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It is nice to see both Paul Krugman and Matt Yglesias openly admitting that the Affordable Care Act is about as right-wing any insurance coverage expansion “reform” could be. From Yglesias’s The Sensible Conservative Alternative To The Affordable Care Act Is The Affordable Care Act:
If you simply do what Ponnuru and Levin propose, every insurance company will be competing to make a product that’s attractive to young men with no chronic health problems and unappealing to everyone else. To turn this idea into an idea that actually works for people with medical needs you need to do three things. One, you need to prevent firms from turning customers away because of their health status or demographic characteristics. Two, you need some kind of regulatory definition of the minimum benefits that need to be offered in order to qualify as “health insurance” that’s eligible for the tax credit. And three, you need some kind of penalty for failing to enroll yourself in a plan to ensure the existence of a viable risk pool. What you need, in other words, is the Affordable Care Act and its regulate/subsidize/mandate tripod structure.
From Krugman:
There are no more conservative alternatives — not unless you give up on the whole idea that everyone should have coverage. There are alternatives to the left — single-payer, VA-style government provision — but Obamacare is already as conservative as a plan to make health insurance more or less universal can be.
As Nancy Pelosi pointed out when it passed, the law was based on an old proposal from the Heritage Foundation and effectively identical to what AHIP, the for-profit insurance company lobby, ask for in 2008.
Of course, this is why some at FDL thought that the entire left wing of the Democratic Party unnecessarily endorsing what was a corporatist, right-wing bill while the party pretended it was actually progressive was such a tragedy. It undermines the entire concept of real progressive health care while shifting the debate further to the right.
This is especially a concern given that Klein sees ACA as a likely tool to eventually voucherize Medicare and Medicaid, and Yglesias has a similar impression, or at least sees ACA as reason to shrink Medicare and push more old people onto the private insurance exchanges.
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Klein and Yglesias paved the way for ACA — apologists every step of the way.
Thanks alot Paul “Fake Scandals” Krugman:
http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2010/01/11/krugman-shoots-the-messenger-blames-wheeler-fdl-for-%e2%80%9cfueling-a-fake-scandal%e2%80%9d-over-gruber/
The Chamber of Commerce and their Lobbyist in DC will keep trying to erode any HCR. In fact, they think they are so above the rest of the citizens they will fight to keep their dealings behind closed doors.
http://www.hillbillyreport.org/diary/2850/chamber-lobbyist-to-americans-we-are-better-than-you
Calling Krugman an Obama defender is unfair–he was a critic of Obama’s policies before Obama was elected and took heat for it. He’s also a single-payer supporter. I don’t agree with the “fix it later” position–later is likely to come in 2020, after a lot of pain–but let’s not badmouth our allies, hunh?
True! Twooph!
all pain
zero gain
A-fucking-men : Holding a majority in BOTH houses and the PRESIDENCY and the debate at the end of that tenure was and still is about tearing down social security.
Obomba = one finger on the scale, and one in our face
Obama=The Great Pretender.
since it passed several important changes have been made to the law. All of them for the worse.
Help the poor. Needs tested. People who really need help.
Bullshot!
So, the deal is that I paid some 3% of my salary for Medicare and eventually 6.2% Social Security (along with same by employer) for 48 years and some twerp rich boys are deciding I get nothing because I worked and saved some money, instead of driving a Lexus and going to the casinos.
It’s okay to inherit money, or steal like the banks, but don’t dare work for it, because the government will redistribute from the middle class to the poor (but never from the rich to the poor).
Not to worry, sweetheart. Soon enough you will be a member of the poor. Just in time for the powers that be to eliminate health care for the poor due to concerns over the budget deficit.
“The best that we can get” crowd pisses me off no end.
I demand to see the ACA’s long form birth certificate.
They have forgotten that legally, Constitutionally, we run this country.
That’s how it’s supposed to be.
They haven’t forgotten anything but too many voters have.
That’s who I meant. I thought you were referring to the Obama-bot apologist citizens who spout that “ACA = starter home” bullshit.
am having a great deal of trouble getting past my tribalism here – thinking of the campaign of terror unleashed upon Jane Hamsher, Marcy Wheeler, and Jon Walker at the time
and now I see young Ezra finally got around to sampling Scarecrow’s April 2010 post/comments on Obama as “moderate Republican”
fuck me
David Dayen has a fresh cross-post available: Holder “Disturbed” By Oil Price Manipulation
ding! ding! ding!
and the politics of shifting the debate further to the right was all spelled out in 2007 (one of the authors is fdl sunday poster glenn w. smith): The Logic of the Health Care Debate
If Democrats had passed ACA and said sorry guys, this bad conservative idea is the best we can do that would be one thing.
Instead they took what everyone know can admit was a bad right wing plan and demanded we all call it a progressive victory.
It’s the Republicans’ plan with a Democrat’s signature on it.
Way to go, Obama. Your base knows you sold them out. Republicans hate you because
of your positionsof your birth certificateof the fact that you’re you. Well done.That’s one reason I stopped reading Tomasky at The Guardian, and other apologists for ‘incrementalism’ in heath care. Obama gave up on Single-Payer before his inauguration, and he dropped the Public Option like a hot potato even though he campaigned for it. Bleah!
Health care should be a universal right, not a corporate giveaway.
Re Obama: It’s disturbing when I tell people (ostensibly on the political Left) that I will never vote for Obama again. I’m practically branded a traitor to progressive causes, even a racist. So be it. I prefer an honest enemy (Republican) to a false friend (Obama). I’ll write in my own name in 2012.
greatest single piece of progressive legislation since 1964 !
I’m with you.
I’ll continue to write in Public Option in favor of a Democratic candidate, and in the absence of a true progressive candidate.
Obamacare is a giveaway to the insurance companies it forces everyone who can afford insurance to get insurance
but does nothing to restrain costs like reducing drug prices.
The whole point is that insurance costs to much as is and health care emergencies are the leading cause of home loan defaults (last I checked the economy now might be the leading cause).
Since their is no provision that workers won’t be forced to bear the increased costs and the dollar is deflating in value plus workers pay and benefits are not rising we should be asking if these trends continue just how many more home loans will go into default when everyone is forced to get health insurance.
And just how much out of pocket expenses will be? What conditions will be out of pocket? I worry that an insurance company might market policies for African Americans in markets they serve with higher out of pocket expenses for obesity related conditions.
The Free Market won’t fix racism only the law can just look at the real estate industry with Whites only housing contracts not to long ago.
It’ll be interesting to see if, under the ACA, the health insurance consortia will be able to continue on the road they were on between 2000 and 2008 – increased their profit by 428% and raised their premiums by 87%. If so, any defense of ACA will become moot.
I plan to write in Margaret.
Thanks for the post Jon.
HELLO selise!
Lolz. Because having Kristen’s health insurance premium increase by 47% is sooooo the same as desegregating schools and businesses.
“Instead they took what everyone know can admit was a bad right wing plan and demanded we all call it a progressive victory.”
I see that as the most dangerous part of Obama and the Democrats. Obama is completely redefining what “Left” is, so that the middle ground is former right wing extreme policies and the new left is the old right. Many of the worst cases of this can’t be blamed on Congress as Obama is doing it unilaterally – launching a war of aggression without Congressional authorization, perpetuating indefinite detention, perpetuating military tribunals, ordering assassinations of citizens who haven’t even been indicted for any crimes, etc.
please consider writing in “single payer.”
the po campaign was a big con to distract progressives from advocating for single payer. there was no policy or policy analysis behind the po. just campaign slogans. it was the cruelest of hoaxes and i can understand why people wanted to hope.
but now we know the truth. it was a hoax. a con. aimed at good, smart progressives who wanted to believe.
He is completely redefining what social justice is — to what is politically possible regardless how horrific the injustice.
howdy oldnslow! always good to see you (and cbl!) on the threads!
Of course, this is why some at FDL thought that the entire left wing of the Democratic Party unnecessarily endorsing what was a corporatist, right-wing bill while the party pretended it was actually progressive was such a
tragedytravesty.As expected, Klein tortured out a way to praise this deceptive monstrosity.
Both parties and the MSM now pay fealty to the conservatives and their think-tanks, who have usurped the intellectual sphere. Only conservative past failures are “sensible”, while functioning progressive alternatives are no longer merely dismissed but now completely ignored.
my bad. my first comment should have been: many thanks to jon for this post.
It will be very interesting to see after the next banking collapse ( a given since there was no real financial reform passed ) how the insurance industry’s investments fare.
The banking/finance sector is the main part of he stock market that has gone up based mainly on investment overseas or investing in outsourcing. A slowdown of the world economy probably brought about by slow consumer spending in America we are the world’s biggest consumer market will likely result in all the insurance companies as
well as the banks needing another bailout.
The poor aren’t getting any of this, it’s all going to the rich.
On HCR, Jon Walker is the BEST by far!
” this is why some at FDL thought that the entire left wing of the Democratic Party unnecessarily endorsing what was a corporatist, right-wing bill while the party pretended it was actually progressive was such a tragedy.” The question raised is, why only “some at FDL”? I find it implausable that anyone at FDL would not be convinced by Jon’s detailed coverage & keen observations, even more implausable because I never read one contrary opinion. So, who were these skeptics and why didn’t they speak up?
I might join you!
MARGARET 2012
WooHoo! I need a job!
Says a lot about our political overlords (but especially Obama) that as bad as the PO was from a policy standpoint, that they still denied us that small crumb of a compromise. The fix was in from the beginning. Obama is nothing more than a fraud and hoax.
No argument there…thank you Jon, for not letting this issue go down the memory hole.
“the po campaign was a big con to distract progressives from advocating for single payer. there was no policy or policy analysis behind the po. just campaign slogans. it was the cruelest of hoaxes and i can understand why people wanted to hope.
but now we know the truth. it was a hoax. a con. aimed at good, smart progressives who wanted to believe.”
Chanting for single payer would have marginalized those good, smart progressives, and did, as you well know. What is the point of that? The PO campaign raised the awareness of the issues in non informed voters minds very effectively. It also showed Bernard Hussein Obama for the sellout little punk he is, using his own words, and without allowing him to marginalize his accusers as socialists. Chanting for single payer would have let the progressive caucus fake their way out of their professed beliefs too, just another sorry guys moment. Now EVERYBODY knows the dems could have had it, and sold us out. 50 votes, ya think single payer could have got that far?
It is political, and there is NOTHING wrong with that. Don’t try to play, selise.
: )
It’s one of Obama’s more bizarre accomplishments that he has tricked so many progressives into defending Republican laws and Republican policies. This, of course, will destroy the credibility of both progressives and Democrats for years to come.
so does this mean the supremes are more or less likely to declare ACA unconstitutional? It would seem they would not do so, if they want to extend vouchers to medicare/medicaid??
So Ezra is now a health care financing expert – and sees Obamacare as modest because it covered most, but not all, of the uninsured and it cut the deficit a bit (deficit cut not true – Gruber’s model is now described by Gruber as being incorrect because the people in Massachusetts, where it is still used, do not make the “logical” decisions he assumes in his model), and it was only 4% of the country’s health-care spending (also not true if you are speaking about health care spending for those under 65, especially if you consider the ending of employer provided health care that is inevitable in HCR).
He then says he expects an end to the deduction for employer-based health insurance and its replacement with a refundable tax credit for everyone, no matter where their coverage came from, because Obama care was the necessary precursor to McCain Care as it has ended the individual market (which it does not do), leaving only “exchanges in which insurers were tightly regulated – the regulation being no refusal of sale (but at what price for the product sold?) just because of a preexisting condition, or quietly cap your benefits (except on the annual renewal for new problems), or sell you a plan that wasn’t really comprehensive (except HHS will not have the power to actually demand any given coverage be included) with consumers pooled together, so they had bargaining power, except there is no one that is on the other side of the table from health service providers and insurance companies, except “the market place” – which has failed to keep health costs from rising more than inflation in every year since insurance companies got involved.
Then he says that individuals, seeing the entire cost of their coverage, will find plans that controlled costs more effectively, rather than saying the hell with it and taking the tax penalty. Plus he sees insurers using more leverage against hospitals – why – God only knows. Currently the market makes insurers bit UP so as to have the larger network of providers – the size of the network being the driver of sales these days.
Then he sees President Bobby Jindal in 2019 putting Medicaid and Medicare onto the exchanges so that seniors and low-income Americans could choose between the government programs and private insurance, and the same Jindal bill would open that choice up to all American’s – why the insurance companies would allow the government option in this is not obvious, but if they did we would have a public option.
And this is out smart left wing analysis – Ezra will have a prosperous career – the country not so much. Krugman may overly defend academics, but he is at least not trying to sell obvious lies as “possible or likely future facts”.
Oh brother, the solution has been sitting there since 1974, the Kennedy-Mills bill that Robert Ball drafted as a compromise between Kennedy’s National Health Insurance and Nixon’s employer mandate private insurance.
Drop Medicare age restrictions and monthly premiums, add catastrophic cap and other benefit improvements, increase payroll taxes to pay for it.
http://www.ssa.gov/history/orals/ball4.html
I know that I’m preaching to the choir, but it bears repeating: Obama never pressured Joe Lieberman (or Blanche Lincoln, or Ben Nelson, or any Blue Dog for that matter. The Democratic leadership could’ve taken away committee chairs (Blanche Lincoln’s, too) of members in their caucus that filibustered a public option for healthcare. They didn’t.
The DNC could’ve taken away reelection funds. They didn’t.
Reid could’ve actually forced Republicans and turncoat Democratic senators to filibuster. He didn’t (and doesn’t).
The Progressive Caucus could have kept their pledge about not voting for a bill that didn’t include a robust public option. They didn’t.
Obama DID unleash the attack dogs to go after Howard Dean when Dean said it was a lousy bill. Dean was then forced to get back into line. Obama went after Kucinich, the last remaining holdout on the Progressive Caucus, for threatening to vote no on the healthcare bill, and we all know how that ended.
There is nothing that Lieberman (or Nelson or Lincoln) is doing that Obama hasn’t ordered. Obama and the DLC-Democrats want Lieberman there, doing what he’s doing, which is to take the heat off of Democrats.
And the proof of this is that when Obama needed Nelson re: Stupak amendment, he ‘bought’ his support. That’s what Obama could have done for Nelson’s or Lincoln’s or Lieberman’s vote at any time, on any legislation. He sure did it when he needed Mary Landrieu’s vote.
There could be 100 “progressives” in the Senate and 435 in the House, and they and Obama would still find a way to deliver to corporations instead of the People, and blame it on Republicans.
Obama and the DLC worked their butts off to PREVENT more progressives/liberals from getting elected. Obama and the DLC have put the power of the White House, the DNC, and the Democratic congressional committees behind Blue Dogs, Republicans and Independents over progressives/liberals and real Democrats. Some, but not all, examples:
Blue Dog Blanche Lincoln over the more progressive Democrat Lt. Governor Bill Halter.
Republican-turned-Independent Arlen Specter over more progressive Democrat Joe Sestak.
Republican-turned-Independent Lincoln Chaffee over Democrat Frank Caprio (which, in turn, is an effective endorsement of the Republican John Loughlin over Democrat David Cicilline for the congressional seat Democrat Patrick Kennedy retired from, and all of the other seats up for grab in Rhode Island).
Republican-turned-Independent Charlie Crist over liberal Democrat Kendrick Meek.
Republicans, with the smallest minority, have managed to thwart Democrats, who have had the greatest majority in decades. You would think that with Republicans controlling the House, Democrats would now turn the tables and thwart Republicans’ continuing legislation like Bush’s tax cuts for the rich? Are Democrats just stupld? Or is it just Obama’s ‘most ardent supporters’?
I agree that ACA is nearly identical to conservative Healthcare reform ideas of the 1990′s. The more important question, though, is whether ACA is better than what preceded it and also if it will make it easier to achieve a left wing solution–which is basically ACA but with a public option. I think the answer to both is yes. 1. ACA is better than what preceded it. Just ask the people with pre-existing conditions who can get coverage, people with children between 21 and 26, and the tens of millions of additional individuals who will have coverage.
Now ACA is not liberal enough for many democrats’ liking. But getting a public option tacked on to ACA will be relatively easy in the future. The hard lift was on agreeing to make coverage available for everyone, and it took a year of work to get there. Getting a public option when the democrats control congress again won’t be nearly so hard.
A final point is that the fact that ACA is basically conservative for the 1990s but now the middle to left today is that we have moved way to the right over the past twenty years. It makes it clear that democrats would’ve been in a better position accepting the basically ACA alternative offered to Bill Clinton in 1990s, and then adding a public option by the end of Clinton’s term, or by the time a new democrat came in. It’s called incremental change, and it tends to be the most effective way to make real, lasting changes. For another example, consider that homosexuality in the military went a few baby steps with Clinton, who made Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, which was, relatively speaking, slightly less ethically repulsive than the status quo, and thereby set up Obama to just legalize homosexuality in the military, period. Look at ACA as a proverbial DADT which is a modest step in the direction that will get you to your goal.
“Getting a public option when the democrats control congress again won’t be nearly so hard.”
Oh, oh, oh, that that’s so funny! Oh, I’m laughing so hard right now! Oh, lol, my stomach hurts!
The important thing is not that we can debate whether this piece of shit insurance company sellout bill MIGHT help someone at some point, or that we can debate whether it’s actually better than before or not. Those are both mealymouthed copout excuses for the repulsive dishonest character of the punk in the white house. It is about character, it is about the prostitute in the white house, and Bernard Obama is a lying little corporate sack of shit and he sold out the country to the insurance companies with full knowledge and INTENT to do exactly that. And all the while punkass media bitches like Klein and Krugman sold it to the few wetbrained Obama supporters left. Now everybody wants to excuse themselves for their part in it.
Fuck that.
Obamabots are disgusting.
Hey Papau is there an article where Gruber says that you can point me to
Yes, stay classy ‘transparait’.
Yes, yes, even if a few tens of millions more people now have insurance than did before, I understand it is not an improvement at all. Tell that to someone with a pre-existing condition who will no longer be afraid of not getting insurance. Or are real people’s lives not as important to you as making sure things are done exactly your way in congress.
Besides, I agree with you about the public option, Einstein. I’m not saying ACA is perfect. Hence my comparison of ACA to DADT, which I also didn’t like, but which paved the way for the legalization of homosexuality in the military.
Fuck classy, among other things. I’ve heard the same excuses, what if scenarios, and my favorite the saintly ‘people who will be helped’ for the last year. I don’t believe it, and I don’t give a fuck.
Bernard Obama the little shit sold all Americans to the corporations with this health insurance company bailout Act, and he can’t wait to do it again. The rest is bullshit repeated endlessly. If you don’t grasp the facts here after lo these many months, you’re entirely irrelevant to me.
Oh yeah, DADT doesn’t make money for Obama’s corporate masters, or cost them anything. He did that for votes from gay people, you know?
Very different items.
Krugman is an enabler just like Obama. He never advocated for single payer. He may have given it two sentences of lip service before he dismissed it as politically not feasible, and then quickly signed on to the current HCR as the best they could do.
Must be painful having a memory that good. Good post, thx for the reminders. That Halter episode was particularly sleezy, in a Rovian way.
I don’t know who’s writing your check but, if you wrote that w/o laughing, ask for a raise.
you may not have noticed but there is a genuine grass roots movement for universal healthcare. they are the people who got marginalized — when their work could have been given a soapbox just when the public’s attention was turned to healthcare. it’s a long term human rights campaigns. it’s not something won in one election cycle — it depends wide public exposure and involvement.
that didn’t happen and that was the D’s PLAN. there is a reason the obama administration warned progressive media about supporting single payer. there is a reason people like andy stern and other “players” were bad mouthing grass roots single payer activists.
because they didn’t want single payer on the table because they wanted big pharma, the insurance industry etc not to go all in for the Rs.
but never mind that — the real grass roots (not the hcan $40+ million astroturfing operation) are single payer activists and are the ones who have been doing the heavy lifting on this issue and they are still the ones who are doing the real work as the media, including the progressive media, has turned to other things. when the first state passes something like single payer and true universal healthcare it will be in spite of the PO campaign, not be causeof it.
please read the analysis i linked to above and you will see why the fight for a policy free PO was a marketing campaign that furthered the conservative moral world view and neoliberal talking points about market competition.
I just read the comment in the last 2 weeks – but my memory is not good enough these days.
It was in reference to the Mass Connector results – the “problem with model is folks are not acting as logically as was assumed in the model (paraphrased)” stuck in my mind because I made a living for a while running models that were built based on “facts about responses” and facts about mortality, morbidity, and financial data- and did not depend on what I thought would be a logical response. Indeed as long as those basic facts were correct, other assumptions on things with little research data could be rather questionable and the model would still work for at least 18 month timelines as to impact on earnings, and 20 year time lines as to a “conservative” ROR profitability estimate.
eCHAN is the person with better experience than I in models, but I suspect she would agree with the above.
Remember when the WH told us about Gruber’s “well thought of” model – I had never heard of it! :-)
But then he is the person, not I, that got the $800000 contract.
“please read the analysis i linked to above and you will see why the fight for a policy free PO was a marketing campaign that furthered the conservative moral world view and neoliberal talking points about market competition.”
No, I won’t. I disagree as I said above. Regardless of the existence of single payer advocates, in this instance hammering the corporate scumbags in congress and white house with the public option (as FDL did) was the right tactical move, imo, and I’m right there with them.
You leave out the possibility that someone could come to the conclusion that the public option wasn’t offered seriously, and choose to demand it anyway knowing single payer wasn’t going to happen either. In doing so shoving the punks in office around and exposing them for what they are, repulsive little creeps.
Even if you don’t think it was the right move, you can’t in honesty claim it wasn’t a valid stance to take given the situation.
Couple comments:
Can we actually ask these people rather than ask them rhetorically? There are only 12,000 people in the high-risk pools out of the estimated 1-2 million “medically uninsurables.” What’s going on here?
Can we ask the parents of young adults how dependent coverage is working out for them? Because insurers are charging more for this coverage and imposing limited enrollment periods.
We can’t ask the tens of millions of people who will have to buy health insurance whether they’re satisfied, because we won’t know until 2014.
The hard lift was NOT getting everyone covered. That was a simple matter of passing a mandate and promising that providers will get paid. If you don’t think getting a robust public option would be a Herculean task look at what just happened to SustiNet in Connecticut. Although it was but a baby step toward a state public option even Democrats lined up against it.
I made this exact point on thepeoplesview.net earlier today and got banned for it. The country is moving to the right at a fast clip while progressives talk about incremental change. Who says incremental change is the best way to make real lasting change? At a time like this incremental change is for suckers.
I reject the notion that DADT “set up” Obama to legalize gays in the military. If Clinton had done nothing, it would still be 2011, we would still have a cultural shift towards acceptance of homosexuality. I give Obama credit for getting repeal done but incrementalism had nothing to do with it.
“I made this exact point on thepeoplesview.net earlier today and got banned for it.”
That Cedwyn person is an Obamabot shill. Apparently had a little club of other shills to jack around with the rec unrec thing at kos.
Pitiful little people, really.
http://www.docudharma.com/diary/18620/happy-pony-joy-rainbows-and-spies
not reading it doesn’t make it go away. the analysis exists and it wasn’t done by single payer activists. don’t think it even had the words “single payer” in it. it was about the language and the moral world views being used and how neoliberal thinking moves people to the right even when that isn’t the intention.
what public option?
no public option had been “offered” when the decision to take single payer off the table was made. i’m not a fan of pre-compromising. but this pre-compromising for nothing but a slogan — there was NO POLICY on offer.
i wrote that understand the desire to have hope. i also have a little bit of a clue the amount of misinformation that was put out and also the amount of pressure there was from the obama administration on progressive media.
maybe i would have fallen for that kind of massive propaganda campaign too. i can understand that smart, well intentioned people fell for the con.
but i don’t buy there was a public option offered seriously, because it didn’t exist. there was no policy.
if you can show me i’m wrong by giving me a link to the actual policy on offer — before the decision to pre-compromise was made — i will very happily retract my comments on this thread. but i asked — a lot — and never got an answer.
It would indeed be nice to get a quote of Gruber admitting that people don’t make logical decisions, but he’s acknowledged that his model is inadequate for predicting costs. (See here for example.) Obviously the model didn’t anticipate the extent of the cost control problem in Massachussetts.
There was no real public option offered, I just said that selise. Clearly the calculation was made that one never would be. So what to do? Bleat from the sidelines about single payer? Or try to force the enacting of a public option by ‘taking them at their word’ and demanding one?
As I said above, you can disagree with the what was decided, but you really can’t say it wasn’t a valid option.
You act like you don’t get what I’m saying here. Do you understand this, selise?
clearly not. 1) never is a very long time and 2) how can a calculation be made about something that is rejected before even knowing what the policy is, what the polling data are, etc? answer: it can’t
demand one what?
it could have made sense if any prior policy analysis had been done to determine what it would take to make the damn thing work and then demanded THAT po. but there wasn’t. the only thing that was demanded was a marketing slogan.
if you think it’s a valid option to 1) discard a workable policy without knowing what it is, 2) base that decision on faulty polling data and on obama’s popularity and 3) step on a genuine grass roots human rights movement and long time activists in the process…. all in favor of a neoliberal campaign slogan… well, we’re just going to have to disagree on that one.