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Kagro has an excellent rundown of what happened on the public option fight. Here’s the key graf:
[T]here’s the story of the voices in the wilderness, the single payer advocates, who settled for the promise of a floor vote on the Weiner amendment, only to see that amendment withdrawn in a deal to avoid… the Stupak amendment, only to see that amendment not withdrawn and ultimately given a floor vote and be adopted.
The public option — to the extent it was saved (and that’s yet to be determined) — was saved by taking a sober look at the legislative playing field, identifying where the cracks in the dam would appear, and building the best bulwark against it that an ad hoc network of advocates could build, working it, grooming it, and maintaining it. Vote pledges were sought early on, lined up and reinforced in advance of the committee markups, with a special emphasis on seeing those pledges through all the way through conference.
Abortion rights advocates, on the other hand, had an existing network of professional lobbyists and policy analysts, plus a multi-million dollar funding base, not to mention nearly 35 years of lead time in terms of knowing that any health care bill would include a serious abortion threat (counted from the earliest days of the Hyde amendment on), and yet their efforts seemed next to invisible, and they now look to be in position not only to possibly lose, but to put their biggest supporters in Congress in danger of voting the wrong way on their signature issue.
Even if you don’t buy the idea of starting the clock on threats to abortion rights in the health care bill with the advent of the Hyde amendment, Bart Stupak was open about his demands on the bill from early on, committing them to a letter to the Speaker as early as June.
I talked about this with Dana Goldstein of the Daily Beast, and asked why the choice groups weren’t counting votes in June like we were. I keep having to re-read this paragraph to make sure this is what Cecile Richards actually said:
Richards, of Planned Parenthood, said she wasn’t aware of any efforts, before Saturday’s vote, to extract promises from legislators to vote against a health bill that restricts abortion access. “Frankly, this issue came out Friday night,” she said. Yet Stupak has been on the warpath since July, when he released a letter signed by 19 Democrats demanding a ban on abortion coverage in the exchanges.
Vote counting isn’t some novel tactic — it’s what lobbyists do. They line up support early in the game, and then try to hold members of Congress to those commitments. We only did what any lobbyist would. In the third quarter last year, Planned Parenthood paid Baker, Donelson $30,000 for lobbying, and $15,000 to the Glover Park Group. Planned Parenthood Action Fund spent $20,813 on internal lobbying, and Planned Parenthood Federation of America spent $161,885.
Richards makes close to $400,000 a year. Planned Parenthood national has assets in excess of $126 million dollars. Anyone want to explain how they did not, by Richards’ own admission, see this coming?
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Jane, this story is reminding me of your post the other day where you asked Kucinich if anyone was trying to turn those 12 or was it 14 votes and he said no.
I’ve watched you paying close attention to what’s going on with more than several issues at a time, and asking pertinent questions, studying and tracking who, what and where. Your intelligence and economical education aside, can you tell me why you are smarter than these people? $400,000 a year not to advocate affectively for the cause that is paying her?
I’m not getting something here.
PS, kudos to you, again.
So Jane — what sort of action are you suggesting we take?
hoo-ahh! just read it via FB
uh no.
even ignoring the 500 pound gorilla of Stupak’s threats since July, the indictment comes with a closing statement in his comments thread -
.
extra Kagro goodness in his post:
hmmmm, seem to recall some gal somewhere saying the same thing :D
Jane, I would like to second cassiodorus @ 2:
We’re not interested in assessing blame for what happened nearly as much as we’re interested in doing the right thing from this point going forward.
Frankly, I think you were right to stake out the position you did. I think you’re right that you got what you were after.
But the public option – the entire package – was poisoned.
No Poisoned Public Option Please.
Jane, didn’t you say back in 2006 that Planned Parenthood was really now just a rightwing organization pretending to be left? If that still holds true this shouldn’t come as a surprise that they sat on their hands and pretended to be blindsided.
I will continue to support my local chapter of PP, which does good work. But I’m not renewing my membership to Planned Parenthood this year.
This makes me nauseous, I’m so angry.
That’s right, play the class warfare card.
Besides, they’ll fix it in conference.
/s
Jane – a personal note. found my sentiments closely tracked Kagro’s (see my comments to Knoxville in his diary)
that I, a newbie could come away with almost the exact same take as a Kagro, is a tribute to all the education opportunities provided by you and your team.
This is what happens with entrenched, incestuous Beltway interests. They view it as a game and a way to get ahead, while for us it’s life and death.
Much as I loved her mother Ann, it was just a dirty shame to see her go work for Big Tobacco after her stint as governor. Cecile knows the ropes better than most; it’s damning that she acts as if she just got dropped off from the turnip truck.
Our reactions and the consequences that we impose on our legislators is very lacking. Rep Cao the only rethug to vote for the crappy bill has had two fund raisers for him canceled and a bunch of his donors demanding their money back. We need to exact a price too.
Additionally, I believe that Stupak et al plotted their strategy in a much more clandestine fashion probably at C Street. The next election is going to be here before we know it. It is past time to get organized.
it is insulting that she thinks she can escape accountability by telling her members a bedtime story fit for 7 year olds
In my world, a person who isn’t doing what they are paid to do gets canned. Guess I’m in the wrong world.
So we Americans don’t have one national “woman’s rights” organization worth supporting right now, do we?
cbl2 – Thank you so much for that link to OFA’s failed attempt to thank Rep. Cooper – shameless weasel – which they had to cancel when they realized how many people would have shown up in the airport last night to scream in his face.
Saw your last comment @ 11 on that thread. Yes, Jane’s right to call out those who failed (as she’s doing in this post). But you really need to look back at the 400 or so comments in her post with Kucinich’s name in it on Monday morning. She’s jockeying for a position in the blame game (sorry, Jane, but that’s exactly what it looks like) rather than looking at the situation we’re in now to go forward in the best way possible.
I’m positive I’ve seen an earlier date than July, wish I’d linked it in some fashion to preserve it
June 23 sticks in my head as a date when somebody brought up the concerns of the anti-abortion team — and if they brought it up with House leadership, then they were working on it earlier.
But in June, everybody appears preoccupied with lobbyists from PhRMA and other health care industry advocates, looking the other way at Baucus and Company.
It would appear from the outside that this topic didn’t make it from the House to the White House.
However we know this topic must have arrived at the White House somehow.
Cecile Richards had appointments with the White House the first week of June and the first week of July.
And she was one of the administration’s first visitors, having an appointment on Jan. 20 this year.
again, I may be new to sausage making, but as a lifelong warrior for Choice, I knew they would try something – now someone please tell me how Leadership missed it, especially with a veteran anti-choicer like Pitts sitting there like a spider
Have our organizations been infiltrated much the same as the NRA infiltrated the Bradey group last year?
One of the things I learned from working in politics for many years is that the people at the top of organizations like PP and NARAL don’t DO, they ARE. They chair a meeting, smile, and leave the work for others. They truly are figure heads and the people around them are their good friends – most of whom are rich and dumb. Sorry, if I don’t sound respectful enough but I know this from experience. Give us the people who are willing to do the real work and we can move mountains.
I will go over and give the Kucinich post an honest read
Disgusting, isn’t it? Did you see this one ray of hope? There are a few voices speaking out.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-diana-degette/protecting-a-womans-right_b_352782.html
Our message is clear: we will not support any final bill that restricts women’s access to reproductive health services beyond current law.
My sense from out here in middle America is that pro-choice advocates are really dropping the ball lately. As a liberal Christian, I find if far easier to argue for same-sex marriage among other Christians than arguing for reproductive choice. Deeply-held opinions like this don’t change overnight. I think this shows that pro-choice advocates haven’t been effective enough over quite a few years.
Yep. Actually met her years ago and was amazed by her intelligence and grasp of complex issues, yet at the same time I sensed…great ambition.
BTW, here’s an oldie but goodie on when Liberal Lobbyists go bad:
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=lost_causes
Perhaps another ray of hope: from TPM,
I strongly encourage people to look at this comment and at libbyliberal’s entire diary here.
It’s time to fight for single payer in the Senate. If losing means that this poisoned House bs goes down, fine.
H R 3962 was a compromise of a compromise within a compromise accepted on the premise that it was a step in the right direction.
What is it now? A step in the right direction? No fucking way. Sorry, Jane. You did work extremely hard to get what you were after, but others failed on other fronts and the result is not a win for you or any of us.
The Democratic leadership brought us to water, but we got there only to find that they had poisoned it before they let us drink it. Jane, please don’t ask us to drink it anyway. It’s time to fight the good fight.
infiltrated ? not necessarily. but clearly a basic lesson for all of us is so called advocacy groups/validators will choose access over advocacy in a skinny minute – see Pen, Veal.
should we throw MoveOn out with the bathwater ? hell no, but clearly at a minimum, greater accountability is called for.
we found ‘heroes’ Howard Dean and Teddy Kennedy sold out to Bio PhRMA to the detriment of cancer survivors and their families – now what ?
I believe it is all of a piece on our evolution and maturation as a progressive movement – how we perceive, interact, etc. it has to change
It’s long, but worth it. ‘lets’ has some great comments, though didn’t come into the discussion until somewhere around comment 370.
Me too and I think it might be because so many gays have Come Out. Most people know someone who has a gay or lesbian child or knows someone who knows someone, and so that group has been humanized to most. Thus, they can support same sex marriage. Abortion is still in the closet so many don’t see the real need for choice. Just my take on it.
I’d wager that most of the progress on women’s rights as we understand them, was won by the dedicated efforts of people making less than $30,000 a year.
In my experience, people start caring less about the issues and more about maintaining their job somewhere around $75,000 a year, and by the time they’ve reached $200,000 a year their efforts are so ineffectual that they can hardly be distinguished from those who hold no opinion the matter at hand.
Kagro provides a heapin’ helpin’ of reality in his comments. almost near the bottom of his thread
I didn’t realize the thread went on that long. After I got smacked for my comment on His Hair, I had to sit in the corner with tape on my mouth for an hour and I never got back to that thread.
that’s why we love you, Jane.
you learned the game. you dont bullshit us. you fight and know how to fight.
I think that Ms. Cecile Richards is about to pull a Condi Rice. Instead of saying, no one could have anticipated that people would hijack aircraft and use them as missiles against buildings, Ms. Richards should say, no one could have anticiapted that the anti-choice people would have mobilized any legislative efforts against choice. Incompetence. Plain simple incompetence. She should have the guts to say it or resign.
after seeing some of the comments from so called progressive males these past few days – we have plenty of work to do at home.
very pleased none of our regular firebrothers were so backward or ignorant on the issue
Could I just say this totally pisses me off? Why? Because it’s absolutely true, and I have been too naive to get it. I hate when that happens (which, btw, is about 17 times a day, plus or minus).
Back in the 70s my late wife was the Asst Director of PP in OK. Most of the heavy hitters in fund raising were doctors.
Jane employed some sarcasm with me. Frankly, wasn’t appreciated, as I don’t deserve it. Whatever. I’ll follow Jane’s lead so long as she hears us out. Might not be a bad moment to point out that there’s something wrong in the leadership structure at FDL. I have been exchanging emails with Rob Miller’s campaign manager almost daily, but I can’t even get a single response to any emails I send to FDL leadership about whether they want me to continue working in one direction or another.
The entire thread in the Kucinich post Monday morning was a mostly healthy exchange of mostly interesting views. Unfortunately, some of the better stuff came later. I too had to leave and go back later to read it. Very much worth it.
I respectfully disagree. While I don’t always agree with Jane either, I think it’s imperative to take a long, hard look at where the screw-ups happened and at whose initiative or lack of same.
I am an unapologetic Obama apologist (sometimes). That said, this is precisely what appears to be wrong with what’s happening in his admin, i.e., cut your losses and move forward.
The conversations here at FDL reflect our raw emotions about what just happened (pick an issue). It’s a venting place. But I can’t remember many (if any) instances where we didn’t individually and/or collectively pick up the pieces, let the past inform the future, and press on.
oh I’m willing to bet you ‘got it’, you just hadn’t seen it put so succinctly – me either :D
And there have been times when we were in lots of pieces but the common bond held. Isn’t that wonderful ! We are stuck together and it works. Can’t be said of lots of other sites.
Gaaaaa!
I gave a lecture in Sweden on activism that I need to write up, but I drew a graph about when it’s possible to have the most effect on legislation. The closer you get to the decision point, the less impact you can have. If you start months out 10 people can have a huge impact — if you start the day before a vote, it would take a million to change the deals that have already been cut.
It isn’t the “blame game,” it’s explaining what needs to be done for the whole dynamic to change. I frankly don’t think there’s anything you (or anyone) can do right now about Stupak I’m sorry to say. I’ll be happy to be proved wrong, and we’re trying to suggest alternatives (Jon Walker has a great one), but once everyone has their territory staked out there’s not much anyone can do. And if the primary issue validators (in this case, Planned Parenthood and NARAL) aren’t going to fight, they preclude anyone else from successfully doing so. Members of Congress don’t want to, and they know the issue groups will give them cover with their constituents who care about the issue if they don’t.
It’s been true for years. The same thing is true with the enviros. If they’re too cozy with the Democratic establishment, they preclude anyone organizing on the issue to pressure them.
You can talk about “looking forward not backward,” but until that situation changes, there is no better “forward.” Just more of the same.
I hear you on all your points. She really was on a tear that day.
In the weeks before Harry Reid proposed a Senate bill with a public option, he was under tremendous pressure from a variety of progressive groups who launched an aggressive campaign of ads and petitions directed at Reid’s home state of Nevada. I worked with FireDogLake to set up a virtual phone bank with a list of 40,000 Democratic primary voters. The “ask” was to have them sign a petition to Reid supporting a theoretical primary opponent if Reid did not bring a Public Option to the floor of the Senate for a vote. Reid, it should be noted, is behind in the polls, and very vulnerable in 2010.
FDL issued a press release, and the phone bank got a fair amount of publicity as part of the bigger story of how progressive groups were pressuring Reid. Two days later Harry Reid unveiled a Senate bill that included a public option, apparently over the objects of the White House, which was still pushing for triggers.
Progressive groups did a great job of using limited resources in strategic way to make the path for a public option easier for Reid than a path against it.
We have to create the same dynamic for getting the Stupak amendment stripped from the final bill, without losing votes in the House for the overall bill.
In California, we had three lawmakers who voted for Stupak and for health care reform, Baca, Cardoza and Costa. Our local group is planning to run phone banks to contact women voters in those districts and ask them to sign on to a petition protesting the Stupak votes. The goal is to get this done and the petitions delivered before a final vote.
Not everyone has access to voter lists or can organize phone banks, but if you live in a district where your rep voted both for Stupak and for health care reform, there’s a lot you can do to get organized and make your voices heard. Call your circle of female friends and have them call their circle of friends. Go down to your rep’s local office as a group, talk to a staffer if your rep isn’t available. Find out if your rep is holding a town hall. Show up in droves, give your rep an earful.
The key here is the rep has to hear from their own voters. They don’t care what anyone from out of the district has to say. Remember, the ONLY thing a rep cares about is reelection. If they get enough of a backlash for their Stupak vote, they’ll tow the line when it comes time to vote for the final bill.
I think you’re right and I think that just shows that the ball has been dropped on the abortion issue. Probably for the reasons that have been speculated on this thread. When a movement gets big enough to run on auto-pilot, it usually does run on auto-pilot – it takes great effort to keep that from happening, or to undo it.
IMHO anyway.
AND THE KILLIN’ GOEZ ON AND ON AND….
Citizen Hamsher and the Firepup Freedom Fighters:
Time for you to go get NOW and NARAL, Sister Jane! Go get their donor lists and send a mailin’ with a complete analysis of the scam these two groups have been runnin’ and a money request. I can’t believe that these women will like bein the victims of a con, I don’t care what their real politics are. The donors to both groups are like victims of any common investment scheme only they still have their incomes (for the most part)…I’m serious Jane, you could make a few hundred thousand for healthcare lobbyin’ in a few weeks AND take down the existin’ leadership of these two corporate front groups.
KEEP THE FAITH AND PASS THE AMMUNITION, FIGHT ‘EM WHERE EVER YOU FIND ‘EM!!!
Believe me when I say that I’m all about learning from the past. But that’s not exactly what’s happening here. I won’t repeat my last sentence @ 14 because I didn’t enjoy writing it. Sometimes you can do everything right and still get sucker punched or knifed in the back or whatever and suffer a serious setback. Feel free to vent and cast blame all you want.
But admit that what you were trying to do went bad, get up, and fight on all the harder.
What she said.
The day I start saying things I know aren’t true just to tell people what they want to hear is the day I hang it up.
Reality is a cold, hard place to work, but it’s the only place effective activism can take place.
FDL readers are citizens and free to do anything they want on their own behalf and write about it on the Seminal. We don’t privately direct anyone’s actions.
A case in point, is my Blue Dog rep, Joe Donnelly. I’m sure Stupek helped him come to the decision to vote for health care reform, but I also suspect that had it not been the intense pressure he felt from the Democratic base in his district, that he could quite easily have been one of the Blue Dogs who voted yea on Stupek, but then nay on the final bill.
Now, personally, I’m not at all happy with the final bill and I almost wish it hadn’t passed. But the fact remains, I’m positive the true left had an impact. And for me that’s a positive sign. Maybe it won’t help in this sprint, but it should mean something significant in the marathon.
Just a question. Who are Baker,Donelson’s and Glover Park Group’s other clients?
I wouldn’t admit that what we were trying to do went bad. We would have lost any hope of a public option at all months ago — the teabaggers and their corporate sponsors would have won outright — had this effort not been made. This was the stop gap measure.
If anything went bad, it’s the representatives who are supposed to serve our interests, whether they are voted into office, or whether they are paid through our donations.
Richards has received a lot of money from donors, literally in the form of wages. Either she is incredibly ineffective, or she’s lying to her constituency of donors.
Because it seems fucking odd that someone who’s been paid the equivalent of $133,000 per White House visit this year cannot make any traction on women’s reproductive health rights in the middle of a year when health care was on everybody’s top five list of things to do.
how did it go “bad” ? our job since 6/23 was to get a PO out of the House – more important, our job was to get a bill out of the House that didn’t contain triggers, co-ops, or any other form of Emanuel flim-flammery
we did that.
despite the rather raw emotions swirling around Stupak, I am not flaming you – what I’m saying is if we were lobbyists, we’d be sitting somewhere swilling the good stuff – we accomplished what we set out to do
Jon Walker has a fresh cross-post already in progress: “Carper’s No Good, Super Terrible, Completely Awful, New New New “Alternative” To The Public Option”
Even if I could I’m pretty sure that’s illegal Norske, but I appreciate your faith.
So there’s that con, and then the over-arching right-wing con of the American public. I look at (UPDATE the evidence of) all of this (many times a day here, matter of fact), riled and raring to go.
Then I remember that maybe 10% of the American public (by various estimates) gives a horse’s patoot about any of this. About politics. About issues — even those that affect them directly.
The right-enders perpetually con the people. Misinform them, scare them and likely laugh at them for their slug-like participation in the political process. Laugh at them!
Many things need to happen here, but what’s really missing (IMO) is taking a concerted shot at removing the scales from the eyes o’the peeps. They/we are being scammed. Butt of the most dangerous joke imaginable.
I’m not saying this very well, because (guess what?) I’m having an impassioned snit here in my little corner of the world. I’m sick up and fed of it (as my daughter used to say). The con is on, everywhere. And multiple levels of con-artistry, depending on the public being scammed. Obviously, the FOXes have this down to a a fine art. “Did ya hear that, Martha? The sons of bitches are all about killin’ babies!”
More gaaaa. Ignore me. Throw me raw beef. Whatever.
Excuse my sarcasm for a moment, but: congratulations, I guess.
How did it go bad?
Simple.
They found another way to poison it that you didn’t see coming. Not your fault that you didn’t see it coming, but it came anyway.
No Poisoned Public Option Please
I believe it is now time to “86″ the healthcare bills now percolating, steaming, stinking their way thru both houses. The sense that “half a loaf is better than none” just doesn’t work with health care, warfare, and privacy..as we have seen lately. Sorry to say, after all our work..and I have done some little calling, donating, marching, etc…it is better to retreat, and possibly win on a later day. The only possible option I can see working for progressives after the multiple betrayals by our so-called “progressive Democrats” is to form a NEW party, based on the values of “what is best for the people”. We have been back-stabbed, used and abused, thrown under the bus, too many times now to take what the bought and paid for reps we have give us. Number one..we need to change our election funding..all else will flow from that
The bill as it passed the house had a very weak PO as well as major capitulations to the insurance and pharma industry. As weak as the PO is it could ultimately give fodder to those who will ultimately say see it doesn’t work.
That’s very commendable. But FDL Action is also about organizing efforts. I can just write things and send them to local media outlets if I wanted to work alone. Frankly, if that’s what you like me to do, let me know. I’ll thank you for having given me the opportunity to express myself here as long as I have and be on my way.
Keep the faith and keep working. It’s hard not to take it personally sometimes, even when it feels like a personal judgment.
Just keep on keeping on.
Yes, we are citizens and we are all equal here, but it does sometimes feel that some people are more equal than others. Don’t mean nothin’, as some say.
Okay, but only organically raised, grass fed beef.
:-)
We need to be relentless and teach our daughters to be relentless because things don’t stay fixed in this country. Put a note on the fridge …got to remember to vacuum every week.
We all need to get in front of a mirror… practice on that wide-eyed innocent look like those peeps on CNN when they present their false equivalency…. “Why shut my mouth, I can’t believe you think thaaat.” That earnest look just doesn’t cut it with the great majority…. they pay attention, on tv and in real-life, just long enough to get a fleeting impression and if that impression is that ‘geez’ doesn’t everybody think this… then they are good to go…they want to get on the train with everyone else. I think a lot of people are torn on this one, but can be ‘accepting’ if it’s presented in a non-confrontational way and from a womans viewpoint…stay far, far away from religious viewpoints.
Can we not get an expose going on C-street that somebody actually will see? Nobody knows about this crap going on… most people watch ‘Dancing with the Stars’ not MSNBC… Can we lure in say ‘National Enquirer’?..they took down Edwards, after all… Everybody is at the check-out stand every week. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anybody actually buy one, but they sure do look… And geez, how many rooms have they got in that place…. they got bunk beds or what? Every one of those guys I’ve seen sets the palm of my hand tingling …as in being a face that richly deserves slapping. My palm is seldom wrong.. got to be some nefarious goings on in there.
(((Sufilizard))) :]]]
Jane’s understanding of timing in the sausagemaking process is the only reason there is anything resembling a public option in the crappy bill.
Had Jane not starting whipping the CPC long ago, we would have the Baucus bill with the Stupak amendment on Obama’s desk to sign. And the Democratic leaders would be screaming of their success.
I still don’t understand this comment. We didn’t do anything wrong. We acknowledged we couldn’t lead a fight on the issue (abortion) around the groups that had all the influence and the power as validators, we let them fight the fight, and they didn’t. Quite predictably.
If we had it to do all over again, there’s not one single thing I would’ve done differently. I linked to that Stupak letter probably 10 times at least. We raised the flags, they did nothing. You can’t organize around groups with hundreds of millions of dollars and all the faith of those who care about the issue. It’s impossible.
The reason we could organize on health care was because there was no “brand name” in the space obstructing activism.
Effective activism isn’t a matter of trying harder about something “everyone” agrees on, it’s picking a place you can have an impact and effectively targeting your resources. Which we did on the public option, despite the fact that $1.4 million a day was being spent on the Hill opposing it. We won. We made things better than they would have been had we not done anything. That’s the definition of “success.”
If you want to sketch out an alternative that is grounded in reality that would’ve had a better outcome, by all means, do. But until someone can prove to me that a) killing any bill was possible (it wasn’t), or b) the bill would be better without a public option than with it (and nobody has even tried that yet), then the people who worked on the public option effort deserve thanks for a job well done, not sneering derision. And those who are criticizing them owe it to everyone to present a coherent argument as to what could have led to a better result before attacking what they did.
How were any of us supposed to see that we were lied to and excluded from information?
Here, I’ll give you an example of something which has puzzled me for as long as we’ve been at this.
Where’s the UAW on the public option?
All we have is a dog not barking. Doesn’t tell us much at all now, does it?
And how would anyone who’s not a UAW member or leader find out this information? Could the UAW simply be licking its wounds after the savaging of the auto industry that it can’t muster the strength to organize? is the retirement of its more established leader this past year the problem?
Or was the UAW told by somebody to stay the fuck in the veal pen and they did so?
How would we know that?
And you have as much power to do something about this as anybody who participates at this blog. Why didn’t you tell us about this?
mike and Knoxville,
please don’t confuse what I said with my being satisfied.
I take the view that this epic battle was an opportunity for progressives to attend Basic Sausage Making 101, open our eyes to what we are dealing with in getting our goals accomplished.
a rag tag, underfunded group of online newbie activists rode the tiger and beat back entrenched, heavily monied Big Interests and our own Pary Leadershp period
OMG, Basenji politics!
Citizen Knoxville:
The closer you get to the leadership of any “volunteer” organization that has a closely held, private leadership structure, the less responsive they will be to direct communication. Probably the prototype of this kind of organization is the original Nader groups, the national leadership of which he kept very small and very centerally organized and VERY underpaid. As the PIRGs got individual college based funding, the national leadership remained very tightly wound around Ralph and the locals with their independent funding received virtually nothing from the national leadership except talkin’ points and instructions. I don’t know how long or how much the individual PIRGS paid the national leadership, but I do know that senior and long time PIRG workers never got close to havin any input or effecting any changes in either structure or activities. The hierarchy of Nader’s operation really resembled a Moonie operation and in the ’80s there were a lot of groups that sprung up around the model like Clean Water Action and COACT that ran canvases and operated just like the Moonies.
I am NOT sayin’ that FDL beyond the blog is a Moonie operation, I am just sayin that in order to keep control of any operation like this one that relies on a volunteer base, the leadership must hold a distance from those outside the central leadership and from those that it chooses to pay. Don’t get frustrated Knoxville, just take your ideas out here into the street and see how they fly with the FDL base.
I look forward to your comments here Knoxville, your real audience and source of energy is right here with the great unwashed Firepups.
Exactly right. I feel really good about what we did and can’t imagine what the health care mish-mash would look like if we hadn’t pushed. Great leaps would be nice but small moves will get us there in the end. The fight isn’t over yet.
Oh, I suspect worse than Basenji politics; we might actually have seen their lips moving if they were Basenjis.
But we had a bunch of folks who must have willing put on invisible muzzles.
Richards has two meetings with the White House inside a one-month window and we’re not hearing anything about the contents of those meetings.
Dog, not barking. Lips, not moving — at least until now, and the lips aren’t in sync with the soundtrack.
I can’t stick around and argue anymore. I have to go.
But I have written once or more on this thread already stuff like this:
I strongly advise you all to let go of this defensiveness and regroup, or give up. Do as you please.
I’ll be back later to see what you’ve decided, and if it’s worth continuing to work hard at all. I came to FDL first. I’ve seen what else is out there. FDL has been by far the best. Jane’s analyses are always right. She’s experienced, super-well informed, composed, an articulate speaker far beyond me. If FDL doesn’t work out for me, I won’t bother going anywhere else. Frankly, if FDL doesn’t work out, I’ll just go back to thinking that this democratic experiment is doomed to failure.
I really have to go. I can’t even begin to tell you the sacrifices I’ve made to spend so much time here. Look back later.
oh hell no it’s so not over. and one more thing – most folks don’t yet realize how much they did learn in this fight. we will be served by it down the road again and again. that whole mustard seed thingy
That’s what I’ve been saying – Richards is useless. And she won’t get any better because people like us are angry. She won’t even understand why we are.
Knoxville: Did you read Jane’s piece RE: Kucinch? Or the Kagro diary?
Here’s the relevant sections of the latter, WRT how single payer’s fiercest congressional advocates handled it:
As Kagro (aka David Waldman) goes on to say:
The public option — to the extent it was saved (and that’s yet to be determined) — was saved by taking a sober look at the legislative playing field, identifying where the cracks in the dam would appear, and building the best bulwark against it that an ad hoc network of advocates could build, working it, grooming it, and maintaining it. Vote pledges were sought early on, lined up and reinforced in advance of the committee markups, with a special emphasis on seeing those pledges through all the way through conference.
The bulwark, of course, is the pledge that Jane has been pushing (with a good deal of success) alleged congressional progressives to take: The pledge to vote down any bill without a public option.
Did the single payer advocates do any of this? Nope.
Did they ever plan to do any of this? Not that I can see.
Did some of their heroes make pretty speeches designed to fatten up coffers and mailing lists but which had zero effect on helping the cause of single payer? You bet.
WOMEN OF AMERICA, LOOK OUT!!! http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/democratic-party-still-looking-out-wo. Apparently gynecological exams and a host of women’s preventive care services will no longer be covered under either “health care” bill.
Can we just kill this thing now and start over? Please???
I submitted last comment and saw this… dammit. I have come to respect your advise very much. But I’m spending far to much energy for what feels like spinning in circles to follow this advice.
There are people here who I’m assuming are paid to produce the posts that they do. They’re more informed and often more insightful than I am. But I’m doing some good work for a guy doing his best w/o pay on his own. Without direction and a sense that I’m having some influence on moving actions forward, I don’t see a point in my continuing.
I don’t come here to vent or chat (though I’ve come to like many of you!).
Don’t know what else to say.
Just stick around. It’s a good place to be for people who think and care and want to DO.
The phenomenon I’m pointing out has more to do with the folks who hold positions like your wife’s than with those who raise the money to pay them.
I’d guess that your wife and her colleagues for that matter made a very humble wage working for PP in the 70′s, but displayed a commitment that is hard to find today.
I realize that is a somewhat simplistic observation, but one I think should be considered.
Knox, we all do what we can individually on a daily basis and then, when the need arises, Jane calls on us to do something together – write letters, make phone calls, send e-mails, etc. And that’s what we do. I think we are amazingly organized for a group of people who don’t even know each other. And we’re getting better at it all the time. And other sites are joining in ’cause they know that Jane is a real leader. It’s all good.
wut barbara said
Let time pass. It’ll probably feel better. That’s all I’ve got to say.
You’re spent a lot less time on this than Jane has, I can guarantee that.
Jane, David/Kagro and Rayne state the inconvenient truth that the SP advocates didn’t fight smart. There’s no way to pretty that up. But if that truth hurts your feelings, you can soothe them by learning how to fight smart. The road map is here:
But that takes time, effort, patience, and strategic thinking. Which isn’t as fun as running to various online oases and complaining about how corrupt and icky politics is because politicians don’t instantly leap to do your bidding.
Citizen Hamsher:
I’m sure that stealin’ it directly IS illegal, but with today’s technology and with cross referencin’ social data bases you might develop a mailin’ list that hits a good percentage of the long-term donors…but the real thrust of my suggestion was to take these women on publically and right now. Turn their obese weight and passive inertia into a force to make this a fight for abortion rights. If the road blocks tossed by the fascists as they withdraw in their scorched earth retreat are wedge issues used successfully in the past then take those issues on head first and don’t compromise to avoid ‘em. The anti-abortion movement should have been killed dead a long time ago but everyone has been too “sensitive” of their moral feelings. All the ideological wedge blocks tossed up in this healthcare fight must be delt with directly, blast through ‘em and force the issue with every Senator and every comngressperson. As long as the public option and abortion rights hold more than 50% support and the healthcare public option holds 60+% then healthcare will trump abortion in a fight for healthcare reform. It’s simple and doable, but it is time to stop doin’ politics as usual and stop bein’ afraid of the false issues used to divide us.
I’m starting to feel like the Democrats are all Macs, and the Republicans are all PCs. I’m sure you all love the Mac/PC commercials, but have you ever thought about them? The Mac’s only selling point in those commercials is “See how crappy PC is? Don’t buy him, buy me!” What’s missing is any real positive selling point for Mac… and Macs kind of suck in all kinds of ways, and in many ways PCs are better. I’m sure I’ll catch some crap for that, but whatever. More people own PCs, including me, and love every minute of it. Whatever else you want to say, PCs are compatible with more programs, are cheaper for more power, whatever.
The Democrats, and lots of so-called “progressive” groups, are like Macs… they sell themselves as “not as crappy as the Republicans” which is technically true but not even close to approaching a positive selling point. And, like it or not, the crap that Republicans and right-wing groups pull is much more effective than what we get done on the progressive end. Maybe that’s because Republicans have principles(sick, twisted, anti-Americans ones, but still…), and all Democrats seem to have is not being Republicans.
My point is that it isn’t enough to not be evil or not hate women or whatever. You have to be actively for something, you have to be actively PRO-WOMEN. Neutrality isn’t a proper response to activism, counter-activism is the proper response… and the national progressive groups are choosing the wrong response.
Do what you gotta do Knoxville, but I know you’re one of the voices I’ve come to appreciate around here. Thanks for your input! I hope to continue to see it.
Does it not strike you that contracting with professional lobbyists, who might have a conflict of interest with other clients, is not necessarily the best way to have an effect on Congress if you are seeking change?
One more time:
We’ve all had our day in the barrel. We’ve all gotten whomped or ignored. Kinda like family. So in the final analysis, there is no place like home (page of FDL).
Don’t go, Knoxy! (Can I call you Knoxy?)
You’ve led some really important discussions around here, especially for being relatively new. Please try to stick it out.
But that takes time, effort, patience, and strategic thinking. Which isn’t as fun as running to various online oases and complaining about how corrupt and icky politics is because politicians don’t instantly leap to do your bidding.
I agree with this, in general, but having read all of Knoxville’s comments on this thread, I’m not understanding your post as directed to K.
You might consider putting down the salt shaker.
Actually, it looks like Pap smears and mammograms (both of which are expensive) are indeed covered, but the office visits to get them (which are the cheapest part of the process) aren’t.
(((demi)))
And what response would you have us use?
And from a Mac user, you are so wrong. :)
sorry Knox, you have ‘the bug’ and you’ll be back :D
Amen and amen. And for the record, I am probably as “guilty” as anyone here about the un-Republican thingie. Good point.
Hello, sister. I agree with what you said about family. Me? I’m going camping on Thanksgiving to Avoid having to go to my mom’s. Okay?
Actually, I would argue that Republicans are PCs, Democrats are Macs, and true progressives are Linux – an open source OS owned by We the People. Now Mac is based on Linux, so it’s traditionally more stable but it’s expensive and tends to be more responsive to market forces than what’s actually best for you and me.
And, people like Sarah Palin are paper and pencil, or rock and chisel.
:-)
Sarah Palin is seven beans short of an abacus.
Ah, the holidays. Gotta love ‘em, eh? Save yourself!!
Jane, I am not sure why you keep writing that no one has tried to argue that this bill would be better without the public option, as presently constituted. That is not true. I went on record the other day, in the long thread, along with a few others. The Democrats have been throwing their gay constituents under the bus for years. Now women? It is ridiculous and it it is a part of the public option, which is not acceptable to me. Yes, we would be better off without it.
they should have learned that that wasn’t good enough in this fight – lord knows we let ‘em know it in spades. of course they didn’t – just yesterday Wasserman-Schultz had a post on Repub’s abominable treatement of Dem women critters in the well of the House on Saturday – whatever
Alright brother and sister pups. I’m working later and I probably should be a good steward around this house for a few hours.
Take care of each other.
It’s mighty crowded under the bus, isn’t it?!
I guess I’ve been a bit too proactive. I’ve communicated with communications and legislative directors of three members of the Democratic Caucus and have yet another appointment to speak with the campaign manager of a Democratic candidate tomorrow.
All I’ve asked is to have feedback on the directions I’m taking. Nothing more.
If the generals and captains here don’t want to listen to or direct their lieutenants, then the whole concept of organizing action just falls apart.
See: Nader.
Jane can easily find out all kinds of things about me with a simple google search or a phone call.
Unless what we’re seeing is the first stage in an attack on Planned Parenthood…
Frankly, I won’t if this is really all it is.
Citizen Phoenix Woman:
Hey Sister, ease up on Brother Knoxville he has the courage to share his experience and frustration with all of us out here and “methinks thou doth protest too much”. There is a concept called self-criticism that is very important to any citizen-based group like this one and the way an organization communicates with itself determines it’s health and long term viability. Sister Hamsher and FDL don’t need you to come to their rescue, one of the citizen soldiers here needed some feedback so he took it public so get back Sister, Knoxville has a lot of us at his back. Peace Out!!
Considering my $0 dollar salary, stipend, grant, benefits I’m getting for what little I do, I would certainly hope you’re right.
This circular firing squad is pointless. Time to move on.
Btw, Bold Progressives are calling for real action here.
absolutely fabulous diary by dakinikat on that over at The Seminal
old wizened firedog to new, passionate firedog
yes you will.
wry smile included at no extra cost
You know, we are spread pretty thin right now. Health care is the biggy, of course, but there’s Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, the environment – the list is huge. Trying to be proactive while having to watch your back gets tiring. We have to do what we can and hope we make an impact. You do make an impact and be proud of it. EVERYTHING has an impact. Might not seem like it at the time but it does. Just keep on doing.
Knoxville was accusing Jane of merely “jockeying for a position in the blame game” because Jane (and Kagro/David) dared point out how and why the public option stayed alive despite heated and unending opposition, whereas single payer didn’t.
Jane and Kagro weren’t trying to insult anyone or “play the blame game”, they were just stating truths that cannot be sugarcoated, and showing what has so far worked and what hasn’t.
But whenever Jane has in the past explained why she has done what she did, and how it is working, many single payer advocates have refused to listen and instead accused her of all manner of horrible things, because their egoes keep getting in the way and they’d rather stick their fingers in their ears than admit that maybe they might need to rework their strategy — and in a way that requires hard, sustained work of the sort that kept the public option alive.
Accusing Jane of “blame gaming” when what she and Kagro are doing is pointing out what works and what doesn’t sounds rather circular firing squadish to me. Effective organizations and people are willing to examine their efforts and see what works and what doesn’t.
The comments I saw over at DailyKos really disturbed me. It’s bad enough that progressives are arguing over whether it is worthwhile to throw women under the bus for the illusion of health care reform. But it is horrifying to me that there seems to be so little outrage that we are even being asked to choose. If you fall in line with the lesser of evils thinking, you can’t be surprised that you keep being handed evils to choose from. I am uninsured and have preexisting conditions, but I can’t ask the country to swallow this disaster of a health bill even if it means I get some coverage.
It is a mistake to stick with the healthcare bill and its amazing shrinking public option. It was also a mistake for pro-choice groups not to whip choice in the bill.
Both reflect a failure to come to terms with the basics. There is no public option. It has been nickeled and dimed out of existence. Only a shell remains. As for what happened with the Stupak amendment, since I began participating in the blogosphere, the failure of institutions to due basic homework on issues that materially concern them, is both common and never ceases to amaze. It is like when Paulson, Bernanke, and Geithner decided to let Lehman go bust without asking the obvious question of who had exposure to Lehman. It was the most basic, most fundamental, the very first question to ask, and none of them asked it. That is what NARAL and PP did here with choice. It is as inexplicable as it is predictable.
Citizen Phoenix Woman:
Get back Sister…don’t keep this issue goin by makin’ it a personal attack on one of our own. Citizen Knoxville posted a comment that included personal experience and an effort to communicate directly with Sister Jane. Jane responded and so did a lot of us. If Citizen Knoxville needs to go somewhere else to do political work in a way that he (I assume he’s a “he”) feels is most effective AND needs compensation for it then that’s what he needs to do. Knoxville’s statements about FDL and Sister Jane’s efforts were offered out of some personal identification with both. We’re dealin’ with those statements, givin’ ‘em the courtesy of a listen and takin’ ‘em as they are given. So stop with the personal attacks, as I’ve said before, FDL and Citizen Hamsher don’t need you to ride to defense of their honor so in as clear a way as I knoew how Sister, I would like to tell you to put it away and back off!
That’s not what you’re arguing. You’re arguing that NO bill would be better. That’s something different. It’s also not a possibility.
If you’ve argued that taking the exact same bill would be better by taking a public option out I’ve missed it, so please include a link.
I am arguing that this bill would be better without the public option. Yes, I would prefer no bill, but the Stupak amendment is tied to the public option, so I would take this bill without a public option over this bill with one, as it currently stands.
We have a hundred thousand people through here every day. Only a small portion comment. What you’re asking is unrealistic, we just don’t do it, and anyone who has been around here any length of time will tell you that.
oh sister. I’m looking at a thread on another major site right now wherein some Party loyalist is asking us not to “fracture the Party”
who in bloody hell fractured whom ?
Fanny Lou had it right – I am sick and tired of being sick and tired
No the Stupak amendment is not tied to the public option. It’s tied to the subsidies, which have nothing to do with the public option. Take the public option out and there would still be subsidies for insurance offered on the exchanges.
That insurance would still be mandated.
Do you think the bill, as-is, would be better without the public option, as it exists?
Whoops, I honestly did not realize that. I had thought the amendment would not have happened without the public option. In that case, no, you are right, I am not making the argument I thought I was making.
I understand, it’s complicated. I should’ve gone back to that thread and addressed people’s comments and didn’t get a chance to do it.
Jon Walker actually wrote a good post about the impact of Stupak the other day. It could actually go beyond the exchanges and affect big employer-offered insurance too, because of reinsurance and wellness subsidies offered to plans outside the exchange.
The health care wonks haven’t really addressed that yet, so it’s hard to say for sure. But the anti-abortion folks will certainly litigate to have it interpreted that way, so that is a potential outcome. But the public option in or out doesn’t affect that.
What response? That we all demand the sort of positive action that get results, instead of groups just supporting the perceived lesser of two evils and a “centrist” position that gets sold out the the Republicans if they look at us funny. Organizations like Planned Parenthood need to be stronger advocates for the progressive position on what they do, if they expect to keep getting donations from us. It isn’t enough for Planned Parenthood to keep their head down and hope that their right to exist isn’t eliminated by the right wing extremists.
That also goes for all the other so-called progressive organizations that support candidates who are merely less crazy than the Republicans. We’ve got the “more Democrats” and that’s gotten us really close to nowhere. We need to start working on “better Democrats” and better organizations to promote the positions we care about.
Oh, and I’m sure that Mac works great when you’re blogging while sipping on an overpriced coffee at Starbucks… but if you want to do real computing you need a PC. :P
The bill is worthless with or without the hollowed out entity referred to as the public option
Okay. No Joe at Starbucks. Point noted. Be kind to Twain.
(((Norske)))
Hugs from she who has the back of the guy who has the back of the guy in front.
No laptop for me – biiiiiiiig screen. The better to see you with, my dear. :)
It sounds like NOW and Planned Parenthood etc have been taken over the the MBA classmates who run the corporations: it is all about ego and they forget that they actually have a mission beyond building a resume/nest-egg.
We won. We made things better than they would have been had we not done anything. That’s the definition of “success.”
The cbo says the PO will be more expensive than other policies. Open to precious few, and more than likely a dumping ground. Congrats!
I’m playing mostly nice, other than gentle teasing about the Mac thing.
I think we’re mostly all in agreement that PP and other groups seem to be dropping the ball?
Exactly. To answer jane’s question. yes, I agree with Howard Dean. Strip the money and the po out of the bill at this point and call it insurance regulation.
Thank you. I want you to know that I tried hard to communicate privately. totally ignored, but didn’t stop. enough.
I’m sure that’s true. If I didn’t merit your attention with my work, not even enough to get a yes or no answer to simple questions, then I suppose that’s my fault.
Thanks again. Sincerely.
access over advocacy
I don’t think you’ve really addressed the argument posed by letsgetitdone in the last thread: ripping the public option out of the bill would deprive the political class of a fig leaf.
“At least we got you a public option,” they will all say. Never mind that the public option they got us is only a dumping ground for uninsurables, designed by the insurance companies themselves, the 2% choice.
This needs to be an issue of NEOLIBERAL ECONOMICS. You all DO, I hope, see the injustice of the Federal government setting up the insurance companies for life while our wages vanish, our states go belly up, and our climate is destroyed by global warming?
As for the bill itself being objectively worse without a public option, who at this point cares? I’ve heard Jon Walker’s arguments for further cheerleading on the public option, and it’s all extremely weak tea. From the Warner piece:
Sorry, but if the insurance companies are set for life, the system will not break down. From the CBO critique:
Gee, or maybe the Secretary of HHS will decide that she or he doesn’t want to piss off powerful insurance companies whose incomes are set for life by government diktat.
*****
Either way, the insurance bill is a defeat of major proportions. Without a PO, the public option cheerleaders can stop pretending it’s a victory, and maybe do something constructive with their lives. And that would be a victory, in its own little way.
Does anyone else here see that “healthcare reform” just got turned into “Insurance/Wall Street goldmine”?
So that’s why the insurance companies are working so hard to get it out of there? Really?
Well, worst-case scenario, you’re arguing that people who can’t get coverage on the exchange from insurance companies will have a place to go. While I don’t accept the premise of your argument, even by your own standards, that’s a victory.
Unless you think those with pre-existing conditions should have nowhere to go when “dumped,” that is. Is that what you’re saying?
come on, it’s
the Affordable Health Care for America Act
it must make insurance more affordable, right?
I think the insurance industry will fight for as much as they can get. Even with a weak PO, that lobby will continue to fight for even more. That is what they do. They keep fighting, even with a win.
as far as the pre-existing conditions argument, many will find themselves with insurance, and still unable to get healthcare. Do I want an end to this, absolutely. Will the house bill alone solve that problem, I don’t think so.
The goal is FULL EMPLOYMENT for Cecile Richards. Everything else is secondary, including women dying in back alleys of stupak.
That’s not what your hypothesizing, nor is it the question. Let’s break it down:
1) You just said the PO is BETTER for the insurance industry, because it will give them some place to dump patients they don’t want. So saying “they will keep fighting no matter what” against something that benefits them makes no sense. They’re not stupid. So why would they do this?
2) Your argument that the CBO says a public option will become a “dumping ground” presumes that regulation in the bill is weak enough that insurance companies will be able to “dump” patients with pre-existing conditions. If a public option is there to offer them an alternative at that point, explain how is that is a bad thing?
Sure, just like the Bush “blue skies” act made our skies bluer..LOL. Just calling something a name doesn’t make it so (oh Romeo…) Seriously, it seems that all this sturm and drang over the miniscule, noxious, particulates of the bills floating around both our houses (a pox be upon them) loses sight of the real goal..healthcare for Americans..not a gift for the insurance companies..lets get real..no oversight, mandates, gutted choice for women….sheesh!
PS: haven’t seen one ad run by the insurance mafia lately..they must like what they see.
Anyone who remembers Barbara Boxer’s campaign for Joe Lieberman in the 2006 Connecticut Senate primary understands the role of the Liberal Validators. Boxer didn’t care to hear what Joe had said about it being only a “short-ride” to another hospital if a rape victim ended up at a hospital that wouldn’t offer “Plan B.”
She didn’t even actually believe it when Maura tried to tell her about it. Maura was just a citizen yelling in her ear, to Barbara. All Boxer needed to know was that NARAL, the single-issue group on Choice, had given Joe their blessing.
Everything else, to Boxer, was just noise. There was hardly any way to counter what Joe had actually said. The Liberal Validator on Choice had spoken.
1) My intentions are to say that the weak PO in the House bill is better for the insurance industry than one that actually offers competition. Getting a PO “in name only” is a win for them. It can be for you as well. I can see that we had different goals now. No worries.
But yes, even with this “in name only” PO, they’ll continue to fight. If they strip this weak PO, in conference, for a trigger or somesuch, the insurance lobby will continue to fight that. That’s what they get paid to do on behalf of the industry.
2) more expensive. less opportunity to actually use it. More sick pool, less well pool, which will drive up costs even more for the PO. The CBO explains it.
Sadly Demi, we’ve been in the wrong world for years now. If it were otherwise, we wouldn’t have lived through the Bush 43 administration and all the horrible things that came with it – Rumsfeld, Cheney, Rice… Enron, Mortgages, Katrina.
We are, hopefully, all adults here, and so we know already that having insurance does not mean getting health care, even under the provisions of this bill. Much less, even, does having insurance mean getting affordable health care. We know this from studies which say that more than three-quarters of medical bankruptcies are from people with insurance.
So — how does the existence of a “public option,” designed by the insurance companies themselves as a dumping ground for uninsurables, make this situation any better? Oh, sure, a few people will have “public option” insurance. Will they be able to afford real health care?
That’s not the question. There is no “better option that offers competition” on the table. So, you have a “weak PO” and no PO. You’ve said that a “weak PO” is better for them than “no PO.” And yet they keep fighting for “no PO.” You haven’t addressed the question, you’ve just sketched an unrealistic 3rd premise and thrown out an unfair insult about motive.I said:
You answered:
The PO would be “more expensive” and there would be “less opportunity to use it” if there wasn’t one? How exactly if there is no public option is it more expensive? How do people have more opportunity to use something that doesn’t exist?
Please use links to the CBO report to explain this to those of us who are understandably confused. If the insurance companies are going to be able to dump people, they’re going to do it whether there is a public option or not.
Amen!
That’s not the question. How is it worse without one? Because those are the only two options on the table: a bill with the one that exists, and a bill without one.
At least indiepro is trying to answer that question, which I respect, even if I don’t fully understand.
Okay. Your first question was:
So why would they do this?. That’s what I answered in number one.
your second question was:
If a public option is there to offer them an alternative at that point, explain how is that is a bad thing?
Due to it being a dumping ground, and thereby having more of a sick pool, than a well pool, it’ll be more expensive. Which leaves the poor sucker in it with less money to actually use it.
but I’d also like to say that I understand your reasoning now for calling it a success. I apologize for my unkind words. Lord knows I have enough fights on my plate at this time without starting one here.
I subscribe to a different point of view, that Paul Starr argued, that over-constrained, the public plan will go into a death spiral by becoming a dumping ground for high-risk enrollees. As its rates increase, it becomes less and less attractive and more and more expensive.
But for me, the PO was always about offering competition, and not creating a dumping ground.
If anyone is still around to discuss this – I’d like to mention something slightly OT but still somewhat related…
Has anyone heard how we’re being threatened by the insurance companies with higher premiums if the PO is in the bill? And doesn’t it seem obvious that the premiums would go up BECAUSE THE DAMN COMPANIES WOULD RAISE THEM?
Please explain why this isn’t obvious to the “newscasters” who “report” these kinds of comments and why no one challenges it?
No, that’s not what you answered in #1. You proposed an alternative — a stronger public option — that isn’t on the table.
But let’s make it really simple. Try it one more time. I said:
You said:
One. More. Time. If the public option does not exist, how can anyone use it?
Calling into question someone’s motives is evidently only to distract from the fact that your answer makes no sense. So please do us all a favor and lay it out with links to the CBO report you cite but don’t produce.
Awhile back, an Obama mouthpiece of some sort (I don’t remember who) wondered out loud in front of the media why on Earth the “progressives” spent so much time and energy worrying about the public option when it was obviously such a small part of this bill. I’m beginning to think that that’s what it has in fact become.
Let me turn your question back on you for a moment here. Why, Jane, do you think this question is so important right now? What, precisely, will our dumping-ground public option do that no public option can’t do just as well? And why is such an outcome worth so much of your energy?
I’m in one of those pseudo sick pools now. 3k deductible and 25K yearly cap. I for one would gladly pay more to be able to get something that will actually cover the things I need it to cover. I’m not saying this is going to work for everybody or even a majority of people. I won’t get any subsidies but I would jump on this day one. Even so, I am deeply conflicted about this. So many loathesome things swirling around. But I am afraid if we don’t get every inch we can with this that it will be years before this comes around again. Needless to say, if we screw it up and this turns into a giant boondoggle we are going to pay a heavy price. I don’t pretend to understand all the implications of one policy vs another. Needless to say I am most disappointed in our fearless leaders who failed to get this all worked out,vetted, ‘think-tanked’, or whatever so the results of 1 + 1 were known before we started this sausage-making on the internet.
Norske, I’ve never asked Jane for a penny, dime, dollar… nada. I’ve never asked for $ compensation of any kind.
As a leader, Jane might have recognized that I have some talent and responded to what I did ask for: simple “go” or “stop” direction so that I’m not spending hours and days on a Rob Miller angle or a Jim Cooper angle that amounts to me shouting at the winds. (when I sent some suggestions, i assumed they were read and never expected a response to those.)
I think it would be pointless to go anywhere else. I haven’t asked for any $ compensation here.
I answered your questions. Sincerely. Look back up there.
I apologized for questioning your motives, since I have a better understanding of what you call a success.
For me, the PO was never about a dumping ground. It was about competition, and having an effect on the price of premiums.
oh, and then there is this question from you:
One. More. Time. If the public option does not exist, how can anyone use it?
there is no benefit to using the house PO. That’s why I don’t see it as a success. You are dumped into it, instead of forcing the insurance companies to insure everyone.
So you are absolutely right. If it isn’t there, you can’t use it. You win!
and then there is this question:
One. More. Time. If the public option does not exist, how can anyone use it?
you are right. You can’t use what is not there. You win!
my point was always, what makes it worth using…
I tried to edit, and seemed to not work. blah blah, that’s why I posted twice.
OK I can answer at least one of my own questions here:
It can sell people who won’t get insurance unaffordable insurance.
Of course, as indiepro points out, forcing the insurance companies to cover everyone would have achieved the same aim.
The other questions stand. I still want to know why the public option is so time- and moneyworthy at this point.
Sisterkenney, health insurance reform was a goldmine from the beginning. It was only due to the efforts of Jane and others that anyone had hopes that it could be something else.
Okay now we’re getting somewhere:
They already ARE forced to cover everyone. That’s not the public option, that’s regulation.
If you’re saying that there will be a “dumping ground,” that means the regulation will not work.
So how does getting rid of the public option strengthen the regulation? What you’re saying is that the bill gets better with stronger regulation. And if it doesn’t, the public option is the only thing that makes insurance available to those they can “dump.”
That’s an argument FOR a public option, not against it.
So you’re arguing that it would be better to have no public option because if there was a pie in the sky, things would be better. But there is no pie in the sky, there’s just public option/no public option, and you have yet to make a case that “no public option” is better than “public option.” You’ve only addressed “pie in the sky.”
Unless I’m mistaken, the insurance companies will dump everyone they can get away with, whether there is a public option or not. The only realistic question is whether there will be a public option there to take them up once they’ve been dumped.
Reducing the ability of insurance companies to dump patients is not a function of the public option.
I think something is going to happen on these bills. It is better if we keep shoving to make it as good as it can be.
It’s obvious we are no where near talking about the same thing. This has been enlightening, thanks for your time.
Fine. It’s an argument for a public option.
It still doesn’t dissuade me from my fundamental question, which is “how is this important?” Getting rid of the public option may or may not strengthen the regulation, according to how the regulators interpret things. If they see things and say “gee, the insurance companies aren’t covering everybody,” maybe Congress will later enable the regulators to force the insurance companies to sell everybody a policy, and maybe Congress will just allow the insurance companies to dump them onto the public option. No public option would certainly get rid of the latter option.
Stronger regulation, and not a public option, will strengthen the regulations. So why, again, is the public option the main fight?
The obligation to buy crap health insurance will not necessarily make the insurance less crap if the crap health insurance is “public option.”
Wouldn’t our time best be spent at this point preparing to primary the Blue Dogs? If the opportunities to influence legislation shrink as we approach a vote, they must be awfully small at this point.
One thing all of the proposals have in common is not enough price controls on private plans. So at this point, you can tell the insurance companies they can’t refuse or dump people, but they can dump themselves by choosing to pay fines. It doesn’t take an MBA to figure out you kill two birds with one stone by raising premiums to increase profit and convince those pesky sick people they’d rather pay the fines. Or they will make it such a hassle administratively that either the sick or their providers will want to dump them. If there is no public option, your choice is stick with them while they stick it to you or get by with nothing. If there is a public option, you can turn to what the right calls the lazy bureaucrats who can’t be bothered with efficiencies and I call those people who aren’t being constantly pushed to find better ways to keep from paying on claims.
I think that’s why Jane keeps saying your only options now are what everyone agrees on (individual mandates, not much premium controls, etc.) without a public option or with a public option. Too much has already been “ironed out” and there is too much at stake politically to bank on there being no bill or a better public option. The time to see something other than a lesser of evils scenario has passed and this is as good as it gets. So, given the realistic potential outcomes, is it better to have the agreed on parts with a public option or the agreed on parts without a public option? Either way, primarying as many Blue Dogs and other obstructionists is a good idea.
Honestly, this is a general impression, but I think the abortion lobby has a mental block. In my observations over the past several years, they seem to almost exclusively rant on about right wing men–of a certain class and religious background– wanting to “control women’s sexuality” as the phrase goes, and that’s about as far as the mental wheels can turn.
So, if it means thinking hard about a related *complicated* policy issue/battle–like health care, or women’s socio-economic issues within the larger national economic context and the ways that impacts their control over their very physical being, or just the fact that any social *spending* issue in US Congress is as much a spending issue as an attempt to “control women’s sexuality” per se, they very simply are INCAPABLE of doing it.
So, yeah. The tide went out, and you see who’s been swimming intellectually naked. They can’t do it.
I don’t know why this should be. It may be a generational changing guard? It may also, frankly, have to with the over involvement of (young) “liberal” pro-choice men with this issue, who seem particularly beholden to this idea that what’s “really bad” about the pro-life position is that the ladies may have to think twice before putting out. It’s a degraded discourse.
And it could also be that older women who do this have focused in so exclusively on “reproductive rights” (which the effort to “control” seeks to undermine) that they’ve lost the capacity to think more fully about the context in which their paticular issue operates. They should be leading here, but I don’t see it. It’s too narrow.
Who’s to say that there isn’t some ulterior motive here. I find it kind of preposterous to spend a lot of money on a comprehensive insurance policy just to cover an abortion someone may happen to have.
But, I’m not in love with “insurance” as a health care financing mechanism, period, and I can see that there are probably people who think comprehensive coverage to the last pill is an absolute necessity. I still think we should be able to opt-out completely.
Suppose getting rid of the Stupak Amendment means making the public and group and individual policy holders fund some sort of special abortion plan that “all women absolutely must have,” thus brewing up more money that will never be used for the insurance companies.
That would be a plus, no?
“This needs to be an issue of NEOLIBERAL ECONOMICS. You all DO, I hope, see the injustice of the Federal government setting up the insurance companies for life while our wages vanish, our states go belly up, and our climate is destroyed by global warming?”
I DO. I think we should be able to opt-out.
I don’t see how forcing a select CLASS of–basically unlucky–people to purchase health insurance, even with the so-called ‘public option,” is even constitutional.
It’s not like we’re proposing a single payer plan, where *everyone* in the country will be required to fund it.
With credit card companies charging the unemployed 30% on their mounting debt, I don’t see how we can see this Bill as anything other than a mechanism for bailing out the FIRE industry while permanently indebting a select CLASS of the citizenry. This is true even *with* the so-called “public option.”
The way to single payer may be a series of constitutional challenges to an obviously bad Bill. Too bad our Supreme Court is literally defunct, claiming the mantle while eviscerating our founding documents.
I don’t know what to so about that, other than to start impeaching them. Sadly, “liberals” are all about the identity politics, and don’t even bother to look at anything else.
“I think that’s why Jane keeps saying your only options now are what everyone agrees on (individual mandates, not much premium controls, etc.)”
Actually, no. We don’t agree. I am dead set against a federal mandate for a select class of people to purchase a comprehensive insurance policy in the current for-profit regime + the so-called “public option” add-on.
This “public option” will just be another insurance company, run by a demonstrably pro-coporate government. Why would I support this?
What I think I will support is a universally funded single payer basic insurance plan covering care necessary for life and basic life functioning, with a private market–vigorously regulated and with diverse products– for top-up plans for those who wish to finance every last pill with insurance rather than paying out of pocket as needed.
This would seem to better cover our social needs, our cost control needs, and our ideological proclivities than anything we’re (lamentably) cooking up now.
In seeking to pay off his campaign contributors, the Obama Administration seriously mis-fired and we’ll all pay the price.
I think they should pay the price.
The fight is going on and people are beginning to realize that the public option has a proven track record! http://cli.gs/23yYaM/
Sorry about not being clear. I wasn’t saying everybody here agrees on those things, but that everybody, or more accurately, every bill still standing, in the legislature agrees on them. We the people don’t matter much in this game, it’s all about what everybody who gets to make the decisions for us think, and they all seem to think the individual mandates and not really controlling premium or other costs is fine. They aren’t even debating that any longer. Obama has already signaled that he really wants a bill, pretty much any bill, and that he thinks the bulk of it has been worked out and we’re only still talking about a few details. In other words, he’s going to be pushing to have any kind of agreement he can get and that’s going to mean a lot of pressure not to go back to the issues that all the bills standing have in common and certainly not to let this thing die.
In case nobody above has asked, Stupak-Pitts seems to be built upon Hyde, so can someone please explain how the Hyde amendment was ever legal in the first place since it restricts funds for a perfectly legal medical procedure whose access should not be impeded per the Supreme Court in Roe (except under certain circumstances)? Does mere majority rule in Congress trump a Supreme Court ruling? Or was it a case of anti-choicers knowing Dems/progressives would be too politically timid to fight against the Hyde amendment (and religious judgment/intimidation surrounding it)? Or are pro-choicers afraid the recent/more conservative SC would review Roe and reverse it, so pro-choicers have let a sleeping dog lie so we could at least have the basic right to obtain pregnancy termination even though not having public funding available for low income women?
On logic alone, I’ve heard the argument that, gee, we can’t let poor women use public funds for abortion because some people don’t agree with abortion. But gee, that’s too bad — the SC says abortion is legal and what difference does it make if some people don’t agree with that? That’s the law per the Supreme Court.
As I understand it, Hyde has never been challenged in court and it must be approved in every budget bill.
Logic alone might not prevail if the problem is (fairly understandable) political fear of returning to the SC “merely” on a question of funding and running the risk of losing the currently legal abortion procedure itself. Is this what’s going on? What am I missing?