At some point, people are going to accept that there were never 51 and most certainly were never 60 votes for the public option. I can say this quite confidently, because had there been that level of support for it, it would have passed! Just like the actual Senate HCR bill passed with 60 votes! Instead, it was repeatedly stripped from the bill and quietly killed. And not by Republicans.
Now what people need to do is figure out why, if they are so sure the public option will pass, only 20 some Senators have signed on to it, and even some of them privately want it to go away. Here is a hint- a lot of Senators ARE LYING TO YOU.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
also, which “public option” is everyone so committed to? The one in the House bill that, if memory serves, less than five per cent of the country was eligible for? That’s the hill we’re supposed to die on?
geg6
You know what, John? You and Ezra (who, despite his reputation here, has NOT been right about everything in this HCR process) may be absolutely right. I’ll give you that.
But you know what else? I’d rather go down fighting for what I believe in if it has even the slightest chance of happening. I know that makes me a silly DFH who has no conception of the hard realities only you and Ezra and Stuck understand. But I’d rather be me than you. I, at least, fight for what I believe and don’t surrender before the battle has even been struck.
Michael D.
Actually, Greenwald has a good post on this – they could actually get the votes, but Democrats – always advocating for certain things – never want to be in a position where they have to take responsibility for those things.
They do the same thing with gay issues, women’s issues, minorities, etc. And we always act either surprised or make excuses for why they can’t do what they said they were going to do.
General Egal Tarian Stuck
I am not sure a PO can get passed right now using reconc. and it is a real longshot, especially with the tender process to get just the fixes for an acceptable bill the House can pass. But I also think Ezra, nor anyone else can predict what will happen when the Recon. process is opened up on the Senate floor, and it is worth the effort now to fight for it. And screw the haters that will hate on the nearest dem that doesn’t deliver their ponies on time. This week it’s Rockefeller for being honest, next week it will be someone else. That is what they do and call it activism. From Ezra, and I concur
Mike Kay
THAT’S IT!
This post is the final straw!
It’s time to join Jane Hamsher and primary John Cole for control of his blog.
wrb
The tiny shiny thing named “public option” hypnotized progressives and left them unable to rally behind the Medicare buy-in or Wyden’s national exchange both of which were far more powerful and were actually achievable.
Brien Jackson
I don’t really think that’s a good way of looking at it, at this point I think there’s multiple layers of kabuki going on. Some people don’t want it to come up before Democrats try to make Republicans look like sheer obstructionists unwilling to deal at the summit, some Democrats don’t really care but want to reach out to people who do, some Democrats won’t support it, etc.
What does seem important is that Reid has said that if reconcilliation is used, he’ll have a vote on the public option. Are there 50 votes? I don’t know, but if there’s actually going to be a vote, I’d say it’s more likely than not to pass. The one complicating factor could be if Pelosi can’t get a bill through the House if it contains a public option and no Stupak language.
Mike Kay
@geg6:
That’s just what Custer said!!!
I wish I could embedd this perfect clip on the subject.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWGAdzn5_KU
cat48
flounder
Part of the whole charade is getting at least enough support to where the Senate is fated to vote on a public option amendment to a reconciliation bill. Then we can find out exactly who is lying.
I think we can at least get that much closure.
NobodySpecial
@Brien Jackson:
Exactly. This is a double edged vote – Democrats who refuse to support it will get hammered by their side, and rightfully so. Fear will make them vote for it, because while the teabaggers are always there, if they lose the hardcore left, a lot of leaners become tossups and a lot of tossups become sure unemployment fodder.
blogasita
Well maybe I’m just a bitch who wouldn’t make it in our vaunted Senate, but why not put it out there & let them vote yea or nay. Yeah, it would force some of these assholes to finally out their money where there mouth is, but so be it. Or, if that’s too much, why not just do a Medicare expansion? It sounds good & most of the “people” like it. Maybe they could stand voting for something if it had the name “Medicare”?
flounder
@Brien Jackson,
It appears to me that the only way to replace the Stupad votes is to get the Public Option votes on board.
Mike Kay
@wrb:
what’s really telling is Wyden, Feingold, and Dodd haven’t signed the PO petition.
geg6
@Mike Kay:
Fuck you. I’m not willing to scuttle whatever HCR they can get. But encouraging my congress critters to do what I know will be the best thing to actually bring about HCR is not a stupid thing to do or a lost cause or a suicide mission.
So just fuck you. Sideways with a chain saw.
beltane
@Mike Kay: Here’s one for you: http://dailykos.com/story/2010/2/23/839891/-Gays-Join-Women-under-Health-Care-Reform-Bus I didn’t read it; perhaps it is snark.
Brian J
In somewhat related news, John Boehner is now claiming that Obama’s proposal is too short, whereas before this, it was too long. No, I am not kidding, although I wish I was. Perhaps Rep. Boehner could tell us just what his Goldilocks length would be and Obama could adjust the font and margins to make him happy. Reading this stuff makes me wish I were dead.
In unrelated but still amusing news, Republican donors are pissed off at Michael Steele because he’s spending money on himself that will be needed for races in the fall. He’s raising less and spending more, which sounds perfectly in line with Republican fiscal priorities. The committee has spent almost all of the money in raised in January. Seriously.
If he keeps this stuff up, I wonder how badly he’s going to screw his party for the midterms. Every dollar does indeed count.
Brien Jackson
@NobodySpecial:
I don’t know about that, I just don’t think there are 8 Democrats plus Lieberman who are that opposed to it that they’ll go on record voting against it if Senate leadership actually puts it up to a vote. But I might be wrong. As it is, I’d say Lieberman, Nelson, Lincoln, Landrieu, Pryor, Bayh, Conrad, and Baucus definitely vote against it. If Lautenberg can’t make the vote, that leaves 50.
Tres Chouette
I dunno, over at TPM (where they were always pretty level-headed about the difficult realities of getting this thing passed) they seem more bullish on the PO’s chances than I’ve seen in a long time. Brian Beutler’s post at TPMDC has more on the momentum behind this.
The fact that Harry Reid has basically endorsed the use of reconciliation seems to me to be the big news here. Reid, not Obama, has long been the greatest Democratic obstacle to this bill solely by force of incompetence, so if he’s cleaned out his closet and discovered his spine in some shoebox, that bodes well for future legislation above and beyond this one subset of one bill.
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I think the importance of the public option, just like Medicare, is having it there to be expanded upon for the future. We aren’t just going to pass single payer anytime soon, we need to build the progressive infrastructure and keep it healthy and viable so when the time comes for more action in this area (and believe me it will come), liberals have a solution to point to. This bill, half-assed though it may be, is just a beginning.
Davis X. Machina
@wrb
This is Congress. This is American politics. We expect to go to the mattresses over names, over shibboleths.
scarshapedstar
There were never any votes for single-payer, so we didn’t even bother.
There were never any votes for the public option, so we didn’t even bother.
There were never any votes for health care reform, so we didn’t even bother.
I’m starting to notice a pattern here. Hey, I betcha the Republicans will throw us a life preserver!
Zifnab
What Erza misses here is the definition of the word “constituents”. You can’t claim, in one breath, that the public option has strong across-the-board populist support, but it also opposed by a large majority of a Democratic Senator’s constituents.
Here, the Dem Senators that helped kill the public option are crowing to their insurance company masters back home.
That’s the trick, though. There are parts of the health care bill that need to pass via the standard process. They aren’t budgetary items, so they can’t make it through reconciliation. I think the public option has a lot of support in the Dem caucus – certainly Sen. Rockafellar was supporting it back when the Senate bill was originally being crafted – but it doesn’t have the support to overcome the general fear of rocking the boat.
Democrats are, once again, playing softball. They’re afraid the public option will scare away corporate ConservaDems or wreck any chance of a Republican defection at Thursday’s health care summit.
So they’re giving ground once again, before a shot is even fired.
What legislation finally coming out of the Senate is going to be that much lukewarm mush. A few vital fixes for today swaddled in a thousand conservative time-bombs for tomorrow. It’s necessary, but it’s going to be ugly.
I still don’t see how keeping the public option off the table is going to strengthen the Democrats’ position. Reid and Obama just don’t seem like their serious negotiators on this bill.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
The Jane Hamster of the Left is on the Ed Schultz radio show. Miss Jane thinks that the President is a poopie head for not including a public option in his proposal.
CADoc
Sad as it is, that is the truth. Going full bore on the public option has the real risk of scuttling the whole thing. HCR has beaten the odds to get this far, and no amount of CPR is going to resuscitate it again if the Dems make the wrong move.
Once the current package is safely passed and being implemented, if the exchanges aren’t having enough of a tempering effect on prices, Congress can always go back and try that piece again.
Too many people need this and too many people have been working for a lifetime to see this happen for HCR to be lost over a single policy issue. This is not the sword to fall on.
Brian J
@Tres Chouette:
I don’t know if I’d say it’s half-assed, but it’s still better than what we have now and promises to be a big step forward. I don’t think there are many examples of countries that have solved their health care problems in one fell swoop.
geg6
@cat48:
Yeah, well, I don’t take orders from Gibbs. And I’m pretty sure most senators would demur at the idea that Gibbs tells them what to do, too. I’m pretty sure some senators still actually listen to their constituents. Perhaps not 50 of them, though, based on what I’ve seen in the Senate over the course of my 51 years on the planet.
Regardless, just because Gibbs says so does not make it so. This is still the White House communications team that’s done such a stellar job over the last year right? And the White House political team that had that Plan B all ready and raring to go in case Coakley wasn’t the slam dunk they thought she was?
scarshapedstar
Also, I’ve got one simple question to ask my Senator:
“Why should I have to pay the CEO of Blue Cross a bonus for health insurance when the government can do the same thing for free?”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Tres Chouette: If they get McCaskill, Webb or Baucus to sign on, I’ll get excited.
You mean the Senate bill? I agree.
I also agree about the PO being an important foot in the door, but I think that given teh political clusterfuck that’s going on now–Yglesias, no firebagger, has a very pessimistic post about next November–the Dems need to get something done, not to pick another fight. Pass. The Damn. (Senate) Bill. Then re-start the PO fight. Every day this twists in the air is another day the Cokie Roberts/Charlie Cook “Dems just can’t get anything done” narrative gains strength.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@flounder:
Not so much closure as setting the table for 2010, 2012 and beyond. We aren’t going to get single payer, or even a public option in anything other than a crippled form which is designed to be so small and limited it will either fail or be little more than a proof of concept, with the current Senate. It is too corrupt, too old, too stuck in the politics of the 1990s and early 00s.
But what we will get at some point in the near future is something like this. And then after the following election cycle the policy landscape will look different. The PO is useful today to force the current crop of Senators to show who they really are, the effects of which will be felt further downstream.
slag
@Brian J:
I think Boehner should whip out his own proposal so we can all see how his measures up.
Just Some Fuckhead
My favorite part of John Cole’s self-confident and prickish assertions about what is possible regarding health care is to point out that his way did not in fact produce a signed bill.
Oopsie.
NobodySpecial
@Brien Jackson:
You and I agree, I must have just said it badly. Like blogasita said, put it out there. Make them vote against it. They won’t dare. It’s a fair bet that some of your list might be persuaded to vote for it simply because they’re in a safer spot than others, like Pryor.
mr. whipple
I agree. I also agree with JC- the votes were never there, which made it easier for some Dems to sign onto the PO because they knew it had no chance of passing.
Just the same, I’m pissed at all Dems, House and Senate, because it’s obvious they both eat at the same insurance trough. When the PO consistently polls at 65-70% and the Dems won’t pass it except in the House in some very weak form, it isn’t hard to figure out why.
Martin
Honestly, everything is subject to change once the summit hits. It’s kinda silly even speculating one way or another on the matter. Those things tend to shift the landscape a surprising amount – either by showing a common unity among the Dems or the GOP, or disagreement within the ranks.
And there’s plenty of Senators that may oppose it simply because it’s reconciliation and they think it’s backhanded (unlike filibustering everything, I suppose – I don’t get the reasoning) or they don’t want to go on record until after the summit.
Wait until Friday.
joes527
Cool. Reality.
Now that we are dealing with reality, what makes you think that there was _ever_ 50 votes for anything that might pass?
The house squeaked through a bill that they KNEW wasn’t going to fly in the senate, and the Senate built a 60 vote coalition (that held together long enough for the vote to close, but no longer) to send back a bill that they KNEW wasn’t going to fly in the house.
This assumption that there are 50 senators out there who would put their names on ANYTHING that might actually go somewhere, and not just be a vehicle for posturing …. I imagine it is possible. I just haven’t seen any evidence.
I agree that this whole “we can get back to the public option in reconciliation” push is disconnected from reality. But I have yet to see a path forward that is rooted in reality. Whip the house into shape and the senate will crumble. Whip the senate into shape and the house will balk.
Ga-ron-tee!
Mike Kay
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford:
Hamsher is a republican plant. There is more than ample evidence, sold evidence, actually, that she’s bought and paid for by the insurance industry.
The Mata Hari of Aetna.
Mike Kay
@beltane:
Darling, the link is broke. Please fix.
Will
Shrug. I’m finding it hard to get particularly worked up about the do-over.
I’d lay good odds that the end result of all of this is that health care doesn’t pass, again.
meh
this wins the No Shit Sherlock prize for the day…
Sentient Puddle
Me, I would have preferred that at the very least, Bennet waited until after the summit to make the push. The sense I get is that Obama set it up as a long play to make Republicans look like they’re only in it to block shit, then ram through whatever they can.
At that point, futile or not, the public option push wouldn’t have had much of a downside. If it failed, it failed. But to bring it up now mucks up the game plan.
mr. whipple
Reid has never shown the slightest interest in putting Senate Dems on the spot by making them vote for the PO.
I sure wish he would, because when the rubber meets the road I want it on record who would vote yes and no. None of this ‘we don’t have the votes’ BS. I want to know who they are.
BTD
By the same token John, it is not at all clear that there are 217 votes in the House for the Senate bill even with the proposed fixes.
What say you to that?
This lecture is interesting but I think mirrors can be applied as well to the “Pass the Damn Bill!” crowd.
Any chance of you addressing that?
General Egal Tarian Stuck
@Zifnab:
Yes, and too a large degree it’s not an unfounded fear. HCR has been dreamed about and tried a few failed times for 60+ years. There is a reason for this. It is a political and ideological powder keg that is infinitely complex with tons of big money at play and people lives at stake for when they need healthcare, making it rife to be distorted by opponents.
To get this far, and need a highly unpredictable and controversial process to bypass the filibuster is something to fret about. So I don’t blame committed HCR dems for not wanting to rock the boat that much. So much is at stake, and the numerous important reforms in a flawed senate bill equates to lives saved. or not. Not to mention the personal pol fortunes of dems in the short and long term. But I also think it is worth fighting for a PO, because it is at least possible at this time, and won’t be again for awhile, most likely.
wrb
@Mike Kay:
A dream solution would involve both the Wyden Exchanges and the Medicare buy-in passing in reconciliation. Then we’d have one hell of a great bill, tiny public option or no.
It seems easily doable but there has been such an utter lack of pressure for these things I’m afraid they won’t bother.
Mike Kay
@geg6:
so why hasn’t Wyden, Dodd, and Feingold signed the petition?
Why are these raging liberals hiding from the petition?
eastriver
This blog should be retitled BLITHERINGLY OBVIOUS JUICE.
And we can Obama to the list of liars.
joes527
@BTD: for some reason, around here political realities in the senate are seen as forces of nature and political realities in the house are seen as assholes being assholes.
That works so long as the house is willing to accept its role as the senate’s bitch.
The fact that that ain’t happening this time is the political reality doesn’t seem to get through.
soonergrunt
@joes527:
I don’t think that’s the case, at least not all the time.
I’ve see a lot of times around here when one Senator or another Nelson, Bayh, and Lieberman come to mind immediately who were just thought of, and proclaimed Assholes.
A lot of that has to do with the power of individual Senators as compared to the power of individual Congressmen. The very structure of the rules of the Senate make them ‘forces of nature’ and this is how the most egotistical body in the world wants it.
cat48
@Brian J:
Wolf Gang Puck catered, no less. He so would be gone if they were not afraid to fire him. Private jets & limos. Hysterical.
danimal
@NobodySpecial: Rockefeller just gave them a reason to vote against the PO. He’s providing political cover so they can vote against the PO but still support HCR. That’s what is happening.
geg6
@Mike Kay:
I don’t know and don’t care why they aren’t aboard. It’s not my job to know that. It’s my job to convince my senators. I really think I’ve done my part, since I’m pretty sure that, given the chance to actually, you know, vote on it, Casey would. And I know Specter will since he’s been an advocate of HCR even when he was a Republican. I’ve made my dozens of calls and written my dozens of letters and emails to my representatives. I’m not responsible for any others and they wouldn’t listen to me even if I was so inclined.
Face
Dont need 51. Need 50. What else ya (dont) got?
Just Some Fuckhead
@geg6: What a crazy notion, producing a good bill that has what the public overwhelmingly supports and putting it out there for a vote and then holding accountable those who killed it when that happens.
Instead, I say we start by screaming something, anything, has to be done right now hell or high water and then taking a year to do it, making secret deals with the big corporate players, compomising with ourselves from jump street and creating a bill Republicans can support but won’t vote for, that half of America hates, and that shears the Democratic party and dooms us in the next election cycle whether or not anything passes.
If the steely-eyed realists could have fucked this up any more than they did, I’m at a loss as to say how.
Nick
@Brien Jackson:
A public option in the bill?
Lincoln, Landrieu, Bayh, Lieberman, Nelson, Conrad, Pryor, Baucus, Nelson, Byrd. Now we’re at 49 with Lautenberg. Assuming we still have Begich, McCaskill, Warner, Webb, Hagan, and Tester.
You see why this is a shaky scenario?
60th Street
Regardless of what John or anyone says, call the Senators that haven’t signed on to Bennet’s letter and tell them YOU support a public option in the bill and encourage them to sign it based on their past support for it.
All we need to do is get it to encourage them to give it an “up or down vote” in the Senate. At that point, the only reason Democrats would vote “nay” is because their either truly hate the idea or are afraid of losing their seat.
demo woman
@Nick: But, but all the cool blogs say they have the votes,
John must have had a crappy day cuz he just had to write a blog that would incite the trolls.
The Raven
Because many Senators don’t want to go against a part of the powerful financial services industry. Strikes me as a good reason to keep fighting. Besides, if we can’t win this one, how are we ever going to reform the rest of financial services?
Croak!
Ailuridae
@BTD:
What say you to that?
That you and yours should be proud for denying medical care to billions of poor and working poor families because you didn’t get your public option? So, yeah, thanks for that.
General Egal Tarian Stuck
The House will pass the bill with fixes. Stupak will foam and flail about tax money paying for abortions. And Nancy Pelosi will read all of them riot act on the consequences of voting down HCR. There will be arranged enough nay votes for those Blue Dogs to vote that way for pol cover in their districts. With just enough yays to reach 218 or 219. The House will not kill the democrats signature issue, on pain of a pol massacre on election day 2010.
Punchy
You’re assuming the Dems will control both houses next year. That’s a pretty bold (and unlikely) possibility.
demo woman
Health care reform will pass. Will it be perfect, no but hopefully after it is passed, the public option or Medicare buy in can be added.
Just Some Fuckhead
@joes527:
Ha.
This.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@BTD:
I can’t speak for others, so here my little take on this –
beyond and in addition to the structural factors which are different in the two chambers, I have much more confidence in Pelosi being able to whip the votes in the House than in Reid being able to twist arms in the Senate, if a really tight vote is pending. Based on her track record so far Pelosi is shaping up to look like one of the best House Speakers in at least a generation. Reid, well you know what most of us here think about Reid. Piss, boot, instructions on the bootheel, etc.
Cain
@Mike Kay:
Wyden not signing on is annoying as all get out. I’m going to have to give the dude a call. AGAIN.
cain
aretino
@Brien Jackson:
Word. The difficulty of getting 218 votes in the House for a Stupak-free PO has received woefully inadequate attention. People have a misconception, because of the filibuster, that the Senate is more conservative than the House. With majority rules in effect, however, the opposite is true. We need to see the votes from the House before we put the PO in a Senate reconciliation bill.
Toni
I believe that a majority of the 59 Senate Democrats support the public option and would vote for it. I think there are 30 – 35 strong supporters and 5 – 10 who lean that way. Early in 2009 Evan Bayh formed this conservadem group with 15 Senators of which Landrieu, Lincoln, Lieberman, and Ben Nelson are a part of. Do you really think these 4 were acting on their own last fall when they threatened to fillibuster the whole bill if it had a public option? Have you ever heard Evan Bayh say he supports a public option? All he says is that he is open to it which is classic doublespeak for not being pinned down to anything.
Njorl
I think the PO is a longshot, but not impossible. I think there are a lot of senators who do not want to be for a public option that will fail to be in the final bill. They would be OK supporting a PO if it actually passes. Sadly, this is where leadership is important, and the leadership doesn’t care.
Ailuridae
It was also known before the bill even left the finance committee that there weren’t 50 sure “Yes” votes for a Senate bill with a public option because Open Left whipped the caucus and found there to be somewhere between 44 and 46.
This is all irrelevant to passing the fixes of the current bills in reconciliation as a public option or Medicare buy-in can be passed at any time using reconciliation. It never needed to be part of the larger effort.
demo woman
OT.. It appears that Cheney had a mild heart attack. How many damn lives does he have?
Barry
NobodySpecial:
“You and I agree, I must have just said it badly. Like blogasita said, put it out there. Make them vote against it. They won’t dare. It’s a fair bet that some of your list might be persuaded to vote for it simply because they’re in a safer spot than others, like Pryor.”
And if they feel that a public up-or-down vote is a possibility, then they’ll be a bit more willing to help get something passed.
The method of pre-emptive surrender has clearly failed.
numbskull
@wrb: WTF? Progressives were OVERJOYED at the prospect of expanding Medicare.
That, of course, is why Lieberman had to kill it.
cat48
@geg6:
It was solely informational. Not meant to send a msg to anyone.
Brian J
@slag:
I wish I could make more penis length jokes, but I prematurely shot my wad. Now I am spent.
@cat48:
I don’t understand why they don’t fire him. It’s not as if they have much further to fall with minorities. Find some Hispanic or Asian or woman or someone that isn’t a middle-aged white guy and kick Steele’s ass to the curb.
Not that I, a Democrat, really care. I hope he continues his wasteful ways. He’s so damn stupid that this isn’t likely to make an impact, and the more donors seem him being wasteful, the less likely they are to contribute. Thus, taking back seats becomes that much harder.
eemom
@Mike Kay:
excellent! That’ll be about as useful as anything else she ever does.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
I agree with John and Greenwald that this is likely just more Lucy-football stuff from the Dems, but Reid’s electoral situation leads me to think that the chances of getting a public option, while slim, are not zero. It’s hard to conceive of a path to re-election for him unless he accomplishes something big and meaningful this year. But then this is Harry Reid we’re talking about. So slim but not zero.
Chris Bowers may be right and something like Medicare buy-in might stand a better chance of making a comeback. No idea. At this point I might put more money on Nibiru than HCR, but we’ll see.
eemom
@demo woman:
I keep telling y’all that he’s really the Antichrist, but no one ever believes me.
John Cole
@BTD: I think I agree. I don’t think anything is going to pass now.
@Just Some Fuckhead: Uh oh. Here comes JSF, bringing the butthurt, because I pointed out that the Senate is full of scheming liars! Apostasy! Hippy Puncher! How dare you note that the Senate is full of assholes!
Save yourself the time, jackass.
ruemara
I am fine with no PO in the bill. Why? We have no idea what kind of public option. I’d be happier if this bill was expanded medicare for all, active immediately. I’ve supported the bill with reservations and I’m happy to see Obama’s bill does not include it. It’s got what’s in there to change health insurance and expand coverage. Appealing to a broad base = milquetoast. Aggressive, radical change = narrow, not a majority base. This is what can pass as a standard vote. Reconcilliation can be for the fiscal stuff & that’s if they don’t need to attach even more fiscal stuff to get it all done as a massive reconcilliation bill. Sure keep fighting etc, rah, rah, just have at least a toe on the ground.
@geg6:
Just an fyi, Coakley was never the WH choice nor the Kennedy choice. Her losing was because she just didn’t care.
MikeJ
Objection: assumes organ not in evidence.
Ash Can
@Brian J:
Oh, that’s outstanding. Go, Michael, go! Trickle down, bitchez!
60th Street
Hello! This is a very good sign!
Carper: ‘I Expect I Will’ Sign Public Option Letter; Levin Wants To Check Wording First
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/02/carper-i-expect-i-will-sign-public-option-letter-levin-wants-to-check-wording-first.php
Unless, of course, you think that when ConservaDems start signing up, it means it has absolutely no chance of passing.
Whatevs. I prefer to consider it optimistically! :) CALL! Say you want an “up or down vote” for the public option!
CADoc
@ Punchy: We won’t be going back to this next year, but a few years down the line as the benefits of HCR are beginning to be felt, the enthusiasm to go back and improve it with a public option will be a lot greater.
But you can’t play the long game if you don’t even get started.
Brian J
@Bruce (formerly Steve S.):
Is it too late for him to retire? I mean, if the situation is so hopeless as some think it is, can’t we get someone new in the seat?
Ailuridae
@Cain:
Wyden was always wishy washy about the public option. He didn’t respond directly to open left’s whipping and from the following they gleaned a ‘maybe’ (its long)
http://www.blueoregon.com/2009/06/dean-wyden-the-public-option-single-payer-and-the-rest-of-the-kitchen-sink.html
Punchy
I’ll go on record (whatever that means) and say it doesnt.
eemom
@John Cole:
I know you don’t ban people here, but could you at least change his name to Just Some Gratuitously Obnoxious Condescending Sexist Asshole?
‘twould be MOST kind. kthxbai
Karmakin
The thing about the Public Option for progressives…
Progressives are not the communists that the Republican party makes them out to be. We like markets! Really! We just like they balanced.
And what progressives want, is a strong public option so the market can decide if private insurance is a good deal. Full stop.
The other side of the coin, is that a lot of progressives are morally opposed to the health insurance industry, to the point of considering them murderers, and want the ability to vote with their pocketbook without putting them in immense risk (or being forced to support them!)
For these people, a mandate without a public option is the same thing as forcing anti-choice conservatives to use the doctor’s at their local Planned Parenthood.
But we don’t give progressive/liberal morality the same importance that we place on placating it on the right.
(That said, I think that until the country at large grows up about the employment situation, anything that actually reduces inefficiency is a bad idea. Like it or not, structually, America is in VERY bad shape employment wise, and has been for a long time.)
ruemara
@60th Street:
Good, I applaud this & KEEP CALLING! These guys only respond to bitching & yelling. It’s like working with an irritating sub.
patrick
We really do get it. It’s just that we want to see the vote. That’s how you find out who is who. The bill can be stripped of the public option and voted on again. But damn, I am so tired of the “oh, we couldn’t get the votes because someone else isn’t going to vote for it. Let’s see who those people are.
Woodbuster
It would appear tha there hasn’t been an emopants shitfit for a while, so John put out some BTD and Fuckhead bait. And, just like clockwork, I see that BTD and Fuckhead appeared to gum up the whole thread with their worthless bullshit.
yawn.
Brian J
@Ash Can:
Seriously. From the second page:
Perhaps the Democrats aren’t in good shape, either, but they are the incumbents, and I doubt they are in worse shape than the Democrats. And perhaps the Republicans have started to raise a lot of money in the last few weeks, so that they now have over $10 million, or whatever target would put them on the path towards reaching that goal. But man, with a deficit like that, perhaps the midterms won’t be so bad for us.
John Cole
Yes. They should have just made a “good” bill. That would have fixed everything! Why didn’t we tell them to make a “good” one. This is the kind of nonsensical gibberish I’ve come to know and love from you.
The reason they didn’t produce a “good” bill is because of the number of flaming assholes in both the House and the Senate and the impossibility of getting to 60 with all of these ego-inflated swine. What one person thinks is good shifts the votes of five others in a different direction, and vice versa. it isn’t that simple to just make a “good” bill that is “popular” because so many of the jerks in the Senate just do not care. And once you finally get it through the house and Senate, then you have to deal with cretins like Stupak and the C-Street cretins.
At some point you are going to stop bitching at me because I have realized, quite accurately, that we are not dealing with mature adults or a functioning legislative body. Instead, when it comes to trying to do anything in the Senate, what you really end up doing is not legislating, but playing Asshole Jenga– trying to get something done without pulling out the Lieberman or Lincoln or Nelson or Bayh that brings the whole shitpile down on your head.
BTD
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
Well, Pelosi said she did not have the votes. Not that she could get them or might get them. she did not have them.
Finally, folks believed it and thus the Obama proposal.
In the wake of that, as Tim F. posted, Pelosi STILL says she does not have the votes. I thik she might be able to get them, but it is certainly a heavier lift than it was the first time. And the first time, Pelosi barely got the votes for it.
Here’s my point, there is as much evidence of there being 50 votes in the Senate for the PO as there is that there are 217 votes in the House for the Obama Proposal.
As it happens, I think John is right that there are not 50 votes in the Senate for a PO. As it happens, I think that if Obama negotiates with the House, he MAY be able to get 217. Maybe.
But the key word in all this is “think.”
John is here pronouncing from on high as if he has a fucking clue about any of this.
He doesn’t/ I think a little bit of uncertainty is in order from him and I think the tone of telling people to not battle for the PO is complete bullshit.
I suggested in comments at this blog the past few weeks that the “Pass the Damn Bill” crowd were being silly because there were clearly not even close to the votes for it. I stated that an excise tax fix was a condition precedent to even discussing passage of the Senate bill.
I thinkit is clear now that that remains true and Obama proved this reality with his proposal.
But is it enough? I have no idea.
Stupak came out today and said No to the Obama proposal. How many votes does Stuopak have with him? And if he has enough to block, how do you deal with that?
Will Cole write some “reality” posts about that?
Nah. Too busy punching hippies.
gypsy howell
Honestly I don’t give a shit about the Senate’s “reality.”
MY reality is that I want a public option (actually, I told both Specter & Casey that my first choice was single payer, but for some reason we’re not allowed to even consider that in this country.)
Short of that, I want a public option. So, I did my part – I told the two senators who are SUPPOSED to care about representing their constituents that THIS constituent wants a public option, and wants it passed through reconciliation.
Half the reason the public option is “not a reality” is because our senators don’t believe their constituents want it or care about it (yes, yes, the other half is because they’re completely beholden to corporate interests.)
At least I let them know where this constituent stands.
Not that I think it will do much good. But hey, you guys are the ones with elebenty-jillion posts up telling us to call our congresscritters and tell ’em what we want.
NobodySpecial
@60th Street:
Up is down, black is white, weakness is strength, and every twist and turn in HCR is always good news for John McCain, where values of John McCain include anyone who disbelieves in a public option.
Mike Kay
I don’t know what’s more sad: Gilliabrand and Bennett using this petition ploy to drum up contributions from the gullible or the DFH who once again thought they could kick the football. In short, each side should have known better.
madmatt
Even without the PO, the bill is a useless giveaway to the Ins Co’s and thats what the senators and barack want…and all the more reason to reject the bill! Sick people need to start flying planes into Insurance Company buildings and then lets see what happens!
BTD
@John Cole:
You write “At some point you are going to stop bitching at me because I have realized, quite accurately, that we are not dealing with mature adults or a functioning legislative body. Instead, when it comes to trying to do anything in the Senate, what you really end up doing is not legislating, but playing Asshole Jenga- trying to get something done without pulling out the Lieberman or Lincoln or Nelson or Bayh that brings the whole shitpile down on your head.”
And yet your cluelessness on the state of play in the house is manifest.
While I agree with your assessment of the Senate and the extreme unlikelihood of the PO passing the Senate, you have shown no awareness of any kind of the state of play in the House.
Indeed, you have been rather delusional about it.
JD Rhoades
@geg6:
Right. Screw trying to make a first down. Screw trying to get in better field goal position.
If we can’t throw a 75 yard touchdown pass on every play, at least we got our asses kicked while holding on to our belief in the Hail Mary.
wrb
@numbskull:
What is strange to me is hugely disproportionate focus and work on passing a small public option through reconciliation. Myself, I think such effort is more likely to be rewarded if exerted on behalf of passing Medicare buy-in and a national open exchange through reconciliation.
ymmv
Mike Kay
@gypsy howell:
Maybe you should write a letter to Santa.
licensed to kill time
@John Cole:
Asshole Jenga ought to be a tag if it is not already.
BTD
@Woodbuster:
Right. discussing the sate of play in the House will gum up the works for the punching the hippies” crowd.
Let’s not reality intrude on the mocking, unless of course the mocking is of the silly commentary on the state of play on the health bills.
I remember just a few weeks ago I was “gumming up” the “Pass the Damn Bill” mantra that passed for rational thought here by stating what is now manifest – there was no “Passing the Damn Bill” in the House without an excise tax fix.
Now Obama proposes precisely what I said was needed. anyone remember what they said about this a couple of weeks ago?
Better not to. More fun to punch the hippies.
NobodySpecial
@JD Rhoades:
That’s right! So with our first two plays from scrimmage, we’ll run out of bounds for losses of five yards each. Now with twenty yards in front of us, we’ll have lots of room to complete a pass for seven or eight and be in almost perfect position to punt!
Now didn’t that work well?
Groucho48
Way back in the beginning, Obama, Reid and Pelosi should have gotten together and decided what the best bill possible could be and what would they have to do to get that bill passed.
My feeling is that the best they could have hoped for was some kind of exchange and lowering the Medicare age to 55. That’s still probably the best way to go, but, doesn’t seem to be on the table anymore.
They could have gotten this by starting out with a single payer bill. That would have maybe 20-25 Senators on board. Compromise to a strong public option. That would bring in another 10 or so Democrats with another dozen in the “haven’t decided” column. Now, the real wheeling and dealing starts. Slowly give ground towards a weaker public option while mentioning how popular Medicare is.
Then, go to the public about lowering the Medicare age limits. Tell the states the feds will finance it. This will bring some Republican Governors on board. From what I understand, they could expand Medicare through the reconciliation process so they’d only need 50 votes.
This could have been done by last August.
John Cole
@BTD: Clueless about what? That there aren’t the votes in the House? I thought everyone knows this. Of course Pelosi is having a harder time getting the votes- the Senate bill screwed the progressives again. And even if they manage to get to some sort of consensus, then it will be time for Stupak to show up and start screwing things up again.
I don’t think any bill is going to pass at this point, despite the optimism. Am I wrong?
apostropher
The tiny shiny thing named “public option” hypnotized progressives and left them unable to rally behind the Medicare buy-in
Medicare buy-in is a public option.
frankdawg
No, I will not give up on the public option! You do not start a negotiation by giving away 75% of what you want and then dealing for the scraps. You start by demanding 150% of what you want & settling for what you can get. As it is the Ds start at 25% the Rs at infinity and then the Ds end up with shit & can’t understand why the 25% of the voters that wouldn’t vote of the Jesus/Buddha ticket if the Ds nominated it don’t like them, the folks who do vote D are pissed & the undecided think they are dickheads.
We seem to have a 2 party system where 1 party wants to do as much damage to the country as possible and the other is afraid to try and do good because the destroyers are unhappy with them.
Blue Neponset
It really is hard to understand where the ‘Public Option or death crowd’ is coming from. I would love to have one of them game out a scenario where we get a Public Option.
The Moar You Know
@demo woman: Cheney will not die from a heart attack, as demons cannot die. He will be called home by his Master, and you’ll know when that happens, as a crack the width of Texas will open in the earth will open and a huge, miles-tall scaled arm will reach out and grab him in front of whichever bunch of teabaggers he’s addressing, and pull him back to his throne in hell.
It won’t be long before that happens. Reagan is getting tired of running the whole show down there and needs a coffee break.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@patrick:
This, a thousand times this.
I’m sick to f’ing death of a Congress which plays more games with non-voting, off the record “votes” than William H Macy’s Jerry Lundegaard character in Fargo did with the automobile serial numbers he was supposed to be faxing in. If you win you win and if you lose you lose, but show us your f’ing work or go home, assholes.
Patrick Lightbody
I’ve been one of those people who voted “No, and not planning to” in all the various polls that Tim has been putting up. I’m too damn lazy.
But for some reason, today I felt like maybe there was a chance HCR could get passed, so I called Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and talked to someone.
I guess I’m slow to pick up the news, but I guess he endorsed the idea of passing HCR (with the public option) via reconciliation a few days ago.
So there you have it. I’m no longer a “No, and I don’t plan to” voter. Keep it up, you’ve worn me down and I’m sure there are others that you can keep influencing.
PS: Someone explain to me why they can’t try a vote w/ and then w/o (if it doesn’t pass w/) the public option using reconciliation?
soonergrunt
Popped some pocorn, closed my office door, set email and voicemail to ‘out of office’.
THIS THREAD IS FUCKING GREAT!
gypsy howell
@Mike Kay:
I’d have a better shot at getting something useful, that’s for sure.
Honestly, it’s very, very clear to me, and has been for a long time, that what voters want is of ZERO importance to the House or the Senate. How’s that for a hard dose of realism? So WHY are there all these posts here asking us to make phone calls? I dunno. So we can pretend it means something I guess.
I called and expressed my views on the public option for the same reason I marched against the Iraq war so many times. Just to ease my own conscience. Because I know it don’t mean fuckall to these people in DC.
On by the way, you can go fuck yourself too, asswipe.
ruemara
Want a good bill? Here’s a good bill.
Insurance portion
No more anti-trust exemption. Insurance Exchanges. Expanded Medi-care to 50. Subsidies & mandates. Fully funded community health clinics. Fully fund rural/visiting nurse programs. Price negotiations on drugs. Aggressive anti-fraud/abuse policing.
Health Portion
End of sugar & corn subsidies. Fully fund school lunch/agriculture, nutrition & exercise programs. Loan & grant programs to increase full supermarkets in urban areas. Expansion of farmer’s market programs. Increase any and all grants for biodynamic farming and encourage introduction of urban farm initiatives.
There’s a good progressive health bill.
Muzzle every republican for 6 months and shut off most sunday chat shows, tranq conservadems and we might get that. and sparkle ponies.
BTD
@John Cole:
You thought this? NEver before have you expressed such a belief John.
I’ve seen you punjch hippies a nukmber of time on the PO.
Not once did I see you give a “reality check” to the “Pass the Damn Bill” crowd that predominate your site and the blogs you cite to.
When you write that “reality check” post, it will be your first on the subject.
Mike Kay
@soonergrunt:
I aims to please.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@BTD:
I dunno boss. That’s why they don’t pay me the big bucks.
My best guess is, if the whip count is close, out come the heavy duty bribes, er, I mean pork. Offer things like what Bernie Sanders got in the Senate (all those local health clinics), only tailored to whatever the sweet spot is in the districts of the key holdouts. For the most part House reps are cheaper whores than the higher class “talent” in the Senate.
patrick
I’d love to see the “public option”, and have it immediately or eventually opened up to small businesses, or as an “opt out” of your company’s crappy health insurance, but frankly, it needs rebranding, like “medicare buy in”
I’d be happier seeing a medicare buy in for all, or at least starting with age 50-up, and for companies say, with less than 20 employees as part of a reconcilliation package. I’d think expanding an existing agency would definitely be “legal” under reconcilliation rules….and it could easily be a stand alone bill introduced later, too….
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: I’m all for forcing a vote on the PO, but not until Something Else is passed, getting the Senate bill with Teh Evil Evil Obama’s PO-less compromise pushed through reconciliation. If they force a vote on the PO now (Rockefeller’s amendment, C6, was voted down in the finance committee, including three Dem nays– can’t find the names) it will just give the buffoons another propaganda platform– The American people have rejected this government takeover of blahblahblahblah……
Pass. The Damn. Bill.
licensed to kill time
@The Moar You Know:
I googled “is Cheney dead yet?” and it returns 530,000 links.
Mike Kay
@gypsy howell:
Pull up your pants, hippie
geg6
@cat48:
Well, based on the reporting I’ve seen on blogs and in the MSM, the White House has been more than a little hostile to the PO. Whether that’s Gibbs, or Obama, or Rahm, or whomever, I don’t know and don’t care. But the messaging, as reported, has been that they aren’t neutral about it, but actively hostile. So my hostility to any messages from Gibbs on the PO is premised on that.
Ailuridae
@Patrick Lightbody:
They won’t do that for procedural and re-election reasons. I Senator might feel his or her caucus is leaving them out to dry. They can use reconciliation for a stand alone public option or Medicare buy-in. The complaints about introducing the public option into the current negotiations between the House and Senate bills is that it just doesn’t need to be there as it can be passed at any time by an up and down vote
cat48
@Brian J:
Politico (natch) did an article when Steele was telling everyone to sit down and shut up about a month ago and Repugs said (off the record, of course) that they could not fire him because he was the first black Chairman. That is their reason which really seemed sorta racist to me. They are keeping their affirmative action hire the way they see it.
Just not good. But he is fun to watch because he has gotten more outrageous since then.
geg6
@ruemara:
I know that and never said she was. However, they were completely convinced she was a slam dunk and didn’t even formulate a plan in case they were wrong. That is why they were so thunderstruck that they sat around a whole week while congressional Dems were running around DC like the world had come to an end. Meanwhile, HCR floundered. Again. So my statement stands. I don’t think I have to listen to people who didn’t take even the most basic steps to have a backup plan on a political issue on which they spent 2 years campaigning and which has been the cornerstone of their party for the last 70 years.
Flugelhorn
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
umm… Huh?
Martin
The PO is, frankly, a bad idea when the alternative of extending Medicare/Medicaid is so much more sensible and I really wish that idea hadn’t gotten scuttled. The last thing we need is yet another health care system. I really wish more energy was being put into that as a solution.
General Egal Tarian Stuck
@John Cole: You may not be wrong in the end, but certainly are pessimistic. And I think you underestimate the power of CC’ers fearing the loss of majority status and with it the gavels of chairing committees. Or more simply put “power”.
This is the only thing that is motivating a moribund senate dem caucus at present to at least jump headlong into the whirlwind reconciliation process, where they will be demagogued by the wingnuts and hammered by progs to do more than what that process affords. And all of it partially controlled by an unelected Parliamentarian. The fact they are willing to go this route, means anything is possible including an albeit unlikely PO Pony, but certainly a fix to the current senate bill.
And the same loss of power wolf is also nipping at the heels of House dems, even more so than the senate, where it is much more likely they keep the majority this go round if they shoot down the democratic Holy Grail of policy.
Brighten up sunshine, and don’t drink BTD’s nihilistic punch.
Mike Kay
@geg6:
you base your position on hearsay information posted by drunk, Cheeto’s eating hippies?
Too bad Al Gore didn’t invent the internet so you could look up actual quotes and make your own judgments.
gypsy howell
@Mike Kay:
Stop playing with your pud in public.
John Cole
@BTD: Even when I write something, you spend the entire thread confused about what I said or wanting to debate my intent. I have repeatedly said that should the bill fail, it is not the fault of the progressives- they have done what they should, sent a bill speedily to the Senate that was in itself a very modest and centrist bill, and the Senate proceeded to shit all over them.
The reason we want to pass the damned bill is not because we love the Senate, but because if the House doesn’t, it is all over. Yes, the House is getting fucked. Yes the Senate Bill is worse. Yes, the fact that the Senate rules makes Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson more important than 218 House members is nauseating. But what can be done about it now? And i don’t think starting over will yield anything. If this bill dies, they will be running for the hills.
And here is the other thing- I’m laughing at all the lip service the Senators are giving about reforming the Senate and the filibuster. They won’t. Ever. They like the fact that the current rules make each Senator more powerful than the entire House.
geg6
@JD Rhoades:
Another asshole who puts words in my mouth. Did I even begin to say “PO or nothing!” No. But still people like you persist in insisting I have simply because I won’t go down like a beaten dog.
When you’re done twisting my words and actually read what I said, perhaps we can discuss this like actual intelligent adults. Until then, please continue to point fingers and call me a doo-doo head.
General Egal Tarian Stuck
@General Egal Tarian Stuck:
slow site today. missed edit. should read
Mike Kay
I know what we can do!
Maybe if everyone burned some incenses and chanted at the same time (Friday at noon) the Senate will wake up and push through the public option!
Rick Taylor
__
I don’t get this. There were certainly never 60 votes for the public option, but how do we know there were never 51? It may be true (and there’s the house to consider as well as the senate), but how it’s failure to get 60 votes proves it never even had 51. Reid tried to include the public option, and if he really never had even 51 votes, let alone 60, that makes no sense at all. I know Reid bashing is a popular sport, but I don’t think he’s that incompetent.
FlipYrWhig
@Groucho48: @frankdawg:
I don’t understand this thought process that suggests that all the Democrats had to do was ask for more and then, like Brer Rabbit, get thrown in the Public Option Briar Patch due to sheer Republican gullibility.
It doesn’t fucking work.
There are too many pro-corporate Democrats in the coalition, and a substantially-overlapping group that perceives its self-interest to be in presenting itself as brakes on the left wing of its own party. Whether it’s a deeply-held ideological position or just constituent service to insurance companies, they truly don’t want it. They see it as “government-run” and therefore more susceptible to demagoguery about Big Spending and Big Government. We want it… _because it’s government-run_ and therefore more accessible and more efficient, because it cuts out profit-taking middlemen and assembles fairer risk pools. We’re right on policy, but they’re not wrong about the local politics. Lincoln and Landrieu and Nelson, among others, run on being “not that kind of Democrat,” or, to coin a phrase, on hippie-punching. I don’t see how anyone can convince them that the public option isn’t a dirty-hippie idea, and certainly not by proposing a dirtier hippier idea like single-payer.
This divide on “government” is a fundamental fissure within the party, and it’s been deep since the 1990s at least. It’s not fixable by allegedly clever bargaining tactics. We’ve found the point of equilibrium on this issue, and it’s that the right side of the Democratic party accepts the idea that the government subsidizes private insurance companies, and does not accept the idea of the government setting up a kind of insurance company of its own.
Why is that the point of equilibrium? Because, IMHO, they really, truly believe that the government ought not have that role. It doesn’t matter to them that the VA and Tri-care and Medicare and Medicaid all go further towards government involvement: they see the government as a kind of last-resort or emergency provider of coverage for medical treatment, and beyond that, they are not persuadable.
You legislate with the Congress you have, not the Congress you wish you had.
Nick
@geg6:
In fairness, the Washington leadership wanted Capuano. Pelosi even endorsed him.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@licensed to kill time:
When I saw the news late yesterday that he’d been taken to George Washington University Hospital, my first thought was: “What? Why GWUH? Were all the beds taken in Reinhard Heydrich Memorial?“
Brien Jackson
@ruemara:
Can someone explain to me the logic behind the sudden consensus that we need to do away with the insurance industry’s anti-trust exemption?
robertdsc
At this point, I just want the President’s package to pass. I no longer care about the PO. Just get this part done, please.
geg6
@Mike Kay:
I’ve about had enough of the pissing match with you, so I won’t even get into how stupid what you wrote here is. But whatever. Blogs and traditional media are pretty much the only way to get information. So, please, tell me. What are these other information sources of which I am unaware?
Ailuridae
@Martin:
Convincing the public that a Medicare buy-in (and eventually a folding into Medicare of Medicaid and perhaps S-Chip) is heavy lifting that the Jane Hasher’s of the world can’t be bothered with. The thing is most Americans would be for the idea if someone explained it to them in a clear, detailed way. Sadly, nobody with a forum to do so has written it up or pushed the idea.
Mike Kay
Allllllllll weeeeeeeeee aaaaaareeeee saaaaaaayingggggggg is give teh public option a chaaaaaaaaance!
Allllllllll weeeeeeeeee aaaaaareeeee saaaaaaayingggggggg is give teh public option a chaaaaaaaaance!
Allllllllll weeeeeeeeee aaaaaareeeee saaaaaaayingggggggg is give teh public option a chaaaaaaaaance!
Malron
Here’s the thing that maddens me. It doesn’t really matter what’s in the president’s bill since HE’S NOT THE ONE RESPONSIBLE FOR WRITING AND PASSING LEGISLATION. The House bill has a public option. Reid is intimating passing a bill with a public option through reconciliation. And yet Klein and others think its important to knee-cap the president over a bill created mostly for optics.
gypsy howell
@Nick:
And in fairness, they had quite a bit of time to figure out that Capuano did not win the democratic primary, and that Coakley was on the ballot.
They still dropped the ball, BIG TIME, if in fact they ever cared about the 60 dem senator thingie.
General Egal Tarian Stuck
@robertdsc: I basically agree, but see no harm in calling senators to voice support for doing a PO if they are going the recon. route anyways. Not likely to happen at all, but what else we gonna do but sit around and pick our teeth.
FlipYrWhig
@geg6:
I think you’ll find that’s mostly based on the continual misreading of the rather basic and fundamental Obama statement that he has certain _goals_ for health care reform, but that the _means_ are always negotiable. Otherwise smart people for some reason can’t process that very simple point, and as a result the hair-on-fire brigade kept reading versions of that statement as “OMFG WHY ISNT HE SAYING PUBLIC OPTION HE HATEZ TEH PUBLIC OPTION!!1!1`1”
And even when he _did_ say “public option,” he did it without the right look on his face or the right stern tone of voice or something. It was fucking tedious to read about.
That and the bizarre Rahm Emanuel vendetta. I don’t understand why anyone finds agency in Rahm Emanuel, to the point where he must be responsible for everything, all the time, seething with remorseless hatred for the left.
Karoli
If half the effort spent on the public option had been spent on making sure COBRA subsidies stayed in effect until unemployment rates drop, more people would have more affordable insurance than would be eligible for the public option. This very large shiny symbol anointed by the left is far less significant than those subsidies have been.
Instead we have a group on the left doing their damndest to elect lots of right-wingers in November while simultaneously demoralizing the base with their unending criticism and venom.
Good job, firebaggers. Enjoy that Republican Congress you’re helping to elect.
geg6
@Nick:
Sigh.
Again, I have to say this.
I never said the White House or anyone in the Dem leadership was to blame for Coakley. What I said was they are to blame for not having planned for the event that she wouldn’t win. No plan whatsoever. None. Zilch.
gypsy howell
@geg6:
Don’t bother. He can’t hear you over his furious wanking.
cat48
@eemom:
Steve Clemons writes:
Mike Kay
@geg6:
you can get transcripts of Gibbs briefings from the white house site.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings
then you can read the answer in question and judge for yourself without relying on anyone’s agenda.
General Egal Tarian Stuck
@gypsy howell: The voters in Mass wanted a gooper named Brown, and they got him. That is all that happened there. Why people still need to beat this dead fucking horse is beyond me.
demo woman
@soonergrunt: Thursday could be another pop corn day depending on which President shows up.
Brien Jackson
@geg6:
What’s to plan? Without 60 votes, and with a bill passed by both houses, there’s only one may to move forward; get the House to pass the Senate bill, or pass agreeable changes through reconcilliation in the Senate. Which is…what’s going to happen.
That people freaked out about how everything was over after Brown was doesn’t mean there wasn’t any “planning,” but if there wasn’t, it’s because there’s only one option, so there’s nothing to talk about.
licensed to kill time
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
Otherwise known as The Hangman’s Hospital, or HH. (see what I did there?)
I first saw the news this morning on those crawlers at the bottom of the screen. The first one said “Cheney feels better, spokesman says” and I was WTF? Why do we need to know how he feels? and then the next bit was about chest pains/hospital and I was so disappointed that he felt better.
gypsy howell
@FlipYrWhig:
They blame Rahm because they can’t bring themselves to believe that Obama’s the one who’s setting the agenda. “If only the tsar knew of our troubles!”
R. Johnston
Probably true. Of course, that’s a real problem. The public option was good policy and good politics by any and all reasonable measures. Given the kind of reforms being proposed, a strong public option should be easy to pass. By all accounts it would be popular, save money, and result in a higher quality and breadth of overall insurance coverage. That a public option isn’t easy to pass is as sure a sign as Republican obstructionism that our political and governmental systems are, in fact, severely broken, and until our government is better than “severely broken,” the chances that any reform will work well and as advertised are not very good.
A government that can’t pass a public option as part of the kind of reform package the Democrats are pushing is a government that can’t prevent reform from succumbing to regulatory capture. That doesn’t mean that it’s better to kill reform than to pass it, but it does mean that any reform that ends up being passed will be severely disappointing in actual implementation and practice.
BTD
@John Cole:
How is this “The reason we want to pass the damned bill is not because we love the Senate, but because if the House doesn’t, it is all over” that different from the folks pushing the PO?
How is it a “reality based” assessment?
You WANT it to happen so you push for it. Even though the odds are long.
PO supporters want the PO so they push for it. Even though the odds are long.
I do not see how you think these two sets of actions are different.
soonergrunt
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
WIN.
I would’ve thought they’d get him to a clock-repair shop to fix those grinding gears.
Hmmm. Yours is better.
BTW, this thread just gets better and better by the minute.
rootless-e
@Nick: Don’t use arithmetic when we want ponies!
jl
I think Obama should be more aggressive in forcing the Congress to make the necessary choices for a well regulated insurance system, and to defend those choices himself.
Public option is OK.
Universal basic comprehensive plan with uniform benefits package to be offered by all insurance companies OK (those who want more coverage must buy it on a separate less regulated market)
Federally regulated interstate insurance exchange for people to get mandated coverage OK.
Those are more or less the political feasible choices. Not one of them has been proposed in a strong enough form.
I think Obama should point out that those are the choices, and ask why Congress can do none of the above properly, and ask what why (ans: crony corporate capitalism on the Hill).
That is in my humble opinion.
Do any real health economists work for the Obama administration? Reinhardt, Newhouse, Cutler? The MIT dude whose name escapes me right not is a hired technical flunky running simulations, who seems to have had no voice in shaping policy (Dubner?). Even Joseph frickken Stiglitz, who predicted accurately how the health insurance market would slowly self-destruct 34 frickken years ago in a paper with Michael Rothschild. And did it using graphs that any econ major would be able to understand, if he or she had the patience to work through them.
Again, I find Obama too passive. He should be more like that new totalitarian death-and-misery progressive poster boy Maoist, Teddy Roosevelt.
gypsy howell
@General Egal Tarian Stuck:
Well, yeah, sure ultimately.
But why was Coakley left to run, by all reports, such a terrible campaign? Why was the WH and Dem leadership left completely flat-footed when she lost?
maus
Yes, but these Senators don’t want ANY HCR, and will obstruct anything that involves change of the current situation that doesn’t involve direct cash benefits to lobbyists. Why should we bother to court them? You’re assuming that there’s anything that they would support. And by “support”, I don’t mean “pretend to support to obstruct and sabotage at the last moment”.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
What I don’t get is, why was HCR attempted at all prior to last June? Why was the White House talking about it last March? Didn’t they know at the time that even less was possible then than what we perceive to be possible now? And why didn’t the savvy left bloggers tell Obama, “don’t even try it”?
El Cid
I think that if either the public option or Medicare buy-in were included in a single package (i.e., one reconciliation bill etc), then the entire package might be in jeopardy, because I really think that about 1/10th of the Democratic caucus is firmly against it, both for reasons of simple alignment with insurer / pharmaceutical / etc interests as well as an ideological hatred of non-military and non-as it is right now-Social Security / Medicare [public service approaches, i.e. Big Gubmit].
My guess is that this is what Rockefeller is addressing — that this particular attempt to get a package passed right now would likely fail or break up over any sort of public option / Medicare buy-in inclusion. I don’t know if that view is correct, but I really suspect that it’s true, and I also think there are enough Senate Democrats who frankly don’t give a shit if health care reform fails or even if they lose office over that failure. There’s plenty of corporate board / think tank / adviser / consultant money to be had out there.
Greenwald’s view that this portrayal of a rotating enemies list of conservadems who oppose such moves is a front could be correct, i.e., serving as the public faces of opposition which allows the rest of the Senate caucus to appear to be ‘for’ something, but I don’t think there would be a lot of empirical evidence available to separate this view — which I actually mostly have — from the more simple view that there really are 6+ Democratic caucus Senators who would bolt if the things they really hated look about to pass.
I don’t think, though, that a failure to pass a Medicare buy-in now or public option now rules it out forever. If, however, a comprehensive health / insurance / whatever reform fails to pass now, and fairly quickly, I do think it’ll be at least another generation before another attempt is made.
demo woman
@soonergrunt: They have good health care in the Netherlands.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Yeesh. I tried to read Clemons’ post, but its such a mish-mash of concerns and buts and althoughs and stills it’s inchoherent. Except of course that Valerie Jarrett, Gibbs and Rahm are responsible for the fact that Obama’s approval ratings are only at 51% in the middle of the worst economy since the Great Depression, although Clemons gives Obama credit for the economy not being worse, and yet….
Ailuridae
@Rick Taylor:
We can never know. We do know that Open Left whipped the Caucus before the finance bill left committee and had 44-46 solid yeas, with Lieberman being a clear, definitive No and the rest of the caucus being a ‘maybe.’ So there was no margin of error when subjected to the 60 vote threshold and, in the end, Lieberman fucked over Reid.
One of those maybe’s was actually Kennedy’s seat (kudos to Open Left for not counting that) so that’s where a whip count begins. But some of those 44-46 votes may have opposed it for procedural reasons (this is not what I think Rockefeller is doing) if it were attempted to be passed via reconciliation (people like Byrd and Feingold who are sticklers for procedure).
So its all speculation but there is a pretty easy counterfactual to this that stems from the execrable Russ Feingold’s statement that the White House got the health care bill they wanted. Namely, if the White House just needed to try harder to get 60 votes (this again ignores everything that Joe Lieberman has done for three decades as a public servant) then why can’t the public option just be introduced separately and pass the 50 vote threshold without a problem?* The reason for that, to me, is obvious. Once you factor in the small number of Senators they may lose who are strong supporters of the PO but disagree about using reconciliation you have to pick up half or more of the undecided Senators. And while all of them were lumped into a ‘maybe’ category re: the PO I think Mark Warner summed up their sentiments best: they wouldn’t vote against a bill that had a public option.
*Its interesting here that none of the sites pushing for the public option to be introduced into the negotiations between the House, Senate and, now, White House bills is just suggesting taking the public option out and voting on in separately. Surely a stronger PO would pass the House as a stand alone measure. And the Senate should have no problem getting to 50 votes on some public option right? Oh wait. They never had the votes.
Brien Jackson
@gypsy howell:
We’re not going to go down the “Rahm should have personally made Coakley’s schedule” road again are we?
gypsy howell
@licensed to kill time:
Oh sure. Right. Like he “feels” at all.
soonergrunt
@demo woman: -Huh?-
He he. Right after I hit the button I saw what you did there.
BTD
@El Cid:
“I think that if either the public option or Medicare buy-in were included in a single package (i.e., one reconciliation bill etc), then the entire package might be in jeopardy, because I really think that about 1/10th of the Democratic caucus is firmly against it”
1/10 of the Dem Caucus = 6 Senators.
That gives you 4 votes to spare.
Mike Kay
@gypsy howell:
Shouldn’t the blogosphere take responsibility as well? After, they’re always quick to take credit when an election goes well.
geg6
@Brien Jackson:
Well, first and foremost, in presenting your “only” option, you state exactly two options. So excuse me if I don’t pay attention to the rest of the post.
gypsy howell
@Brien Jackson:
No. Because I’m not going to explain for the jillionth time that the party and national leadership have some role in getting dems elected, and part of that role is to step in with advice, polling, campaigning etc in a tight race. Please don’t act like you’ve never heard this before.
But whatever. It’s a done deal. And at least I don’t have to feel guilty about not contributing to the DSCC anymore. Apparently they serve some other purpose besides getting dems elected to the senate. (Naive of me to think their purpose was ever anything other than to raise bags of cash for whatever slush funds they award themselves.)
John S.
This is what folks like BTD don’t seem to comprehend or are unwilling to acknowledge. Which is awesome since BTD has been screaming for weeks about how Richard Trumka made sure there weren’t going to be 217 votes in the House for the Senate bill and then proceeds to wax poetic about the public option even though were NEVER 50 votes in the Senate for the House bill.
I mean this pretty much sums up the mental block:
This is sheer fantasy. Equal amounts of evidence for both scenarios? There may actually be 217 votes in the House for Obama’s proposal – we won’t know until a vote comes to pass. But there is absolutely no fucking way in hell there are even close to 50 votes in the Senate for the PO because:
1. The Senate already voted, and could not produce the votes to pass a bill with the PO included (or even get one out of committee).
2. At the moment, there aren’t even 25 Democrats willing to sign on to passing the PO through reconciliation.
What’s really awesome is how he goes on to deride the “Pass the Bill” crowd for suffering from the same myopia towards political reality as the “firebagger” crowd after proving otherwise.
demo woman
@soonergrunt: I was just suggesting other health facilities that they could have taken Cheney and Hague came to mind.
I can be a tad vague at times.
Sarcastro
Ever feel like you’ve been had?
Brien Jackson
@gypsy howell:
They did give her advice. Everyone and their grandmother told her she needed to take campaigning more seriously. She ignored them, then we she started slipping, she mocked the idea of shaking hands. I don’t really know what anyone was supposed to do with a candidate like that.
gypsy howell
@Mike Kay:
Yes, as we’ve proven time and again, we are all-powerful in the blogosphere.
eemom
in the unlikely event we’re wrong about Cheney being inhuman, it really would kinda brighten my day if he were to drop dead right around now. Jussayinzall.
Nellcote
So would Wyden’s national exchange=goopers wish for “buying insurance across state lines”?
Asshole Jenga=Lexicon Alert!
Brien Jackson
@geg6:
They’re not mutually exclusive, so I don’t see it as being wrong to call it a singular thing, but fine, we’ll go your way. If you get down to 59, the only way forward is to get the House to pass the Senate bill. If they won’t, you have to use reconcilliation to compromise with them where you can. But that’s the only way you can move forward, there’s no other magical work around you could sit down and come up with.
demo woman
@eemom: Cheney would pull a stunt like that just to stop the HC summit.
ruemara
@geg6:
I’m not sure how Coakley taking her ball and going home was the White House’s fault. I’m double not sure how it’s there fault when the actual guy in charge of getting people elected had no plan. Was the seat a slam dunk? I’m not sure. But, she came within a hair of getting elected even as a total waste of a candidate and she was rocking double digit leads 2 months before the election. Maybe not a slam dunk but it was as close to just being a power transference as any american election can be. Coakley threw it and if you want to be mad about wh et al being stunned at her lazy turncoat nature, ok.
General Egal Tarian Stuck
@gypsy howell: She was the state of Mass candidate, the dems in that state chose her over Capuano, and she turned out to be the worst of all candidates who didn’t even bother to show up to campaign, instead, going on vacation. What was Obama supposed to do, go down to the Bahamas or where ever and drag her back to Mass to campaign. Or, campaign for her while she soaked up rays. When she returned, he did what he could to salvage her run by showing up.
This business that a dem president is like some kind of party patrician responsible for elections in every state is just bullshit.
And as for Obama being caught flat footed, if that is true to one degree or another, then the recovery from that has been pretty good I think.
valdivia
Mike Kay: just wanted to say you rock.
geg6
@John S.:
Well, much as I hate to, I have to agree with BTD on this. Totally based on being screamed at in this thread, more and more hysterically and with less and less grounding in anything I actually said, for defending people who still want to try for the PO and for criticizing the Dem leadership on their reaction (or lack thereof, or at least their reactions that weren’t similar to a mental patient in a padded room) to Brown’s election.
I’ll say it one last time. I don’t care what the White House says about the PO. I only care that it is the best plan and I want to try to see if it can be done. If it can’t, fine. Let’s get what we can. But I’m not one of those PTDB people (though I’ve supported that, too) who is afraid to ask for a little more porridge.
Bill E Pilgrim
Wait a minute, I thought everyone had this debate already, for the last few months, with one faction urging dropping a public option, even while accepting a public mandate, and so on, because it was the only way a bill could actually pass.
And when I say “urging” of course I mean in many cases “screaming, ridiculing, gnashing of hair and tearing teeth out”, at how “immature” anyone was who didn’t agree that a bill could only pass with all of these concessions.
So did it?
Whether every Democrat in office is torpedoing passing actual reform by posturing is one question, but it’s pretty clear that “we don’t have the votes for X, but we do for Y” is becoming pretty much like the kid yelling about a wolf.
Ailuridae
@Nellcote:
No. A prime example of Democrats being different than Republicans is that they have steadfastly refused to allow “race to the bottom” provisions like those with credit card regulation. So the national exchange would only allow plans that met the standards of a federal oversight agency which would prevent junk insurance from one state to dominate the market as credit cards issues in SD dominate that market.
Sly
@El Cid:
There’s also the issue of the GPCI portion of Medicare Reimbursement Rates (to which any robust PO would be tied) fucking over a lot of rural and partially rural districts/states. There are legitimate concerns about how more people being covered through Medicare or Medicare-like programs will be a detriment to those areas, and the Progosphere ignores those concerns at their own peril. Of course, few Reps/Senators from those areas are less than likely to come out and issue direct complaints against Medicare, because it is such a popular program and the GPCI benefits areas that are traditional Democratic strongholds.
Nor do PO advocates come clean that their entire motivation is to weaken private insurance in general without the recognition that a more tightly regulated marketplace does that even w/o a PO, and a PO without such a marketplace will be forced out of existence just like all the non-profits that went belly-up (or transformed into for-profits like CA BCBS under Anthem/Wellpoint) over the past decades because their competitors diced up the risk pool and left them only the chronically sick and impoverished. Whether they like it or not, most people don’t give a shit if they get a good deal from a public program or a non-profit, because all they see is a good deal either way.
In short, I’ve found that very few people in the PO debate are being honest about what they want and why, and that just feeds the distrust. When no one wants to negotiate in good faith, nothing gets accomplished except acrimony.
ruemara
@Brien Jackson:
It’s not sudden logic, it’s an old thorn. Right now, whole states have 1 carrier. You want insurance, you go to blue cross blue shield, or aetna or whatever. They jack up the price, you…can go without, pay it or move. that’s it. It’s like how the minute cable started consolidating, we all wound up paying more for basic cable. Ending the anti-trust exemption, a move that was to protect nascent industry, can now encourage it’s flat bloated ass to compete, with the other flat bloated ass. Not perfect and not as satisfying as ending an industry, nor is it going to affect what individual drs, hospitals et al charge, but it’s a start, considering the amount they can toss off in bonus checks to executives.
geg6
@ruemara:
Seriously, can some people here not read?
I haven’t criticized Coakley or the Democratic leadership about her campaign anywhere on this thread. Please feel free to quote where I have, but I’m quite sure you can’t.
What I have criticized is the White House and Democratic leadership’s belated realization that Coakley would lose (and man, has the mythology already started being written on this; I remember when the realization started happening, just a week or so before the election even thought the blogs had stated she was a loser weeks and weeks before), their obviously shocked reaction and inability to frame a message to counteract the wingnuts and teabaggers taking victory laps, and to state in no uncertain terms immediately after the election, that they still had 59 senators in the majority.
But sure. Keep criticizing me for saying shit I never said because you aren’t willing to actually read what I did.
jenniebee
What I’m curious about Cole is what you think the appropriate bounds are for reaction to these Senators. It seems that you don’t want to hear any talk about the public option until it’s already a done deal, and that’s a self-unfulfilling policy, IMHO. Ezra says that he believes that these conservadems won’t pick up any votes for not delivering a public option, and that they will be hurt with their base for the failure – do you disagree and think that there is a political upside to killing it? Do you think there’s a benefit to only trying for what is sure to succeed and staying mum about the good policies that can’t be enacted?
Personally, I think that we ought to pick the top 5 conservadems every cycle and primary the SOBs. Rinse and repeat until the public gets as used to hearing from outspoken liberals as they are now to hearing “tax and spend” “small government” and “fiscal conservative” and we actually get a Senate that will deliver what is widely recognized to be optimal solutions even when those solutions happen to have liberal support.
Mike Kay
@valdivia:
Much appreciated!
baxie
lol @ “pass this shitty bill so we can fix it later!”
are dems going to grow a spine later?
are insurance co’s, flush with cash from ‘mandated’ taxpayer enrollment and freed from all constraints by recent Supreme Court rulings, going to allow their business model to be gutted? Which is what needs to happen for any *real* reform, private insurers have no place at the table of genuine healthcare.
What’s more likely is that they dems shove through a shitty bill most people hate, get their asses handed to them by an angry electorate and then we all get to find out if the US can survive another Republican administration.
Wheeeee!
geg6
@jenniebee:
I’m all for that plan.
Fair Economist
? It’s very easy to game out a scenario. Reid allows a floor amendment to the sidecar; 9 or fewer Dem Senators have the nerve to vote against it (opposing wildly popular plans has had bad effect on re-electability lately; see Lincoln, Nelson, and Lieberman), and it’s in.
The House then passes the sidecar, which is, after all, more like the House bill with the public option than without. Done.
John Cole
@jenniebee: For christs sakes, I would support you in that effort. Where is the act blue link? I will post it. I will enthusiastically support challenges to these guys.
What I won’t do is run around pretending a campaign to villify Rahm or Joe Lieberman’s wife is smart politics or in any way, shape, or form useful.
BTD
@John S.:
Ah yes, selective reality. You write “There may actually be 217 votes in the House for Obama’s proposal – we won’t know until a vote comes to pass. But there is absolutely no fucking way in hell there are even close to 50 votes in the Senate for the PO:”
You know about the Senate because of a letter but you won;t know about the House until there is a vote.
How about this, why can’t we let the votes decide the reality on both of these things?
I happen to agree with the idea that there are not 50 votes for a PO in the Senate. But because I think it I am not willing to say “there is absolutely no fucking way in hell there are even close to 50 votes.” You know why? Because only a few Senators have said No to it. Lincoln, Lieberman and Nelson. No one else has said so.
Obviously I think there are more – Pryor of Arkansas, Byrd of WV. I actually think Rockefeller would be a yes, but he did say he probably would not. Landrieu of LA. Lierberman of course. Off the top of my head, there are not any other obvious ones. For example Carper says he will sign the letter. I imagine Kaufman will follow his lead.
I bet that 45 is a pretty easy number to get to. Getting to 50? Well there’s the rub.
By the same token, the math on the Senate bill (with Obama’s fixes) is a very very dicey proposition. Even if the House got its way on everything but the public option, it willbe close. And the house did NOT get all it wanted.
Now, Obama’s fix on the excise tax put the game in play, at least in theory. Without it, there was no chance, none, of passage.
I think the chances of passage in the House of the Obama fix is marginally better than passage of the PO in the Senate. But not significantly so.
Certainly not one that would proclaim one group “reality based” and the other delusional.
What was clearly delusional was the “Pass the Damn Bill” movement. That was plainly nuts.
demo woman
President Obama took control when he met with the Republicans at their caucus. If that President shows up Thursday, I think health care will pass. FOX news will not carry it live but the other channels will and it should get strong coverage on the nightly news.
I might be polyannish but a girl can dream.
John S.
@geg6:
That’s a bold statement considering the sheer jackassery of the notion that the Obama proposal and the PO have equal chances of passage.
Look, I’m not afraid to ask for more. And I think the BIGGEST mistake of this entire thing was the Democrats taking too much off the table to start with. That’s just bad negotiating tactics.
But we are where we are right now, and we can’t just wish away how we got here. The Obama proposal is a little bit more. It’s making lemonade out of a handful of lemons. It should make Richard Trumka happy, which means the House should approve it. But asking for the PO now is like asking for a little more foie gras when you’re being served gruel.
And besides, I don’t know why everyone keeps assuming that once whatever this thing that may end up passing is, that it will never change. Find me ONE government program that has not changed or been significantly expanded and improved upon in our history.
FlipYrWhig
@jenniebee:
I’m all for this. Getting an infusion of people who affirm–not just defend–that government involvement can solve problems, can do it efficiently and justly and all the rest, would do a lot of good. You might end up hardening the triangulation logic of the center-right Dems, but there really aren’t enough voices declaring that the government can and should… help. do. act.
joes527
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
Won’t. Work.
That game is up for HCR. Any bill that comes out will immediately be scrutinized for exactly that, and any congresscritter caught on the receiving end will be pilloried.
And. They. Know. It.
There is no carrot.
liberal
@R. Johnston:
Good point.
John S.
Keep lecturing us all about political realities. It’s fucking hysterical.
Tell you what, when the number of Senators on record willing to support the PO actually rises to something like 40, then we can talk.
ruemara
@geg6:
Wow.
I’ve been polite, so bite me. I can read just fine.
And the White House political team that had that Plan B all ready and raring to go in case Coakley wasn’t the slam dunk they thought she was?
All I’ve said is that the White House hadn’t picked her, she was electing to fail and even with failing, she was damn close to winning. It’s understandable that they took a moment to regroup.
General Egal Tarian Stuck
@baxie: People are not going to hate not getting kicked off their plans when they get sick and need it the most. People are not going to hate not being denied insurance by having a pre existing condition. People are not going to hate receiving subsidies to purchase insurance because they cannot now afford it. And the list goes on. And just maybe, along with not caring about the above, people might even give democrats some kudos at the ballot box for same. Not by 2010, but after that.
And. People will NOT care that Private Health insurance companies will maybe make more money. Only internet ideologues will have butthurt over that.
BTD
@John S.:
Not equal chances of passage, especially since Obama is pretty much against bringing up the PO.
But the chances for the Obama proposal are not good right now.
And my point was more about the “Pass the Damn Bill” crowd which was utter delusion.
You note that I screamed about Trumka and the excise tax to the “Pass the Damn Bill” crowd. I did indeed.
And lo and behold, the Obama proposal has an excise tax fix. Who’da thunk it? Well, me actually.
BTD
@John S.:
What’s fucking hysterical was you and the “Pass the Damn Bill” crowd who thought it could happen without an excise tax fix.
Keep living in your world of delusion.
flukebucket
@soonergrunt:
Amen brother. It is one of the many reasons I lurk here almost constantly
rootless-e
the night’s nearly over
and my concern is
surgin’ strong
oh baby
can concern
ever be wrong?
you know that I’ll do
what I can do
to show
that, darlin’
my progressivism
is emo
the night turns to day
and before congress adjourns
gonna publish a post
about all my concerns
geg6
@John S.:
Well, I wasn’t agreeing with what BTD said about the chances of either side’s preferred option. What I was agreeing with was the myopathy of both the PTDB and Firebagger factions.
Each of them thinks the other is completely blind to political and social realities.
Myself, I’m for trying for the moon and settling for maybe just a few orbits around the earth.
soonergrunt
@demo woman:
My biggest issue with the guy is that he doesn’t appear to care enough to fight for anything. I’d rather he tried and lost a few than worked so hard to not piss anyone off so that he could run again in four years.
But yeah. I’ve got the popcorn handy. The boss will be gone again…
Dammit. John posted another thread (about HCR, too) and so this one is going to start dying. It’s been so entertaining, too.
John S.
@BTD:
The utter delusion of doing whatever is possible to pass the bill, like what the Obama proposal does? Yes, clearly that is magical thinking.
You seem to think I disagreed with you. I didn’t. I just find it ridiculous that people bitch and moan about all the bought and paid for Senators, when it seems one man controls the entire House.
But apparently, we each want to take philosophical credit for the same event and I don’t think that is possible. The reality was that the excise tax needed to be fixed for the House to pass the Senate bill – and the Obama proposal does that. But I don’t see how you can honestly equate something like that with getting the PO back into the bill.
As I said to geg6 earlier, I’m all for asking for more, but you’re asking for a little more foie gras when you’re being served gruel.
geg6
@ruemara:
But that had nothing to do with what I said. Nothing at all. So I guess I have to question whether you actually read what I said. Since you were replying to me, I have to wonder. Perhaps there was some point you were trying to make about my comment, but I don’t see it.
Fair Economist
I don’t think the “pass the damn bill” crowd – or really any crowd pushing any half-reasonable bill – is delusional. Having any of the current proposals passed will do a world of good to every Democrat’s campaign (even Lincoln) for years to come. And they all know it. If it comes down to “it’s this or nothing” very few Dems will have the nerve to oppose it.
The House is dragging its feet because it feels – correctly – that the Senate can be pressured to improve the bill. But it wasn’t delusional to think under the right circumstances to think they might knuckle under; and pressuring them improves the chance of passing any bill, not just the current one, by demonstrating the force for passage.
BTD
@John S.:
Why do you attribute opinions to me that I do not express?
I have no expectation whasoever that the PO will be included.
I do not think that not getting it in should derail the process.
My point is that even if you and me and John Cole think the House should agree to the Obama Proposal does not mean they will.
It is at best, imo, and that is all we can have, a 1 in 3 chance.
More likely is something smaller.
FlipYrWhig
@soonergrunt:
I thoroughly disagree with this, because anything that can get called a loss, like a final, case-closed, doors-locked loss, makes it increasingly difficult to get future wins. Losing one doesn’t mean, ah well, we’ll work harder and get the next one. It might mean there’s no next one.
John S.
@BTD:
LOL
I never thought that. Like I said above, I just find it amusing how people can bitch about Senators being in the pocket of the insurance companies when the entire House is in the pocket of Richard Trumka.
BTD
@geg6:
Actually you completely agree with me.
I certainly did not write a series of insulting posts mocking the PTDB crowd.
I expressed my view here in comments.
Cole punches hippies every fucking day.
BTD
@John S.:
My apologies then. Certainly 90% of people posting on those threads thought so and pilloried me for being a DFH on the subject.
General Egal Tarian Stuck
For those worried about conservadems in the House and Senate screwing this shit up because they can. Just ponder that the Senate bill, even with it’s shortcomings, kept all 60 of the dem caucus in line to beat the filibuster. And nearly all voted yea on final passage. And consider the basic reforms to regulate the Insurance companies for the first time, that they absolutely hate, like rescission regs, pre-existing conditions, etc..
True that the mandate will still keep them flush with cash, but the senate bill is still sweeping change and first time regulation of an industry that has heretofore been unregulated. They would have much preferred nothing get passed, like their buds, the wingnuts.
Much of the hemming and hawing by conservadems is just posturing for the wingnuts in their red states, to placate them as much as possible. But when the rubber meets the road, on this particular issue, and roll calls commence, they have more fear from pissing off the dems in their states that get them elected, than from the few wingers who might vote for them, or the wrath of industry lobbyists with funding campaign threats. They are dems that depend on dem party money and support more than anything else, AT LEAST ON THIS PARTICULAR ISSUE.
Nellcote
@Ailuridae:
But couldn’t it be sold as “buying across state lines”? I get that there’s a difference but I’d like to see that gooper talking point (not to be confused with actual gooper policy) added to the list of gooper ideas already added to the bill.
John S.
@BTD:
My point of contention with you is the statement you made that 1) the Obama proposal passing the House and 2) the PO passing the Senate have equal chances of passing. Which you said:
Before changing your tune.
And then changing your tune again.
I guess I’m just having a hard time keeping track of your opinion.
mai naem
I don’t remember the progressives/dfh bloggers being anti-Medicare buy-in or Medicare for All and pro public option only. Anthony Weiner was pushing for that initially. The exchanges were acceptable but the problem with the exchanges is that they needed to be national not state by state and Obama’s is state by state which basically screws the red state population. It may help the blue state people but the problem is bigger in the red states.
Brien Jackson
@ruemara:
Ending the anti-trust exemption wouldn’t change the fact that insurance is an example of a natural monopoly.
Ailuridae
@Nellcote:
Sure in the sense that its going to allow health care companies who desire to to compete nationally. The Republican version of compete across state lines, though, was just a race to the bottom.
The national exchange and the really funky Senate bill solution to interstate competition both prevent race to the bottom. I think the Republicans may have wanted race to the bottom with good intentions, fwiw.
Nick
@Fair Economist:
That’s exactly how it played out the first time Reid went for the gusto and put the public option in the bill. NO Democrat dare vote against it!
Except, they did and they held it up for weeks and demonized it.
Everything is easy when it exists in your mind.
soonergrunt
@FlipYrWhig: Well, there isn’t much of one now, is there?
BTD
@John S.:
Apparently the difference between the words “evidence” and “opinion” are what are giving you trouble.
EthylEster
@Mike Kay: There is more than ample evidence, sold evidence, actually, that she’s bought and paid for by the insurance industry.
Linky?
CalD
I really think you’d have to be a bit of an idiot to think that it somehow matters in some real sense how many senators sign a damned letter if they couldn’t find votes for a public option in the House six months back. I have to at least wonder if this might have been an intentional side show to keep the progressiverer-than-thou crowd occupied and out of mischief while the White House and congressional leaders gear up for a final push on the senate bill.
NobodySpecial
@Nick:
Of course, since everyone knew back when Reid first put it in that it needed the Magic 60, it was easy to let Lieberman take the flack for shutting it down.
Now that it would take 51, it would allow some wiggle room for the ConservaDems most likely to get bit by the bill while putting pressure on fence straddlers not to be Joe 2.0.
Except, of course, that first the hippies must be punched.
Nick
@NobodySpecial:
Lieberman wasn’t the only one against the public option, it was pretty obviously short from the beginning. Some of us “realists” were arguing there were very likely not even 50 votes for the thing. Whip counts on the blogsphere were barely pushing 50. No doubt doing it by reconciliation scared some more off.
Like I said before, sometimes, hippies need to be punched.
Nick
@CalD: It was an effort by two Democratic Senators facing primary challenges to make a point that got turned into a “I’m going to sign this, so they know I would’ve voted for it if the votes were there” thing.
Look, most of us know Bernie Sanders. I know Sanders. If Sanders thought the votes were there for the public option, he would’ve held out until a vote was taken, or he would’ve voted no on the bill.
John S.
@BTD:
Yeah, that’s it.
It must be purely semantics and have absolutely nothing to do with you being completely inconsistent in order to score cheap points.
gwangung
I dislike the term “hippie punching” when all of it is over a difference in tactics and timing. If we honestly thought the votes were there, all of us would have no problem with the public option—there sure as hell is no repudiation of substance.
“Hippie punching” elevates the concern into an issue of major proportions (which it doesn’t deserve) and accentuates differences that aren’t that major.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@gwangung:
This. But apparently it makes those who didn’t receive their pony shipment on time feel superior or something. When I was an actual hippie in the late sixties and seventies, such things didn’t concern me much, long as I had good reefer and the prospect of love. These current poseurs have to bring namby pamby politics into it and spoil my winsome memories. I curse them with my plastic Unicorn and blessed bong.
The Raven
And here we have insider commentary confirming my intuitions:
Comes via Economist’s View (Mark Thoma) a well-regarded economics blog. Read the rest.
craptractor
@Karoli: So your contention is that if the Dems lose Congress it’s because FDL led voters to blame them for their stance on an issue that hasn’t been in the news or politicized in any significant way.
Riiiiiiiiiight. Because we’re a nation of 300 million policy wonks.
@BTD: desperately hoping for public option = pointless hippie daydream
desperately hoping to pass the damn bill = levelheaded clear-eyed realism
Come on dude, try and keep up.
Be Warned
America is hurting.
Millions of jobs lost and they are not coming back soon.
Democrats fiddle while America burns.
America has told the Democrats in DC: Stop the nonsense. We dont want the mandates, the taxes, the regulations, the Govt control. They will kill jobs! It is not what we need! Stop it!
AND THE DEMOCRATS KEEP RIDING HEALTHCARE RIGHT OFF THE CLIFF. IGNORING THE PEOPLE, PUSHING FOR MORE GOVERNMENT CONTROL AND SPENDING WE CANNOT AFFORD.
“Apres Moi, Le Deluge”
America will Remember in November. And bury the Democrats for a generation.
Be Warned
“I don’t think the “pass the damn bill” crowd – or really any crowd pushing any half-reasonable bill – is delusional. Having any of the current proposals passed will do a world of good to every Democrat’s campaign (even Lincoln) for years to come. And they all know it. If it comes down to “it’s this or nothing” very few Dems will have the nerve to oppose it.”
YOU ARE WRONG.
If they push this bill now, at the wrong time, in the wrong way, on teh wrong side of polls, on the wrong issue (it should be jobs, not healthcare), then this bill will destroy the Democrat party majority and will be the *last* thing Obama does.
The GOP will take the House and 8-10 Senate seats. HUNDREDS of State house seats will flip, and the GOP will dominate the next decade.
Every Democrat politician needs to look in the mirror and ask themselves: IS THIS THE HILL YOU WANT TO DIE ON?
Joe Buck
We’re almost certainly not going to get it, but we should still fight for it. That’s because as soon as it passes, even if only five percent are eligible, it places a powerful constraint on the insurance companies. The next time some exec decides to raise rates by 39%, all those who can get into the public alternative will do so, and the rest will demand that Congress broaden eligibility. It will be easy for Congress to turn that 5% into 10% into 20%. That means that they simply won’t be able to risk those kinds of increases.
Laurie Corzett
Why not have a simple Medicare buy-in for all, sliding scale based on income, continue payroll tax but without a cut-off and at a lower rate to keep the buy-in cost low; those without means for any buy-in get government subsidy. Private insurers can give better service/coverage beyond Medicare or whatever they think the customers will buy from them with whatever conditions they choose.
http://www.healthcare-now.org/sidewalk/
Feb 25: Sidewalk Summit for Medicare for All!
NEW LOCATION: H St NW and Vermont Ave NW, Washington, DC
http://www.healthcare-now.org/hr-676/
The United States National Health Care Act, H.R. 676