The White House is desperate to get someone to jettison the public option, but nobody wants the job.
Obama is personally calling Jay Rockefeller and twisting his arm to vote for the Baucus bill that doesn’t have a public option, even though NPR is reporting that he didn’t call a single ConservaDem and ask them to vote for one. Gregg Sargent reports that OFA materials say that the President still supports a public option, but it’s only a "small part" of a health care reform bill.
Obama doesn’t want the 10 point hit his poll numbers took when Kathleen Sebelius told the truth and said the public option might go bye-bye. He wants it gone, but doesn’t want to be the one to do it. Hence all the talk about the importance of Republican votes that aren’t needed.
Harry Reid looked like the man for the job — he was talking about co-ops and triggers like a good soldier, and it is his job to combine the Senate Finance Committee bill (which won’t have a public option) with the Senate HELP Committee bill (which does have a public option). But he’s got an election coming up in 2010, he’s losing badly to "generic GOP candidate," and he apparently doesn’t want the responsibility of pissing off 80% of the Democrats in the country by unilaterally deciding to scrap it from a Senate bill:
As the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, takes on the delicate task of melding two competing versions of major health care legislation, aides say he will lean heavily on President Obama to arbitrate a number of contentious issues that still threaten to divide liberal and centrist Democrats and derail a final bill.
You want it out of there, you’re going to have to do it yourself, Mr. President. And if that wasn’t clear enough, yesterday Reid changed his tune about the inclusion of the public option in a final Senate bill:
"We are going to have a public option before this bill goes to the president’s desk," Reid said in a conference call with constituents, referring to some kind of government plan.
I guess he remembers what the White House did to Chris Dodd when they didn’t want to own the backlash over the AIG bonuses. Dodd’s poll numbers still haven’t recovered.
Being Majority Leader is great, but you’ve got to be in the Senate to get the job.
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Sounds like Harry’s getting a little nervous. Losing to a generic R should be causing five alarm bells to be ringing in his (and Obama’s and Rahm’s) ears.
Again…
“Though I believe that this may be an unpopular view, I view Dr’s the same way that I view govt. employees, and teachers: they are to serve the public good. They went to college, studied hard, got their degrees, found jobs, and made money. If I am understanding what you wrote, these individuals are just working at their jobs, or they are small business owners. They are not serving the public good, they are just in it to make a buck. I just cannot have empathy for those whose only real complaint appears to be that they need to make more money.
What would the Dr’s have to complain about if the Health Care reform bill was to include the option for new Dr’s to have all of their College loans forgiven + malpractice insurance paid for by our Government if they agree to accept Medicare & Medicaid as payment in full for services rendered for the first 10 years after they graduate? The graduates could choose to be involved with this program or not. I believe that an approach such as this would work…2 birds – 1 stone.”
The time is now, and the dream shall never die. Medicare for all.
Jane, I thank you for your work and your leadership, again.
Morning, dakine01.
Slightly OT – I was the first caller on the Diane Rehm show a little while ago; guess what my call was about? It’s the end of week news roundup, the Senate Finance Committee bill was the subject. I give Susan Page and Karen Tumulty credit – among other things, they gave me more time than I expected.
So far, every other caller has said something like “I agree with[tejanarusa].”
I was a little emotional – I’ve been horribly sick all week – have I been to the doctor? Nope – no insurance, can’t affford to.
I complained about the horse race commentary, and said I feared this horrible bill will end up like COBRA – looked good on paper, but I still can’t afford it.
Also got in a comment about the money the committee members have taken from the insurance, pharma, etc. industries.
Just sent this to Mr. Obama.
“I would like to know who’s side Mr. Obama is on. It is clear he is not interested in either the public option or the public. Mr. Obama is supporting the health “care” industry and not sick people. I voted for Mr. Obama and if things don’t shift to a citizen based health care policy I will work to elect someone who stands up for what is right and just. I am sorely disappointed by Mr. Obama’s actions.”
Do you think that will change his mind?
Oh, yeah, I also said I didn’t want anything Olympia Snowe would agree to. They defended Snowe – and said it was wonderful that Medicaid will be extended to all. I didn’t get to respond to their responses to me. Which would’ve been – Medicare, not Medicaid! for all!
Oh, hallelujah – Naftali benDavid is finally discussing the money given to the politicians – concluding, tho’ – that’s just the way the system works.
DING!
Wow! Harry’s losing to himself?
LOL, Mary.
Only one teeny criticism – I would use his title – Mr. President.
People with titles tend not to hear anything you say if you insult them right away by not using their titles. I do not say this snarkily; of course, I don’t think it will change his mind, but I wouldn’t be gratuitously insulting, either, however much you feel like it.
Of course, I couldn’t hear myself this morning on the radio – I may have come off like a WATB, dunno. I still feel lousy, and my self-control was shaky. so, I understand (and I’ve read your story, Mary, and you have my sympathy). I wanted to mention my disappointment with the President, but didn’t get that in.
I’m only 2 days away from having to MC our county Jefferson Jackson dinner and I’m still struggling how I’m going handle our Blue Dog Rep who will be the keynote speaker. He’s a nice guy, but I’m really disappointed with just about everything he’s doing in congress right now as a Blue Dog pseudo-dem.
I know it would be inappropriate for me to just tear into him in that venue, but it’s going to be difficult to show restraint.
Very subtle left handed complements?
What is the usual tone of a J_J Dinner? Totally self-congratulatory? Mildly teasing? Review our (Dem) successes and failures?
My temptation would be to use figures of support for public option in your Rep’s district – maybe just mention them, without pointing out his lack of support. But then, I’ve never done such a speech, so I’m probably way out of line.
sounds good to me…
You could mention health care as a civil rights issue. Wiki said that JJ dinners are often about celebrating civil rights. or not. It must be tempting and frustrating to think about standing at a podium with so much on your mind and introducing the dude. Perhaps you could decline the job, state why, and let someone else intro him. Word would get out. It is a little thing but a way to push back.
Mary I’ve considered going the Colbert route… we shall see.
Tejanarusa, we’re a small rural, very RED county. I think I’ll definitely mention public support for the Public Option and I’ll try very hard not to personally mention our Rep, or the Blue Dogs by name since he is a member for their opposition. I would really like to find a way to point out that “certain Democrats” will hurt the party as a whole if they continue to obstruct progress on a meaningful solution to our health care crisis.
I thought I’d open the evening with some joke about changing the name from Jefferson Jackson to Lincoln Day in hopes to get more Republican participation. I have a feeling I’m going to be REAL passive-aggressive.
Mary, I like your suggestion in letting someone else introduce him. I’ll have to think about that.
Last time I did it, I wasn’t nearly as mad at our Rep, but I mixed in a lot of quotes from people like Jefferson, Jackson, FDR, Truman, etc. that reinforced my much more liberal views. I’m sure at the very least, I can do that again, specifically focusing on health care.
I may ask what ever happened to card check too? I know there will be some strong union folks there.
If the public option is just such a small, insignificant part of Mr. President’s overall “health insurance” reform, why is he working so hard to kill it?
I’d prefer Reid out of the Senate.
Whatever you decide to do I know it will be effective. Good luck!
You might want to mention that old “do unto other” thing. There’s nothing like shaming someone for being uncaring.
Just have him take large doses of irony, tid.
“I thought I’d open the evening with some joke about changing the name from Jefferson Jackson to Lincoln Day in hopes to get more Republican participation. I have a feeling I’m going to be REAL passive-aggressive.”
Oooooh – I like it. But, then, I’m not your audience.
Did Rahm and Obama promise PhRMA no public option as part of their deal?
I agree, it appears that for months they have been trying to kill it, but the pushback makes it impossible. So let’s push back more!
AND THE KILLIN’ GOEZ ON AND ON AND…
Citizen Hamsher and the Firepup Freedom Fighters:
Is there an echo in here??!!! This old, broken down Scandanavian-American has been sayin for weeks now that the key to real healthcare reform is NOT in the White House or with the Blue Dogs but in the progressive caucus of both houses of congress. If the progressives hold together (see the CPC whip count reported on Kos) in the House and Harkin and Rockefeller hold their majority together in the Senate and get a bill on the floor that has a public option (or Cantwell’s co-ops available to everyone) then Obama-Rahm will own the final product and Obama will be forced to use Rahm to whip a few Blue Dog Senators to vote cloture…don’tcha jest LOVE it, Sister Jane??!! Let’s remember that Obama loses if there is no bill and he loses if the bill doesn’t work…Obama owns anything that gets to a vote either through reconcilliation or cloture.
Your work is payin off, just remember to use the meager resourses we give you on supporting the progressives in their fight against the leadership.
KEEP THE FAITH AND PASS THE FUCKIN’ AMMUNITION, THIS COULD GET REAL INTERESTING!!!
Thanks. I just got advice from a Facebook friend to go the Colbert route. I probably won’t decide until I’m actually up there.
Not even Rahm? thats…interesting
Obama wants a public option but it can be a weak public option and he will accept a bill without any public option and he will twist Democratic arms to make sure a public-option-free bill passes.
Now that’s leadership.
Would like to chime in really quick. “Mr. Obama” is as technically correct an address for the President as “Mr. President” or “President Obama.” This isn’t a partisan thing (”Mr. Bush” was a correct address, too). Instead, it’s a direct result of our country not having kings or aristocracy. It’s a point that Glenn Greenwald makes all the time; the President is, technically, another citizen like you or I, just one who happens to have an important job. As the news media typically will alternate between “President Obama” and “Mr. Obama” in their newscasts, you shouldn’t feel bad about calling him “Mr. Obama” yourself. Just remember, he is not king.
That being said, there may be some merit in the tactical “flattery will get you everywhere” approach. I just wanted to quibble about titles.
Harry may be starting to get it. maybe not. But he sure has a choice doesn’t he? Lose the election with no doubt by doing nothing, or giving us a public health care plan and being reelected with a nice fat majority. I guess it’s time to see where the mugwump is sitting. On one side of the fence there is a fire that is licking his backside, on the other he gets 6 more years. He must be crapping molasses realizing he has to tell all his owners to fuck off or he can’t help them by taking bribes any longer.
I really do not understand one thing. I’m not trying to be obtuse so please answer respectfully. The HELP bill appears to offer something they call “gateways”–insurance exchanges that will include a public insurance (no details on the public insurance)to folks who are not covered by other insurance. So I would not be eligible, for instance, because I have employer based insurance. So that’s about 47 million people, some smaller number of which, might opt in to a public plan if they are in a state that has such a provision. Wouldn’t whatever number that comes out to be, be much too small to contain costs and make the public plan worth it? Also, wouldn’t those folks tend to be in worse health. And the HR bill is pretty much the same on these points as I understand it. I can’t see arguing for a public plan that would prove the Rethugs point that government is inept or costly or just plain bad.
So I truly don’t understand why we are arguing for “a public option” when what we really want is a particular public option–one that would cover enough people to bring down costs, reduce administrative costs by a gargantuan amount, provide the public with bargaining power against the AHA and PHaRMA, be available to everyone, and pay doctors a decent amount but not obscene. Shouldn’t we be making that part clear?
Honest question.
Norske you state very well our hopes
Thanks to the efforts of people like Jane, I think the political ramifications are becoming more clear to Obama. It’s still an uphill battle, but we’re further up that hill right now, than anyone dreamed we would be. Let’s keep pushing!
Good Morning Jane and Firedogs,
Sufi,
how ’bout some humor about working hard to protect the poor Insurance Co’s a la Will Farrell et al
- in general painting a picture of what’s really going on in Congress without tying it to any one representative- just leaving a snarky picture out there.
eg
PO on flood insurance but not healthcare
they’re regulated enough – oh wait !
stuff like that,
So Americans are expected to revel in the fact that we’re taking personal responsibility under an individual mandate, however Harry Reid is only out for number one when it comes to his own reelection. He would ensure that we have a bland, ineffective, cowering Democrat Senate Majority leader for years to come by giving the insurers the keys to the house.
Obama promised a new era of American cooperation and collaboration worldwide to replace the lone ranger policies of his predecessor. Apparently, that approach is not good enough for the domestic seat warmers from sector 7-G, who are slapped around and abused.
I think Rahm and Obama made a serious tactical blunder when they underestimated the level of support for the public option, and the willingness of progressives and liberals to buck their own DLC marching orders to make real reform happen.
I think that’s what we’re seeing here; Obama and Rahm cut a deal that they never should have cut. Rahm got greedy; he wanted all those juicy lobbying dollars. And now that the deal is cut and they can’t really renege on it (so they believe), they’re stuck trying to sell the country — some segments of which are, for once, wide awake and watching closely — a turd sandwich dressed up as “reform.”
Isn’t it fun watching the powers-that-be have to dance? Isn’t it fun watching them realize who’s REALLY in charge (us) and yet still trying to appease who they WANT to be in charge (the lobbies)?
I’ll address some of your question. I don’t think that 47 million is necessarily in worse health – many of them are young and healthy and don’t have insurance currently because they don’t think they need it. That’s a big part of the reason, why private insurance DOESN’T want these people to go on a public option.
Medicare, on the other hand, covers people who demographically are much more likely to use medical services. So the government already picks up the tab for the most expensive patients.
Don’t remember where I saw this but it’s perfect – Obama is not a leader, he’s a manager.
Regarding the blog, the president clearly trivialized and marginalized the public insurance “plan” in his state of the union speech thingy.
I’ve always viewed the robust public option as the lynch-pin of health insurance reform. It’s the single most important part of genuine reform. He pitched it at every town hall meeting I saw on CSPAN. If he’s trying to keep it out, he’s a lying SOB. If he wants to make a significantly positive difference in the lives of the citizenry, he should be trying to keep it in.
Talks like FDR, Governs Like Hoover
Do you, really? There seems to be some evidence that people like Reid are starting to get it – at least, to get that they have to really pretend hard out loud to be for a public option – but I don’t see the president getting it any more than a month ago.
I’m so disappointed in him I could cry.
IIRC, if almost all of the uninsured were under one plan, that would still make that plan be one of the largest ones in the nation. That, coupled with Medicare/Medicaid/etc., would make government-run, not-for-profit health plans some of the biggest players at the bargaining table in order to force down health costs. It’s not perfect — it would still leave a big chunk of us at the mercy of insurers — but it WOULD help to contain costs to some degree.
I may be mistaken on how that would play out. If so, someone please feel free to correct me.
Its worse than that Jane fivethirtyeight gots Senate Leader Reid as the GOP’s number one chance to pick up a Senate seat Healthcare is killing Harry.
Sen Roland Burris appointed by Gov Blagojevich is scoring better than Harry Reid is.
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/
That’s gotta hurt.
He doesn’t want it. He doesn’t even say he wants it.
He says he “believes” in it. Go look for his quotes or his spokesbots. That is the word they use.
WTF does that mean?
Sufilizard 2 at 31 I agree with you both but I am still stunned that even Rahm won’t or can’t flat out kill the public option our side is now more powerful than we have ever been in my lifetime.
Talks like FDR, Governs Like Hoover
Oh,cbl2, this is perfect! I love it!
Each time Obama comes out and talks about health care reform and chooses to say that a [strong] public option is only part of a whole package he strengthens the opposition.
As for the politics becoming apparent, I just can’t believe that he is stupid. He has to know exactly how popular health care reform and, specifically, public option is (both in general and in the core democratic base). And exactly how badly people are going to piss on him if we end up with little reform and large increases in insurance costs and insurance company profits.
I think a big chunk of the people without health insurance are between 50 and 60. They have either lost insurance, jobs, etc. and/or have gotten sick and cannot find coverage.
OT – Chicago dumped from Olympic bid in first round
Harry Reid’s problem isn’t Healthcare. It’s his history as majority Leader. As leader of the Democrats in the Senate he has accomplished nothing in the last year. Before that, he was a useless as a leader for the opposition during the odious Bush years.
The chickens are headed back to the coop for a some roosting.
ooooops. Another political miscalculation.
Reid is gunning for a cushy contract with the insurers he’s enriching once he falls on his Senate sword for them.
For months now multimillionaire healthcare entrepreneur Rick Scott has been at the center of the aggressive campaign to derail healthcare reform in Washington, D.C. Reprising the role he played nearly 20 years ago, when as the head of a national hospital chain he helped kill Clintoncare, the former hospital-chain executive founded the group Conservatives for Patients’ Rights, raising $20 million to fight Obamacare, including $5 million of his own money. The tall, lean Scott, whose shiny bald head swivels in exasperation at the idea of government involvement in healthcare, even stars in its nationwide ad campaign comparing Democratic proposals to socialized medicine. Through this group, he has fomented the conservative strategy to disrupt town hall-style healthcare meetings around the country by shouting down elected officials. (CPR sent schedules of the meetings to so-called Tea Party activists.) He can justifiably claim some of the credit for the Senate Finance Committee’s two votes Tuesday against a public option. But in Rick Scott the right has found a frontman whose baggage threatens to overwhelm his message.
A linchpin of Scott’s 2009 campaign has been the use of anecdotes from abroad — horror stories from Britain and Canada meant to illustrate how government-controlled healthcare systems “clearly kill people” by controlling their access to care, as he told Fox’s Sean Hannity in June. He even funded a documentary titled “Faces of Government Healthcare” cataloging the horror stories of British and Canadian patients who were purportedly denied medical attention for life-threatening illnesses until it was too late.
Yet even as Scott makes the rounds of Congress and talk-show green rooms, a wrongful death lawsuit has been working its way through the Florida courts against a doctor employed by the chain of walk-in clinics Scott founded. Scott has repeatedly bragged that the 27-clinic, Florida-based company, Solantic, is an example of the free-market ingenuity needed to fix our ailing medical infrastructure. The lawsuit, however, alleges a Solantic doctor misdiagnosed a patient’s deep-vein thrombosis as a sprained ankle, leading to a pulmonary embolism and death. That same doctor was reprimanded by the state for misdiagnosing deep-vein thrombosis in a patient who died two years earlier. It’s the kind of anecdote you’d expect to hear in Scott’s documentary — except that it condemns a free-market system where profit and patient volume may take precedence over care.
And this isn’t the first time that Scott’s warnings about the ills of socialist medicine have found an ironic echo in his own healthcare business. Scott argues that socialized medicine rations care and strangles competition, yet just after his first stint as anti-reform spokesman in the 1990s, while he was running the world’s largest healthcare company, he was accused of monopolizing markets and choking out the competition while slashing the chain’s costs to the point that it affected patient care. And while he asserts that two of the core principles of healthcare reform are “accountability” and “personal responsibility,” Scott ran a company that ultimately pleaded guilty to defrauding the government in one of the nation’s largest Medicare frauds ever. Two executives went to prison, the company paid almost $2 billion in fines, and Scott was pushed out of the company. Before he could retake the political stage, he had to build his healthcare business all over again.
In the end, Scott’s virulent opposition to Democratic healthcare proposals may simply be a business decision. The post-millennial incarnation of Rick Scott has plunged into several new healthcare businesses that could be adversely affected by reform. Among other healthcare businesses, Richard L. Scott Investments has invested in a pharmacy company, Pharmaca, where one of his employees sits on the board of directors. Drug manufacturers are opposed to a Medicare-type entity that could negotiate bulk purchases of drugs and drive down the cost of their products. More important, Scott’s Solantic bills itself as a low-cost alternative to people who would otherwise go to emergency rooms for their immediate care needs — i.e., the uninsured and people paying out-of-pocket expenses as a result of diminished insurance plans — the very people reforms are intended to cover.
Did anyone hear NPR this morning just eviscerating Conrad’s “co-ops” scam? They talked to someone who’s in a co-op, and he stated that while overall care MIGHT have improved slightly, it did nothing, NOTHING, to lower costs — and the whole “co-ops are cheaper” line is what Conrad’s been using to sell this turkey.
It ain’t over til it’s over.
I’m not counting on anything.
But there’s this—when the WH first started talking about health care reform we were all pissed off that they were sending a muddled message that just wouldn’t grab the public. We wanted to help them frame it better. What we didn’t know at the time that the muddled message was a feature not a bug.
Then came the thugs who were determined to kill it and they managed to get a stay through the august recess. Perhaps the WH figured that the message would just get more muddled and then the teabaggers, birthers, deathers et al did their best. Meanwhile we’ve been pushing the PO which as a term has no appeal at all and was never designed as a term that people could rally around. Rahmbo thought that by letting the message be so nothing that they could get what they wanted.
They didn’t count on Howard Dean, Jane, Krugman, Scarecrow, Trumka, et al actually getting people pumped up on that nothing term—the Public option. Rahm continues to play the game he’s always played the game. Trouble is, the game has changed.
Still not saying we will prevail, but the process sure has changed!
Oh, yea, and then there was the Progressive Caucus—who? they said—
Gotta give Grijalva and Woolsey and that group a HUGE dose of credit. IF they stick to it. If they do, they are now a force. If not, they never will be.
Bahma & Rahma are two tough, street smart politicians from Chi Town. They made their beds with insuresters and big pharma before anyone was alive to what they were doing. They went ahead and did it. They thought it was smart, the “pragmatic” and, well, lucrative thing to do. Beforehand, however, they’d made promises to the electorate.
Now they have two sets of promises opposing each other. They can’t meet both, no matter how much lipstick Rahm wears or who he kicks down the stairs claiming it was an accident.
Bahma & Rahma have another problem. The electorate has cottoned on to the fact that Obama is a right-center politician, not the center, liberal or progressive man he claimed to be in order to win election. He believes in continuity he can bank on, not change we can believe in. He has to try to put clothes back on the emperor without anyone else noticing the first set isn’t there anymore.
If he has to break commitments, the electorate knows he should break the ones he made to the insuresters and big pharma. They are more comfortable with Goopers anyway and are more than likely to return to them as soon as the band stops playing the Bahma Bump.
I suggest to Mr. Obama that he keep his commitments to the person that brung him to the party, not the ones he’s been dancing with ever since. He can do the right thing, stay politically monogamous. Or he can continue to hike the Appalachian Trail with the sexier insuresters and boys in big pharma who give him those political blue pills. The choice is his and the world is watching. It will take note of what he does.
Not off topic the GOP will now attack Obama for loosing the olympics with his polls likely to go down a bit Obama can’t afford bad news on healthcare. He needs this to go away or pass if he wants his poll numbers not to get linked to Harry’s.
Obama can’t afford a GOP/insurance company friendly bill not with unemployment going up.
I think we need to do some more scandal-mongering about the disconnect between what the Congress entitles itself to with respect to health care (on site health clinic, choice of 10 insurance plans, no pre-existing conditions…http://articles.latimes.com/2009/aug/02/nation/na-congress-benefits2) and what they are putting in their respective bills.
The California Nurses Association pointed out the 20% average claim rejection rate for major insurers in CA. Just as another potential scandal, I wonder what the claim rejection rate is for congress members? Anyone want to take the over on 0%? I just can’t see one of these companies lobbying members like mad and then declining any claims.
There is much wisdom there the game has changed.
Jane has a new cross-post up on the front page: “Progressive Block Loses 14 Members: Join DFA and FDL And Tell Them We Stand United”
Yet another episode of “Keeping Harry and Louise Muzzled”
I expect him to be twisting progressive arms right up until the final vote.
We are just going to have to twist harder. President Obama won’t veto a bill just to keep his word with Billy Tauzin.
Get ready to do the same fights on the Kerry-Boxer climate change bill, financial industry reform, and the Employee Free Choice Act.
Healthcare is just a skirmish compared to what’s coming.
The lobbyist strategy is to be relentless (on healthcare it’s $384 million relentless) and wear us down, make us discouraged, or divide us. We must be more relentless, more persistent, and not be seduced by the romanticism of quick victories. There will be no million-person marches for any of these issuees–only phone calling, vote whipping, network building, petitions, and contributions. We don’t stop building our infrastructure when the dust settles on healthcare reform.
We now know how the White House will go for these reforms. It will be between us and Congress. And we should be prepared for the GOP to surprise us by suddenly becoming agreeable and restoring the coalition with the Conservadems.
Exactly! That’s what I’m trying to say. We haven’t won anything yet, but we’re in a stronger position than I’ve seen in my adult life. It’s still going to take a tremendous effort to get anything worthwhile out of this fight, but at least we’re in the fight.
The other obvious issue is that once reliable tools like Harry Reidless and the Spectral Arlen have to worry about re-election, and worry they should. They can’t afford to take a nosedive in the poles for an ungrateful Rahm and his boss.
Bahma is taking a sledge hammer to his chances for a second term. Rahma’s only prospect to return to Congress is for an interim appointment, or to move south of the Mason-Dixon line.
My email the whitehouse.gov:
Mr. President:
It has been obvious for months you do not want real, honest, effective health care reform. I voted for you as a candidate of change. You now appear the President of the same. Heath care reform, through the public option has, personally , no effect on me. My daughter and her family, on the other hand will be adversely effected by your Machiavellian efforts. That and the fact that you effectively lied to those who supported you, not to mention the 10 millions of men women and children who are uninsured or under-insured is disgraceful.
I know, you’re just being pragmatic.
Before you decide what to do or not do, I recommend you read how Shakespeare dealt with the same issue in Julius Caesar. I read it many years ago, so please forgive me for any inaccuracies in my narrative.
Caesar was assassinated by a group of conspirators that included Brutus, his longtime friend. Marc Antony, who also was Caesar’s friend and loyal supporter and not a part of the conspiracy, found out about Brutus’s involvement soon after the murder. He was expected to speak at Caesar’s funeral and he knew he also would be murdered if he refused to speak, or if he spoke and did not support and endorse Brutus, who would be present with the rest of the conspirators.
Antony used a rhetorical device in which he repeatedly said things like, “Many of you here today have heard others say that Brutus is a traitor and Brutus murdered Caesar. But that cannot be true because we all know Brutus is an honorable man.”
Antony revealed the history of the conspiracy and Brutus’s major role in it step by step introducing each allegation with “People say Brutus did X,” and ending it with, “but that cannot be true because we all know Brutus is an honorable man.”
Brutus and his fellow conspirators could do nothing but stand there and take it with plastic smiles frozen on their faces as Antony gradually incited the crowd and turned it into an angry mob screaming for Brutus’s head.
Wash, rinse, and repeat.
I hope the Bard’s timeless story inspires you to find a solution. You have a wonderful opportunity to make a difference in the health care debate in your community and I do not doubt that you can pull it off while having lots of fun doing it.
Good luck.
A politician wants to get re-elected.
A statesmen/woman wants to do what benefits the people.
Which are you,Mr. President,Harry Reid,Nancy Pelosi,—-insert your choice here—?
Here’s my message to Obama, published as a letter to the editor in the New York Times on September 8. It sounds a lot like yours.
To the Editor:
Re “Obama to Speak Before Congress on Health Care” (front page, Sept. 3):
You quote an anonymous White House aide as saying that President Obama will do almost anything it takes to get a deal on health care. My response to Mr. Obama is this:
If you forgo meaningful health care reform by omitting a robust public option — which was, by the way, a compromise in the first place for a single-payer system — you will lose credibility with Democrats and Republicans alike.
No one will believe that you mean what you say as you will have flip-flopped egregiously on one of the most important issues facing us today. I am a Democrat who maxed out in financial support for you and who worked hard to get you elected. If you do this, if you protect the profits of private industry against the interests of the American people, I will not support you again.
I actually met you, spoke to you face to face and trusted you. I was filled with optimism at your election, as were millions of Americans who are now wondering how this could happen.
To quote an old REO Speedwagon song…
Keep pushin’, keep pushing, keep pushing on…
Nice article as usual, Jane.
It’s pretty well known that Obama and Rahm are going to have to be dragged kicking and screaming for the public option. Obama’s weak, waffling “support” of it has been pretty obvious, and Rahmbo obviously underestimated the fact that the public really wants a public option, and the DLC line of “what’s good for corporations is good for America, so STFU liberals” isn’t playing well in Peoria (as pundits like to say, even though most have never actually been to Peoria, but I have).
If they have to be dragged kicking and screaming, so be it. Health care is too important to be “polite” about.
The Dodd example is a good one. Nobody had his back when he had the WH’s. They let him hang. OTOH, nobody has been punished for not being a good soldier (like a certain “independent” we all know and love). Anyone in the congress who doesn’t get the message that there is more to risk by standing in the way than by helping the public get their preferred options no matter what the WH thinks is crazy. As for insurance and pharma, they’ll live. Even they are smart enough to see that this populist movement is out of control. There might be some risk to those who don’t fall in line, but they aren’t going to stop trying to make deals over this one falling apart on them. They aren’t emotional entities who have hissy fits over betrayal, they are financial entities just trying to buy whatever breaks they can.
Jane,
I wouldn’t jump for joy about Reid being on board with the public option just yet. After Reid was quoted yesterday, his office put out a statement to clarify his previous statement. They said something like he will make sure there is a “mechanism” to include the public option in the bill (forgive me, but I’m going from memory here so “mechanism” might not be the exact word used, but it was something with similar meaning). When I heard that word “mechanism,” an alarm sounded in my head. It sounded like political word-play to me–mechanism is probably code for “trigger.”
I found the quote put out by Reid’s office:
“Sen. Reid believes that health insurance reform must include a mechanism to keep insurers honest, create competition and keep costs down,” the statement reads. “He feels that the public option is the best way to do that. While we don’t know exactly what that option will look like, Sen. Reid, working with President Obama, will ensure that whatever is included in the final bill does just that.”
That sure sounds like wiggle room double talk for “trigger” to me.
That pretty much sums up the main points.
If Harry Reid caves to the WH, either by dumping PO — or by insisting on all those bipartisany GOP votes from the likes of Sen John (”I don’t need maternity benefits because I’m male”) Kyl — it would be political hari-kari.
As it is, this health care mess has exposed the craven, vapid lack of policy vision in the GOP. So as long as the Dems move forward and pass PO, they’ll win more than they actually expected, both legislatively and politically.
I heard you on Rehm show! You were great and I’m sorry you are ill and w/out healthcare. I thought the caller who followed you, from MA, was also interesting in the information she shared about not being able to afford her healthcare premium, which is 25 percent of her pay. She said the premium amount after a certain amount of income is the same whether one is making 35K or 330K per year. I was reading the letters in today’s NYTimes and almost every single one is an indictment of private insurance and call for a public option.
I cannot for the life of me understand why any Democrat would support a mandate. What are the going to do, put half the country in jail once their employers drop them and pay the measly fine?
The President is playing a dangerous game, I sure hope he knows what he is doing…
Mention the support for the public option and how lucky your district is to have someone who takes care of their health and the deficit by endorsing it. Make it rousing and sincere sounding (practice!). If he calls you on your mistake, apologize profusely as if you really did make the mistake of thinking he supported it. If enough people applaud at the right points in your introduction, he might just go along with it.
Express your admiration that your Blue Dog Rep has come out strongly in favor Medicare over Obamacare and tell him you support his efforts to make Medicare available to everyone.
Let him try to talk his way out of that compliment.