As much as I hate to link to the Politico….
Gov. Haley Barbour (R-Miss.), chairman of the Republican Governors Association, called the Democrats’ health care reform proposal “catastrophic” Thursday and compared it to the poison ingested at the infamous Jonestown cult’s mass suicide in 1978.
At a press conference, flanked by Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), Mike Johanns (R-Neb.) and Jim Risch (R-Idaho), Barbour said that if the Senate passes the health care reform bill, it would result in huge electoral gains for the GOP in 2010.
[….[“I’ve been looking for Jim Jones and where’s the Kool-Aid. This is awful, awful policy for our country — and the people know it. The public already understands this. And the longer the debate goes on, the more the public understands that they’re going to end up paying more and that they’re going to get lower quality health care. But politically, if the nation can survive it, it will be a political windfall for Republicans.”
Barbour, Alexander, and Gregg represent the supposedly sane wing of the GOP that David Broder is always fluffing. And, in fairness, they are saner than the teabaggers and the Khmer Rogue.
But, the end, Obama is no different, not after the way he’s slapped us all in the face this week.
gocart mozart
If this were true, wouldn’t every Republican and insurance company be pushing hard in support of the HCR bill? Since when have Republicans been against greater profits for insurance companies at the expense of average Americans?
jwb
Actually, I take this as evidence that the goopers are worried again that HCR is going to happen and so are no longer content to sit on the sidelines.
ondioline
It is at times like these that the readership could really use a little Tunch.
Well, a lot of Tunch. Which is to say, any Tunch is a lot, because Tunch is a very large cat. Tunch is a biggun. You should almost use the plural for Tunch, e.g. “Tunch are cute,” because Tunch either does or could contain multitudes.
So can we have some Tunch, John? Have mercy.
CMB
He also threw progressives under the bus. ;-)
Some people badly need a dose of perspective.
Brachiator
So, here are the very, very, very easy questions. From the time of the defeat of the Hillary Clinton health care plan until now, did health care get better and did costs decline?
And aside from letting the insurance companies write the tax law that prevents taxpayers from deducting Canadian drugs, what exactly did the Bush Administration do to make health care more affordable? Oh yeah, they let that free market magic do its thing.
Political windfall for Republicans? Only if the Democrats are too dumb to ask the very, very, very easy questions.
TJ
To be fair, Barbour never actually promised me anything.
RJ
“Barbour said that if the Senate passes the health care reform bill, it would result in huge electoral gains for the GOP in 2010.”
Well why not let the dems pass it then?
Fwiffo
Correction: They drank Flavor-Aid at Jonestown.
Guster
My wife’s outta town and I’m thinking of getting a Subway sandwich.
Also, if you’re supporting this bill, please know that there _is_ no ‘this bill.’
Same goes if you’re opposing it.
And I can see what people opposing the bill are doing, by trying to kill a nonexistent bill: apply pressure.
I’m not entirely clear what the people supporting the nonexistent bill are doing, though. I guess the same thing. But so far this thing has never changed for the better. So I’m not really sure, strategically speaking, what they’re working towards.
Malron
At least now we know where the “pass this bill and the Democrats are doomed” meme came from.
Cat Lady
Perspective. It’s what’s for dinner.
+3
General Winfield Stuck
@Guster:
You are on a roll, sir!!
General Winfield Stuck
@CMB:
Yes, but there are extra clown cars they can ride in.:-)
robertdsc
Given the ineptitude of the White House and Dems in general, this is almost certainly the case.
Guster
@General Winfield Stuck: My wife’s outta town. It’s either work or post thousands of blog comments. I think I’ve resisted the urge to head to Subway for dinner.
gocart mozart
Maybe Barbour has the best interests of Democrats at heart and is just giving them a friendly warning to prevent their electoral defeat next year. Why do you always assume the worst motives of Republicans DougJ?
dr. bloor
You guys really need to think about giving this a rest.
redstar
This one is too funny.
You make the fundamentalist’s error and take the words literally. What these guy’s are doing is two-fold.
First, they are sowing the seed in low-info voter’s minds that something is wrong. And, they’re probably right: the fucking these voters are going to get, at the hands of insurance companies (like 20+% premium increases and continued recissions and reduced coverage), between now and the actual effective date of legislation (like, four years from now) is now going to be Democrat’s fault. All the risk of the financial collapse of the US healthcare system (and, it IS teetering) will be on the Democrat’s watch. GOP? 0% Responsible. Clean, distinguishable message.
Second, that the reason this happened is because of Obama-following groupthink (thus the kool-aid references). James Jomes references simply serve to re-inforce the message that Democratic groupthink driving (what will be perceived as, and actually probably is) shitty legislation is like Jame’s Jones followers drinking the koolaid.
Added bonus, Democrats who convinced their independent neighbors that Bush was shit and Obama deserved their vote to clean up the mess that McCain was too tainted to clean up? They’re now tainted as kool-aid drinkers.
And, you know, no one wants to have been stupid enough to die at Jamestown. The dying is bad enough. Doing so a moron for eternity is far worse. So the Obama voter/doorknocker/canvasser will be likened, in such a voter’s mind, to one of Jones’ lieutenants.
All in all a very tight message. I’m guessing the testing cost a fair bit. And, you can scratch your head and say “OH MY GAWD THESE GUY ARE CRAZY” but there’s a reason they can get poor people to vote against inheritance taxes.
They know messaging, and your guys don’t.
John S.
If only we had elected President Nader. Then we would have everything we ever wanted. If only we could have mustered another 55 million votes or so.
Lev
@Guster: That might be what Dean and Moulitsas are doing, but if one assumes they’re being hyperbolic in an attempt to improve the bill, I’m not sure they’re doing it correctly. The final bill is going to look a lot like the Senate bill. Trashing the key provisions of said bill now is going to make it harder to say, “It’s great!” when the process is over.
cfaller96
I’m trying to square the unending snark against the left, most recent being:
With this apparent motivation:
John, if you want to keep the crazies at bay, knock it the fuck off. Just cool it.
NobodySpecial
@cfaller96:
That’s DougJ with the ‘slap in the face’ comment, not John.
Joe Beese
Well, the good news is that the Democrats have found a foolproof strategy for the mid-term elections.
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/12/2010-campaign-preview-democrats-to-say-gop-still-party-of-bush.php?ref=fpb
freelancer
Jebus. Johanns is the former Gov who won over Scott Kleeb last November, and he hasn’t made so much as a peep in 11 months. Today he shows his wingnut pride with this story and in the earlier story perpetuating the rumor that the WH threatened to close Offutt AFB to strongarm Nelson’s support.
Fucking Senators will be the end of us.
Guster
@Lev: Well, I’m not sure, either. But at least I understand the _theory_. But progressives who are loudly _supporting_ this ‘bill’ truly baffle me. We’ve already learned that progressive approval leads to a weaker bill, right? What’s the potential upside for cheerleading this bill at this stage?
The only thing I can think of is: to get other progressives to simmer down. But once they do, in all likelihood the bill will deteriorate further. And they’ll get riled up again. Even worse. As has already happened. So I’m just not sure what the endgame is of anyone who is currently supporting what this bill appears to be.
MikeJ
The same messaging that won Hillary Clinton the Democratic nomination.
Jay B.
@Lev:
Even when it was the things we didn’t support getting crammed down our throats, I knew it was because we had insufficient enthusiasm.
DougJ
@redstar
I’m no Don Draper, but I think the fact that people have been using the phrase “drinking the Kool-Aid” for at least ten years might lessen the impact of this brilliant marketing message.
John S.
But according to the GOP (and a few too many liberals), Obama is merely continuing Bush’s policies. That means that the REAL party of Bush are the Democrats.
So a vote for a Democrat is really a vote for Bush. Or something.
superking
John, I don’t get why you think we can’t be pissed at Obama. I’m not going to draw false equivalencies or say that we should run ads against Rahm Emmanuel or say that we should kill the bill. But we can still be angry. I think Glenn Greenwald had the best take on it so far. If you haven’t read it, it’s worth it.
I think it is correct to say that Obama didn’t fight for health care reform. This is pretty obvious from his position on the public option which basically came down to “it’d be nice, but whatever you guys want!”
It’s important to remember that health care reform was a major campaign issue that helped Obama to get elected based on his plan that included a public option.
I realize that’s a lot of HTML emphasis, but the basic point is that we were expecting him to put up some fight at least and right now I can’t think of anything he did to actually get HCR passed. He gave a speech in September. Ok. And? As we have been reminded many, many times, giving speeches isn’t enough.
The basic responses to the anger have been to a) try to marginalize it by arguing that angry people are unrealistic or b) trying to argue that we were never voting for someone who was going to do anything significant anyway so we shouldn’t be angry in the first place.
When you look at it, neither is true in the case of health care reform. Obama had a rather well-articulated plan for health care reform, a plan that was more than what we’re ending up with. Not simple incrementalism, but actual insurance and delivery reform. So, you and Doug can’t just call us idiots for deluding ourselves into thinking we would get something that was never offered.
The fact that we knew exactly what we were voting for with health care reform means that it’s not unrealistic to expect the changes we thought we were getting in supporting Obama.
To sum up, let’s get the bill passed. Fine. But what did Obama actually do to fight for the bill? Did he ever start drawing lines or threatening Blue Dogs? What’s left doesn’t closely match what he campaigned on. It’s perfectly legitimate to be angry about this.
cfaller96
@NobodySpecial, my bad. Thanks for the correction. I apologize.
Citizen Alan
Ya know what? I’m through worrying about it. I’ve used all my rage up. The bill is going to pass, because the only one who can stop it now is Ben Nelson by asking for an anti-abortion clause so onerous that the whole thing falls apart. And even then, I half expect Obama/Emmanuel to push it through even if the bill ends up outright abolishing insurance coverage for all abortions.
Haley et al are just doing a little bit of preemptive “I told you so,” so that they can position themselves for when this ridiculous boondoggle blows up in the Democrats’ collective face. I can hear everyone now: “No one could have ever predicted that a universal mandate for poor people to pay a month’s wages for crappy insurance would have been electoral suicide!” Don’t forget, ole Haley has presidential ambitions, as improbable as they are. (And if Palin is the frontrunner, I guess anything is possible.)
redstar
<blockquoteThe same messaging that won Hillary Clinton the Democratic nomination.
She did?
Coronation by the press is not the same thing as messaging.
Getting Broder to suck Karl Rove’s dick over quail isn’t, either. You can simply pay for that.
Messaging is much more subtle. And, if Ms. Clinton’s people were good at it (and for gowd’s sake look at fuckin’ Mark Penn! Hint – he’s not…) she’d be President.
Violet
@Brachiator:
No, but when did facts get in the way of a politician?
A lot of people blame Hillary for the mess we’re in now. Heck one of my doctors told me the current problems with health care are all Hillary’s fault. No, I am not making that up. I just kind of sat there, mouth agape, looking at him. What can you say to that? I just wouldn’t even know where to begin. Heck, Hillary didn’t change anything.
I would go find another doctor, but he’s a rarity who really listens to his patients and helps them. I can put up with his political viewpoint so long as he helps me feel better.
@redstar:
Absolutely right. Especially this part:
Low information voters know that Dems want to change healthcare. If they succeed and it’s worse for the low info voters, it’s the Dems’ fault. Pretty easy to understand that.
Democrats SUCK at finding a message and staying on it.
DougJ
John, I don’t get why you think we can’t be pissed at Obama.
I don’t know what John’s exact take on this is, but I don’t think you can’t be pissed at Obama.
General Winfield Stuck
John Cole. I make a motion to block any link to Glenn Greenwald until further notice. Please, think of the childn.
Folderol and Ephemera
2000 Presidential Election. Confusion. Defeat.
2000 – 2001: Deadlock. Mild incompetence.
2001 – 2006: An evil clusterfuck of historic proportions. Holy shit. The world is literally threatened.
2006 Mid-Term Elections. Confusion. “Victory”?
2006 – 2008: Deadlock. Mild incompetence.
2008 Election. Elation. Victory.
2009 – present: Deadlock. Mild incompetence.
From my point of view, right now, all I see is win.
Sometimes “not bad” is as good as it gets.
General Winfield Stuck
@DougJ:
Absolutely, just like we can be pissed at those pissed at Obama. That river runs uphill too. It’s the internets after all.
Lev
@superking: If you make a threat, you have to be willing to deliver on it. Otherwise, people just assume you’re weak. Universal healthcare is only possible every other decade or so. Obama’s team–which is pretty much tops in terms of political tactics–didn’t want failure to be an option. This opportunity is too important.
So we won’t get everything we want now, but that’s just how it goes. As I’ve said before, Clinton did what you’re suggesting back in the day. It didn’t work.
MikeJ
@redstar: That was my point. They used the kool-aid messaging you love, and yet she’s working for the guy who won.
If you’re gonna hang here, send your snark detector in for servicing.
donovong
Bull fucking shit.
williamc
DougJ and JC, you guys have to let up.
Guster is right.
Progressives are applying pressure to improve this thing, and you and Ezra and big media Matt are laying down and begging Liberman to crap on you again.
This is what happens when political junkies don’t know anything about politics except horserace critiques.
This is not a campaign, this is legislating. I know BJ’ers have to be smart enough to get this, but apparently it has to be explained…
1) Liberman is constantly shifting the goalposts, so anything the libs are happy with, he wants to destroy. He has plain out said it. So, you guys and the rest of the “Let’s Settle for This” brigades are actually not playing the pressure game well.
2) I get we are supposed to have the President’s back, but apparently some of you are new to the D party; we don’t fall in line after cudgeling our enemies to death with falsehoods, we fight about policy and eventually get dragged over the finish line kicking and screaming.
3) STOP calling your allies names! This is a policy dispute in the family, we all want the same thing, and stop making the “far left/far right” equivalences; you all hate it when the media does it on everything else, you souldn’t do it now, Kos and Glenn and Jane are not the same as leftist teabaggers for gawd sakes, they just happen to be really invested in fighting and winning this fight.
4) Finally, some of you don’t seem to understand it, but the “Manic Progressives” ARE the base of the Democratic Party. I know the President is wise in the way of politics and all, but “centrists” and “independents” don’t vote in off-year elections, the base does, and we are being demoralized by our friends calling us names because we refuse to fall into the party line and are instead standing with our principles.
Feingold and Dean are politicians, they know what’s up, they aren’t trying to handicap the President, they are trying to help him pass a workable plan that won’t make the low-info voter wretch.
CalD
__
Obama slapped us all in the face this week? I must have been so drunk I didn’t even feel it.
jcricket
I can still feel the sting of Obama’s slap in the face.
No, seriously. Pass the bill. Then claim it will do a lot of good stuff. Then make it clear any bad stuff is due to Republican intransigence (whether that’s true or not).
Then keep trying to fix things via smaller legislative tweaks (higher subsidies, standalone regulation bills, etc).
Not saying it will be easy, but it’s better than “start over” – which translates to “not going to happen in my lifetime”
gocart mozart
@superking:
True he did little publicly but I am sure he has been very active behind the scenes. What did he do for good or ill, I have no idea and neither do you.
Olly McPherson
I can only assume at this point that you and John are trying to drive away people who don’t agree with you. Mission accomplished. Fuck off.
jcricket
@donovong: I believe this was, as the kids say, sarcasm.
SGEW
It’s like the primaries in here.
Ah, Balloon Juice.
superking
Well, Doug, it’d be nice if the two of you would stop saying stupid shit like this:
But, the end, Obama is no different, not after the way he’s slapped us all in the face this week.
Also, the “manic progressive” tag, this, this, and this.
General Winfield Stuck
@williamc:
Oh please. Save us this nonsense. What we are complaining about is not applying pressure to change the bill. It is a full metal meltdown complete with playing the Iraq bullshit card, and Obama must go. If that is the idea of applying pressure, then you are right. We or I don’t get it, and never will.
If this will be the norm of legislating from the nutroots, then I repeat that Obama should just give them the middle foam finger and move on. It is a tiny part of the dem base, watb side, and is more trouble than worth.
Comrade Luke
Somewhat related, from Salon:
All of the above should be in block quotes, but you get the picture.
phillip anderson
Since when has Barbour ever represented anything that could be honestly referred to as the “sane wing” of the GOP?
Midnight Marauder
@williamc:
No. They really are not.
John S.
Said without any hint of irony, Olly?
redstar
@ Doug J.
This isn’t simply a marketing exercise but you’d be surprised how long you can run with a phrase or an image when you are truly dealing with generica (which, everyday life, like healthcare/going to the Doctor’s office, is…)
For instance, you might be surprised that McDonald’s Corp. is still running not just with Ronald McDonald but also the hamburgler and all the rest. And how long do you think we heard that Coke adds life?
Seriously, this is not simply “them crazy us smart”.
And if you think it is, good luck with that.
khead
Stay the fuck home in 2010 with us centrists then. That will certainly teach us.
Folderol and Ephemera
@Comrade Luke: We’re doomed.
John S.
That must explain why there are all these non-progressive Democrats elected to office that are derailing HCR…
This is exactly what the Teabaggers think – that they are the TRUE base of the Republican party. Unfortunately in their case, it is a lot closer to the truth.
superking
Lev,
There is great confusion about what Clinton did back in 1993 and how it informed Obama’s strategy now. What Clinton did was have his staff and administration sit down and draft a bill. Then he went to Congress and said “Pass this bill I’ve drafted.” People believe that failed in large part because Congress did not have significant input for the bill.
Now, the argument goes that Obama needed to let Congress be in control so that they would actually pass something. So, it goes, he has completed stepped away and not told them to do anything because he didn’t want to repeat Clinton’s mistake.
It’s obvious that there is middle ground between these two positions. Leadership is convincing other people to do what you want. He could have set some goals for HCR and then worked with the members of congress to achieve those goals. Instead, he didn’t even have a liason to the hill until late summer, IIRC, meaning he was completely hands off.
That is not a recipe for accomplishing anything.
Harley Furguson, the Tractorcycle
@Citizen Alan:
Are you doing a Vulcan mind-meld on me or something?
You say what I’m thinking but even better than I could say it.
Thanks..
Elie
@Citizen Alan:
Okay, lets just go with what you say — that what passes is a train wreck and everyone — everyone is going to hate it and its going to be expensive, etc.
Okay
What configuration would have avoided that? If we had a single payer? That would not have been free as far as the impact on our taxes in the short term and would have taken some time to implement as well as involve a fair amount of complexity.
Public Option: would have contained costs somewhat, but mostly over the longer term and we still would have to cover more people and subsidize that through taxes, right?
How on earth do you think that any of these options would have been accepted by the right wing? Is that your benchmark — how the Republicans would oppose it? They would oppose anything — and everything and I am not sure at all, based on their past extremity, that their reaction to this would be any different than any thing called HCR — no matter what the content.
Tell me I am wrong on this
superking
@gocart
So what you’re saying is you find imagination and ignorance comforting.
DougJ
Since when has Barbour ever represented anything that could be honestly referred to as the “sane wing” of the GOP?
Since Sarah Palin.
valdivia
I have been staying away because after the comparison to neocons and Iraq I felt my head melting. Now I am back and seems there are quite a few new people here agitating against the bill, is it my imagination?
Lev, General, donovong, et al, what you all said.
Guster
@Citizen Alan: Isn’t the mandate–as it now exists, which doesn’t mean much, as nothing means much in a vaporous imaginary bill–just $750 a year, really?
You pay your fine every year, and if you get sick, you buy your health insurance. In theory, in this theoretical bill that only exists at a very high level abstraction, and with the caveat that I don’t wanna say that too loudly, or certain senators will remove it as an option.
DougJ
Finally, some of you don’t seem to understand it, but the “Manic Progressives” ARE the base of the Democratic Party.
You know, I consider myself to be something of a manic progressive. But I’m not sure we are the base of the party. I just don’t think there’s that many of us.
ronin122
Am I the only one who has realized that JC’s “slap in the face” comment in the post was sarcasm about what the netroots always says concerning Obama over something he did or didn’t? Think about it, when has he ever used the phrase except in ridicule?
Joe Beese
@gocartmozart
Ah, the old “The President has secret knowledge but we can trust he’s doing the right thing because he’s a good man” argument.
A Bush-era classic.
debit
@williamc: This and especially number 3.
I’m angry. I’m sorry my anger bothers those of you who aren’t angry and don’t feel betrayed. But I am and I do. This is not what I voted for and I don’t need some smart ass asking me why I expect unicorns. I didn’t vote for some unrealistic, unattainable fairy tale. I simply want the reform I was promised, the not indentured servitude I’m going to get if they don’t change it.
donovong
@jcricket: If I had detected snark, I would have responded accordingly. I didn’t.
ronin122
@DougJ: There aren’t. If the theory that we’re a center-right nation (in that our center is center-right on the political compass) is correct and I think there’s a good argument for it, then the base of the Democratic party is somewhere closer to the centrist line. Judging by what gets Dems elected, I have to say there are more moderates than progressives, and said as a fellow liberal. Thus while I get disappointed easily with the Dems, I also don’t have any false hopes or crazy expectations like those at the GOS have.
General Winfield Stuck
@Guster:
Yep 95 a month. And when and if you get sick, a pre existing condition can’t stop you then signing up for insurance. Don’t know if it’s also in the bills, but most of the time there is a retroactive date to cover emergencies and the like. This is how Indigent Care programs work now for hospitals and E room visits.
williamc
John S. that is a slanderous insult comparing us to teabaggers. We are fighting for affordable health care for everyone in this country, they are fighting for what? Imaginary slanders against them, the right to torture whoever they want, and “their country back”?
F u and your smarmy comeback.
I know I rarely ever comment here, but its usually because I enjoy just reading y’alls comments (most of you guys are really funny), but this isn’t funny.
The teabaggers ARE the base of the Republican party, and if you don’t believe that, go to any right-wing event and see how much they resemble a teaparty, I don’t need to, I live amongst them; they are one and the same. Watch FOX News for gods sake…
Xenos
Fill her up, Jacko!
Nothing clever to say here, but that first Clash album sounds fresh after what, 30 years? Put that vinyl on and I feel like I am 14 again. Thanks.
dr. bloor
@DougJ:
We’re not, but we’re also not the bloc that the Dems have to worry about getting to the polls next year.
Whatever your personal God may say about the merits of the bill (as it theoretically, hypothetically, might-maybe turn out to be in the end), the optics of this thing are terrible. Haley’s gonna be barking “JIM JONES!” between now and November ’10, and a bunch of less well-informed voters are going to stay home or go Republican.
Comrade Luke
If can ask a serious question:
All I’m hearing is that this bill is better than nothing, and regardless of what happens the Dems are going to lose seats in 2010 so clearly that’s not the issue.
For those of you who are constantly telling everyone that they’re dumb for wanting to kill the bill, is there anything that could change your mind to decide to kill it?
DougJ
The slap in the face was snark.
Your inability to detect this is, itself, a slap in the face.
General Winfield Stuck
@debit:
Your anger is real, and I won’t even try to talk you out of it or tell you to shut up. THIS is not the problem. The problem is condemning Obama as a failure and to blame for things not in his control. IE Lieberman, and threatening to leave your support for him completely, and supporting a challenger.
And not to mention taring we who hold your belief in what would be ideal, a PO or it’s equivilent, with all sorts of Obama Worship nonsense, comparing us to neocons, and against DFH’s./ Specially those of us who were the original DFH;s/
When we are supporting a less than perfect bill out of political reality that will save lives, trumping all else, which is what I thought DFH;s were all about, In fact, I am sure that is what a DFH is all about. At least in my world.
If you are going to go that route, then you are my political enemy, and I will treat you the same as the wingnuts.
Elie
@General Winfield Stuck:
Also, I hear more fear of the Big Bad Republicans from the Manics than anyone! Holy Shmoly, you all are in total hysterical OMG-the-Republicans-are-going-to-get-us because-of-this, mode.
Come on now, hitch up yer britches and get real. They are going to oppose anything and would oppose anything with every fiber of their being and every lie and exagerration no matter what came out and you know that.
The question is, why are you such nervous Nellies? Why would you rather knee cap this administration and your fellow Progressives to run in fear from the Republicans and try to emulate their whole shtick about cram down, ram down and shove it down our throats until we get what we want strategy.
Maybe yall need to consider a move to the other party. I have heard too much about the cost of healthcare coverage today and not too much about covering everyone first. I have heard about the cram it down as the desired approach to “negotiation” . Don’t hear too much about “liberal” values really.
Guster
@General Winfield Stuck: See, now if that ends up in the final bill, and the insurance companies don’t find a way to stick it to people in my situation, it’ll be a _fantastic_ bill. Well, if there’s a bit of retroactive wiggle room, too.
I just hope that Rep. Weiner and Jacob Hacker don’t run around telling anyone what a great deal that is.
I guess we disagree on this, but I am 100% pro-progressive meltdown. That’s the only way that certain Senators will feel comfortable voting for cloture; if they’re absolutely certain that Darcy Burner hates the bill.
Elie
@Guster:
Darcy Burner has been something of a surprise to me. I would shade her way over towards the libertarian wing than straight out liberal. She is a smooth talker though..
Jay B.
Pure awesome:
Nelson, in an interview with KLIN radio in his home state, he said he was dissatisfied with a proposed compromise on abortion and cast doubt on whether there was still time to complete work on the legislation before Christmas, the informal deadline set by the Democratic leadership.
He also said abortion wasn’t his only concern.
“That’s not enough,” he said, adding that the bill’s proposed expansion of Medicaid could wind up costing his state money.
…..
Nelson, backed by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and others, is now out to accomplish the same mission.
Phew. Thank fuck the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops have a seat at the table. So, just to check off who gets to have input and who doesn’t:
Big Pharma — Check
The Insurance Industry — check, hell, their lobbyists literally wrote the Baucus plan
“Centrists” — Big Check!
Blue Dogs — You betcha!
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops — Check
Joe Lieberman — Where would we be without him?
The House — Nah. The Senate bill will be the one that comes out of conference, sayz everyone.
President Obama — Not according to many Balloon Juicers! His hands are tied! There’s literally no way he could influence anything.
The AMA — check
“Moderate” Republicans — The door’s always open!
Liberals — WHAT? Why? Shut the fuck up already! You think you’re entitled to something?
AhabTRuler
@DougJ:
Don’t let her craziness normalize their craziness; Barbour is still 10 lbs. of shit in a 2 oz. sack.
John S.
Sorry to have unsettled your delicate sensibilities, but I’m starting to see far too many similarities and it scares the shit out of me.
I’ve been a progressive my entire life, and I have voted for progressive Democrats my entire life (a luxury afforded to me by living in South Florida). But I’m really getting tired of the calls for ideological purity and the chants to “KILL THE BILL” coming from people allegedly aligned with my interests. I guess the main difference is that I’m less ideological than I am pragmatic.
I realize the Teabaggers are the base of the Republican party – I said as much – but you missed have missed it after getting worked up over my “slanderous” comment. The thing is, I don’t think their strategy is a winning plan for long-term electoral success and I don’t think emulating their tactics from the opposite end of the spectrum will yield any better results.
I share the fears of this person writing into TPM:
Citizen Alan
@Guster:
I’m not sure of the exact fine of the top of my head. I’ve seen different figures and I think it goes up over time. In any case, “pay for shitty overpriced insurance or pay the government a fine of $750 a year” isn’t a great idea either.
I was okay with the mandates when I thought that we would at least get some serious regulation with it, but from what I’ve read, I just don’t think it’s worth it. YMMV. But my understanding is that the countries which have successfully implemented a universal mandate for private insurance have also regulated the private insurers to the point that it is essentially illegal for the companies to profit from the mandated plans.
More importantly, I don’t think people realize just how traumatic it’s going to be for folks not steeped in insurance policy arcana to be told that they have to buy insurance or pay $750 a year to Uncle Sam. There really is no precedent in this nation’s history for the government to require private citizens to purchase a particular a service from a private company. Hell, part of the basis for the original Boston Tea Party, IIRC, was that the British were making the colonists subsidize the East India Tea Party, and we all know how that turned out.
It is a point that I have not seen anyone discuss anywhere in any depth, but I simply have grave doubts as to whether the current Supreme Court will find the universal mandate to be constitutional. A majority of the Court has been itching to limit the Commerce Clause for decades, and Congress has never exercised its Commerce Clause powers in this manner before. I mean, we have two votes right now to overturn most labor laws as unconstitutional.
General Winfield Stuck
@Guster:
If what I have read from you is a meltdown, then it is one I can handle, for sure. Some of the other stuff from others, not so much.
Texas Dem
Don’t worry too much about progressives abandoning Obama. A few years from now, after the GOP has retaken the Congress and Obama is the only thing standing between Sarah Palin and the oval office, they’ll be lining up to kiss his ass. See Bill Clinton, circa 1995-2000.
Elie
@Comrade Luke:
If the 30 million or so non illegals were not covered.
But then I would argue that would have to be added. Not kill the bill.
What? Starting from scratch again for something like this is an easy thought for you?
BombIranForChrist
Yeah, can I just go on the record and say that Obama is much, much better than the Republicans, even if he has been played by the banks and insurance companies? I know that Doug is being snarky (I think), but even with this healthcare disappointment, we are in a far better place right now because of Obama, compared to where we would be under McCain / Palin … or Bush or Reagan or Ford. Although Ford was kinda cuddly, like a giant bald bear.
Shalimar
Sure, Obama is sane and the Republicans are fucking nuts so there is an obvious difference. But then again, the bankers and drug companies and insurance companies and other power brokers own both sides, so I’m not sure if it’s better to be sold out by someone who knows what they’re doing rather than by crazy people. At least with Republicans, the ride to bankruptcy and early death will be more entertaining.
Citizen Alan
@Joe Beese:
Oh, it’s older than that. Perhaps Obama has a “secret plan” to win the war in
VietnamAfghanistan as well.cfaller96
There’s no need to have dueling assertions on what the base is truly thinking right now.
I’m not sure why some people want to pretend the base isn’t demoralized. A couple of polls have shown a significant turnout disparity. In midterm elections, base turnout is everything.
This is a problem. Passing the Senate’s HCR bill does NOT solve this problem, and making the bill worse will only make this problem worse. What I am saying is not controversial.
Wile E. Quixote
@DougJ
Yeah, I’m getting a little bored with that. How about mixing it up every once in a while with the phrase :getting your balls cut off and eating the barbituate laced Jello™ brand pudding”. OK it’s not as pithy as “drinking the Kool-Aid™, but it is more current and would provide some needed variety in our political discourse.
KevinD
@Joe Beese:
Yeah, I knew that sounded familier!
MikeJ
@Wile E. Quixote: Just say, “riding the comet”. Pithier.
John S.
I think that blocking access to people that desperately need insurance is the most pernicious fucking thing allowed in our healthcare system right now. If they removed the provisions to re-open markets to people with pre-existing conditions, that would pretty much do it for me.
I also was initially heartened by the changes to rescission and lifetime maximums, but it seems those provisions have loopholes big enough to drive a Mack truck through.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@Elie:
__
What amazes me is the total naivete in the idea that we could start again from scratch. What planet to the kill billers live on, to think that there is any circumstance under which such a thing could happen even in a couple of decades?
Guster
@Citizen Alan: But I think that “pay for shitty overpriced insurance or pay the government a fine of $750 a year” actually _is_ a great idea!
It means I can get insurance for $750 a year. (If it happens, blah blah.) Right now I pay $5,400/year for a $15,000 deductible.
Knocking that down to $750–and with, I presume, a lower deductible, too–sounds friggin’ _brilliant_.
I agree with your ‘traumatic’ point: but I think that’s salvageable, and more than salvageable, if we can explain that the mandate only costs $65/month. That is, if it’s really $750. And if it stays that way. And the insurance companies don’t push something to invalidate this …
dr. bloor
@BombIranForChrist:
He’d also be further to the left than roughly 10-20% of the Democratic caucus right now.
Just sayin’.
General Winfield Stuck
@Guster:
All of this wonk stuff gives me headhurt, and it is hard to pin down what is real or not. Specially for a bill that doesn’t exist.
But I heard Liz Cohen on CNN this morning explain that the bill, that I assume was the senate one, would expand Medicaid to a family of 4 income limit to at least 50 thousand a year household income. That sounds like a good thing to me. Though I don’t know what your family consists of.
And medicaid covers everything, I think. With some monthly limits. Maybe
Comrade Luke
@Elie:
Where did I mention starting from scratch?
Jesus, a simple question and the first answer starts packing on the assumptions. By the time the sixth person answers I’ll be accused of suggesting we fund health care for Pakistanis instead of Americans.
ETA: my personal opinion on this is that it’s nearly impossible to figure this out (which is totally by design so the politicians can point to something other than themselves as the reason is sucks), and as long as they don’t add the abortion amendment (or anything else crazy like that) they might as well pass it.
Because let’s face it: no matter what they pass, next year will be a confusing clusterfuck as we transition to it, it won’t be even close to running smoothly by the elections, the Republicans and teabaggers will be blaming the whole thing on Democrats, and the Democrats will get routed.
The die was cast when Baucus slid everything into the August recess. That, and creating a lousy bill from the get-go.
Bob Dole
@Texas Dem: Bob Dole agrees! Fickle bastards, and that Ross Perot, too!
MikeJ
The base ought to go get Lieberman and Nelson to agree to not filibuster their preferred bill. Knock yourselves out and tell us how you did it. I know, you’re gonna strip Holy Joe of his blah blah blah. And *then* he’ll do just what you want.
General Winfield Stuck
@cfaller96:
Well it will be controversial, if so called base progressives, which sounds a lot like the netroots blogger realm to me, stays home and gets more wingnuts elected.
That wouldn’t be so controversial as sack of hatchets dumb.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@dr. bloor: That was true even when he was President. Where did this idea come from, that all Democrats are liberals? Conservative Dems have always been part of the party—hell, we had a bunch of fucking reactionary Dems here in the South, right up until Reagan.
John S.
I’m with you brother, but as they say the devil is in the details. That’s why I’m saving my fire for the conference report (if this thing even gets there).
Right now I pay $4,500/year for a $10,000 deductible. And that doesn’t include maternity costs, which is really fucking swell now that my wife is 8 weeks pregnant.
Edit: Incidentally, my premiums are about 10% of my salary, so knocking it down to 8% would definitely be less for me.
Seebach
@MikeJ: The point is, Joe is never going to do anything. So he’s beyond toleration. I say the progressives should just stop the rage and let Nelson and Lieberman kill the bill, as they were always going to do.
cfaller96
I admit I don’t have all the details on the bill in its current form, but I’m under the impression that blocking access will still be permitted. Linky. Passage:
mcd
I want to have Al Franken’s babies.
Joe, you’re a douche. You’re the Douche of the Year.
Citizen Alan
I also find it interesting to hear all this dissertations on who is or isn’t a part of “the base.” “The base” of the Democratic Party, as far as I’m concerned, consists of those demographic groups who can be safely relied upon to show up on election day. And right now, Obama’s “base” is in trouble, because a poll taken by the Great Orange Satan indicates that 40% of Democrats say they definitely won’t vote in 2010 while 80% of Republicans definitely will. That poll scared me shitless when I saw it.
Now, unless I’m dead or in a coma next November, I’m going to vote and vote Democrat. But that’s my decision, and the Democrats do not own the rights to my vote. It’s the job of the candidate and the party to persuade people to get out and vote, no matter how many people here seem to think that Democrats are somehow entitled to full-throated support from every registered Dem (including people who voted for Obama last November and have been seriously let down by his performance since). If the Democratic Party cannot mobilize its base (or even some part of its base) next November, it will suffer catastrophic losses. “STFU you WATB!” is not the path to mobilizing the base, no matter how soothing it is for one faction of the base to yell it at another.
Annie
Maybe I am wrong here, but I don’t know the base is demoralized, when the base has largely been invisible. The visibility of the “tea baggers” has given Republicans possibly a false sense of security. But, other than rants on blogs like this, in what ways have progressives and others been visible for HCR? The polls have been weak, and at townhall meetings, those opposed to HCR clearly out shouted those who favor reform. We can be angry at Obama now, but where were we all of these months. Why weren’t huge crowds of proponents making the evening news? We let the narrative be hijacked by corporate interests that somehow convinced seniors and others to shout against their own interests. Dems and progressives are just not good at making our voices loudly heard.
williamc
General,
You are one of my favorite commenters here, but you are off-base on this. This fights not about getting people covered, we all want that. This is about political power. Right now, Liberman and the centrists have it all, and if they win on this, they will win on everything. They seem to be determined to make every item on the President’s agenda as weak as possible (for what, I don’t know) and you all are encouraging them to do it because they know that you will take whatever they offer you because the human cost will be too much if you don’t.
John S., no one is emulating the tactics of the teabaggers. You crossed a line, comparing people who are earnestly concerned that their political party is about to pass a bill that enriches the insurance companies, but doesn’t do much else to control the insurers or help people who already have insurance and can’t really afford it, and loons who think that the President is a National Sokalist / Comm!e and don’t know that that is an impossibility. I’m sorry, but there is no comparison. Kos and Hamsher are not some parallel to the Trike Force and HotAir; they know what they are talking about and have been right a good bit of the time, unlike their brothers and sisters on the opposite side and what you are doing is aiding in their marginalization.
Citizen Alan
@John S.:
My understanding (I could be mistaken) is that while the insurance companies cannot refuse you coverage because of a preexisting condition, they can increase your premiums by up to 50%. Does that change your analysis? Personally, I’m not sure a ban on preexisting conditions achieves anything if its still legal to make such policies prohibitively expensive, but I’m willing to be persuaded.
cfaller96
First, you’re assuming the base hasn’t been lobbying Congress to commit to not filibuster any HCR bill. They have, to (AFAIK) little effect.
But ultimately, that’s not the base’s job. It’s the responsibility of Reid and Obama to get everyone behind an up or down vote.
Seebach
This is the crux of it. The Senate breaks the entire system currently. Obama will get nothing for his entire term.
CalD
__
Then don’t. How hard is that?
ruemara
@Brachiator:
Political windfall for Republicans? Only if the Democrats are too dumb to ask the very, very, very easy questions.
Oh sweet crispy fried jebus on sesame seed bun. We’re fucking doomed.
Citizen Alan
@Guster:
Somebody help me out here. Is the bill written so that you can pay $750 a year forever, and then when you find out you have cancer or diabetes, you just buy an insurance policy that by law can’t exceed 8% of your income? Because that would be great. So great, in fact, that I can’t believe that’s what the bill says, given how incredibly favorable it is to the insurance companies otherwise.
John S.
@cfaller96:
That’s interesting, but I’m not sure that’s the same thing as allowing companies to block people with pre-existing conditions altogether. It really seems to focus on people that have pre-existing conditions stemming from lifestyle choices like smoking and to some extent obesity (yes, I realize that not all obesity is a choice but a great deal of it is).
Wellness and preventative care is a big part of this reform, and one of the areas in which I think people need to take some personal responsibility. But the people I’m concerned about not having access to ANY healthcare at all are the ones with things like cancer, MS, Parkinson’s and any number of other debilitating and expensive to treat illnesses who right now are deemed UNINSURABLE.
And I really don’t see anything in the link you provided that would exclude them. Although I must say, there does eem to be a back door for insurance companies to make their premiums extremely expensive, which I guess is just as bad as denying them coverage outright.
I totally agree, but as I said before, the devil is in the details and RIGHT NOW there is no actual “bill” to parse.
Elie
@Comrade Luke:
Where did you say “start from scratch?”
Somehow I got the impression that you were at least sympathetic to those who want to kill the bill since you were challenging those of us who do not want that to come up with circumstances where we might chose to do so.
Did I not get that cut and pasted correctly from your comment?
ruemara
@Annie:
this. also. too.
Citizen Alan
@dr. bloor:
Who was it that described Gerald Ford as always looking like “the guy in the horror movie who just saw ‘the creature'”? Dole, maybe.
cfaller96
Co-signed. I don’t know what Ezra, Nate, and John are thinking here. The polls show a problem with the base, and the moderates are failing to persuade the base with the current iteration of HCR. Crapping on the base some more and sucking up to Joe Lieberman, all while calling them names and threatening them with 2010 DOOOOOOOM isn’t going to reverse the numbers.
Solve this problem.
mr. whipple
If it was only so easy. People seem to think all this requires is a change in tactics, or a little arm twisting, or someone to talk with house and senate shitheads.
FDR introduced UHC in 1935. That’s 75 years ago, folks. FAIL.
Truman: FAIL.
Eisenhower: Didn’t give a fuck. FAIL.
JFK: FAIL.
LBJ: Medicare, but it only covered a small portion of the population. (partial) FAIL.
Nixon: FAIL
Carter: who?
Reagan: what?
Bush: A thousand points of suck.
Clinton: FAIL.
Bush jr.: Total abject failure at everything.
Obama: didn’t twist enough arms, or something. KILL THE BILL!
Comrade Luke
Really?
I want a health care bill that allows people – ALL people, regardless of their current health or income – to be able to afford health insurance that fully covers them, and that prevents the insurance companies from taking advantage of sick people, or denying them coverage at all.
Actually, that’s not what I want. I want NHS or something close to it, but that’s not feasible, so the above is what I’m willing to settle for.
We could have maintained the majority if we kept the Dixiecrats in the fold and looked the other way wrt civil rights. We didn’t, and society is better off for it. I’m happy to have made that tradeoff.
Making this about political power seems petty to me.
Shawn in ShowMe
@Citizen Alan
Obama has a 50% approval rating but 40% of Democrats are outraged at Obama? Interesting poll.
Elie
@Comrade Luke:
Man, you are a wealth of scared and NO.
“no matter what they pass, next year will be a confusing clusterfuck as we transition to it, it won’t be even close to running smoothly by the elections, the Republicans and teabaggers will be blaming the whole thing on Democrats, and the Democrats will get routed.”
Well fuck Obama for trying to do anything then since as you say the OMG TEABAGGERS WILL BE BLAMING THE WHOLE THING ON THE DEMOCRATS AND THE DEMOCRATS WILL GET ROUTED!!!
The End
Citizen Alan
@MikeJ:
Well, I do think that the Democratic leadership should have been realistic from the start and not built up false expectations with this “filibuster-proof majority” crap. We never had 60 votes; we had about 55 votes plus 5 fifth columnists who ideologically should be in the Republican party but they figured out that they can ratfuck the Democrats more easily from the inside (Evan Bayh, I’m looking at you.) And while I do not wish to see the filibuster eliminated, something is going to have to be done, but the GOP’s current misuse of it is quite literally on the verge of threatening our entire democracy. I think it was Atrios who talked about the Californification of America, in which a determine minority can choose to make it impossible to govern until the entire society borders on collapse.
Comrade Luke
@Elie:
Again with adding more crap.
Back ‘atcha.
Jay B.
OK, let’s say this. After all the angst and the shit eating (yum!) HCR passes and it’s roughly like the Senate bill.
Victory looks like…What? How do you spin this as The Thing that Democrats have been fighting for and believing in since Truman proposed in 50 years ago? You’ll point to SSI and Medicare as your incrementalist role models — please for the love of fuck leave Civil Rights out of it, without the Kennedy Assassination, the dynamic changes completely, it’s not a good analogy. At all. — but is that enough to make people go “wow”? Does it help the majority of us who have health care insurance right now? Does it enable us to say, well at least the rapacious insurance industry is now under control and health care costs are going down! Does it do anything at all to the underlying corrosion of our actual health care system compared to that of other developed nations? Does “This is awesome because it’s the Best We Could Do.” really work to inspire people?
John S.
I agree with the overall thrust of your analysis, but this little part isn’t exactly true. Here’s a little something I learned earlier today:
– “Ted and Hillary’s Health Care Split,” by E.J. Dionne, Washington Post, June 24, 2003.
If anyone reading that wonders where Kennedy would have stood in this current debate, I don’t really think that leaves much room for conjecture.
Seebach
@Comrade Luke: Lieberman and Nelson and Snowe have made it about power. We don’t get to choose anymore.
Chuck Butcher
let’s say I’m a GOPer, here’s where I go
We opposed this because they refused to do ABC and D (capping malpractice, etc) and we knew they’d do this:
Force you to buy a product you didn’t want and don’t need
and
Soshulizm
and
Your rising costs are directly due to what actions we couldn’t actually block
Economy
If you think you’ll get anywhere using the BushCo tag, try to remember somebody named RR.
cfaller96
@John S.
I don’t have a link handy right now, and I’ll try and find one, but there are still loopholes that allow what you’re talking about. I read somewhere that insurers will still be able to cover only on “in-network” providers, and thus will still be able to deny based on conditions. The example used was if an insurer doesn’t want to provide coverage to people with kidney problems, they can simply not have any nephrologists anywhere in their network. Thus, anyone with a kidney problem is denied coverage based on that preexisting condition.
They will still be able to do that. I’ll try and find a link for you.
Elie
@Citizen Alan:
In all fairness, I dont think that the Democratic leadership squawked about that.
That was the blogs mainly who strutted that without much accompanying insight on the realities of the political process with big complex social legislation.
Carry on however
The Other Steve
@cfaller96:
Go fuck yourself.
i’m the base.
you’re a whiney Nader voter.
Citizen Alan
@williamc:
This also is a grave concern of mine. If Lieberman and Nelson (and possibly others — I still think there are shoes to drop from some of the other conservadems) can do this to health care reform, I cannot see any part of Obama’s agenda that they won’t ratfuck to advance their petty needs. Climate change and Social Security reform are on the horizon, and I can’t even imagine what fresh hell is coming next.
dr. bloor
@Citizen Alan:
Hadn’t ever heard that one. Dole, of course, would have been the creature that Ford just saw.
Although it’s amazing how much of Ford’s legacy still seems to have been written by Chevy Chase.
Comrade Darkness
Since when did flagrant hyperbola == policy leadership?
The dems are no great shakes, but man o man the repubes got absolutely nada.
Elie
@Comrade Luke:
Did I quote you incorrectly or misinterpret your comment or intent?
That is important. None of us gains here in this intense discussion with so much opportunity for misunderstanding if your comments are mischarecterized.
I am ok with your back atcha thing but did I get your comment wrong? I am just fine with your refuting me or telling me where I was wrong etc.
( I am not trying to make you angry or just piss you off — just reflecting and trying to understand your comments)
Annie
The headline on Huffington “The Politics of Watered Down HCR – It could make things worse for the Dems.”
While I am not saying that progressives should be silent, but when do you ever see on a wingnut site, wingnuts attacking their own? For better or worse, they somehow manage to stay on message, and support their assholes even when they propose failed, evil, and horrible policies.
Progressive “meltdown” is like an early Christmas gift to Republicans. It gives them courage to continue loudly supporting their bullshit agenda. We can argue among us specific aspects of HCR, while at the same time loudly support those we favor to move forward. BUT, we don’t. We bicker, fragment, and crawl under the sofa.
Republicans and jerks like Lieberman and Nelson only survive, because we remain largely invisible with our dissent, and Republicans grow in strength because they make us look inadequate, and those who support them look victorious.
That is not Obama’s felt. It is ours and our inability to be much more vocal — really vocal so Republicans become the ones who bicker, fragment, and crawl under the sofa.
getsmartin
Jeez… I call Barbour “Guvner Bubba”. I live in Mississippi and yes, the bad stereotype is alive and well. Oh well… what would one expect from a person reared in a town called “Yazoo City”?
Anyhow… I cringe every time I hear him speak. Bubba is an embarrassment.
cfaller96
@john s., I found it. LINK. (emphasis mine)
Elie
@Citizen Alan:
“I cannot see any part of Obama’s agenda that they won’t ratfuck to advance their petty needs. Climate change and Social Security reform are on the horizon, and I can’t even imagine what fresh hell is coming next”
And you know, that is the challenge of governance. You deal with what is.
Are you suggesting that then doing nothing is the best approach?
Seebach
How do we get more vocal when the media hates us? I was plenty vocal in opposing the Iraq war. I even did an interview with the local paper. They didn’t quote me at all, because they decided to go with the Boobs not Bombs girls instead.
williamc
@ Comrade Luke
Liberman made it this petty when he told us he’s being spiteful because Anthony Weiner and Jacob Hacker thought the Medicare buy-in that he championed for years was a good idea and so he was going to take his vote and walk over the Republicans. I don’t get whats so hard to see about all of this: the guy was defeated by the left, won anyway, campaigned against the Party and President that is now governing and for his friend from the other party, who is also still in the Senate, this feels like just straight up obvious Betty Davis-mean girl vengeance and thirsting for power on his part.
In the interest of clarification, my problem with the bill is two-fold: the selling policies across state lines and the lack of affordable public options. The first is enormous; it will be just like banking regs where all you have to do is persuade one state to let you set up a horrible plan that cost just enough to eat up the subsidies and stick the working poor who don’t qualify for medicaid into high deductible/high co-pay plans that they can’t afford but will carry anyway to get around the mandated fines. And the lack of a public option really only guarantees the insurers will be shoveled all of the subsidy monies, leaving them more cash to buy more of our democracy.
Sorry its gotten so heated in here over this health care stuff, but hey, at least we care enough to debate the policy and its not some made up stuff about ACORN or whatever Beck was able to discern from playing with his poo that day that the right-tards talk about every day. I’m off to a fish fry, g’night!
Shawn in ShowMe
@Citizen Alan
Chat transcript
Potomac, Md.: Ezra, thanks for explaining everything so clearly. I understand that insurance companies can’t exclude people for pre-existing conditions, but can they charge higher premiums, which could have the effect of excluding them?
Ezra Klein: Nope.
—————————————————-
And here’s an explanation from one of his recent blog posts
4) The excise tax on high-value health insurance: This is, essentially, a tax on the unchecked growth in premiums. The key here is that the threshold at which premium dollars begin getting taxed at 40 percent doesn’t rise as quickly as premiums costs generally rise.
Now imagine two insurers: One holds costs down quite well, and one holds costs down quite poorly. Within a couple of years, the costlier insurer’s plan is $3,000 over the threshold, while the cheaper insurer remains under it. The tax amplifies the difference between the two. The costlier insurer is suddenly $4,200 more than the cheaper insurer. In this way, plans with more successful cost-control mechanisms get an even larger market advantage.
General Winfield Stuck
@williamc: @williamc:
Thanks for the compliment. But I am not sure where you are coming from. I disagree that it is not about getting people covered. And also improving the lots of those who are now covered from being screwed by insurance companies when they need that coverage.
The senate bill does all of this, the one that does not exist yet. The argument, or the only one that makes sense to me, is how that is done, and also the long term cause of lowering overall costs for the system.
Although I surely prefer a government PO, that cannot, or is harder to sabotage from a deep pockets power insurance industry. But it looks like unless it gets rammed thru with reconc. that won’t happen right now. And the weakness of it being only available to a few, will do nothing to lower costs. Only when it is open to everyone will that happen, lowering costs, and I am dubious that regs can do this at all.
So it looks like nothing, imho, in any of the bills will lower costs much, for now. So what we have left is covering more people, up to 30 million with reg changes and expanding medicaid.
The reason why you are wrong, is that political power in this country still comes from the people at the ballot box, and except for tiny parts of the ideology poles, most people could care less about who controls the senate or congress, and which intramural fights are happening in either party. They just want to feel secure that they can get and keep affordable HC insurance that delivers when they need it, without as much possibility they will get screwed by anyone.
From every account I can gather this bill, the senate one, makes a lot of progress in providing that security to the public. There are a lot of chatter about mandates and affordability giving insurance companies big wet tax dollar kisses, as reasons for killing it.
But if these relatively fixable shortcomings can be addressed to a large degree in any final bill for passage, then the public at large will embrace it. And Joe and the others will look like loser asswipes they are. The public will give those who helped them the power you say this is about. And it is about power, Joe has some now, but passing a bill that gives comfort to those who fear getting sick and not treated or wiped out financially will trump all of it. Trust me.
actually, it is about this, all of it.
Citizen Alan
@Shawn in ShowMe:
I think you’re mixing polls there. The one I’m referring to is about whether now, a year in advance of the election, people have definite feelings about whether they plan to vote in 2010. I think 80% “definitely yes” versus “40% definitely no” is striking. And while Obama may personally be very well liked, an increasing number of people who voted for him are becoming disengaged from the political process. Whether such people become infatuated with a third party or just stay home, the effect is the same.
Seebach
@Elie: But nobody is dealing with “what is”. What is, is currently nothing gets done because the centrists destroy everything. Watch it happen. The progressives will not be the ones who end up killing this.
Jay B.
@The Other Steve:
That’s funny. Not even a week ago everyone thought the bill would suck without a Medicare buy-in. Before that, Public Option. etc. etc. Now that they have none of those things, no cost controls, in short, almost nothing that Democrats have been promising or the voters expecting, you are all “Woohoo! Suck it, Naderites!” like this is a big win? My team got, well, something! And your team, which was my team until I got “real” about everything about mid-Monday morning when Joe Lieberman told me what to think, got shafted. HAHAHA!11!!
The Other Steve
@cfaller96: Sure it’s possible. The probability of this occuring is pretty much zero.
The doctor’s would revolt, and you’d have an insurance company who could not get anyone to join their network if they are known to not allow specialized medical care for sick patients. At which point they go bust.
cfaller96
Sigh, straight out of Dale Carnegie that was. And FTR, no I didn’t vote for Nader.
Please stop. I’m sure telling liberals to “go fuck themselves” feels good for a moment, but this isn’t going to get you, me, or anyone else any closer to what they want- on HCR, Climate Change, Banking Reform, etc. And it will only make things that much worse in 2010.
Stop.
John S.
@cfaller96:
You’re reaching really hard to make a point, but I think it’s one that clearly doesn’t exist. Not yet, anyway.
And even IF what your link says ends up being the scenario, I’m sure a lot of people with kidney disease would be thrilled to have to “deal with the hassles or find a new plan”. Because as of right now, THEY HAVE NO PLAN.
Citizen Alan
@getsmartin:
Really??? I’m up in Oxford! I always refer to Barbour as “Boss Hogg” because all he needs is a white suit and a Stetson.
dr. bloor
@Shawn in ShowMe:
Insurers won’t let their policies go into luxury tax land. They’ll just offer progressively shittier policies or higher deductible policies that hover just under the cap.
DougJ
Obama has a 50% approval rating but 40% of Democrats are outraged at Obama? Interesting poll.
Since Sarah Palin has a 46% favorability rating, this makes her more popular than Obama.
Shawn in ShowMe
@Shawn in ShowMe
Second paragraph should read: “And here’s an explanation from one of his blog posts about rising premium costs in general”
Wile E. Quixote
@John S.
This is a lie. Democratic voters going to Nader didn’t cause Gore the election. Independent voters going to Bush cost Gore the election as well as Gore’s incompetent campaigning. Blaming Nader is simplistic, but stupid and wrong. There’s no evidence whatsoever that the voters who voted for Nader would have voted for Gore. By your specious logic you could say that the Socialist Workers, who got 562 votes in the election, cost Gore the election in 2000.
If Gore had managed to win the same percentage of the vote that Clinton did in 1996, 49.2 percent of the popular vote versus 48.6 he would have won the presidency. Gore lost his home state of Tennessee, lost Arkansas, lost West Virginia, which Clinton won by over 50 percent in 1996. If Gore had carried any of these states, states that Clinton handily carried (he got over 50 percent of the vote in West Virginia in 1996) he would have won the presidency, Florida be damned.
Gore sucked as a campaigner, he ran a lousy campaign, distanced himself from Bill Clinton, faked right and then shifted left and picked Joe Lieberman as his VP and got fucked over by one of the worst decisions the Supreme Court ever handed down. Blaming Nader for Gore’s loss is convenient for Gore, and for anyone trying to demonize the progressive wing of the Democratic party, it allows him to avoid responsibility for his mistakes, but it’s a myth and a lie.
Violet
@Comrade Luke:
For those that want some kind of NHS, why is that the holy grail of health coverage? I’m not for it or against it – just curious.
I do have very close family members, as well as a number of friends who are British and have had extensive conversations with them about the NHS in the UK. It has advantages and disadvantages for sure. A lot of the people I know go outside the system using additional insurance they either buy themselves or get via their employment as a perk. Additional insurance allows them to jump to the front of the line in many cases. Example: Family member needed a hip replacement. Under NHS she would have to wait until she was completely unable to walk (and she was a very active woman). With private insurance she could have the surgery immediately – and did. Recovery was fast and she went right back to playing golf in six weeks. There’s definitely a two-tier system at play.
But the good part is that everyone is covered and no one will go bankrupt from a health problem. Friends who have had babies paid zero, from the first visit through delivery and all well-mother/well-baby care. It’s hard for an American to comprehend that.
But I’m not totally sold on the NHS system (several horror stories from friends/family members have left me a bit wary). I’m quite interested in the Netherlands Healthcare system, which was voted best in Europe in 2008. It seems like it might work a lot better here than trying to create an NHS.
John S.
@Shawn in ShowMe:
Thanks for that. It seems a much more plausible explanation than the one cfaller96 linked to on DailyKos. I guess I should know better than to take the commentary over there – given the state that it is in – with anything more than a grain of salt.
Say what you want about Ezra Klein, but that guy is a fucking uber-policy wonk on healthcare reform and I think he knows his shit.
1) How high would those policies run to be “under the cap”?
2) Is a “shittier” policy worse than no policy at all?
cfaller96
The Other Steve, that sounds like fantasy. You’re saying that the entire field of doctors would “revolt” because a specialized subset of them would get paid kindasorta slowly. That doesn’t seem likely to me.
To me it looks extremely likely that cherrypicking could become emboldened to the point that it’s a de facto denial of coverage based on preexisting condition(s).
ruemara
@Jay B.:
You say that as someone who may not have had long term health issues. I’d say wow. I’d say wow each time I don’t have to worry about getting hurt working on my house, because it’s covered. Or goddess forbid, my partner, who’s uninsured. WOW, we can just go to the doctor! WOW, if you cut yourself chopping wood, I can take you to the hospital without thinking I may have to sell the house. Fucking wow.
Annie
I am is sorry. Progressives excel at policy and also excel at understanding the public good. But, we stink at politics.
And, fundamentally, this is less about HCR, and more about politics. Republicans don’t want the administration to succeed. They have managed to rally and make visible seniors, white males and white families, and some middle class folks to protest against HCR (doesn’ matter that many of these families are working against themselves).
Republicans in most cases don’t even have to explain themselves except to use empty, but powerful rhetoric (deficit spending, death panels, cutting Medicare, loosing benefits, etc) to show their concern for the American public.
Democrats try and explain the essentials of HCR and why it is needed. But their rhetoric gets lost, particularly when we become policy nerds.
This is a political battle, not a HCR battle. And, we are loosing…not because we are unwilling to consider myriad perspectives, but because we are approaching this fight from a policy, not a political, lens. And, the Republicans out fight us over and over again. They control the narrative and the airwaves. We are fighting from a defensive, not offensive position.
John S.
I can’t comprehend that.
I pay $4500 a year for a policy that doesn’t cover ANY maternity costs. Even after pre-negotiating cash rates with the doctor and hospital, I’m still looking at paying another $8000 out of pocket to ensure that I have a healthy child (and mother).
Chuck Butcher
I guess nobody will miss those couple activists, certainly not. I don’t know that I’d worry about the noise they make, nodody notices anyhow.
This ought to work out really well. Ya’ll fuck off now. Loss. Traitorist left bastards.
Maybe you can do without those activists or more likely hope will spring eternal in the lefty breast and they’ll help you kick them some more. Counting on masochism is risky though.
Elie
The last few days of debate and discussion have been completely eye opening to me
1) the whole mandate thing is a surprising (to me) hot button that has both true concerns about the poor and libertarian threads
2) there is enormous ignorance about how the process of making social legislation actually happens
3) enormous anger and desire for countering republicans with overt power displays and political coercion. We do not actually believe it appears, in soft power yet despite so called liberal values. W did a lot to fuck up a generation of liberals along with the developing extremists as the norm in his own. I fear now this will take a while to go away
4) Details details. Too many folks arguing what ifs of policy implementation for a bill that does not exist yet and provisions yet to be determined. There is a whole regulatory process that will follow what is passed that will deal with the income ranges, who is covered, who not, to what level and many many more issues about how the insurance companies will be monitored etc. I strongly urge everyone when that time comes to get involved and to comment strongly and regularly on the benchmarks and all the technical details for how the legislation will be implemented practically.
5) Universal coverage took a big back seat to affordability. I am sure this will be duly noted as you know the administration has folks cruising the blogs…
Very informative and interesting time — hard won awareness and insight
MikeJ
Was forced to visit Yoknapatawpha often as a child. Good bookstore there back then.
Comrade Luke
@Elie:
I don’t think starting over is a valid solution, or will ever happen. What makes anyone think starting over will change anything when it’s the same people writing the bill?
I don’t blame Obama, at least not for this specifically, because unlike the Hamshers of the left I have no idea what he’s said to anyone other than “Let’s get this bill passed”*.
I do, however think that this is not a great bill, and I’m not sure it’s even good (hard to tell, since it’s not even done yet).
There will be problems in transitioning things over, and they won’t have the kinks worked out by election season.
The media will be chock full of stories about this, alongside people bitching about paying for coverage without seeing any benefit.
And Republicans will be screeching about how yet again the government has shown that they can’t do anything right, blah blah blah.
This would happen regardless, and it would be easier to counter if the bill wasn’t weak. But it is pretty weak, and it will be hard to defend imo.
So if all of this is going to happen, and we’re not going to get a better bill, so we might as well pass what we have and get some people insured.
Sorry, I was going to go on some more, but I just got IM’d out of the blue by a friend who got mugged at gun point in London. He says he needs money, but I’m not sure if it’s really him so I have to find out.
No hard feelings – something like the above puts debates over the internet into perspective.
gotta run…
John S.
Chuck, you are obviously frustrated. But how do you think Ted Kennedy would have felt?
In his own words:
Do you think Nixon’s plan was better than the pile of shit on the table now?
cfaller96
@John S., I’m not an expert on the legislation (and as all of us have reminded ourselves there is no official “bill” to speak of yet). But I think it’s dangerous for you to dismiss the risk of legitimizing some of the for-profit incentives with HCR. An insurance company may not be allowed to deny coverage based on preexisting condition by law, but they may still be able to do it in practical terms anyway. That’s not “reaching,” that’s simply pointing out a loophole.
You have to make up your own mind on where your minimum threshold is, but don’t be surprised if the bill falls below it. And then don’t be surprised when John, Nate, and Ezra tell you to bend over and take it.
DougJ
This ought to work out really well. Ya’ll fuck off now. Loss. Traitorist left bastards.
Who is saying this?
dr. bloor
@John S.:
Just for the record, I think the bill is a POS, but I also think it should be passed, and yes, I’ll vote for the Democrats next year.
But a shitty policy is more or less the equivalent of none at all for the person who has that policy card.
Take a look upthread–two commenters, both paying 4500-5500 per year in premiums to carry policies with 10K and 15K annual deductibles. Given the rising costs of healthcare (not insurance, the care itself), Acme Insurance Co is going to have to either raise their premiums or increase their deductible every year to make those policies profitable. If you’re shelling out $5500 per year, but you’re responsible for the first $20K of your health costs, you’re not getting much for your premium dollar, and a serious illness will still put a lot of people into bankruptcy, particularly since you’re going to be responsible for maybe 20-30% of “covered” costs after you meet your enormous deductible.
The other thing you might see are insurance companies controlling costs by clipping reimbursements for treatments and procedures, but you can only go so low before you start losing any docs who have the freedom to tell Acme Insurance to take their provider contract and stuff it. Then you’re looking at shortages in specialty areas (already a problem for some companies), and picking a doc who is in the plan becomes a little like the Lady or the Tiger.
Citizen Alan
@Elie:
I honestly don’t know what a better approach would be. You call this a problem of governance but it really is unprecedented in American history for the minority party to seek to filibuster every bill that the majority proposes and for any progress to be conditioned on the approval of a Senator who is not a member of the majority party and who campaigned for the opposition in the last election.
For most of this decade, the Republicans had great success by virtually demonizing everyone on the left, so much success, in fact, that the only thing that brought them down was a nearly unprecedented level of incompetence. I mean seriously — if Bush had responded appropriately to Katrina and had paid even a little attention to the economy, the Republicans would probably still control all three branches of government, despite all the problems with Iraq and Afghanistan, because they had no problems with going on TV an flat-out accusing Democratic war veterans of being terrorist sympathizers.
And after eight years of that crap, we got Obama and his bizarre ridiculous fetish with bipartisanship and “healing the partisan divides” with all those people who think he’s a Kenyan deep cover Stalinist mole. What Obama should have done, had he the instincts and the guts to do so, was this: Arrange one of those free health clinics in Nebraska, Maine, Indiana, and every other state whose Senator threatened to be a problem, and then visit each clinic personally and give a speech asking said Senator to come to the clinic and see all these constituents who are so desperate for health care that they would drive five hours for a free clinic. Use the bully pulpit and shame them, simply shame them, into complying,
That’s what Bush would have done, you know, if Bush actually gave a crap about universal health care.
Elie
@ruemara:
THIS
Darnell From LA
I, Darnell from the City of Los Angeles, being of sound mind and milky white body do hereby declare that this blog is the only oasis of sanity that I can find in the liberal / progressive / ‘reality-based’ blogosphere.
It’s gotten so bad that I cannot even deal with Kos half the time now. (and that’s bad)
Like it or not, we are a one party democracy at this point in our nations history. And I understand the Democratic party is far from perfect.
But the “Republican” party as it is regularly called (1854-2001) doesn’t exist anymore. At present there is a dangerous group of unhinged individuals at large, who have co-opted this now defunct party’s name. But they are not a political party any more than the patients of the mythical “Arkham Asylum ” of Gotham city were a political party.
We are left with the Democrats, by default. Unless, as some sort of sick stunt, we choose to place a group of mental patients (who should be under a doctor’s care!) in charge of the federal government, just for shits and giggles.
So there you go. That is all. Carry on. Also, too.
Violet
@John S.:
It’s incomprehensible to Americans, isn’t it? Pregnancy is treated as a disease here, as far as health coverage goes. In the UK it’s welcomed and supported. The first time my friends told me they paid zero for everything, my jaw just dropped.
But then there’s the story of the friend who needed a higher tech ultrasound for her pregnancy and her clinic didn’t have a machine. They wanted people to donate so they could get one – they even had a sign up for it. To get the higher tech ultrasound she had to go outside the NHS to a private doctor and pay through the nose. Fortunately, everything was fine so she didn’t need to go back again. But had it not been, it would have been costly for her.
And there’s the story of the NHS doctors who almost killed one of my friends by missing an ovarian tumor that was growing almost daily. After months of frustration with the NHS, she passed out on the kitchen floor her partner drove her to the nearest private doctor, used her private health insurance from her employer, and the private doctor sent her right in for some kind of ultrasound. The NHS doctor did not send her for an ultrasound, even though she’d asked for it. The NHS didn’t have a machine, so it wasn’t an option. She had surgery within a few days – on her private insurance. Had she just done what the NHS doctors wanted her to do, she probably would have died.
I know, I know, horror stories everywhere. And the US probably has more horror stories than any industrialized country. But the NHS isn’t the only solution, and from the people I’ve talked to, I know it has it’s drawbacks.
Seebach
@Citizen Alan: You’re doing my work better than me, so I will just let you do it.
Citizen Alan
@MikeJ:
Square books? It’s still here. Still good, if overpriced and somewhat stuck up. I applied for a job there the summer before law school, and the manager at the time wouldn’t hire me because I didn’t know who wrote The Gulag Archipelago.
General Winfield Stuck
@John S.:
Not sure, but he might be talking about me. And my give back as gets rhetoric. That I stand by by the way. I don’t like ideologues from either party. Though I have never considered Chuck one. And still don’t.
Violet
@Comrade Luke:
THIS COULD BE A SCAM! I heard about this kind of scam on the news. Actually I heard it was done via Facebook, but this sounds very similar. Be sure to talk to your friend in person before wiring any money.
getsmartin
@Citizen Alan:
I’m down here on the coast. At the very least, progressive minded people aren’t quite as rare as Bigfoot sightings around here.
Regarding Barbour – great observation. The troubling thing about him is that he’s basically a “shoo-in” for re-election. Worse – people actually see him as Presidential material.
Being “Blue” in “Red” territory has it’s unique set of challenges, needless to say.
Annie
@Citizen Alan:
Yes. My point exactly. Maybe that is what Obama should have done — it is what the Republicans would do. He should have visited clinics and everywhere else talking about HCR. And, not just visited the poor. But, also visited the affluent who lost their jobs, health insurance, and are trying to figure out how to pay their mortgage and health care at the same time.
Possibly the administration failed, because they were trying to argue policy, and forgot to be forcefully political. And, also enough with bipartisanship. If the other side wants you to fail, fuck trying to get them on your side.
cfaller96
elie, this was actually discussed a little back during the Lieberman primary in 2006. Everyone opposed to Lieberman was branded as an “angry radical liberal” and yada yada yada, but Kagro X (now known as David Waldman) asked the question “what is the proper, reasonable, ‘moderate’ response to radicalism?” It can’t possibly be the same response you give to a more limited disagreement, can it?
At the time, the topic was aggressive war, torture, violations of the Constitution, etc. But the point is the same today. When facing off against radical action from your opponent- and I think we can all agree that the Republicans and the insurance companies are behaving in an unprecedented radical manner- what is the appropriate, “measured” response?
Seebach
@Citizen Alan: It is also unprecedented for the majority party to threaten to filibuster every bill the majority party proposes.
John S.
@dr. bloor:
Funny you should mention this:
I was one of them (the luckier one, as it were).
And I completely agree with you here:
This is just one of those cataclysmic political issues that frankly will cause a fairly large ripple in history – one way or another. Being caught up in the heat of this moment makes people a little excitable (myself included). But at the end of the day, nobody really knows what exactly will happen with whatever bill passes, if any passes at all.
The only thing guaranteed is that the present trajectory we are on leads to failure. That is a fact.
Citizen Alan
@John S.:
Actually, from what I’ve read, I think it was. IIRC, it called for subsidized employer mandates, and universal privately administered Medicaid with sliding premiums keyed to income.
Shawn in ShowMe
@dr. bloor
The CBO believes there are enough incentives in the House version of the plan (which are basically the same ones in the Senate version) to induce insurers to do just the opposite — slight increases in premiums for much better health insurance, particularly in the individual market. We’ll see who’s right.
Harley Furguson, the Tractorcycle
@Annie:
Of course they support their assholes when those assholes propose failed, evil and horrible policies, those are the policies that the wingnuts *want*..
General Winfield Stuck
People forget this is a Health Care Reform bill. That will create new law and regs that will be written by a dem administration, from the preamble and Public Law text and published into the Federal Register.
It will be a sort of institution in and of itself that will be monitored with yearly evaluations on shortcomings that will be proffered before a dem led congress, assuming the nutroots don’t hand it back to the wingnuts.
Democrats will be addressing the problems of affordability and the impact overall it will have on the public. A public of voters, and low income voters and minority voters that are the dems voting block.
Do you think dem lawmakers and agencies run be dems will not respond with fixes, and a dem presnit, again assuming nutroot revolt won’t bring a wingnut into the Oval Office..won’t sign into law these fixes?
Think about it.
Citizen Alan
@getsmartin:
He’s term limited in Mississippi (two consecutive terms for Governor), but I do expect him to at least consider running for President. I think he actually may do well in the primary — he has twang and can quote the Bible, but the business interests will love him.
Citizen Alan
@Seebach:
Touche’.
debit
@The Other Steve: It’s shit like this that’s helped me to decide to take a break from here for a while. Enjoy your echo chamber.
Guster
@Citizen Alan: Well, as one anonymous and ill-informed guy who hasn’t read the bill, which isn’t finalized anyway, and doesn’t currently have the votes, yes! That’s exactly what it says.
Unless it doesn’t–or won’t.
Shalimar
http://nomoremister.blogspot.com/2009/12/negotiation-101.html
Elie
@Citizen Alan:
I can empathize with what you say. Really.
I did not support Obama from the very first. Was originally a Deaniac and then Edwards. Really thought Obama was too clinical, detached,,,
That said, I have warmed to him and more importantly, to the circumstances he faced coming into this thing: A country deeply divided and distorted culturally and economically after years of horrible leadership and run away corporatism.
He could have done what you suggest. Could have led the way so to speak — advocated for this cultural shift (and make no mistake, the healthcare issue is very much about culture as well as sociology and economics)
He I think, went back to the deep well — and is letting the people drive this. I think that he knows it will be horrible raggedy and messy and painful. But while we want him to Daddy us, our salvation as a nation and to survive and thrive, requires US to take the reigns back. That process is tremendously ugly and fraught with fear for us. We want someone to make it smooth and good rather than learning what its going to take for us to make things smooth and good. I believe he knows if WE take this thing over, we will never again in our lifetimes relinquish it. THAT is what the Republicans fear — not health care reform or economic regulation reform or the specifics of any of these, but the possibility that the people will start to figure out that we can run this thing the right way and take care of ourselves within this process..
At least that is what I think he thinks.. more importantly, its what I think and wish for us and hope we can still have after this bill proceeds. More than anything, I seek solidarity with other progressives to do this thing and not dissolve into a pool of bitter recriminations and abdications. WE are liberals — we care about people and their wellbeing..
Or so I believe
Comrade Luke
@Violet:
Well, after quite a few phone calls I’ve verified that my friend’s FB account was hacked, and someone is trying to trick his friends into sending him money.
Talk about playing on someone’s emotions! I’m still shaking, but at least we figured out what was going on.
John S.
@Citizen Alan:
If that was the case, the Democrats REALLY fucked us over that time. Here’s Nixon in his own words:
WHAT THE FUCK?? Nixon was a flaming leftist compared to the modern GOP. And the Democrats turned this down thinking they could get something better? No wonder Ted Kennedy regretted that decision.
Politics — THIS IS WHY WE CAN’T HAVE NICE THINGS!
Elie
@Comrade Luke:
Best wishes for your friend.
Peace bro
Violet
@Comrade Luke:
Glad you figured it out. How scary to get an IM like that, though. People who do that kind of thing are just awful. Glad your friend is okay. I hope no one else gets sucked into the scam.
According to the news report, which I heard a week or two ago, it’s the latest scam going on. Some grandmother got caught up in it and wired a few thousand to someone. It seems so safe because it’s done via someone you know, so you think it must be them. Glad you checked first.
Shawn in ShowMe
No, they wouldn’t because they’re not interested in the uninsured receiving coverage. As DougJ so eloquently stated, it’s like saying “if Genghis Khan ran the Peace Corps”. It’s a meaningless statement. The GOP burns houses, they don’t build them.
jibeaux
@Comrade Luke:
Man, I learn something new every day here. (Although I think if I heard “at gunpoint in LONDON” I would find that mighty, mighty strange.)
General Winfield Stuck
@Annie:
Well stated, and I agree completely!!
Seebach
@Shawn in ShowMe: I think he means that the GOP knows how to do theatrics. How to appear to care. It’s funny that the party that supposedly cares has no ability to project that image.
John S.
Ok seriously people, learn from history or be doomed to repeat it:
I find this to be haunting.
The Republic of Stupidity
T
Someone tried this on me too this week…
“Help… It’s X… I’m in London and I’ve lost my wallet… blah blah blah…”
I called around, talked to X’s friends and found out someone had hacked into X’s email account and was hitting up all the contacts in his account like this…
No… I didn’t wire anyone any money…
Annie
@Elie:
Yes, I agree. Well said. It is a cultural shift, and I believe Obama wants to stay above the political bullshit. What I fear is that fundamentally he does have faith in the American people and that drives his approach. I fear it because I have less faith, and believe that people act out of their own prejudices, rather than acting for their own good. He who controls the narrative, unfortunately controls the electorate. And that is politics.
Seebach
@John S.: I don’t think progressives will be able to kill the bill, honestly. Who are we going to convince to kill it? It’s going to be Nelson and Lieberman.
General Winfield Stuck
@John S.:
Jeebus, I did not know this. Maybe we should send it to Jane Hamsher for a response. It is haunting and a testament against all or nothing politics.
cfaller96
No, I don’t think they will. I think they will declare Mission Accomplished on health care, and vow not to touch it for the rest of Obama’s presidency, and hope to never touch it again. I’d be happy to be wrong, but I don’t see the downside of taking a “trust but verify” approach to Dem politicians.
General Winfield Stuck
@Seebach:
I always wished I could read the future.
dr. bloor
@Shawn in ShowMe:
I’d love for this to be right, but I don’t trust the insurance companies to do it this way. And I don’t say this simply because I think they’re Satan incarnate, but because doing it the wrong way gives them better numbers to show their stockholders and auditors on a quarter-by-quarter basis. Growing market share with a good product and competitive prices takes too much time these days, and these guys don’t have the time or profit margins to do it that way.
The other thing is that I think the example above (two companies, one with the policy 3K over the limit, one with a policy just under the limit, presumably for equivalent coverage) doesn’t really exist in nature. If you have two companies in the same market with that big a difference in premiums, there will always be substantive differences in the coverage. Buyers who go with the policy just under the limit will inevitably be getting less of something.
Comrade Luke
@jibeaux:
He doesn’t live in the same city as me. What tipped me off was his very formal use of language.
I ended up doing exactly the same as @The Republic of Stupidity: did.
The one thing that is still bugging me is that I called the cell number on his profile to check on him, and it looks like the hackers changed it to go to…who knows where?
I call AT&T to block the number from calling me in the future, and they want to charge me $4.99 for that.
F’ers.
Citizen Alan
@Seebach:
I think if it goes down it will be because Nelson pushes for the Stupak Amendment or something even worse and then progressives just have to vote it down. Otherwise, it will pass no matter how bad it is. Like I said, it’s the domestic policy equivalent of the Iraq War — simultaneously a foreseeable and yet inevitable disaster in the making.
dr. bloor
@John S.:
I don’t know how much this has to do with their decision, but keep in mind they were maybe 6-7 years removed from LBJ’s Great Society. I’d guess they aimed high because they had the experience of getting the brass ring.
General Winfield Stuck
@cfaller96:
It is how all bills evolve to what they are. And health care is and has been always on the front burner. See Medicare. People’s health care goes sideways, and it gets heard about and addressed by pols from their constituents. Where do you think a lot of the passion about this debate comes from? It is important and personal stuff.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
@General Winfield Stuck:
Fix’t.
Seebach
@Citizen Alan: Nah, it will get passed even with the Stupak amendment. We’ll just have to fix it gradually and incrementally over the next 20 years.
Midnight Marauder
@Elie:
I do declare, Elie, I could not have said it better myself. Kudos.
+4
Brachiator
@Violet:
Wow. I really wonder how the doc got from point A to point 0.0834. But yeah, I know that some people are set in permanent “blame a Clinton or the Democrats” mode.
Fortunately, there’s not a strong correlation between political belief and medical competence.
cfaller96
Please square this assertion with the fact/threat that health care reform only gets taken up every 15-20 years.
Citizen Alan
@Seebach:
I really don’t think so. From what I know of Stupak-Pitts, it will virtually abolish insurance coverage for abortion services. I really don’t think the Democratic coalition can survive being directly responsible for the single greatest attack on reproductive freedom in 40 years. But I could be wrong — I’ve certainly underestimated the general cravenness of the Congressional Democrats before.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
I gots modded, don’t bother saving it as here it is repaired:
That damned soshulist senator from Vermont says that while the bill is not what he wants, it does have some good things in it and he is willing to keep working to make it even better. Damn this fucking soshulist and his trying to be reasonable! Damn him to hell! He is a traitor to the cause. There is no way this guy has even one soshulist bone in his body. I have had it with this capitulation bullshit!
/wrists
Obama suxxxxx…
Oh, and FYWP.
Seebach
@Citizen Alan: I have no hope at all for this country any longer, so I’m now just being an asshole for fun. But seriously… we can’t kill the bill! Killing the bill is horrible! We have to pass it nomatter how shitty it is. It’ll get fixed later. Trust me. Purity. Nader, etc.
The Republic of Stupidity
@Comrade Luke:
Once I realized someone was trying to scam me, I started fucking back… I led them on for a few exchanges, started telling them I had heard from the FBI, DHS, Scotland Yard about ‘X’, that he was in lots of trouble and asked ‘What have you gotten yourself into?’
They just kept saying ‘I really need the money… pls wire it to blah blah blah…’
In the end, I just sent them an email informing them I had forwarded the entire string of emails to the pertinent legal authorities and wished them a Meeeeeeeeerry Xmas!
Ho… ho… ho…
jwb
@Annie: This. A thousand times this.
Brachiator
@Guster:
I don’t think there are many good ways to explain spending somebody else’s money, especially if they aren’t getting any value for the dollars spent.
The current Massachusetts health plan has a mandate and penalty, in the form of an additional tax. This is a variation on previous years’ attempts to find a palatable way of passing this cost along.
Anyone who thinks that a mandate is simple to explain and simple to figure out can test their theories by going to the Mass site and wading through the explanation of the 2009 Schedule HC and the explanations of “minimum creditable coverage.”
Citizen Alan
@DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal):
Cute. Never seen anyone troll their own board comments before.
jwb
@cfaller96: It may well be unsolvable, if what’s emerging is indeed a schism between the center and the left. But you have to recognize that the progressives don’t have enough power to force anything through if progressives actually declare war on the centrists; the centrists have sufficient power to block pretty much everything, and personally I think getting even 51 senators for reconciliation at this point is dicey (which is why they are not pushing it).
General Winfield Stuck
@cfaller96:
What, you think all the stuff in these bills, and especially the senate health committee bill, as well as the house one, simply sprung up this summer.
The reason it only gets put up for voting is because we have the numbers now and a dem presnit, and the public, to a degree is rebelling at soaring costs. This shit has been a cottage industry in the dem party and those in congress since FDR. There has been non stop, largely behind the scenes researching and brainstorming through out the dem world, of policy making, public and private think tanks and such.
There hasn’t been an opportunity to bring it up for voting since 1994.
It is not new.
General Winfield Stuck
@General Winfield Stuck:
And I will add, that I agree with Cole that it likely will be a long while before the next opportunity, maybe 20 years.
But this time it could occur sooner when the whole thing collapses under the weight of high cost. This is why I don’t get dissing an opportunity to at least cover and save as many people as possible before then, because, none of the bills really addresses the cost issue in a serious way. Not the limited PO, and certainly not a Medicare expansion.
If you want to seriously tackle the cost problem, talk to Wyden, he has the best ideas for that short of a PO for everyone or single payer, or listen to Ratigan. But for some reason, no one does. Though there is still a chance to include some of Wyden’s ideas in a final bill. And it might even bring one or two wingnuts on board. Such as Senator Lurch from Utah.
Seebach
I say we personally rescind the monopoly doctors currently have over medicine if they don’t get in line. I seriously have to pay $225 for you to just renew my fucking prescription, you asshole? I can get a witch doctor to do that under my plan.
Elie
@Annie:
No argument there at all. I am just going to put my doe on the long, ground game and work that for a while…
I have to believe in the ultimate wellspring — the people — or I cant live here. And I want to live here. I am committed on this route and will deal with what comes like I used to when I did my little piss ant climbing in the Cascades…
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
@Citizen Alan:
Youse nawt frum dese partz iz ya?
President McCain is agreeing with Howard Dean so all is well!
cfaller96
jwb, my point is that the dynamic works both ways: sure, I’ll stipulate that progressives don’t have enough power to ram anything through. But neither do the centrists, if progressives are willing to get in a power struggle. Progressives certainly have enough power to stop everything in its track if it’s not progressive enough, and that’s power of a kind.
The short term result would be gridlock, which would anger the voters, who would then punish (wait for it) moderate, centrist dems. People seem to forget that the progressives are not nearly as vulnerable as, say, Ben Nelson or Blanche Lincoln or the Blue Dogs. Again- while progressives want health care reform, the centrists and President Obama need it.
If the progressives ever decided to implement a long-term strategy (which would require sacrificing a few centrists to Repubs over a few cycles), then they would have a lot more influence over the Democratic Party. They would have the ability to wait out any recalcitrant centrists. They wouldn’t need governing success as much as the centrists.
Lose your base, lose elections, lose your power. There isn’t any way around this.
jwb
@General Winfield Stuck: I don’t actually agree that it will be 20 years before it is looked at again, primarily because the corporations will bail on the current system before then. But I actually think that’s the greater danger: the system will collapse when the Dems are out of power, and that’s when we’ll find out what a real shit sandwich looks like. We’ll lose Social Security and Medicare when the goopers do the reform.
cfaller96
General Winfield, do you honestly believe after all that has gone on with HCR and with all that Obama and the Dems have ahead of them, that they’d be willing to tackle this in 2 years if it wasn’t quite working right? You do realize a lot of these reforms don’t kick in until 2014, right? It’s going to be 5 years before this bill is fully implemented, and you think that Dems are going to be totally responsive to tweaking health care reform in a few years? And then maybe again a few years or so after that? Really, they want to do this over and over and over again?
I want what you’re smoking.
Citizen Alan
Whatever flaws are in the final bill will not be addressed by any Democrats prior to 2020. Repukes are another matter, as they will likely run on a major overhaul of this stupid bill until they gain a majority again.
jwb
@cfaller96: Sure, progressives have veto power, to some extent, but the centrists aren’t pushing much, now, are they? Really, aside from the wars, it’s basically a progressive agenda, which is one reason why progressives currently have so little leverage. The centrists, for the most part, don’t care about health care and would prefer that it just went away. They’ll be happy as clams if the progressives kill the bill, so the progressives’ veto power is meaningless. On those things the centrists might favor—say the additional troops to Afghanistan—the centrists also have options, where the progressives do not: the centrists can look to the goopers if the progressives abandon them. Whom do the progressives look to if the centrists abandon them? I don’t like the situation, but that is the reality, which is why I’ll continue to support the bill until it comes out of conference and I can evaluate what’s actually in it.
You are right that the centrist Dems are generally more vulnerable than the progressives. But if centrists are replaced they will be replaced by goopers, which does nothing to improve the progressives’ political position. They simply be in the same political position conservative Republicans are in right now: we fewer centrist Dems, the progressives may be able to shape debate a bit more effectively, but they’ll have less real political power and if the Republicans take over either house of congress, the progressives will have almost zero real political power. But I’m beginning to think that’s in fact what the netroots folks would prefer, because being in the minority does give the activists more power in shaping the political discourse (even though that power is laughably weak—think teabaggers).
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
That’s ok, they can just blame Obama since it would all be his fault. After all, if they are part of the base and have decided that they are not going to turn out for Obama then it has to be his fault when the Republicans take over, right?
That will make it all better for them, right? They can crow out loud to everyone in earshot that it’s the fault of someone else that they didn’t vote and because of that the Republicans are back in power. That’s what is great about our country; nobody ever screws up because it’s always someone else’s fault.
Elie
@Citizen Alan:
But such are the obligations of leadership and governance. You implement and initiate and the opposition challenges and offers — what — err — cut taxes, go to war, kill the aliens, muslims, gheys, old folks — what global warming, kill the polar bears!!!!
General Winfield Stuck
@cfaller96:
I have worked in government and have some knowledge of how things work. And you need to look no further than all of the tweaks and maintenance medicare has gone thru over the decades from a not so illustrious beginning. And once this is in effect, whatever changes end up being made, it will not only be dems who will answer to their voters, but wingnuts too.
The GOP hates Medicare, always have, so why do you think they have been defending it as part of their strategy for defeating this reform? And why have they mostly gone along with improving it along the way? It is because it gave people the security they crave. The analogy of using medicare as an example is not a perfect one, but it is if this bill covers more people, and gives security to those who already have insurance.
jwb
@cfaller96: If this bill is passed, Congress will tackle it again if and when We, the People are upset enough at any holes that appear. Those sorts of fixes are routine and much easier to accomplish than getting a framework—any framework—into place to begin with.
Chuck Butcher
You can bend right on over for the insurance companies and hope they’ll give you a reach around. You can hope after you’ve enriched them and exploded their power base within government that they’ll feel so inclined.
If you think they have power now, think on a bit. You think they’ve managed to screw this up so far and you propose to make them more powerful and the government more invested in their interests.
You want me to care about the politics of a naked power struggle between cororate greed at the public trough through force and those without shit? You are willing to make people criminals or support Aetna? Don’t like that statement? What the fuck do you think a fine IS?
You’ve got your policy so what the fuck do you care? You’ll just tell them how it is, you’re fucking poor so I’ll take your money at gunpoint for Aetna and you don’t have a problem with that? You being poor runs up my costs so I’ll just fuck you over. I’ll even tell you it’s for your own good…and I’ll pat myself on my self rightous fucking back. These mandates have a D after them so we care……..
How the fuck am I supposed to tell you people from the Republicans? It is beginning to look to me as though there should be NA after my name. And fury before it.
Elie
@cfaller96:
Your point is well taken.
Sometimes there is a role for principled initiatives however.
Should we only undertake what can be implemented immediately and easily (like a war?) Remember John F Kennedy said that we undertook challenges (in his example, going to the moon) not because they were easy, but because they were difficult…
Health care and economic/financial reforms are complex and difficult to implement – but freakin necessary dontcha think.
Lord knows there are many opportunities to turn back reform in these areas because the issues are complicated to understand and the consequences to the average Joe, hard to spell out.
But if that is so, does that mean that we dont undertake these challenges even if they are difficult because the Republican reptiles can flick out their tongues and make ugly faces and hiss, scaring all of you so called true blue lefties who seem so scared all of a sudden? Where is YOUR spine? Where are YOUR balls?
Truly, the biggest concern trolls lately have been the lefties who once were so gung ho about why-Obama-didnt-make-our-left-revolution-fact-without-shedding-a-single-drop-of-sweat and recently -or a-single-dime-of-my-money-for-anyone’s-healthcare-but-mine..
Also, why-doesnt-Obama-kick-their-butts-in-front-of-their-Momas-and-send-them-home-to-cry??
Why?
cfaller96
jwb and General Winfield, if you are right about it being “easy” to tweak an existing structure to be better, then I would probably be willing to support even the Senate’s version of HCR.
But I think back to things like raising the minimum wage or (John’s favorite) expanding SCHIP, and I wonder how “easy” it truly is to fix something later on. No, at this point I think I’d rather take a much more skeptical attitude towards the “we’ll fix it later” argument about HCR- drop the mandate.
As far as I can tell, removing the mandate would actually be an effective compromise. A lot of the wailing and poo flinging would go away if the mandate was dropped. We could just call it “insurance reform” and be able to revisit full “health care reform” later.
For those who have concerns about dropping the mandate, well, don’t worry…we’ll fix it later.
Elie
@cfaller96:
Fixing the mandate issue…
Hmmm — we can fix it later after you stop bleating about the damned cost of covering everybody dammit…Some of us lefties didnt really mean EVERYBODY. Just us.
Sure.
jwb
@cfaller96: If there was a way to drop the mandate that made policy sense, I’d be all over it because it’s going to be a political loser. But I really don’t see how you handle the issue of pre-existing conditions without a mandate. On the other hand, maybe it would be ok if mandateless insurance reform was a total policy clusterfuck; but I don’t know if you could get a total policy clusterfuck that adversely affected the insurance and/or health care industry through the Senate. So what would mandateless insurance reform that does not adversely affect the insurance and/or health care industry look like?
ETA: Elie rightly notes that the mandate is also what makes HCR universal. That is not a small problem.
Chuck Butcher
You folks will keep insisting on bringing up history that has nothing to do with today. You want to talk about the 1960s as though they’re relevant. CEOs made 10x workers. Liberal was something looney today, outright hard core leftist today. Nixon was today’s liberal and you don’t fucking get it?
I was at war with that fuckhead Nixon and you don’t get it?
Once you’ve made this mess exactly who is going to fix it? Chances are real good the Democrats are going to get hurt in the midterms without the ammunition of choiceless mandates. I don’t have to be shit at politics to tell that story to voters – especially as the Party of NO. Which ratbastard Senator is it you think goes away? Which Ins Co is it that loses bought pols or hasn’t bought even more? Which CEO is it that takes a pay cut?
General Winfield Stuck
@cfaller96:
The mandate part is seeming to cause a lot of angst. I don’t know if the concern is warranted, but if it upsets so many and especially young healthy people, then I recommend flooding the CC’s with your concerns, and maybe they will remove it and find another way to raise cash. I know it is a boon to the insurance companies, and I hate that with a passion.
I am just for saving lives the best way we can, if the ideal won’t make it through congress, maybe it will and we will get a PO, so it is all premature to go ballistic. But hollering at congress will do more than hollering here on blogs.
Chuck Butcher
@General Winfield Stuck:
Judging from the “oh well” attitude here, the congresscritters are going to get the same feeling. They and Obama will hear John Cole’s message, not the outrage.
Or rather, they will dismiss it as the rantings of the fringe and unimportant – until it sinks them.
Citizen Alan
I just had the most amusing thought. What if Nelson says he’ll filibuster if Stupak-Pitts isn’t added to the Senate bill and Lieberman says he’ll filibuster if isn’t kept out. Obama won’t know who to grovel before first.
Chuck Butcher
@Citizen Alan:
First laugh I’ve had today.
Elie
@Chuck Butcher:
And if it sinks them, sounds like you are ok with it since you no longer support them anyway.
Its all good then.
jwb
@Citizen Alan: You do a deal with the Maine Senators?
General Winfield Stuck
@Chuck Butcher:
Hardly an “oh well” attitude.
BombIranForChrist
I have been part of the Kill Bill squad, largely because I don’t think it will do enough to control costs. Basically, the government will end up funding, even more, the monstrous profits of the insurance industry, pharma, etc.
Ezra Klein, who is not the Evil Corporate Media Evil Guy like some of the Kill Bill squad seem to think, lists 5 ways the current bill will control costs. If these are true, I am definitely more open to supporting the bill. Am I the only one?
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/12/five_cost_controls_in_the_sena.html
General Winfield Stuck
@BombIranForChrist:
Ezra claims the individual mandate will actually control costs.
I trust him more than any of the kill bill windbags saying the mandates are evil. Keep em in. I say.
Cain
@superking:
You got it all wrong. *WE* are supposed to fight for health care reform. All Obama can do is run around the country having town hall meetings. Why? So that you guys will call your goddam congress critter and tell them you want healthcare reform. You think he can just waltz into the Senate and tell them what to do? They’ll tell him to fuck off.
cain
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
@Citizen Alan:
Ahhh, the stuff dreams are made of…
@General Winfield Stuck:
Like he says, once the bill is passed then high costs ARE a problem that our representatives have to do something about. It’s easy to dismiss it all now because it isn’t ‘their’ problem. Ezra is right on that point. If costs spiral out of control and there is something that can be done about it, if the Repubs throw a shit fit and do nothing then they own the problem. All the Democrats have to do is stand back and say ‘we want to fix the problem but the Republicans seem quite happy that you are angry so they propose that we do absolutely nothing about it’.
Once it is passed then we have something to reconcile. The Republicans are all over the place on their messaging right now. They are saying that it will be a disaster for Democrats in the next election, yet isn’t this what they want? President McCain and other Republican pols agree with Howard Dean that the bill should be killed. Republicans agreeing with a Democrat like Dean?! Then there is the left who are screaming that the mandate is a giveaway to the insurance companies yet the insurance companies are spending hundreds of millions in fighting it?!
Up is down and down is up with these people, Ezra sounds sane compared to them.
jwb
Ha, Bobo came out on the side of “kill the bill,” which tells me that I’m right to think keeping the bill going is the correct course of action.
rachel
@jwb: Well, that settles it, then. The only “pundit” consistently wrong more often is Bill Krystal.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
@jwb:
I agree, it seems that the louder the Repubs and their lackeys scream about how bad the bill will be the more I like it. I don’t like it for that reason but it sure helps while waiting to see what the sausage will taste like. Maybe the Repubs would be more effective if they said that they were for the bill and couldn’t wait for it to pass?
I just can’t wrap my mind around the idea that Republicans and their lackeys care so much about Democratic politicians that they want to save them from themselves. I would think that they would fight the bill but let it pass so they could reap the profits when everything blew up.
rachel
Public health care makes Baby Jesus
crydie!DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
@rachel:
That is hilarious! Old Chuckie just gets crazier and crazier. The truth is that if Jesus was alive today Old Chuckie Norris and his Talibangical warriors would call him a filthy liberal.
But since he is dead then he is whatever they want him to be. Of course Jesus rode a T-Rex to market! Of course this requires their ignoring the bible but I don’t think they have a problem with that anyway. Conservapedia is hard at work rewriting the bible to fit their world view.
Marvelous thing, the bible. One bible (for the TRUE xtians!), millions of interpretations. But it’s the truth! How do they know this is the truth? Because they were told it was the truth by someone else. Of course that telling was followed by asking for money but I am sure that has nothing to do with the translation.
John S.
Ok, Chuck, have it your way.
Nixon offered Democrats a healthcare plan and they passed on it. They passed because it didn’t have everything they wanted, and they dipped their fingers in the political winds and thought they could get more later. And they got NOTHING. For fourty fucking years the rest of us got nothing. And you think this bears no resemblance to today? Please.
Based on what I’ve read, Ted Kennedy would be for getting something passed instead of letting another opportunity slip away for another 40 years. And if you’re against that notion, you can pound fucking sand. Because in 40 years, you’ll be dead and I’ll still be here with nothing so you can feel better about being a Democrat today.
superking
Cain
Read the greenwald piece I linked to. No one is suggesting that he walk into the senate and tell them what to do. I made that point in a subsequent comment. But he does have other levers he can pull and pressure he can apply and he didn’t do it for health care.
Chuck Butcher
@John S.:
What they didn’t take from Nixon was then and it probably was a mistake. What is proposed is worse and exists in a world where corporations have power they only dreamed of in those days. This fuck up creates problems that might have been less then, doesn’t matter. Wasn’t offered then.
Let’s be clear – mandates without choice should be unacceptable to any Democrat whatever the issue and especially when dropped on one segment of the population and particularly when that segment is poor.
You don’t care what you do to people by force and you don’t care what it means to Corporate power as long as you can say “coverage.” I get that. I also get that people who think like that should not have power – whether they do or not today. Passing the bill without mandates might do some good, at least its harm would be small and have an advantage of not being political suicide.