.”

&

Obama in a speech today before the AARP, according to Edgewater @17: Today in front of the AARP, Obama — not once but twice — said there WOULD be a ‘public option,’ and there was not one peep about a co-op. Which as everyone knows is no public option.

* * *

I decided awhile ago that Obama is as useless as teats on a bull. He’s smart, handsome, and a great public speaker, but he’s as shallow as shallow gets. Principles mean nothing to him. He worships power, status, and wealth. He feeds off attention, and will go along to get along to avoid conflict, which makes him uncomfortable. He is a wizard of self deception who parses his words in extremely subtle ways to deliberately appear to be saying one thing that his audience wants to hear when his actual belief is something different. That’s how he can keep a straight face and believe he isn’t lying when he tells his AARP audience there will be “a public option” when he knows that option will be a co-op. I doubt he even realizes that all he’s doing is lying in a more sophisticated way. So, he’s okay with lying because the word has many gradations of meaning, blah, blah, blah. He has tragically devoted far too much brain power coming up with justifications to use deception to get what he wants. I’ve spent a lot of time researching what candidate Obama said and comparing it to what President Obama said or did. He’s a serial liar bought and paid for by corporate America and we’re fortunate to have discovered the real Obama at the midpoint of his first year in office.

We have to find a way to derail his efforts to: (1) institutionalize the changes wrought by the Bush-Cheney rape of our Constitution, (2) block all efforts to investigate and hold them accountable, (3) commit us to war without end in Afghanistan without ever really withdrawing from Iraq, and (4) invading Iran under false pretexts when she is encircled by U.S. troops massing along her borders.

Yes indeed, the Project for the New American Century is alive and well and we’re better off knowing it now, even though the impending defeat of meaningful health care reform is a very bitter pill to swallow.

Unemployment is next up because I assure you Obama has done all he intends to do to solve that problem.

Atrios is reporting that today the Treasury Department sat down with the mortgage lenders and asked them to refinance loans before the next big wave of reset foreclosures. There was no demanding, no arm-twisting, no threats, just a “pretty please?”

At this point I have to painfully conclude that this administration is floundering around without a rudder, unable to take control of any situation or legislation, captive to corporate interests and a hand full of republican “moderates” and Blue Dog traitors, and totally without leadership ability.

Sucks bad. 35 years of supporting the democratic party and believing that eventually we would regain control of Congress and the White House and begin to undo the evils of Nixon, Reagan, the Bushes, Gingrinch and Lott (and all the other Sith Lords of the Republican leadership). I worked my butt off, raising money, manning phones, walking door to door to GOTV, donated money I could ill afford, all to nothing.

Obama is clearly more than willing to continue the worst of the Bush presidency, continue the business lobby/Republican destruction of public education, sell-out real health care reform to avoid being compared to Clinton, prop up Wall Street and his corporate masters while letting average Americans drown in debt, and let the wars go on ad infinitum.

When he said on the campaign trail and in the debates that he didn’t care if he was a one-term president as long as he did the right thing I foolishly believed him. I was troubled by his FISA sell-out but overlooked it much to my own detriment.

I’m 50 years old and am too tired to play this losing game anymore. I put off much-needed health care because I can’t afford it, even with my employer provided insurance. I will never own a home as a single school teacher — my salary won’t ever support it.

At this point I don’t even know if I have enough heart left to support some kind of alternative to the democratic party. After 35 years of being lied to and abused I’m reaching the point of no return when it comes to politics. No one gives a damn about me and my friends so why should I work for them to get elected?

Obama’s inability or unwillingness to engage in the political process in congress and to lead will be the end of all hope — Republicans will rise again on a tide of disappointment and they will finish their mission of destroying America for any but the wealthiest. It’s already happened in California….

What’s depressing is the slew of new names around here who have nothing good to say about anything and they don’t seem to be interested in Jane’s efforts to continue pushing hard to get the reform.

We need a bit more unity of purpose and energy to lobby Congress instead of just kvetching.

MarkH I have been a member of the Lake for a long, long time. I don’t comment very frequently due to a very busy work schedule but I resent your negative comment about me.

You don’t know what I do to support Jane and her efforts. As a matter of fact, I was on the phone today on my own dime calling my senators and representatives to urge them to support real reform. Not much good it did here in conservative FL but I did it anyway.

I’ll kvetch whenever I want to, especially since there is no one to kvetch to here where I live in an 80+% republican district. And if we don’t don’t kvetch here then how exactly is the democratic party supposed to find out that we’re not happy with them right now and which direction we need to go next?

I am an old political worker bee and I don’t need to be told to shut up and work harder, thank you. Those who abhor criticism of the party and the president are a stumbling block because of the go along to get along attitude (that Obama has also embraced) that does little more than maintain an unacceptable status quo.

We need a bit more unity of purpose and energy to lobby Congress instead of just kvetching.

Yeah, Priscilla makes a good point. The “just kvetching” is an assumption based on nothing/lack of knowledge speeding to a conclusion.

I am in a similar situation to Priscilla. I have 2 Repub senators. I call Reid. I’ve called Baucus, Conrad and Bingaman on my own dime. I’ve emailed the WH. I’ve done all of this several times. I’ve given money to the Dems. I’ve given time. They have their 60 votes. They have a Dem. president and yet they can’t pass a public option. What else would you suggest that I do?
I hate to say this but I see no other option except to go after Medicare and Medicaid and most importantly go after the benefits of elected officials and government employee healthcare. You have to trash the whole system to get everybody covered.
And oh yeah, there is another option that I am considering. Emigrating to another country. Right now, I feel like all I have to do is slip on some ice and break my leg and I would be broke because I would lose my job, not be able to afford my insurance and on top of that I would never be able to be insured again.