I wonder how well this bill would poll if it contained the public option

Obama makes me realize what a failed President FDR was. FDR lacked the vision and foresight to convene a bipartisan summit with the loyal opposition to address the Great Depression. Surely a failure of leadership on a colossal scale. Fortunately our current leader has the prescience to realize that bipartisanship is the true and correct course for the current age. Taking “single payer” off the table before negotiations even began was a stroke of genius. Promoting the public option before he abandoned the public option was more than clever. One always know what to expect from a Republican. With Obama, one can’t help but be exhilarated by his ever changing political calculus.

Now that only 50 votes are needed, there is no good argument to be made for even trying to pass a bill without one — it’s simply a way to pay off Rahm Emanuel’s back room deals.

Which of course explains why they can’t just take the damn vote — the deals need to be protected, thus no public option.

Public Option

The current house public plan will be available only to people who are not insured by their employers, Medicare or Medicaid. The plan will be funded by $2 billion in federal start-up money and then paid for by premiums from those enrolled. The premiums are expected to be slightly higher than average premiums for employer plans.

I was educated yesterday. Philosophical difference? Doing something and doing nothing while the American people drown in medical bills. /s

I got the feeling that one half of the room was trying to govern however in/effectively and the other half were representing the insurance companies who love the status quo. I saw the thought bubbles over their heads “I represent Wellpoint” “I represent Pharma” etc.

…some seem to be hell-bent on forcing House Democrats to throw themselves on its funeral pyre…

Yeah absolutely [eyesroll] — also noting that ‘The Hill’ article you linked to didn’t mention the real political suicide pact with the Senate:

“[TPM Article]…Conrad added that he wouldn’t personally make any promises or symbolic gestures to House members to assure them that the Senate can or will take any action in a reconciliation bill to address House concerns…”

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/02/conrad-health-care-dead-unless-house-passes-senate-bill-first.php

I have a feeling 2010 could be a re-run of the 90′s — If we don’t get the PO in now we never will.

The idea that they’d even try to pass it using reconciliation without a public option, after months of insisting they couldn’t include a public option because gosh darn it there just weren’t 60 votes in the Senate, is insane.

Before calling it insane, you might want to consult Jason Rosenbaum on the issue of 60 votes then versus 50 votes now when it comes to a public option. He has a wonderfully ridiculous process argument that seamlessly justifies oddly excuses the Senate Democrats’ decision the weasels’ flip-flop bullshit.

As for contributing to Weiner’s campaign and whether he deserves any more support from progressives, I said my piece – based on his action (or inaction) to date – in a Seminal diary yesterday, and thank you and everyone at Firedoglake and The Seminal who disagrees with me for allowing me and others to express and discuss it.

Who cares what the majority of Americans want…..C’mon, Rahm that Health Care Bill thru…..! F’em all!

I’m in for Weiner.

Whatever. I mean, seriously: what-the-eff-EVAH!

It’s all just so beyond insultingly stupid. I really don’t get how any Democratic voter or progressive or liberal or indie or what have you could express the teensiest bit of faith in BHO, the Dems or, really, just about any gov’t institution these days.

I think watched maybe like 5 min total (if that) of the Reconcilliation Kabuki Show Round 958 Part B, SubPart Q, Section 1. And really: why bother to waste my VALUABLE time watching BHO trying to seem all serious and professorial or something.

I have WORK to do. I have a JOB to do (thankfully). I have to support myself and others, and these clowns think that citizens are going to watch this farce and think it’s meaningful? Or what? I don’t know anymore.

Trow da bums out! Trow dem all out on their big ole butts! NOW.

That just sounds wrong. :P

The PO is BS. All it does is take the sickest out of the Insurance Providers risk pool – just another industry giveaway.

Medicare for all, – easily understood, supported on both sides of the isle, can be implemented within a year at the stroke of the pen. So start from scratch, as correctly advocated for by the Reps, offer the brand spanking new Medicare for all and go straight to reconciliation.

Fuckers!

a ‘get your mojo back’ — vote the incumbent out party is in order, to counter the ownership of congress by predatory interests. At least start with a compact.

…and, unfortunately, to state the obvious — Senator Byrd’s and Senator Lautenberg’s health isn’t looking too good at the moment…

I’m wondering if the Democratic party has been grooming anyone for Bryd’s replacement — or is that another Senate seat they will be handing over to the Republicans without a fight?

Well, I hear ya. You’re paying attention. There are lots of working joes who can’t/aren’t paying attention to anything but what stenographers tell ‘em. So I think it was OK to put the stupidity on display without the usual death panels talk.

This was kabuki for the american people who don’t watch c-span. it may have been edifying to some degree.

The PO is BS. All it does is take the sickest out of the Insurance Providers risk pool – just another industry giveaway.

I see it as leverage to keep costs down. if it’s a giveaway, why is everyone fighting tooth and nail against it?

So you were watching during working hours?

Sorry Jane but Weiner isn’t getting a dime from me. He’s part of the Democratic party who just adjourned until Tuesday after not being able to stop Bunning from blocking unemployment extensions. Since I’m now on unemployment why the fuck should I help any Democrat who can’t beat back 41 Republicans? The Dems want us to support them yet, they allow these fucking klan members to block everything? Why should I help any of them is they’re going to lean on this bullshit excuse? Last time I check 58 still out numbers 41!

I’m wondering if the Democratic party has been grooming anyone for Bryd’s replacement — or is that another Senate seat they will be handing over to the Republicans without a fight?

If they were grooming anyone, would it make a difference? Remember, they groomed Martha Coakley.

good theatre?

Because once people get a taste of PO either single payer or Medicare for all will be in great demand and inevitable and as we all know InsurPharma must be protected at all costs.

Reid is to blame in the end. In a straight vote the extension would have passed pretty damn easily. ONly independent Progressives get my money this cycle.

so we should be calling reid?!

PO won’t do the trick, ‘s been a disappointment in Maine already.

Yeah. “Heck of a job Rahmy”

Absolutely.

Great demand?

As currently written only about 1% of Americans will participate in a PO.

Even Obama says it’ll be less than 5%.

I was responding to Fno’s comment that it was worthless…

No PO is not the answer at all. However, in all probability, PO in a bill right off the bat would pass and the next, inevitable step because PO does NOT work, will be a demand for single payer or Medicare for all.

how so? I’m not challenging you…just want to know. thanks.

yeah, I just read about that at c&L. totally sux.

House Dems need to ignore this White House and the Senate Dems.

House Dems are starting to wake up, what house Dem can honestly say they trust the Senate and this White House.

Is Obama helping House Dems or the GOP?

Public Option Obama says no
Indivdual Mandate Obama says yes
Abortion Rights for Women let make them worse Obama says O-kay
Increase IRS Penalty if you don’t buy insurance Obama says yes
Excise Tax on Union Health Care Plans Obama says yes
Drug Importation for americans Obama says No

Again House Dems must ask themselves who side is the White House and Senate Dems on?

House Dems need to focus on Job Bills and ignore the Obama HCR scam

As currently written only about 1% of Americans will participate in a PO

As “currently written”, as far as I can see, means no mandates which is a bloody disaster. Hell if they have PO in the bill it should be a “real” PO meaning that there be a mandate.

It has taken about one year to get here in early 2010 and the mirage of the step back from Single Payer (that would be this PO idea) clearly is more mirage like still. Barack Obama was never for it after ditching any Single Payer Plan for which he gets far too much Easy Streeting over.

It is not like this PO is going to take on the 45 million not insured Americans problems or for that matter address the next 50 million Americans problems with dunkin’ donut health insurance plans. Or those Americans with plans that cover everything as long as you never need anything ( that would be the junk health insurance plans ) or are not employed by employers who offer decent health insurance plans.

Clearly Barack Obama is more interested in pleasing AHIP and PhRMA than he is solving the bottom third of Americans healthcare hells.

He looked pretty smooth during that meeting on Thursday. Of course going up against the Luddite Rs is not exactly terribly difficult either.

All things considered nothing real is going to happen until the year 2014 anyway so why not just wait until early 2011 and start over on HCR then?

Barack Obama gets away with his charm offensives but that does not explain his WH doing sweetheart backroom deals with AHIP and PhRMA.

AHIP needs to be pruned way back and Medicare For All given the prime position in American healthcare access and delivery. Get off this obsolete WW2 era employer/employed/employee based health insurance access/delivery model. AHIP represents a dead end no matter what. Anyone who is not getting that at this point and thinks this stop gap PO idea is going to work out swell are failing the fools errand test.

Blue Texan’s regularly scheduled post is ready: Michael Gerson on the Radicalism of Today’s “Conservatives”

burden on the government (toxic assets with no upside), risk reduction for Industry but not so much in fees.

Best chance for a Medicare virus might reside in individual States.

Which is a h**l of a lot better than the private market! It is the private market in which Antham is raising rates 39% in California. My private plan has increased almost 100% in three years. It is private plans that are seeing 20-30-40% increases across the country. To those of us that have privvate plans, a reasonable increase over employer paid plans would be a God-send. Small business basically have private plans.

What should we call him? That doesn’t really matter though, I know.

Get off this obsolete WW2 era employer/employed/employee based health insurance access/delivery model.

But the employers are the bosses and we always want the bosses to be able to control our lives it is the capitalist american way.

Toast

Bunning is a Senator, Weiner is a Representative. Weiner can’t do anything about what the Senate is doing.

No butter and jelly.

The host was right at the end: no one is “half pregnant”; both sides are in the bag for the insurance industry.

No money for ANY of them, not ever, nevermore. Screw them all. Line them up and make them walk the plank. Better yet, make them buy individual health insurance on the open market, same damn thing.

WTF is Bill Frist doing there? Sheesh, coulda warned us. It was like listening for the real debate over an antiquated fart machine.

He blames the GOP’s filibustermania on hyperpartisanship and “lack of comity,” then in the same breath, says it’s not a Dem v. Republican thing? WTF is it then, the fault of the clerks?

Besides, he’s not even a real senator anymore, he’s just playing one on TV, like when he played doctor from the floor of the Senate, then tried to say he didn’t.

Shorter Weiner: I gave up single-payer for THIS?! Where’s the PO, BO?

So our conclusion is that the summit was just providing Democrats with more cover for not bringing the bill to any vote at all?

If they ever did pass a bill with a public option it would be completely watered down to benefit the insurance companies only. The entire health care debate is an exercise in futility and has not addressed the problem. If anything good was going to come of this we would have known it by now. It could not be more obvious Obama and Congress are just shills for corporate interests and the serfs be damned. Politicians who utter the word ”public option” at this point are just trying to get votes and are talking out of both sides of their mouth like Obama.

Sadly, many of the progressive pundits and bloggers who were so incensed that Obama defeated the drug re-importation bill, and have refused to push for a public option, are now silent on these matters.

I am convinced that promises of access and spots on media outlets have effectively muzzled many that we thought we could trust.

I think, outside of FDL and The Young Turks, and on TV, Olbermann (and sometimes, Maddow), it is hard to find much truth anywhere these days.

Somebody has engineered a deal with some of these bloggers and pundits, in exchange for their silence. I would hope to see FDL do a piece on that story in the near future.

If Congress should pass a HC bill with the public option would Obama veto it to honor his back room deals with pharma and the health industry?

Nah, this summit stuff, who has 50 votes and the efficacy of a PO is a sideshow OF a sideshow. Glenn Greenwald did a fine explication yesterday
of what the Democratic Party is here for. The Democrat Party acts as a safety valve on the explosive tank of popular will captured by corporate power.

Tear up your Democrat registration card! Register independent. Put your green into the Green Party and tell the Democratic Party and yes, even Dennis Kucinich, why you are doing so.

Our corrupt situation is not the fault of Harry Reid or BarryRham but of corporate World/USA, and before them the tribal shamans and subsequent priests and monarchs whom we allow to immiserate us. In the struggle ahead let our guide be those two fathers, Malcolm and Martin.

True, though that doesn’t stop folks from one chamber from trying to order around folks in another. The example that comes most readily to mind is Tom DeLay’s using his clout with the religious right (a clout that manifested itself in the ability to raise vast sums overnight for primary candidates) to try to scare moderate Republican Senators into backing Bill Clinton’s impeachment.

Suckas write me checks, and then they bounce. So I reach into my pockets for the fresh amounts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzaFGMQRBfs

The link would not appear in the above so here is hoping that one sees it here. http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/

That’s exactly the scenario he doesn’t want to have to face — which is why he and/or Rahm are pushing Congress to make sure it doesn’t get to his desk.

I suspect he’d grit his teeth and sign the thing — and hope that it came late enough in the campaign cycle so that PhRMA didn’t have the time to produce and release a bunch of “Harry and Louise” style attack ads.

See, part of the point of the deal was to keep PhRMA from dumping tens of millions of dollars into running TV ads against Democrats. So far, it’s kinda-sorta worked. But if the PO is going to be a part of the final bill, my own wild-assed guess is that Obama would want to wait as long as possible before signing it, just to make sure that PhRMA didn’t have much time to mobilize their ad agencies and buy time on TV.

See, part of the point of the deal was to keep PhRMA from dumping tens of millions of dollars into running TV ads against Democrats. So far, it’s kinda-sorta worked. But if the PO is going to be a part of the final bill, my own wild-assed guess is that Obama would want to wait as long as possible before signing it, just to make sure that PhRMA didn’t have much time to mobilize their ad agencies and buy time on TV.

Wouldn’t integrity have worked even better?

I say no, as long as it’s the watered-down, useless version of the PO passed by the house. Everyone would (Gasp!) with astonishment at the bold, progressive move. The centrists would tut tut those of us on the left for every doubting our great and fearless Democratic leadership. The media would swoon.

Hell, many of us would swoon as well. That is, until we realized that we’d been handed Baucus with a largely symbolic Band Aid attached. We’d still go broke paying for our Bronze plans while suffering the indulgences of the IRS if we didn’t.

Talk about theater of the absurd.

check out the article on Huffington post telling how Obama made a deal with for profit hospital lobbyists, selling out the public option.

As I said on Jim White’s piece,

Obama’s backdoor deals with the insurance industry and Big PhRMA before negotiations started,

1. to take single-payer “off the table” and to consistently exclude single payer advocates from submitting written materials or participating in the debate over health care reform;

2. to guarantee that a mandate enforceable by the IRS would be in the final bill without a public option to control costs; and

3. to grant Big PhRMA a license to steal raise prices without limitation for 10 years and to prohibit us from importing or buying Big PhRMA drugs in Canada for substantially cheaper prices;

is an outrageous, abusive, financially irresponsible, indefensible, and cynical sellout to corporate America that all Americans should condemn. This bill enriches greedy profit driven insurance companies, Big PhRMA, and their shareholders at the expense of taxpayers and the sick in the name of reforming health care without substantively reforming health care.

Any democratic senator or representative who votes for Obama’s Health Care Reform bill should be targeted for defeat when he or she seeks reelection and the president must be primarried and defeated, if he seeks a second term.

First of all we have CRIMINALS RUNNING AMERICA in the Congress and the White House. Secondly, the Judicial system is an utter joke and mess as well. I will not be told what to do by elected officials who are nothing but pound scum and work for whatever money whores pay them. Yes, I am so tired of being so polite when I talk about these jerks. I am really pissed off today because I am tired over the lies and deceit we are fed every damn day by the likes of Rahm Emanuel, Chris Van Hollen, David “Axelass” Axelrod, Valerie Jarrett, Linda “I uzsed-to-be-journalist” Douglas, Kathleen Sebelius, Joe “Windbag” Biden, and Barack “Fraud” Obama. Yes, the Republicans suck and all, but, having the likes of Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi supposedly fighting for you as they sellout women’s rights and abortion rights in this “healthcare bill” and yack about “how much they want the public option” is quite tiresome to say the least.

Yes, I am so tired of Obama’s “folksy stories” about the “good folks” who cannot afford health insurance as well. Put the damn public option through then Mr. “Intelligent” Obama or come clean about your whoring out to big money. Obama may as well have an “R” after his name rather than be called a “Democrat” at this point anyhow. With war and torture and surveillance issues, Obama is acting worse than even Bush and Cheney. Yet this goes unchecked by too many people. These are not “Democrats” any more anyhow. These are nothing but money-whore DINOS!!!!

Thirdly, the Democrats are LIARS…..I hate to say this but when it comes to the “public option” talk, I must tune them out because of their lack of sincerity.

The Democrats led by the White House and Max Baucus have always been in favor of the exchanges and to pass this off on Chuck Grassley is more of the lies coming from the Democrats. Read Ezekiel Emanuel’s book on healthcare reform and you can read all about the exchange idea. So to say that the Democrats want the public option is a joke and a lie to boot.

I am so sick and tired of these freakin Democrats saying they oppose war, fight for women’s rights and for abortion rights, are anti-torture and then let John Yoo off the hook so he can write more books, articles, etc., and that they fight for the “little guy” and for the “public option,” and on and on and on with more and more and more lies and lies and lies, etc.

I have healthcare fatigue at this point. I will not go along with any punitive measures in this healthcare bill and they can throw me in jail before I comply with the measures put into place by the criminals in Congress.

When Weiner gets up and says

“If there is no PO in the bill I’m voting no”

then, and ONLY then will I contribute.

This following Headline from today’s Democracy Now! program (February 26, 2010) says it all:

Healthcare Summit Ends in Deadlock; Single-Payer Advocates Excluded

After nearly seven hours of televised debate, President Obama’s so-called bipartisan healthcare summit ended Thursday without any substantive agreement between Republicans and Democrats. Republican lawmakers remained staunchly opposed to using the federal government to regulate health insurance. We speak to Columbia Journalism Review contributing editor Trudy Lieberman and pediatrician Dr. Margaret Flowers of Physicians for a National Health Program.

DR. MARGARET FLOWERS: “Well, the public option was a very vague concept, to begin with, and so many people didn’t really understand what it was or didn’t have faith that a public option could keep a giant insurance company honest. We have seen evidence over and over at the state level that you can’t keep these insurance companies honest by having a public program. What happens with a public program is that that’s where all of the people who actually need healthcare end up, and the insurance companies continue to avoid the sick, and deny and restrict care, and make huge profits, so that it wasn’t a concept that people could really understand…. But a national improved Medicare-for-All system is very simple to understand, because we’ve seen it working here in this country. It’s familiar. And so, by excluding, I think—by excluding that viewpoint, we really missed an opportunity to push for real reform, because the people do understand national Medicare for All.”

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/2/26/healthcare_summit_ends_in_deadlock_single

I still cannot get over the Democratic Party’s lies that the “exchange” idea was taken from Chuck Grassley as if these same Dems did not want it all along themselves.

This is/was one of the biggest LIES I have heard in a very, very long time and thus far this lie has not been challenged by anyone that I know or heard yet in the MEDIA!!!!

The Democrats have never supported:

1. the public option, except in talk, only
2. single payer even as they lie about it in the same sentence

The Democrats have always supported:

1. Insurance reform not “healthcare reform”
2. the exchange idea to feed the insurance corporate whores

I am tired of the “wellness” lectures and being called a “folk(s)” by Washington Insiders who are nothing but scumbags in my eyes.

As I listen to Aaron Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man, I could support a Margaret Flowers/Elizabeth Warren moneybomb.

The Biggest Pre-existing condition for most Americans is:

1. affording healthcare
2. having even a job for so many as home foreclosures continue to skyrocket and a record number of children are now on food stamps.

Perhaps. Michelle Obama can address the food stamp issue, the jobless recovery issue, and why her hubby has done nothing to help people stay in their homes, and why so many jobs continue to leave America, as we listen to more and more lectures about wellness and obesity, etc.

People cannot afford healthcare now as it is and with so many people unemployed, underemployed, etc., this health insurance bill is nothing but a sad joke on so many American citizens.

Yes, the AMERICAN CITIZENS and not “us folks.”

lol, hilarious. :)

Unless Repubs are in power….

Thank you so much for posting this — I’d missed Dem Now this morning and forgot to check it. Love the Dr. Flowers clear, understandable quote on Improved Medicare for All.

She reminds me of a young Liv Ullmann….

We need a National Month of De-Registration from the Democratic Party.

Perhaps, just perhaps, they might pay some attention to use then.

Right now, the the Corporatists have control of what the party’s reps in Congress and the WH actually DO.

Your quite welcome….

I have not been on FDL in over a month but this healthcare “debate” has me in a crazed state…..I am so appalled by these “Weimar Democrats.”

These “Weimar Democrats” enable the right wing Fascists whom many progressive loathe. Yet progressives and liberals have done next to nothing to challenge these Obama “Democrats” or DINOs…

So far for all intent and purposes, liberals and progressives have not held the Obama administration’s feet to the fire on issues of war, peace, surveillance, torture and military spending……

So true. I shouldn’t be as surprised as I am, what with their suck-ass performance after 2006. But to see how blatantly corrupt they are has still been a bit of a shock. When else in modern history would Ds have controlled the government to this extent and produced this series of outcomes?

Yup, short of some cataclysm like an earthquake taking down all of the California coast I do not see how else change could come. Chomsky thinks otherwise but organizing is *pulverizing* and almost impossible work in the face of pervasive propaganda systems. People *have to break* from the corporate power structures (eg two party bicameral government) designed to thwart and frustrate their most basic needs.

Even in the 1960s, when Dems were still the favored party of the Klu Klux Klan, we got the Great Society and the Civil Rights Act.

I think that there is an interplay of two reasons that explains Obama’s reticence to include in his HCR effort a not-for-profit plan such as the PO or Medicare buy-in whose effect is to challenge private insurers profits. Even though he realizes that in doing so he is sacrificing the public good.

One reason is his belief in free markets for the financing of hralth care where all participants are private insurers driven by the profit motive. We know this to be the case not because he has said as much but because that is the way his HCR effort is designed. In this case even though he knows that the inclusion of a public plan would be cheaper and more effective and that the public is being made to transfer its wealth for the benefit of increased profit of private insurers, he has no qualms about doing so.

The other reason is that in advocating for a profit driven free market approach to HCR he feels that his political life vis a vis the Rs will be made easier. In this case the more effective public plan and the public’s wealth transfer to private insurers is being sacrificed for his political peace of mind.

In essence Obama feels that sacrificing the public’s wellfare as relates to health care and its wealth is worth sacrificing for the sake of private profit and for his peace of mind. Moreover he knows full well that these are the effects of his approach.

We on the left and the country as a whole should be under no illusion that these are Obama’s prime motivations in the case of HCR as in all other issues and should not be so williing to sacrifice its own well being to Obama’s misguided goals.

Instead we should continue the fight for the inclusion of a public plan that will challenge the profits of private insurers. That should be our bottom line. We should be clear that it is the private for profit insurers that are the root cause of the health care problems.

But duncan, in the 1960′s the USA was absolutely unrivaled in both economic and military power giving its elites the latitude to be magnanimous in the face of the worldwide boogeyman, totalitarian Cubans, who threatened us daily with duck and cover drills. Just think, today our children might have been forced to learn the mambo and drink vodka if not for our brave leaders!

Missile gap, missile gap!

That’s exactly what they’re poised to do: pass the most evil aspects of the “bill” with 51 votes. That’s why signing any petition or making any calls or writing any local letters to the editor demanding reconciliation is nothing but the Briar Patch they tricked us into throwing them into.

Reconciliation, 51 votes, ram-it-through-and-show-those-Republicans, is for no purpose but to save (exalt) Obama while burning Rome (what’s left of our freedom as we once knew/imagined it) to the ground.

51 votes etc is already turning around to shoot ALL OF US in the face. It’s not even sneaky, it’s out in the open.

How about that Blair House Summit yesterday? The parts I liked best were when they cleared the air on just how abominable it would be to allow that antitrust exemption to remain in place, and spent so much time finally, avidly discussing the public otion for what it is: What The people Want. My president’s attention to these vital matters was especially warming to my heart.

Wouldn’t it be nice if Obama realized that 8 years as a truly great president is better than 4 years as the most truly Terrible U.S. leader ever?

Is he an incurable grandparent-spoiled narcissist? Then just what IS wrong with him when he goes Dubya all over our ass with comments like “I’d rather be a great 4-year president than a bad 8-year one”?

and thereby preserving our precious bodily fluids, Captain Mandrake…….

I think no bottom line for us is complete without extreme care to never lose sight of this part of your great post:

he has no qualms

It’s kind of astonishing that the democrats would make themselves so transparently deceitful and corrupt in front of the entire world. The democratic leadership obviously decided continuing this ruse is somehow worth it. Republicans, democrats, independents, and the rest of the country see exactly how deep their lies go. They’re not fooling anybody. The amazing aspect of the public option kabuki theater is that democratic party leaders actually seem to believe that the massive contempt Americans have for this corrupt style of governing will somehow go away if a bill, any bill, actually passes. If the Left’s struggles with the Democratic Party and their leaders are accomplishing anything worthwhile, they are demonstrating to the public (right and left) just how far our representatives are willing to go to enrich themselves and their patrons. Passing this atrocious bill won’t erase any of that. Further, if Americans were looking for the culture of corruption, then they can reliably point to the Democratic Party’s handling of the public option and see it plainly.

I actually think the liberals fighting on behalf of the public option in this country have a lot of sympathy. Americans know how hard we’ve worked to make the changes the country needs. They don’t doubt our sincerity or our policy. They see that the hard work we’ve done has been ignored and it angers them. They are asking themselves if all the work liberals have put into the public option struggle amounts to nothing, even with the democratic leadership going on record in support of the public option, then can Americans actually change anything in politics? That’s why Josh Marshall, Joan Walsh, Chris Bowers,and Ezra Klein are so damaging to real political change. When they give up on the struggle and simply decide to pass what our corrupt politicians tell us is the good-but-not-perfect, Americans take it as a validation that both sides are partisan. See there, even the the most ardent supporters of the public option on the Left eventually go partisan and support their corrupt representatives, just like the Republican base. And they’re correct on that score.

“See there, even the the most ardent supporters of the public option on the Left eventually go partisan and support their corrupt representatives, just like the Republican base.”

Except that, when the Republican base goes along, it’s somebody else getting tortured or another war being started with borrowed Chinese money. When our people support corporatist “health care reform” it is we the Democratic base that is getting directly dunned for money and otherwise fucked over.

This is not to debate R versus D policy so much as to make the point that “What’s The Matter With Kansas?” is, I think, a far less interesting question than, “what’s the matter with Manhattan.”

Thank-you, thank-you…..

A few months ago—perhaps, the last time I posted before today, I pointed out how much of a phony-ass I thought Joan Walsh to be.

I still hold that Joan Walsh is nothing but a phony and has nothing to offer other than the standard “liberal view” which is only the opposite of the right wing view of the moment but nothing to offer or add.

Ezra Klein and others like him are nothing’s to me either. I am educated as some of these people are and do not need their validation on any given issue which I am as informed as they are.

Thus, I do not take my cues from the likes of Joan Walsh, Ezra Klein, the New York Times, Washington Post or any talk show host on the TV or radio.

AGREE!

Seeing myself cravenly plead for that shitty fifth-rate booby prize “the public option” fills me with self-disgust!

Even I, frothing at the mouth and swinging a bloody ax all day long, have my easy-capitulation point: don’t deny us the public effing option, just anything by that name, oh please grant it unto us o’ lawds ‘n ladies!

Fuckno and go-away to the whole mess and all its kahooting perpetrators NOW.

The PO in Maine is in need of change because it is being run by the insurance companies that want to make it cost as much as possible, it is up against community rating by state law for other policies and thus losing to low age areas that by definition have cheaper rates, it does not limit itself to the un-insured the way the Federal version is constructed – so over 60% in the plan are those not unemployed, and it covers a small number because Maine’s population is small.

The Republican base operates on one principle. They don’t understand all the intricacies involved with facts and figures and legislative particulars so they simply abandon those things in favor of faith.

Thanks. Keep in mind that the Joan Walshs of the country are the country’s true moderates. They’ll always be around calling for calmer heads and whatnot. They just look radical now because the country has already been pulled so far to the right.

Regarding the “pool of insured” and the necessity to increase that by any means posible, preferably by unfunded royal mandate and cold threats, remember this: Forbidding insurance companies to drop clients, forbidding insurance companies to not insure both real and so-called pre-existing conditions, THAT IS ALL that would be needed to quadruple the pool of the insured. The mandate is not for that. The mandate is to further enrich insurance giants and further shackle Americans.

Don’t listen to Ezra Klein, on whom Rachel Maddow has such a steamy new crush (the flames of it fanned by a giggling Keith Olby), because Klein’s job is to complete his appointed rounds, and it’s clear what those are.

I quit Joan Walsh months ago.

Better be watching Howard Dean, too, if anyone thinks he’s not just another shocking mistake waiting to be made by Dem voters.

“Democratic Party’s lies that the “exchange” idea was taken from Chuck Grassley as if these same Dems did not want it all along themselveshange” -

Afraid Obama screwed us on “exchanges” – we need and the house bill had national exchanges – but Grassley changed that to State exchanges

a massive decrease in effectiveness – but since the exchanges even at the national level have about 1% of the cost control effect of a buy in Medicare, we really have not lost much.

Amazing how I do not give a damn about Obamacare passing – or about supporting a Dem in any future election cycle. The only good that would come out of the Obama bill passing would be that there would be a bundle of money already in the budget to fund Medicare for all. But that is what I said about over spending for “defense” – thinking that once the threat ended, programs for people would be funded – and that never happened. Defense became a jobs program in every state that could not be ended without hurting the state. Likewise this $600 billion welfare check for ins co’s will never go to any other purpose than adding to ins. co’s bottom line.

Except that, when the Republican base goes along, it’s somebody else getting tortured or another war being started with borrowed Chinese money.

Whoa. And this is NOT the case now, with Obama? (rhetorical, immovable on my part, not intended to start a fuss with another commenter.)

Yes. He has shown this time and again. What we see in HCR is the exact correlate to the enormous drain in the public treasury with the added charity from the FED directed to banks and financial institutions to essentially allow them to do with as they please.

Or as he apparently believes he does not begrudge private entities from prospering, even if they do so by the transfer of public funds, leaving the public more impoverished.

Obama has a willful disdain and disregard for the public’s welfare that results from his idolitry of incompetent and corrupt so called free market participants. It has already caused a tremendous negative economic impact in the quality of life for many Americans and that is the legacy of this guy willleave behind.

I am totally done with Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow…..they cite and refer to right wingers far too much for me…..

You know the old adage–negative attention is still attention and that is exactly what Olbermann and Maddow do—they give free microphones to right wingers every damn night instead of presenting liberal/left/progressive voices on their shows to talk about what needs to be done….

For example—-Rachel and Keith allowed Frank Schaeffer to use their shows to help “sell” his books upon his “conversion” away from the religious right movement. His father helped to destroy America and was never really called on this himself and his role in demonizing women and gays and how much this hatred has ruined the lives of so many……MSNBC has continued to allow right wing voices to be heard in lieu of leftwing voices. When did Keith or Rachel ever have the late Howard Zinn on their program or invite Noam Chomsky on to their faux progressive shows? I cannot remember. Jeremy Scahill says he gets less and less invites on the shows like Keith and Rachel’s which used to book him when Bush was in office. Cindy Sheehan has said the same thing about Randi Rhodes, Stephanie Miller and Ed Schultz, etc, who had her on regularly when Bush was in office as well……MSNBC is prowar and Keith and Rachel keep this line going if you listen very carefully……

Another thing—none of these jerks who love Obama ever question him on his (Obama’s) continue adoration of Ronald Reagan who also helped to ruin America as well.

Obama’s record on gay rights is terrible and awful and has said very little about the anti-gay laws being made in Uganda.

If the Democrats truly cared about healthcare, they’d be advocating Medicare for all and the hell with the rest of these side issues.

The Republicans “don’t want to deal” but the Democrats do not want to really make healthcare available to all. The Social Policy of today’s Democrats sucks and I reject these exchanges as the “best to offer” American citizens.

These Democrats are on Hardball right now on MSNBC touting the exchanges idea which they have wanted all along and not the public option or Medicare for all. Elijah Cummings–an Obama Bootlicker and Jim Moran who claims the Dems are “great on social policy” are touting the exchanges but have yet to mention the public option or Medicare for all. Like Nancy Pelosi, they will be fine with the adjustments without any public option but the exchanges idea which Obama fully supports. This bill will look just like the Senate bill and its an outrage. Moran is now sucking up to Chris Matthews saying how much “Chris understands the Speaker Pelosi,” These people make me ill and sick…..they are total failures.

These Democrats are sickening in my eyes.

I would also add that people understand perfectly well that entering into any insurance risk pool, health or otherwise, is to their advantage if they know that they will receive their contributions as benefits when the need arises. And they will do so voluntarily if they are prudent without the need of a mandate.

What they will not do voluntarily with complete justification is to enter into an insurance risk pool if they realize that it is a scheme where their contributions result in curtailed benefits so that the administrators of that pool can reap profits. Only in this scheme will people be forced to particiapte forcefully via mandates.

Howard Dean said in Huff Post that might as well pass Senate bill. Made me sick.

I saw his TV appearance [w. Ms. Greenspan] — and Yes I took it as a fold… Being kind, it maybe a request to be allowed to ‘come in from the cold’

Dean is a message carrier… Remembering Obama is so wound-up at the moment and so protected — not many are allowed in!

That was before 400 hundred people at the top held as much wealth as 70% of the people. The top wealthy corporate elites today have basically rigged the system for their benefit due to the exraordinary wealth and income inequities in the system.

Exactly. When Obama gave the big health care speech, I kept the TV off. I read the text online so the delivery wouldn’t trump the words.

When he described the public option as something that basically nobody would ever be able to use anyway, less than 5%, you-don’t-have-to-worry Aetna et al that the PO will be a game changer – I gave up on the whole thing. We have been fighting endlessly for months over something that will not even make the slightest difference.

The 20-30-40% increases are to protect the companies in the extremely unlikely event that some kind of reform passes. At least they’ll go into it with already sky high rates which they can raise again on the theory that now they have to cover some actually sick people.

It’s like what the credit card companies did the past 6 months or so, knowing that come February 1, CARD would cut back their ability to triple you rates by sending you an incomprehensible 6 page “disclosure” on see through paper in 5 point type. Get the rate up there, and then let “reform” go right ahead.

Now I know there is a strong case of the “Reds” (never criticizing those who complain about the powerful and then taste power themselves and are unable to take constructive and much needed criticism themselves) here at FDL. But it is amazing that there is such strong support of Weiner even though he is a warmonger on International issues (Iran, the I/P conflict, condemnation of the Goldstone Report)

When will FDL start really looking at these critical issues and how these alleged progressives like Weiner vote

Great that Weiner brings up how he is really a “single payer” advocate. That the “public option” is the compromise.

“we have to stand up to the insurance industry”

the public option is NOT the compromise. if it was PO advocates would be advocating for something like hr 193. as it is, the puny PO in the house bill is NO compromise for single payer. i’d be happy to explain why this is to anyone who is interested in having that discussion.

In my opinion difference was LBJ. Except for one major mistake i.e. Vietnam War which really tarnished his image he really achieved mind-boggling legislative achievements in face of huge odds. By the way his was the only presidential library I got a chance to visit when in Austin and I saw really poor people visiting it and got really touched when I saw them walking around the place with their grand-kids as if the place was a temple. I could see that he really made a difference in those peoples lives with his legislative victories and really hope for the sake of our country, at-least the next batch of senators will have majority of them with his calibre and heart.

I am almost sure if the current version of the senate HCR bill which has no cost-controls is passed it will really tarnish all the people in the democratic party who voted for it for a long time because of the individual mandates which are really targeted at the people who opt out taking great personal medical risk to themselves because of the varied personal responsiblities they need to fulfill in their lives. Those people will remember in a negative way all of the legislators who voted for it when they are helpless to take care of their personal responsibilities on a daily basis. I just wish if they need to raise revenue to cover some of the un-insured they do so with a new progressive tax which has the unintended benefit of acting as a indirect cost-control in place of these individual mandates.