One MIGHT accept this premise if Obama had not made a public option for healthcare reform a central part of his campaign… there’s even a video of him on youtube in an 2003 AFL-CIO speech saying that his real preference is single payer!

Slight veering of topic: Has anyone discussed what would happpen to the capital tied up in the health insurance industry if single payer were adopted? (I don’t mean AHIP, of course, that’s just a trade group.) I mean all the capital, including stocks.

This is a serious question. Jane, or anyone else, respectfully, do you have any insights on this? We are talking at least 100s of billions. Would stockholders in insurance companies have to be paid off? Would passing a bill that eliminates health insurance companies cause a serious dent in the stock market, and further economic crises?

Maybe that is what gave Obama pause; remember he has said that he didn’t expect to be dealing with this super-recession.

Note of course that the economic collapse and all that brought it about was planned by the Bushies so as to tie the next President’s hands…

Anybody can type ferociously.

You are an Obama apologist, that’s all. Nothing more, nothing less. You can probably justify everything he has and has not done correct? He can write an executive order, nullifying dota, but hasn’t? Why? He voted for telecom immunity. Why? He had the opportunity to break the stranglehold the finance industry has on America, he didn’t. Why? He continues to try to quash lawsuits with claims of national security. Why? He threated to stop sharing intelligence with the brits. Why? He promised transparency in the hcr process and made deals with pharma behind closed doors. Why?

I could go on, (Hugh has a very good list), but I know you are going to make it make sense anyway. At least to your peanut gallery.

Later tuff guy.

The unfortunate thing is that his deeds since the election have left his own words flapping in the breeze.

It’s not like there are lots of folks out there who think that our current approach to healthcare is working just fine thank you very much. Generic America favors a public option with large majorities, rank and file Dems hugely so, Doctors are strongly in favor…the only players seriously against strong action are a limited set of strong, often monopolistic, insurers.

The policy and politics on this issue are very much in favor of strong action. What’s difficult to understand about Obama’s “ambiguity” is his reticence to back up his campaign promises and otherwise provide leadership toward positive outcomes and away from things (such as triggers, individual mandates and employer reimbursement mandates) which are both poor politics and terrible policy.

But yes, perspective is good. I was here at FDL way back in the days when it was a lock that Patrick Fitzgerald was going to personally fly down from Heaven, fry Karl Rove with his heat vision and guilotine Bush and Cheney on national TV. Oh, the premature schadenfreude! I wanted it so bad.

Unfortunately, it didn’t happen. But I took it as a lesson to chill a little, and as clear and compelling as the tea leaves might seem to be from here on my monitor screen, I’m not in a position to see every leaf, and this is a deeply Byzantine and corrupt system.

Analysis and informed conjecture are great; but what I can do is ACT, even if it’s just emailing and calling and applying money judiciously, and action is better, and so far acting on the facts that we’ve had at hand has been more fruitful than the endless gnashing of teeth and hysterical prognosticating.

I’m not even gonna wait for a response. I’m goin’ back to work. Too much fantasy from a few here this afternoon. Man.

Namaste

I don’t consider the Dear Leader an enemy, but he certainly hasn’t been a very strong friend to progressives in this health care reform process…and many other parallel legislative processes thus far in his short tenure. Would that it were otherwise, but I don’t see it.

Learn to love life under the most progressive admin in most of our lifetimes … be happy

How can this be a facts-only zone when this entire post was about nothing more than hearsay & guesses?