Rich Trumka: Beast

Reading things like this make me like AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka even more than I already do:

A more contentious moment came during a gathering of union leaders in mid-January. By that point, the president's preference for a tax on high-cost health care plans was well known. But he had done little to temper labor's protests. The friction was obvious. Not only would the tax hit negotiated union contracts, Obama himself had launched blistering attacks on the proposal when it was part of Sen. John McCain's platform in 2008. (Axelrod would tell associates it was the campaign ad that tested best with voters).

On January 11, the president brought a group of more than a half-dozen union presidents to the White House to remove any lingering doubt. "There will be an excise tax," he declared, according to one attendee.

"I'm committed to doing it," another attendee had him saying. "And I need you guys to be on board."

The crowd wasn't sold. AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, seated across from the president, shot back that the tax was "bad policy and bad politics" pointing to the percentage of middle-class workers (even the non-unionized) who would be hit. Anna Burger, the executive director of union campaign arm, Change to Win, brought up Deb Lovell, a state worker in New Hampshire and wife of a chronic myelogenous leukemia patient, who despite earning $30,000-a-year salary would see her health care plan taxed under the proposal.

The President conceded that taxing people like Lovell was not the design and promised to look into Burger's point. But he continued pitching the tax as necessary for keeping health care costs under control. "He was persuaded to do health care, I believe, by Peter Orszag [the budget director], not Ted Kennedy [the moralist former Senator]," is how one White House ally put it.

Trumka refused to let the argument go, pushing back on Obama point by point. Several people briefed on what happened said that after the discussion ended other union leaders told Trumka that he came off as "disrespectful" to the president. To which he replied: "If telling him the truth is disrespectful, then I have to be disrespectful."

At an impasse, Obama scheduled a meeting for the next day with the same group. But in this one, his deputies would lead the conversation, and union staffers were not permitted to attend (the White House thought that staffers would expand the conservation to topics beyond the excise tax). This didn't diminish the fireworks. As Jason Furman, the White House economist and excise tax booster, continued to push the proposal, Trumka reached a tipping point. "Don't fucking bullshit me," he demanded.

It takes tremendous courage to stand up to the president of the United States, especially when he's an ally that you helped elect. Although we didn't win the fight, I'm extremely encouraged that things at least got that heated. It's kind of comforting to hear that some of the people involved in the debate were as angry as I was at the time.

The Battle For The Soul Of The Democratic Party

I'm not going to quote from this epic piece by Ryan Grim and Arthur Delaney because there's so much good stuff that it wouldn't do it justice. The article is pretty damn long, but if you want to understand the ever changing power dynamics within the Democratic party, it's a must read.

And if you don't care about power struggles and are more interested in absurd stories, it reveals the White House's response to Harry Reid's attempt to reintroduce the public option in February. (Hint: it was one and a half middle fingers)

Read.

This.

Article.

Why Health Insurance Companies Shouldn't Exist

As the health care reform debate fades into the rear view mirror, the most depressing part going forward will be the constant reminders that the bill only entrenched the existence of worthless companies run by disgusting human beings that reap enormous profits from the suffering of others:

Angela Braly, CEO of health insurance giant WellPoint, saw her compensation jump 51 percent to $13.1 million in 2009. The LA Times adds, “At least three other WellPoint executives got compensation increases of as much as 75%.” Braly’s boost comes as “WellPoint’s California subsidiary, Anthem Blue Cross in Woodland Hills, seeks double-digit rate increases for many of its 800,000 members who buy individual policies.” During the health care debate, WellPoint became the poster child for the abuses of the health insurance industry, pressuring lawmakers to support drastic reform and pushing Obama to add stronger cost control provisions into his health care blueprint. A Center for American Progress analysis from February found that “double-digit hikes have been implemented or are pending in at least 11 other states among the 14 where WellPoint’s Blue Cross Blue Shield companies are active.” WellPoint spokesman Jon Mills justified Braly’s compensation by saying that the company “wants to attract and retain top talent.”

Increasing premiums while giving themselves raises on their already absurd salaries. Fucking soulless.

I feel so much better knowing that these people will now be sorta kinda regulated with no actual competition. The medicare buy-in can't happen soon enough.

Idiot With A Megaphone Wants To Be Heard

Apparently transcribing the rantings of a crazy person is worthy of front page coverage in the Washington Post:

IOWA CITY, IOWA -- He had no plans to throw bricks, issue death threats, spit in faces or scream racial slurs. But Randy Millam, 52, intended to make a scene, so he woke up early Thursday morning to prepare for President Obama's visit.

Millam sat at his kitchen table in Lowden, Iowa, with 14 Sharpie markers and a piece of foam board, working to condense a year of frustration into a 3-by-3-foot catchphrase. "Chains We Can Believe In," he wrote, drawing the communist hammer and sickle on the poster's top left corner. Then he grabbed an American flag, inserted batteries into a megaphone bought on the cheap for $25 and guzzled a 24-hour energy drink. Just as Obama took off in Air Force One for Iowa City, Millam loaded into his muddy Ford Fusion and drove 50 miles across the cornfields of eastern Iowa.

"The president just about declared war against the American people last weekend," he said. And it is a war Millam intends to fight.

Millam's resolve Thursday was reinforced by the sense that he was taking part in a movement -- a rising tide of anger, fear and vitriol in the wake of the health-care overhaul signed into law by Obama this week. Millam joined a chorus of discontent surrounding the president's visit: a warm-up protest Wednesday night, a greeting party of protesters waiting at the airport and hundreds more with plans to chant outside the downtown arena while Obama spoke. In the hours before he left for Iowa City, Millam watched reports on Fox News Channel about vandalism at Democratic offices and visited a Web site of the conservative "tea party" movement, where he was inspired by a Thomas Jefferson quote about how bloodshed might be necessary to protect a country from tyranny.

"I'm not ready for outright violence yet. We have to be civil for as long as we can," Millam said. But, he added, "we are watching the infrastructure of this country crumble under our feet. The government doesn't want to hear us. We have to make them listen."
. . .
He walked to the front of the protest crowd and lifted the megaphone to his mouth.

"Fellow patriots," he bellowed. "We are standing outside the arena right now because the president controls the crowd, controls the message, controls the people of this country. That is not freedom! That is not democracy! That is not the America I grew up in!"

. . .

Another: "It's communism!"

Another: "Obamunism!"

. . .

Millam rested the megaphone on his stomach. His voice was getting hoarse, and his legs ached. He'd been shouting for almost two hours now, and some protesters were beginning to leave. "Where is Obama?" he asked. Another demonstrator told him that the president had finished his speech, entering and exiting the arena through a different entrance, and Millam snorted in disgust.

"Why does the president of the United States have to sneak in the back door to avoid seeing the real people in this country?" he shouted into the megaphone. "That's not right. That's just not right."

His words died out. The rally was over. He turned off the megaphone and walked to his car. While the president flew back to Washington, Millam drove home on the rural highways of Iowa. He wondered: What would it take to be heard, and what would he try next?

Other than one sentence that describes a college student mocking them, the piece never once brings up the fact that this man is living in a fantasy world. Nothing that he states in the article has even the slightest bearing on reality. Instead, it glorifies him as a downtrodden political activist, wondering if his voice will ever be heard. He's portrayed as the average American, compared to the unfair caricatures of teabaggers that have dogged their movement (they're so reasonable that he said it's not time for outright violence, yet).

What is the purpose of publishing this man's thoughts, unedited? To paraphrase atrios, what is their goal? They clearly aren't interested in educating their readers, so what is it?

The real value of the article is marking another milestone on the post's path towards irrelevance: The day the published a teabagger's rantings as front page news.

Feeding the Beast

Cause:

Mike Vanderboegh of Pinson, Ala., former leader of the Alabama Constitutional Militia, put out a call on Friday for modern “Sons of Liberty” to break the windows of Democratic Party offices nationwide in opposition to health care reform.
. . .
Vanderboegh posted the call for action Friday on his blog, “Sipsey Street Irregulars.” Referring to the health care reform bill as “Nancy Pelosi’s Intolerable Act,” he told followers to send a message to Democrats.

“We can break their windows,” he said. “Break them NOW. And if we do a proper job, if we break the windows of hundreds, thousands, of Democrat party headquarters across this country, we might just wake up enough of them to make defending ourselves at the muzzle of a rifle unnecessary.”

Effect:

-Early on the morning of March 19, someone threw a brick through the window of Rep. Louise Slaughter's office in Niagara Falls, New York, doing $350 of damage, the Buffalo News reported. Slaughter (D-NY) briefly attracted the ire of conservatives over the "Slaughter Solution," a procedural maneuver that was considered (but, ultimately, not used) to pass health reform.

-Also in Slaughter's district, a brick was thrown through the glass doors of the Monroe County Democratic Committee office in Rochester, NY, over the weekend, the Democrat and Chronicle reported. A note attached to the brick bore the Barry Goldwater quote, "Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice," a spokesman for the committee told the newspaper.

-In the early hours of the morning on Monday just after the House health care vote, someone smashed the glass front door of the Tucson office of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), the Arizona Daily Star reported. "The perpetrator likely had to hop the gated fence to get access to the door, since it's not viewable from the parking lot," the paper reported.

-On Friday night or Saturday morning, a brick bearing unspecified "anti-Obama and anti-health care messages" was thrown through a floor-to-ceiling window at the Sedgwick County Democratic Party headquarters in Wichita, Kansas, CNN and the Kansas City Start reported.

-After the passage of the bill Sunday night, a "fist-sized" rock was thrown at a window at the Hamilton County Democratic Party in Cincinnati, in the district of Rep. Steve Driehaus (D-OH), the Enquirer reports.

U.S. Rep. Tom Perriello’s brother received a threatening letter in the mail on the same day that someone apparently severed a gas line at the home in Ivy.

Two conservative Tea Party activists posted the address of the home on the Internet on Monday, mistakenly believing it was the home of the congressman. One of the activists urged others to “drop by” and “express their thanks” for Perriello’s vote in favor of health care reform.

Law enforcement officials say a package with white powder was sent to Congressman Weiner's Queens office today.

A preliminary review shows the letter in part complained about the historic health care legislation passed by Congress this week, according to the source.

This is nothing new, and it sure as hell isn't surprising. The right created monster, we all live with the consequences.

Fierce Bipartisan Log-jamming!!!

For the sake of unintentional comedy and to keep my blood pressure at steadily high levels, I follow John Boehner, Blanche Lincoln and other morons on twitter. There are days when John Boehner's picture is just too orange and I wonder if following them is worth it... and then there are the days when Blanche Lincoln's staff links to a letter to the editor written in support of her candidacy.

Wanting to understand what type of real live human would go out of their way to show their support of such a worthless politician, I clicked through and checked it out:

LTE: Senate needs Lincoln
Arkansas Democrat Gazette

I am the granddaughter and great granddaughter of Arkansans and I currently teach fifth and sixth grade in the KIPP schools in Helena-West Helena. I write to suggest that the integrity, honesty and straightforward approach that Blanche Lincoln brings to the U.S. Senate is exactly what the Senate needs right now.

In the face of fierce bipartisanship that is log-jamming all attempts at a health care bill, Lincoln has voted the sentiments of the people of Arkansas. I have known her through my Arkansas family for all of my 24 years. And now, as a new resident of the state, I am proud to claim her as my senator and urge my fellow Arkansans to join me in keeping her in Washington as she is the very best candidate to represent our rural, agricultural, educational and family interests.

Jordan Butler
Helena-West Helena

While there is plenty to like about the letter, such as the fact that the writer hasn't lived in Arkansas until now or that they don't name any examples of actual things Blanche has done... nothing, and I mean nothing, tops this sentence:

In the face of fierce bipartisanship that is log-jamming all attempts at a health care bill, Lincoln has voted the sentiments of the people of Arkansas.

A few thoughts on that sentence:
- Isn't fierce Bipartisanship something that Blanche Lincoln would support?

- Wouldn't log-jamming the health care bill be a good thing, considering Lincoln was fairly successful at log-jamming anything meaningful out of the bill?

- Does this person support or oppose health care reform, because after she log-jammed the shit out of it, Blanche ended up voting yes...

- Are there really so few logical letters supporting Blanche Lincoln that she had to highlight this one?

Bill Halter for Senate!

Government Run Obama-care Socialism is Now Law

Joe Biden never disappoints:

Health Care Reform Passes the House

Last night, health care reform passed the house, and will be taken up by the Senate later this week.

In the end, I was glad to see it pass. As crappy as much of it is policy wise (as we've discussed over the months), giving health care to 30 million people who didn't have it is an impressive achievement. With further organizing such as Grayson's medicare buy-in bill and Harry Reid's talk of a future vote on the public option, there is hope that we can turn this bill into real reform going forward.

My feeling on the bill is just about summed up by JN's line that this improves the status quo, but in the worst way possible. That may hardly sound like an endorsement, but that's about where I'm at mentally after watching 11 months of a Democratic president and a Democratic congress trying to pass Mitt Romney's health care bill.

If you'd like to delve into the debate a bit further, here are two additional pieces that make the cases for and against the bill.

Jane Hamsher's statement against the bill makes a very good case, and brings up some often ignored points about choice:

The country turned an important corner last night when Congress affirmed the moral imperative of providing quality health care to more Americans and passed the President’s sweeping health insurance reform bill. It is to President Obama’s credit that he was willing to commit his office to such a challenge when others before him had failed.

But this is not health care reform, and the task of providing health care that Americans can afford is still before us. Too much was sacrificed to corporate interests in the sausage-making process. Rather than address the fundamental flaws in our health care system, we applied a giant band-aid. This health care bill does not come close to doing all that needs to be done to meet the needs of our citizens and our businesses as we retool our economy for the 21st century.

There are many good and praise-worthy things in this health care bill: help for those with pre-existing conditions, guaranteed coverage for children, money for community health centers, and expansion of Medicaid and SCHIP. But there is also cause for serious concern. Never before has the government mandated that its citizens pay directly to private corporations almost as much as they do in federal taxes, especially when those corporations have been granted unregulated monopolies.

As for the pro side, Noam Chomsky recently said he'd "hold his nose and vote yes", making some very good points, and emphasizing the importance of universality:

"The United States’ health care system is so dysfunctional it has about twice the health care costs of comparable countries and some of the worst outcomes," Chomsky told Raw Story. "This bill continues with that."

The decades-long critic of corporate power alleged that premiums won't stop rising as the package is designed in no small part to funnel money into the pockets of the health care industry. "The bill gives away a lot to insurance companies and big pharmaceutical corporations," he said.
. . .
"If I were in Congress," he said, "I’d probably hold my nose and vote for it, because the alternative of not passing it is worse, bad as this bill is. Unfortunately, that’s the reality."

"If it fails, it wouldn’t put even limited constraints on insurance companies," he explained, noting that the bill is "at least has some steps towards barring the withholding of policies from people with prior disabilities." The consumer protections from dodgy insurance practices are among the bill's most popular components.

The mandate to purchase insurance has been a central qualm of progressives and conservatives opposed to the effort. Chomsky, while admitting it’s a boon to insurance companies, called it a "step toward universality," asserting that "without some kind of mandatory coverage, nothing is going to work at all."

Obama will sign the Senate Bill that passed the house tomorrow, and then then Senate will pass the reconciliation fix over the next few weeks/months/years, since it's never clear long it takes that stupid institution to do even the simplest tasks.

And one last reminder of what should have been been done in this bill and what is possible to accomplish in the future: (CNN Poll, via Glenn Greenwald)

62% 52% of the country either favors this legislation or opposes it because it doesn't go far enough.

To paraphrase 6.54 , we can (and will) do better.

Teabaggers Being Teabaggers

Filled with racists and homophobes, but you knew that already:

Tea partiers and other anti-health care activists are known to get rowdy, but today's protest on Capitol Hill--the day before the House is set to vote on historic health care legislation--went beyond the usual chanting and controversial signs, and veered into ugly bigotry and intimidation.

Civil rights hero Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) and fellow Congressional Black Caucus member Andre Carson (D-IN) related a particularly jarring encounter with a large crowd of protesters screaming "kill the bill"... and punctuating their chants with the word "nigger."

Standing next to Lewis, emerging from a Democratic caucus meeting with President Obama, Carson said people in the crowd yelled, "kill the bill and then the N-word" several times, while he and Lewis were exiting the Cannon House office building.

. . .

And that wasn't an isolated incident. Early this afternoon, standing outside a Democratic whip meeting in the Longworth House office building, I watched Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) make his way out the door, en route to the neighboring Rayburn building. As he rounded the corner toward the exit, wading through a huge crowd of tea partiers and other health care protesters, an elderly white man screamed "Barney, you faggot"--a line that caused dozens of his confederates to erupt in laughter.

This isn't anything new, but I post it because the coverage these assholes get in the mainstream media portrays them as political activists with ideological disagreements with the legislation. And there may very well be a few of them may fit that description.

The problem is that quite a few teabaggers are crazy people that either are bigots themselves or seem perfectly fine with the bigots that also claim membership to their "movement". Again, not that any of this stuff is news, it would be nice if more people with mainstream media microphones would point this out.

An Inconvenient Truth

Yesterday, Ben Smith wrote an article suggesting that Rahm Emanuel was vindicated thanks to the vast progressive support for the final health care bill. While Chris Bowers made the valid point that Rahm lost the fight on the scope of the bill(wanting something less comprehensive), he was absolutely vindicated on one subject: Predicting that the left would cave and support the bill no matter what.

Glenn Greenwald:

For almost a full year, scores of progressive House members vowed -- publicly and unequivocally -- that they would never support a health care bill without a robust public option. They collectively accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars based on this pledge. Up until a few weeks ago, many progressive opinion leaders -- such as Moulitsas, Howard Dean, Keith Olbermann and many others -- were insisting that the Senate bill was worse than the status quo and should be defeated. But now? All of those progressives House members are doing exactly what they swore they would never do -- vote for a health care bill with no public option -- and virtually every progressive opinion leader is not only now supportive of the bill, but vehemently so. In other words, exactly what Rahm said would happen -- ignore the progressives, we don't need to give them anything because they'll get into line -- is exactly what happened. How is that not vindication?

Just consider what Nate Silver wrote yesterday in trying to understand why progressives have suddenly united behind this bill, in a post he entitled "Why Liberals (Suddenly) Love the Health Care Bill":

It has occurred in spite of the fact that the bill hasn't really gotten any more liberal. Whatever might come out of the reconciliation process will be marginally more liberal than what the Senate passed on its own, but still lacks a public option or a Medicare buy-in, and suffers from most of the same flaws that some liberals were critiquing in the first place. It might have helped a little bit to get the Senate bill off the front pages -- but the differences between the "Obama"/reconciliation bill and the Senate's December bill are fairly cosmetic.

In other words, the bill which many progressives were swearing just a couple months ago they could not and would not support (the Senate bill) is materially similar to the bill they're now vigorously supporting (the Obama/reconciliation bill). The differences are purely "cosmetic," as Silver says (it's even worse than that, since one of the few positive changes progressives could point to -- the Health Insurance Rate Authority, which would prevent large premium increases -- was just removed from the bill). Thus, from a purely strategic perspective, Emanuel was absolutely right not to take progressives seriously because he knew they would do exactly what they did: support the bill even if their demands were ignored.

It's hard to argue with that. As loathsome as that approach may be, if ideology was thrown out the window, it would be hard to argue that rolling the left wasn't the easiest way to pass any major legislation. Greenwald goes on to discuss how this approach is rooted in not understanding how negotiations work:

Moreover, everyone who has ever been involved in negotiations knows that those who did what most progressive DC pundits did here from the start -- namely, announce: we have certain things we'd like you to change in this bill, but we'll go along with this even if you give us nothing -- are making themselves completely irrelevant in the negotiating progress. People who signal in advance that they will accept a deal even if all of their demands are rejected will always be completely impotent, for reasons too obvious to explain. The loyal, Obama-revering pundits who acted as the bill's mindless cheerleaders from the start (this is the greatest achievement since FDR walked the Earth) were always going to be ignored; why would anyone listen to the demands of those doing nothing but waving pom-poms?

By contrast, progressives who originally threatened to oppose the bill unless their demands were met (such as Moulitsas, Howard Dean, Jane Hamsher, the Progressive House Caucus) absolutely did the right thing: that's the only way to wield power and to have one's demands be heard. And there's nothing necessarily wrong as a negotiating strategy with ultimately backing down from one's threats: it's normal and often effective in negotiations to insist that one won't accept a deal without X, Y and Z only, at the end, to accept a deal lacking some or even all of those elements on the ground that the deal on the table is the best one will ever get, and it's preferable to having no deal. The problem here is two-fold: (1) nobody (certainly not Emanuel) ever took the progressive threat seriously -- because nobody believed they would really oppose the bill even if they got nothing -- and it thus had no credibility and they were ignored; and worse: (2) nobody will ever, ever take progressive threats seriously again in the future, because they know that progressives will do what they did here: namely, get in line at the end and support what the Party wants even if none of their desired changes to a bill are made.

Talk Left's Armando, who is a long-time litigator and thus deals with these negotiation dynamics every day, has been making this point for months, and made a very insightful comment yesterday about all of this. He quoted Nate Silver pointing out that "at least five different parties effectively have veto power over the process, including the White House, the Blue Dogs (who cast the decisive votes in both chambers of Congress), and both the Floor and Committee Leadership," and then explained:

And there you have the progressive failure in political bargaining in a nutshell - no one EVER believed that progressive had veto power, or more accurately, no one ever believed progressives would ever EXERCISE veto power. That the progressives would be rolled was a given. Obviously that was an accurate view of the reality. . . .

Silver can not imagine a progressive bargaining position that threatened the passage of the health bills. No one could imagine it, even progressives. Until they can not only imagine it, but in fact project it in a political negotiation, progressives will remain irrelevant outside of Democratic primaries, when they will receive a plethora of campaign promises sure to be abandoned by pols. Cuz that is what pols do.

I think there is actually a counter example that anyone interested in bargaining can look to for a better result - the unions and the excise tax. The unions were willing to "kill the bill" unless they received major concessions on the excise tax issue. The White House wanted an excuse tax and serious and tough negotiations ensued, with the unions gaining major concessions.

The only reason why the unions were able to garner those concessions was because they were willing to, and were perceived as willing to, "kill the bill." They knew Obama wanted this health bill more than they did and that Obama would find a way to accommodate the unions' concerns on the excise tax.

The unions took the risk of killing the bill and were rewarded with major concessions on their key issue. That is how bargaining works.

Reasonable people can disagree on whether passing this bill advances or hinders the quest for real health care reform, but the what can't be debated is the progressive movement's failure to achieve any of their major goals throughout the process. That hasn't stopped the vast majority of the left from supporting the bill, strongly advocating for its passages and vilifying those who continue to criticize it from the left, even though some of them were making the exact same argument only 2 months ago.

Until we learns to negotiate, it would be foolish to expect the administration to start listening to any of our demands with any seriousness. Throughout the health care debate, they've made it clear that they value "winning" legislative battles more than just about anything else. If we'll fight like hell to help them get their win no matter substance of the bill, why should they take any of our demands seriously?

11 Dimensional Chess

Rep. Anthony Weiner:

“I’m not sure what we’re doing, and I’m pretty tied in.”

As you may have guessed, he did not get an invitation to today's bipartisan summit.

The Audacity of Not Giving a Shit

Yes We Can! Yes We... ehh who the fuck cares?

Speaking at the daily briefing, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs was asked again why the administration did not include the government-run insurance option in its final health care proposal in light of the fact that 23 Democratic senators signed a letter calling for its passage.

"We have seen obviously that though there are some that are supportive of this, there isn't enough political support in a majority to get this through," Gibbs responded. "The president... took the Senate bill as the base and looks forward to discussing consensus ideas on Thursday."

The remarks were the clearest indication to date that the White House's vote counters don't see a viable path to getting the public option into law, even if Senate Democrats use reconciliation -- which would have allowed for an up or down vote. The outstanding question for advocates of the proposal remains: How many lawmakers could have been persuaded to vote for the public plan had the White House actually pushed for its passage?

White House vote counters my ass. Where were they when there were more than enough bipartisan votes for prescription drug re-importation? Were they out to lunch during the vote counting for the excise tax, something that could very well kill the bill altogether in the house?

I'm so sick of articles that portray the Administration as the only adults in a room full of wide eyed innocents blinded by ideology. OBAMA DOES NOT WANT THE PUBLIC OPTION! When people want something done, they don't spend a year actively removing it from their own bill. There's no 11 dimensional chess or secret plan at work here, it's really that simple.

When you're trying to pass complex legislation, you choose your battles. He picked a fight to drop the public option and he picked another fight to included the excise tax. There's no need to argue about his priorities and values, his actions speak for themselves.

Thankfully despite the Administration's best efforts, the public option can still be passed through reconciliation and added to the senate bill. If enough senators to go on the record signing Bennet's letter, Harry Reid will be under enormous pressure to bring the public option up for a vote.

KEEP CALLING!

I'm sure Ben Cardin's intern is sick of me telling him this is why I campaigned for Kweisi Mfume, but who cares? Calls to Senate offices matter (they really shouldn't, but that's another post), and you have the power to help put the public option back in the Senate bill. Do it.

Health Summit Positives

I can't be totally against the bipartisan health care and ponies summit if it gave us this picture: (via)


Cantor seems to be kicking things off well:

Cantor throws cold water on health summit, tells Stephanopoulos "there can't be" a deal with ObamaCare on the table.

"The president insists on bringing back a bill that the American people have resoundingly rejected."

Sounds productive already! Maybe if we adopted preemptively adopted Paul Ryan's edgy abolish medicare and social security plan they'd think we're cool! That's what this is about, right?

So Now There's a Plan!

Ten months into the debate, the White House releases their plan for health care reform:

President Obama took the Senate health care bill and stripped special deals and added his preferred compromise for taxing high-end insurance plans, detailing for the first time his preferred approach for finishing the long battle for reform.

The White House just released the Obama plan in advance of Thursday's health care summit, framing it as an improvement to the Senate bill and an ultimate compromise.

The administration is signaling they are prepared to push the plan through reconciliation, talking about the need for an "up or down" vote, and wants the American people to see the negotiations play out on television among Democrats and Republicans.

Obama aides described what they are posting today at WhiteHouse.gov as the president's "take" on bridging the differences between the House and Senate bills passed last year. It's largely been crafted based on negotiations Democratic leaders had with Obama in the Cabinet room before the Jan. 19 election in Massachusetts.

I gotta say, I'm still not entirely sure what is accomplished by releasing this to the public. It seems like it will only piss people off (no public option and an increase in the mandate penalty... succeeded!), which is worth it so that you tell the Republicans that you posted the bill online before the summit?

The summit later this week is another move that I just don't understand. The Sunday shows kept replaying a clip of Obama reiterating that this summit was not a political stunt. It better be a fucking political stunt! If it's not then that means you're reinventing the wheel 10 months in, this time with more Republican advice!

If this were 10 months ago, then great! But showing that the Republicans don't have any ideas on health care isn't going to change anything. They're not in power, and I continue to wonder why the Obama administration doesn't understand that Obama will be blamed/praised for whatever is created here. Saying that we have good ideas but the the other side won't play nice is about as weak sauce as reelection arguments get, and if they haven't figured that out yet then the upcoming slaughter in November might change their minds.

It also seems odd to hold the summit to jump start the debate when lots of real activism is currently taking place in support of the public option, something ditched in Obama's proposal. You'd think you'd want the your base's organizing efforts backing up your plan rather than organizing parallel to it, but grassroots organizing is probably too partisan or something. And a reminder:

A batch of state polls by the non-partisan Research 2000 shows that in multiple states represented by key Dem Senators who will have to decide whether to support reconciliation, the public option polls far better than the Senate bill does, often by lopsided margins.

Here’s a rundown, sent over by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which commissioned the polls:

* In Nevada, only 34% support the Senate bill, while 56% support the public option.

* In Illinois, only 37% support the Senate bill, while 68% support the public option.

* In Washington State, only 38% support the Senate bill, while 65% support the public option.

* In Missouri, only 33% support the Senate bill, while 57% support the public option.

* In Virginia, only 36% support the Senate bill, while 61% support the public option.

* In Iowa, only 35% support the Senate bill, while 62% support the public option.

*In Minnesota, only 35% support the Senate bill, while 62% support the public option.

* In Colorado, only 32% support the Senate bill, while 58% support the public option.

Keep calling your Senators and help save them from themselves...

Life After Death For the Public Option?

Thanks to a letter written by Sen. Bennett of Colorado and the work of many progressive bloggers, there may be renewed hope for a public option:

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) has signed a letter urging leadership to pass a public option via reconciliation, the 18th senator to do so.

Shaheen's office confirmed that she signed, following Sens. Chuck Schumer, Barbara Mikulski and Frank Lautenberg today.

The letter was written by Sen. Michael Bennet and will be sent to Majority Leader Harry Reid.

Other signatories so far: Sens. Bernie Sanders (VT), Al Franken (MN), Patrick Leahy (VT), John Kerry (MA), Sheldon Whitehouse (RI), Sherrod Brown (OH), Kirsten Gillibrand (NY), Jeff Merkley (OR), Dianne Feinstein (CA), Roland Burris (IL), Barbara Boxer (CA), Jack Reed (RI) and Tom Udall (NM).

The story here is that Chuck Schumer signed the letter. Schumer is a good barometer, because he's a member of the leadership and tends to associate himself only with efforts that have a chance of passing. If this was just a PR stunt or a pie in the sky attempt at the impossible, he would not have lent his name to the effort.

Also kind of shocking is really crappy senators like Diane Feinstein and Michael Bennet getting involved. Not sure what inspired them to temporarily to stop sucking but I don't really care either.

There have been conflicting reports on the White House's role and if they'd support this strategy. I'd put more stock in Sebelius' "Of course Obama supports the public option and would fight for it!" line if it didn't require me to ignore everything the White House did over the past year to remove it from the bill. The next meaningful backing Obama gives the public option will be the first, so I'm not too optimistic that this approach will get the administration's backing.

Still a long ways to go, but these are hopeful signs.

Go here to join the effort and see where your Senator stands.

Update: Reid seems at least open to the idea:

Senator Reid has always and continues to support the public option as a way to drive down costs and create competition. That is why he included the measure in his original health care proposal.

If a decision is made to use reconciliation to advance health care, Senator Reid will work with the White House, the House, and members of his caucus in an effort to craft a public option that can overcome procedural obstacles and secure enough votes.

Not exactly an endorsement, but a much better maybe than I had expected.

This Is The Opposition?! February 2010 Edition

From the Washington Post- “Democrats' plan: Force GOP to go on the record.”

The Daily Show also has a good montage of various Republican politicians and pundits talking about how being asked to explain their health care reform ideas is a trap. The crazy thing here is that it absolutely is. Every single person involved, from Obama to Limbaugh to John Boehner, knows full well that the Republicans have nothing. Absolutely nothing.

If asked, they give a quick talking point about tort reform and change the subject. The first anniversary of the march towards HCR is coming up, and all the Republicans have managed to do in that time is wave empty packets of paper at Obama during his speech and get their preliminary proposal torn to shreds by the CBO. Crying about how Democrats have locked them out of the process scores some points on TV news, but being told to put up or shut up clearly scares the shit out of them.

Still, it would be nice if we had a killer alternative bill to push, instead of the watered-down trainwreck we’re left with after months of compromising with the worst senators in America.

Yep, I Still Oppose Creating A New Tax For Working Families

Since I doubt my anger over the administration's endorsement of the excise tax will subside after his meeting with union leaders today, here's an example of the fliers that I was handing out to union members throughout Virginia (and others were handing out to union members across the country):

McCAIN’S HEALTH CARE PROPOSAL Will Increase Costs and Reduce Benefits

John McCain’s health care proposal is similar to President Bush’s failed plan. Like Bush’s, McCain’s plan undermines existing employer-based health care and pushes workers into the private market to fight big insurance companies on their own. It will reduce benefits, increase costs and leave many with no health care at all.

A New Tax on Working Families. McCain wants to shift the burden from employers to workers. He will make health care premiums part of taxable income, essentially creating a new tax for working families.

Increases Costs to Workers. The modest tax credit McCain wants to give people to cover his new tax would cover less than half the average health premium, leaving workers to pick up the difference. Also, by promoting high-deductible Health Savings Account (HSA) plans, which provide fewer benefits at higher costs, he will make the high costs of individual insurance even worse.

Leaves Workers at the Mercy of Big Insurance Companies.McCain’s efforts to “eliminate the bias” toward employer-based health care will encourage employers to stop offering health care, pushing workers into an unregulated private insurance market to fend for themselves. Big insurance companies will be free to weed out people with health care needs, charge excessive premiums and limit benefits.

Makes Health Care Harder to Get. Pushing workers into the private health care market and promoting HSAs will encourage insurance companies to attract only the healthiest people, driving costs up overall. Insurance companies can decide to refuse to cover people with preexisting conditions, such as cancer survivors. Retirees will have a particularly hard time getting health care.

Lowers the Quality of Available Health Care Plans. Many states have laws regulating health care quality by requiring basic services to be included in health care coverage. McCain’s proposal would circumvent these laws, resulting in lower quality coverage without consumer protections.

Things like that flyer (PDF here) are the reason Labor will face such a huge credibility gap with their members if the excise tax remains in the bill.

As ATT Repairman Ron Gay said in this weekend's NY Times story:

“If this passes in its current form, a lot of working people are going to feel let down and betrayed by our legislators and president.”

Obama meets with labor leaders today at 4:30... so we'll know a lot more about the fate of the tax by tomorrow.

Real Talk from David Simon

I stole that title from Brian Beutler's tweet, but here's an interview with David Simon posted without comment: (via, full interview here)

Why does reform seem so impossible?

We live in an oligarchy. The mother’s milk of American politics is money, and the reason they can’t reform financing, the reason that we can’t have public funding of elections rather than private donations, the reason that K Street is K Street in Washington, is to make sure that no popular sentiment survives. You’re witnessing it now with health care, with the marginalization of any effort to rationally incorporate all Americans under a national banner that says, “We’re in this together.”

But then the critics of a system like that immediately cry socialism.

And of course it’s socialism. These ignorant motherfuckers. What do they think group insurance is, other than socialism? Just the idea of buying group insurance! If socialism is a taint that you cannot abide by, then, goddamn it, you shouldn’t be in any group insurance policy. You should just go out and pay the fucking doctors because when you get 100,000 people together as part of anything, from a union to the AARP, and you say, “Because we have this group actuarially, more of us are going to be healthier than not and therefore we’ll be able to carry forward the idea of group insurance and everybody will have an affordable plan…” That’s fuckin’ socialism. That’s nothing but socialism.

It is, literally.

So the whole idea of group insurance, which of course everyone believes in, like that fellow on YouTube, “Don’t let the government take away my Medicare…” You look at that and you think there’s only one thing that can make people this stupid, and that’s money. When you pay people to change their votes on the basis of money, the wrong shit gets voted for. That’s American democracy at this point. And you get to the Senate and you’re looking at 100 votes, which don’t represent anything in terms of popular representation. When 40 percent of the population controls 60 percent of the votes in the higher house of a bicameral legislature, it’s an oligarchy.

I’m getting depressed.

Now you’re listening to Joe Lieberman say that he will filibuster anything with a public option. Let me understand this: One guy from a small state in New England is going to decide on a singular basis what’s good for the health care of 300 million people? That’s our form of government, and I don’t get it.

And Then There Was Liebercare...

Sometime after 7 AM tomorrow, the Senate will pass Joe Lieberman's health care bill. It's pretty terrible (an analysis of the details here) and there's a huge debate within the progressive community over what to do about the bill. The fight isn't over since the bill will go to conference committee and unlike the Senate, the House actually passed a good bill.

We'll see how this turns out. The most likely out come is that the progressives will get rolled by Harry Reid and the White House, and the final bill will look remarkably similar to the Senate bill that will pass tomorrow.

If that's the case, I'd find myself in opposition to the biggest piece of legislation proposed by a president that I proudly worked my ass off to help elect.

Not fun times.

/emoposting

AFL-CIO Comes Out Against Liebercare

Not pleased with the Senate's bullshit:

The labor movement has been fighting for health care for nearly 100 years and we are not about to stop fighting now, when it really matters.

But for this health care bill to be worthy of the support of working men and women, substantial changes must be made. The AFL-CIO intends to fight on behalf of all working families to make those changes and win health care reform that is deserving of the name.

The absolute refusal of Republicans in the Senate to support health care reform and the hijacking of the bill by defenders of the insurance industry have brought us a Senate bill that is inadequate: It is too kind to the insurance industry.

Genuine health care reform must bring down health costs, hold insurance companies accountable, assure that Americans can get the health care they need and be financed fairly.

That’s why we are championing a public health insurance option: It is the way to break the stranglehold of the insurance industry over consumers that has led to double digit premium increases virtually every year.

Employers must pay their fair share.

And the benefits of hard-working Americans cannot be taxed to pay for health care reform—that’s no way to rein in insurance companies and it’s the wrong way to pay for health care reform.

Those are the changes for which we will be fighting in the coming days.

The Senate bill does some good things: It will provide health insurance to 30 million more Americans and provide subsidies to low income individuals and families. Benefits will have to meet minimum standards and insurance companies will no longer be able to deny coverage based on pre-existing conditions or impose lifetime or unreasonable annual limits. The bill also includes some relief for plans with early retirees as well as delivery system reforms that may lead to lower costs over the long haul. And Senate leaders have made a commitment to close the Medicare prescription drugs donut hole which is so costly to seniors.

But because it bends toward the insurance industry, the Senate bill will not check costs in the short term, and its financing asks working people and the country to pay the price, even as benefits are cut.

The House bill is the model for genuine health care reform. Working people cannot accept anything less than real reform.

The language is intentionally vague, because it would be difficult for them to oppose the bill with all of the resources they invested in electing Obama. Not sure how far this will go, but any pushback from an institution this large is a positive.