Krugman on the Senate bill (as usual, he is quite persuasive):
But let’s all take a deep breath, and consider just how much good this bill would do, if passed — and how much better it would be than anything that seemed possible just a few years ago. With all its flaws, the Senate health bill would be the biggest expansion of the social safety net since Medicare, greatly improving the lives of millions. Getting this bill would be much, much better than watching health care reform fail.
At its core, the bill would do two things. First, it would prohibit discrimination by insurance companies on the basis of medical condition or history: Americans could no longer be denied health insurance because of a pre-existing condition, or have their insurance canceled when they get sick. Second, the bill would provide substantial financial aid to those who don’t get insurance through their employers, as well as tax breaks for small employers that do provide insurance.
All of this would be paid for in large part with the first serious effort ever to rein in rising health care costs.
There are those that say that Krugman doesn’t always understand the politics of things. In fact, I am one of those. As I see it, the two political reasons to oppose passage of the bill is that (a) by forcing people to buy crappy insurance, it will piss voters off and (b) passing this now puts off the possibility of more serious reform. I have no idea about (a), but I it seems to me that the bill going down in flames will put off the possibility of any reform for even longer.
If, at this point, the choice is between a crappy bill that will improve health care for millions of people (at too high a cost to them, yes, and without reining in insurance companies as much as it should) and a catastrophic political defeat for Democrats and for the cause of health care reform, I’m going to take the crappy bill.
capt
“There are those that say that Krugman doesn’t always understand the politics of things.”
I always say that too but Krugman is right once in a while.
(esp. when I agree with him!)
Guster
There is no bill. We don’t have the votes.
At this point, doesn’t ‘supporting the bill’ just mean, ‘giving Nelson and Lieberman more leverage?’
If a progressive voice supports any particular version of a potential healthcare bill, that is a clear signal to Lieberman that that version is flawed. This is like trying to haggle for a used car with my wife saying, ‘I really think we should buy it today’ over my shoulder.
If you’ve got something nice to say, don’t say anything at all.
Bobby Thomson
You left out something. Passing a crappy bill that sets up a game of haves vs. have nots has several bad results. The excise tax is designed to make health care coverage bad. That’s not a bug, it’s a feature. And it drives union members and others with decent coverage to the Republican party. Make no mistake. If the excise tax survives, the unions will be dead in a decade.
Then, when people are pissed off as their premiums go up (because the underlying competition problem has not been solved and carriers just jack up their rates to absorb the subsidies), Republicans find a sympathetic ear for “We tried it the sewshullist way. Our turn.”
It’s also very misleading to say there can be no discrimination and no rescission. Rescission is expressly preserved, and carriers are allowed to charge through the snoot based on a pre-existing condition.
Jay
The bill entrenches a flawed business model rather than blowing it up and it allows discrimination based on age and preexisting condition. It also does not control costs. It will create a larger market of junk insurance just for the sake of compliance and will erode health insurance provided by employers.
Not sure if Krugman is just looking for a victory here or what but the help in this bill appears illusory.
Jack
You haven’t established that it’s either ham hand this crap into law or nasty political defeat for Dems.
You state it, but you have not shown it.
Bobby Thomson
@Guster: And this.
There’s no deal to support because the idiots in charge of negotiation on the Democratic side don’t know enough to insist on a binding counteroffer. That leaves the Republicans free to ratchet up their demands every time.
As Mr. Rogers once said, you gotta know when to walk away and know when to run.
J.W. Hamner
But Krugman is a… and a lackey for… Iraq War… curse you! You have rendered my association fallacy useless!
Craig
Yep: if this bill dies, reform is dead for another sixteen years.
Anyone who wants to kill the Senate bill because of the loss of the public option is fundamentally agreeing with Joe Lieberman. They’re both saying that the public option is more important than anything else in the bill–so important that it dwarfs all other concerns.
Or they’re saying that pique and indignation and flexing one’s political muscles are more important than saving lives.
Punchy
I did not know this.
geg6
At this point, I do not care one whit what anyone has to say about the Senate bill any more. No pundits, certainly no senators or congresspeople, and most definitely not the White House.
I don’t support the bill. I have spent the last week reading everything I can about the bill, the text of the Senate bill online, and every blog, op-ed, and book I can dig up on the subject. I have avoided all television news and pundit shows, as they are worthless as any source of actual, factual information. And I still don’t support the bill. Krugman could throw his naked body across the bill, begging me support it or he’ll kill himself and I’d still stand by my own assessment.
As I’ve said all along, it doesn’t mean I won’t vote Dem in 2010 and 2012. But unless something happens that will be, at this point, the equivalent of giving me a unicorn in the form of getting something concrete and progressive done in regard to civil rights, constitutional protections and rule of law, immigration, strict regulation of banks and the financial industry, education and student aid, and climate change, I won’t be out there on the hustings as I have my entire adult life. I’m not putting out for them any more.
Edited to add: And now that I’ve read it, I gotta say that I do not find it persuasive. It is the same all the apologists for the bill I’ve already read. Nothing at all persuasive in it beyond what’s already been said that wasn’t persuasive.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Guster:
lolz
Guster
@Punchy: Yep. Here’s a link: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/18/health/policy/18health.html
(Would someone tell me, using only small words, how to embed a link?)
That article says Nelson’s the only holdout, though I’m not sure why anyone thinks Lieberman is locked in.
Jack
@Bobby Thomson:
I think we also need to make clear that there isn’t some monumental struggle between a besieged Obama/Progressive camp and a devil’s alliance of conservative Dems and Republicans.
Obama, as Landrieu just admitted, has never been in for even the liberal icing on this shit cake. He sent Rahm to bull dog Reid into getting the legislation he wanted, from the best man to deliver it.
It’s Obama + conservadems + centrists against liberals, not for us.
Amanda in the South Bay
I think passing a bill that contains mandates, especially without a public option, has the potential to be just as bad politically as doing nothing. I actually agree with you about (b), its just that people want to get *any* bill passed at whatever cost, they don’t care about the details.
Jack
@Guster:
We haven’t arrived at the point where the deficit hawks have their say. We still have to get through Nelson’s “but, but the whores might not have those Jesus babies” argument.
Butch
Krugman loses me about three paragraphs from the bottom where he brings in the magic ponies to declare that the fight over financial reform will somehow be “different.” We’ve seen the unbelievable lack of leadership and courage in everyone from Obama on down in the health care reform issue; why would financial reform be any different?
MikeJ
@Jack: If you thought Obama was a liberal you are a fucking moron. The only people I ever met who thought he was were right wingers who think anyone not in the John Birch Society is by definition a communist.
jwb
I’m much more persuaded by Bobo coming out in favor of killing the bill. If Bobo’s for killing the bill, then the bill is definitely worth saving.
Robin G.
Bingo. We’re looking at likely political problems versus certain political catastrophe. Like it or not, everything is staked on getting HCR passed; if we don’t, then the meme is that Democrats are infighting losers who can’t govern even when they control everything, so they’re useless and weak. And, frankly, the meme would be right.
Not to mention HCR would be the third rail for decades.
No. It has to happen, or we’re cooked.
jibeaux
At this point DougJ, we are not changing anyone’s minds, and that doesn’t matter a bit unless Ben Nelson happens to be an anonymous commenter on this blog. We have to get him to vote not to obstruct or we have to get someone else. This process is not aging well and I am losing years off my life over it.
Jack
@MikeJ:
Well, thanks for the compliment, I guess. I jumped off the Obama parade float sometime in August 2008 (after campaigning for him) because I started to read his policy positions, esp. on FP.
[For those inclined to sneering, I was never a PUMA.]
Just Some Fuckhead
My pundit/expert agrees with my position so I’m sticking with it. Your pundit/expert is a partisan hack.
Ed Drone
I know it’ll never happen, but a party with balls would do one (or more) of three things:
Propose, write, and pass (under reconciliation) a windfall profits tax on insurance companies — and announce that this will be whether or not the HCR bill passes.
Modify the rules for filibusters, with decreasing numbers of votes needed for cloture over the passage of time. I think this is the Harkin proposal.
Propose, write, and pass, under reconciliation rules, an expansion of Medicare to all Americans, funded by that insurance-company tax and people buying in (no free coverage till age 65).
I know it’s “Soci-al-ism” but it’s no more soci-alist (I hate that damned filter) than most of the other things our people have our government do.
Like I say, it’ll never happen, but damn! I wish they’d at least try!
Ed
DecidedFenceSitter
For those people who want to kill it because it is too crappy, and are fine with a 15-20 year wait, that’s fine. I disagree with you, but I understand where you are coming from.
From those who want to kill it, and immediately try again – I want to ask what they expect to change between this attempt and the hypothetical change. The House will still play along, but Nelson, Lieberman and whoever else will still be there – so what’s supposed to change in the next attempt?
Just Some Fuckhead
@Jack: Fuck MikeJ. He has fat scraped-up legs anyway. You can be my friend.
General Winfield Stuck
That fucking sellout centrist Krugman. Progressive hater.
He’s just interested in fattening the wallets of insurance companies, the corporatist wanker. No more libtard base for you, traitor./
And Dylan Ratigan in full flaming asshole mold this morning not giving that other centrist corporate fluffer, Debbie Wasserman Schultz an opportunity to describe the good stuff in the senate bill. Shouted down that DINO.
Then pimps our NM former governor Gary Johnson, Glibertarian first rate whackjob for president. Makes Ron Paul look like FDR.
I gave him some kudos yesterday. Big mistake. Ratigan is a fucking lunatic, at best. jeebus christ.
I suppose this blog will again present the usual purist flaming these two anti-DFH’ers, and offer non stop threats of staying home in 2010, to teach we awful fellow sellouts a lesson by electing more wingnuts.
Jack
@Robin G.:
You cannot envision any scenarios where Republican message control won’t focus on (yes, cynically) the part where people will be forced to buy a private product from revoltingly rich bastards or pay a penalty?
You think the political debate will resolve to wonkish refutations of silly but simple GOP campaign attacks which, magic unicorns descending on glitter rainbows, will suddenly resonate with the American people?
geg6
@Jack:
Yup. She let the cat out of the bag. Stupid Mary Landrieu. Too dim to know she was supposed to lie.
Jack
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Heh.
Also, DFH.
Guster
@Ed Drone:
I think that’s the missing ingredient. The Jane Hamshers of the Left don’t insist that our representatives _win_ every fight. They insist that our representatives _fight_ every fight.
If Obama and Reid came out swinging for Medicare for All–and got knocked down and came out swinging for a robust public option–and got knocked down and came out swinging for _this_, I think that almost all the people opposing the ‘bill’ would be supporting it.
I also think that we’d actually _have_ a bill, if ‘came out swinging’ meant they knocked few heads together. But that’s less clear.
Jack
@geg6:
What’s sad is that this apocalyptic “hurry up and pass it, shut up and support it” schtick is offered in support of a bill which is almost already dead on arrival, not because of DFH, but because of the allegedly serious, mature centrists.
But worry not, when it comes time to craft the Narrative, ETHLOEB will be the real blameworthy parties.
(that is, Everyone To The Left Of Evan Bayh)
jibeaux
@Jack:
I’m not sure how possible it is to prove future political backlash, but this is how I see current trends, and I’m sorry for rehashing from yesterday: Republicans in office, screw up a bunch of crap. Voters say good grief, these guys are awful! Get someone new in there!/ vote in Dems / Democrats paralyzed by inaction, get nothing done. Voters say good grief, didn’t you see what the last guys did? We have crap that needs fixing! Do something! Dammit! Get someone new in there! / vote in Republicans, repeat.
You can call it unfair, call it illogical, simplistic, whatever, but when there’s a problem that needs fixing and one political party has the executive branch and a supposedly filibuster-proof majority in the legislative branch and still can’t even make modest progress on that front, then representative democracy isn’t doing us any good, and the only ways we really have to express frustration about that are to not vote or vote for someone else.
Obama Death Panel Chairman (formerly Glocksman)
@Bobby Thomson:
Indeed.
I am a union member whose wages aren’t all that hot ($13/hr), but I have one of those ‘Cadillac’ plans that will be taxed under this bill.
If the excise tax stays in, my tepid support (I really prefer the House version) changes to stalwart opposition.
Mind you, I won’t vote Republican but I won’t give money and work in GOTV drives like I did last year, either.
Guster
@DecidedFenceSitter: I think what they think is:
1) the healthcare system is in such crisis that at some point even the most obdurate assholes are gonna have to get on board with systemic reform, or
2) we’ve learned that getting to 60 doesn’t work, so we can start again with a brand new strategy, or
3) on the next attempt, the players will actually respect progressive threats, because we’ve proved once that we were willing to scuttle a bill.
Or some combination of the above.
mr. whipple
.
Can we please stop with the ‘crappy’ insurance line? Again, since getting health care is predicated on having insurance, and since people like union members and leaders fight tooth and nail for health insurance benefits, I don’t know what this is always referred to as crap.
Because I’ll tell people what’s really crap: having no insurance at all, because it means having no health care at all. That sucks more than people that have it know.
Noonan
Check out Bill Kristol. He continually finds new ways to humiliate himself. It’s rather awesome:
geg6
@General Winfield Stuck:
You know what? I understand we all indulge in a little hyperbole here on the toobz, but no one is saying this. I have not seen anything even coming close to any sort of repudiation of Krugman. People, including me, disagree with his analysis of the bill but no one has said anything like this or even come close to saying such a thing. Unless you’ve seen something I haven’t seen this morning.
itsbenj
Politically I agree with Krugman, passing the bill is lose-win, the bill dying is lose-lose. Sadly, the bill is practically nothing, and most of Krugman’s arguments in its favor are not persuasive on their own merits. There is all kinds of language in the bill to avoid the ‘new regulations’, it’s tough to argue that there will be any single effective new regulation on the insurance industry at all in this bill. None at all. It does some tinkering with costs and delivery which is largely better than nothing, but not by very much.
The persuasive argument is that the bill dying will have repercussions: first – further emboldened Repubs and Blue Dogs, second – a weakened Obama, third – even more congested & ineffective government moving forward. For those reasons I want an improved version of the bill to pass.
The only circumstances I absolutely want the bill to fail under would be if the Stupak / Nelson language ends up in the final bill. Then it would have to die.
General Winfield Stuck
@mr. whipple:
A universal truth, if there ever was one./
Guster
@mr. whipple:
But do you know what sucks even more than _that_? Paying for insurance and still having no health care at all. That sucks more even than people without any healthcare can know.
(Which is, I hope, an argument in favor of the current theory of a wisp of a potential bill–if in fact it _will_ provide healthcare, and not just insurance.)
Osprey
From the left, I think, are 2 main reasons people don’t want it to pass. First, and it’s my biggest gripe against this bill is the possibility that insurance companies will find loopholes (or get ones passed because of how much influence they have) to find ways to screw people who HAVE to buy their insurance, especially since many areas only have a few providers, usually 1 large firm and a bunch of smaller companies. As long as the protections and regulations are solid, then this has got to go through. Granted, some people are not going to want to or can afford to pay it. But in the end it will keep them from being a huge drain on the system if they do need surgery etc. and having to bankrupt themselves without the coverage.
Secondly, there are the Sanders/Hamshers (whatever people want to call the progressive left around here) who don’t think this bill does enough and want to kill it. Now, I totally agree with them, and I think it’s in everybody’s best interest to fight for the best bill possible, but to kill what’s already been hashed out is overly extreme. Make what’s there better, because if people get their wish and it dies, we won’t see anything like this again, and the Democrats will lose big because people on the left won’t vote.
It should be noted, however, that to criticize people like the Deans/Sanders/Hamshers etc. for wanting a better bill is pretty ludicrous. It seems, so far, that the Obama administration is all about passing whatever they can, substance be damned. Take the stimulus for example. Look how many of the outside economists (K-Thug et. al) who thought it should have been MUCH larger, and they could have started with a much larger stimulus bill, and THEN let the centrists whittle it down. Same thing with health care.
Look, if there isn’t somebody to push on the WH and Senate to provide better bills then we are going to get fucking railroaded on every piece of legislation by the centrist (I hope the term centrist is defined as not having to take a position on anything substantial) fucktards in the Dem. Caucus. We have financial reform, gay rights, energy etc. coming down the pipe.
Also, to compare the leftist movement with the tea baggers is just about the dumbest fucking thing I have seen written on the internet. You can’t compare a racism-fueled movement to protest anything even remotely left-of-center to a movement that spent countless hours and dollars to get a democratic WH and Congress. And now, after they worked to get that Congress, they’re just supposed to sit on the sidelines and let the Sens cram whatever half-assed legislation down everyones’ throats? Get real.
To finish (sorry, this is more about the total HCR posts I’ve seen here, not just what Doug has above), yes, let’s get it passed, as long as the regulations are properly structured to prevent people from being mandated to buy completely useless coverage. But let’s not piss on the people who helped get a democratic WH/Congress for wanting something decent from those they helped elect, or people like Sanders who have the cajones to stand up for people.
jibeaux
@jwb:
If that ain’t enough, Makewi definitely thinks that the bill should be killed because the next one that they come up with right after that will be really awsum and will definitely pass.
Robin G.
@Jack: Of course the Republicans will still hit us on it. I’m not a fool. But the fact is, even people who don’t pay much attention will have picked up on this: The Democrats Won, and The Republicans Lost. America don’t like losers. If we fail, all we have as a response is, “But, but, but, the GOP obstructed! Waaahh!” We don’t stand a chance with that bullshit. None. We at least have *something* if this bill passes — namely, “Now you can get health coverage for Timmy, even though he has asthma.” That’ll resonate.
mr. whipple
Why are the villians always Obama/Reid? The house came out with the very first bill. Remember, this was Waxman’s committee and it didn’t have either Medicare for all or s strong public option. (Oh yeah, they called it that but functionally it wasn’t strong at all.)
Despite being this weak, it passed the House by 1 vote. Yet, I don’t hear people excoriating Waxman and Pelosi.
cfaller96
Boom. Thank God people like John are not in charge of negotiations…or maybe they are, and that’s why this deal gets worse by the day.
John doesn’t understand how to negotiate, IMO. He wants to look at the Senate bill as the final product (which is absolutely, positively false), bend over, and say “just please don’t be too rough.” People like Lieberman and Nelson see that weakness and capitulation as a green light to ask for MORE concessions.
John, there is no agreement yet, and there is no bill. Everything being discussed right now are proposals. There is no bill that gets you 60, so there is no such thing as “supporting the bill” right now.
Negotiations are still ongoing. And to loudly proclaim your willingness to buckle under before negotiations have concluded is just about the worst way to go about things. Stop doing this.
General Winfield Stuck
@geg6:
The day is young. You flame us and we are saying what Krugman is saying. But because he is your usual hero, he won’t get flamed, but will be treated nicer. Fuck that. Besides, we are just neocons that supported the Iraq war. right.
edit – and yes, it will take a while before I let go of that particular smear. maybe a long time.
jibeaux
@Noonan:
If only Kristol had actually predicted that Nelson would in fact say that because of the impending snowstorm. Then, not only would there would be no chance of Nelson filibustering, it would also be a gorgeous weekend for picnicking and sailing in the DC area.
John Sears
This bill is FAR, FAR worse than doing nothing!
As Jon Walker has been saying over at the dread Firedoglake for some time, the Senate bill will, by DESIGN, worsen the health insurance of the vast majority of Americans.
How? It’s simple, and something that’s been repeatedly overlooked, and is being overlooked here by Krugman: the excise tax.
The Senate bill pays for a lot of its subsidies by placing a tax on the so-called Cadillac health plans. It does this by setting an arbitrary limit on the amount you or your employer can spend on premiums, and if you go over that, a steep (40% I believe) tax is placed on to the premium over said amount.
This means that the costs rise dramatically above that threshold. Most employers whose plans exceed that amount, according to the CBO, will instead drop them and force a shittier, cheaper plan (think higher copays, less coverage) on their employees. They might even give them a bit more pay (which will then of course be taxed). The new income that’s taxed is actually a major source of revenue for the Senate bill.
In the FIRST YEAR 19% of all plans will be affected according to the Kaiser health people. The CBO says 19% by 2016. That’s an amazingly large number of people whose health insurance will be fucked.
Then it gets better: the excise tax isn’t pegged to actual health insurance inflation, it’s pegged to the consumer price index plus one percent. So it will grow slower than health inflation, and more and more plans will come under the cap, and more and more people will lose the quality of care they have now and get shitty care from their employers instead. Eventually, given enough time, it will destroy private health care as we know it in the country entirely. It’s DESIGNED to do so.
It won’t even work as a cost control. The CMS says the total cost savings of the excise tax, in 2019, is .3% of our total National Health Expenditure.
So, millions lose the healthcare they have now for a pathetic tiny sliver of savings. Is that worth supporting?
jenniebee
The bill as we think it to be now is a non-issue. Not because it’s still got to be scored or hasn’t been released to the public or anything, but because Ben Nelson and Joe Lieberman aren’t done fucking around with it yet. Neither of them thinks that health care reform is terribly pressing or important, but I’m willing to bet that Nelson at least thinks that electoral disaster for his party is undesirable. As long as he’s the only hold-out, he will keep fucking with us.
As long as progressives keep signaling that there’s nothing that can be done to this bill that would make us walk away from it, there’s no counter-pressure against Nelson to let him know that what he’s gotten is all he’s going to get.
If this bill goes down, it’s not going to be because progressives were pouty children who wanted too much, it’s going to be because there weren’t enough senators who think that 45,000 deaths this year from uninsurance are really a problem. And, frankly, they don’t think it’s a problem because before this year, reporting on the health care crisis was practically non-existent. Politicians know that employer-subsidized health care is on its way out and employers know that rates are skyrocketing and the self-insured know that it’s outrageous, but none of that got talked about much where the masses could hear about it.
The key to getting another bite at this apple, whether we’re starting from scratch or looking for incremental improvements, is to keep trying to take another bite, thus keeping health care in the news. You can’t get public support for an issue without first laying down a foundation of public awareness.
Gringo Starr
If, at this point, the choice is between a crappy bill that will improve health care for millions of people (at too high a cost to them, yes, and without reining in insurance companies as much as it should) and a catastrophic political defeat for Democrats and for the cause of health care reform, I’m going to take the crappy bill.
Sorry, poor people, but fuck you. It’s all about Obama and his coattails and a bunch of useless humps with a capital D after their name.
Good to see it stated boldly for a change!
Davis X. Machina
Negotiations are still ongoing.
No they’re not. The bill is there. It’s not going to change to any material extent. Talking to Ben Nelson about abortion is the opposite of negotiating.
Noonan
@cfaller96:
I think you’re assuming too much. Lieberman and Nelson would much rather not have to deal with the issue. They’d love for HCR to have never happened. And, at this point, they’re only going to vote for it while making it as painful as possible and showing moderates in their state that the left is unhappy. When there’s no wiggle room with a 60 vote majority you are held hostage by the last stragglers.
Elie
I am not going to be around most of today and I am glad. No learning, no light. Just bitter, wrenching defeatism.
Can’t take talking about it but I continue to and will continue to support passage of a bill
gogol's wife
@mr. whipple:
You, sir, are a clear thinker.
Guster
@mr. whipple: Because the very first bill was acceptable, with the glaring exception of Stupak. And because it appeared–to me at least–that Pelosi _did_ come out swinging. And produced an adequate-with-one-exception bill. While the Senate still hasn’t.
Leelee for Obama
@jwb: Then please let Brooks keep talking it down! May the FSM keep him awake and chattering.
I wanted this legislation to be better, I hoped we had finally reached critical mass, but it seems we will have to keep chomping on the edges until we get it more inline with what’s really necessary. But, a bill that make the statement that we should all have access and puts money on the line in copious amounts to help make that happen is better than the deal Nixon offered Teddy and Teddy regretted not taking that offer. We have to start somewhere, and that’s here.
I keep hearing Leo from the West Wing saying: “We have to decide if we’re gonna fight, or live to fight.” For all of us that may, and I know it’s may, benefit from what’s good in the bill, I choose live to fight.
geg6
@General Winfield Stuck:
I don’t believe I’ve flamed anyone. I have vigorously argued why I don’t support the bill, don’t agree with John, won’t put effort into any future elections, and that’s about it unless someone got personally vitriolic with me. If I have flamed people here, I missed it. If you have a link showing me how I flamed anyone without provocation, I’ll look at it and consider it. But you are accusing me of shit I never did, AFAIC.
This is an out and out lie. I never said that about any posters here and this IS the kind of shit that will get you flamed by me. Fuck you.
General Winfield Stuck
@Elie:
Me neither. Have a doctors appointment. Hope he has medicine to vaccinate against the raging stupid raging in the blogosphere.
jibeaux
I’m just repeating myself all over the place here, but the more liberal proponents of health care reform do not have the same advantages in negotiation that the centrists have, and the reason for that is that they are better people. They acknowledge that this is a huge problem, and they actually want to do something about it. People like Lieberman and Nelson do not actually care about people without health care. They really are willing to walk away from the table. For the more leftist Senators, everyone knows they’re not going to walk away from the table because the weak public option applicable to 5% or so of the people got killed off. They want this too much.
This sucks, because it means the people least interested in actually reforming things have the most sway over the process, but this is a dynamic that has existed from the beginning.
Jack
@jibeaux:
Since I’ve already confessed my political sins to the Balloon, I’m not getting any dirtier by reconfessing them.
I spent the better part of a decade getting Republicans elected, as a believer, then a cynical mercenary, before Bush got me questioning my core values, with me ending up just this side of aging socialist.
I have some experience in how the GOP machine works.
They are not going to campaign on “Dems Do Nothing.” That’s not stuff of which their ideological substrata are composed. Their message requires the validation of only a few core beliefs, singular and most central to that is “Dems/Libs Make Things Worse.”
Now, add to that fact that Obama’s closest parallels are Republican Bill Clinton and Republican Ronald Reagan (yes, yes he hasn’t overtly screwed gays quite as well as those chaps).
They aren’t going to be campaigning to the base, past primary (and we actually now have to count on the Teabagging protofascists to make them look crazy). They’re going to be campaigning to those people erroneously called “the moderates, the center, the swing voters.”
That means economics, spending, hardship.
It’s not going to come down to “coverage for many, many more Americans” versus “socialist Dems.”
It’s going to be “they want you to spend your money to make the rich richer, or penalize you for it” versus “now, now, the mandates are really quite essential the pooling of liability as an initial cost containment maker, whereafter certain premium increases embedded in the law will be offset by…”
Republicans are very, very good at faux populism. Please don’t forget this. They win with it all the time, because economic justice, or the semblance of it, actually does resonate with Americans.
The Dems are not equipped to counter this.
Look at them now.
See these guys making a campaign out of “well yeah, you will have to pay these mandates, but please trust us, we’ll make it better after the election”?
General Winfield Stuck
@geg6:
You brought it here without caveats.
IS the kind of shit that will get you flamed by me. Fuck you.
More threats. Don’t talk about it. Do it.
John Sears
@Elie: The bill you support will literally take quality health insurance away from tens of millions of people who have it to offer partially subsidized junk insurance (70% actuarial value, no annual limits) to a few million others while throwing women under the bus with the biggest blow to abortion rights since Casey.
Just something to keep in mind. I’m sorry if the truth isn’t ‘light’ enough though.
At some point admitting defeat isn’t defeatism, it’s reality. I haven’t admitted defeat though. The United States will either reform its health care system, or go belly up and become a third world nation. This bill won’t provide quality health care, which we absolutely have to have for international competitiveness, and it won’t cut costs enough to keep us solvent. We fix it now, fix it later, or die. Simple as that.
dadanarchist
I know that we don’t have a bill yet, but Mr. Krugman mentions that there are serious attempts to get cost under control, but than strangely goes silent and does not see fit to enumerate some of these cost-control measures.
My primary criticism of the bill without a Medicare buy-in or a competing public option is a.) what are the cost control mechanisms, other than streamlining medical bureaucracies, that will prevent insurance companies from hiking premiums, fees and rates, and b.) how iron-clad are these regulations that they cannot be manipulated and undermined by industry lobbying or industry capture of the regulators?
I’ll admit I’m not paying enough attention (end of the semester wrap-up and all) but I’ve yet to see any of the wonkish defenders of this bill (Klein, Drum, etc.) enumerate how we are going to prevent the insurance industry from doing what the credit card industry is doing as we speak.
danimal
Why is the progressive purist camp suddenly convinced that the insurance is crap. The insurance levels, to my knowledge are the same as they were last month when there was widespread support for the bill.
I’m pretty pissed off, and I don’t think our opinions matter to President Nelson or President Snowe anyway, but that’s a sincere question.
Erik Vanderhoff
…but I it seems to me that the bill going down in flames will put off the possibility of any reform for even longer.
This is an important point. The psychology of politics shows us that the why of a bill failing aren’t anywhere near as important, perception-wise, as the fact that it failed. If the bill goes down in flames, then two or five or ten years from now when legislators try again it won’t be remembered as going up in smoke because it was insufficiently awesome, but because it was simply health reform. Killing some form of reform, even if it is lackluster, would be perceived as opposition to reform at all by political actors. Remember, these are essentially risk-averse, conservative (in terms of temperament) people. They won’t gamble on health reform again if it seems the deck is stacked against them.
mr. whipple
@Guster:
Why was a weak public option, with no medicare for all acceptable? They knew it would get whittled down in the senate, so they failed to start from a strong negotiating position.
Never mind that it only passed by one vote.
As far as I’m concerned, if people want to spread blame and blame Reid and Obama, fine, but let’s not gloss over where this all began.
General Winfield Stuck
Gotta go. will be back later for the fun
jibeaux
@dadanarchist:
Here’s what Ezra has to say on that.
Although insurers bear the brunt of the complaints about cost, they aren’t really the root of the cost problem. The reason health care costs so much is because it costs too much. We are paying too much for everything, from 6 minute office visits to prescriptions to hospital stays, we are paying many times over what anyone else pays. The payment system incentivizes procedures, surgeries, and duplication of efforts instead of coordinated care, conservative management, and efficiency.
Malron
DougJ,
faced with the choice of a) listening to the pros of passing the bill or b) just flaming you while I puke up the talking points of the “kill the bill” posse (shit sandwich! massive sellout to the insurance companies! “kill the bill” doesn’t actually mean “kill the bill” it means send it back to conference!) I’ll choose c) staying the fuck off the internets until the initial shitstorm of hyperpartisan bullshit dies down and the grownups are allowed to talk again.
Because I swear, watching people I used to admire go all leftnut over this yesterday really gave me a pounding headache.
John S.
All you fools keep lining up at the trough. Make the same mistake the Democrats made in the 1970s when they rejected Nixon’s healthcare proposal (because it wasn’t progressive enough and they thought they could get something better later). Maybe even some of you were around for that and somehow magically think things will be different this time around.
Ted Kennedy spent his entire life fighting for this reform. He did more to advance the cause than any of the blowhards in here that think they know better. Not taking the Nixon deal was one of the biggest regrets of his career, and in 2003 he said the best way forward was to get a flawed package passed and fix it later. He had learned from his mistake.
I’m with Teddy on this one. Fuck the rest of you.
John Sears
@mr. whipple: It wasn’t acceptable to me, but all I care about is results. The Public option in the House is far too weak and limited; the Commonwealth Fund projects costs to continue to rise at over 5 percent a year even with the House-style PO.
As for the Senate, the public option there was so weak that it would drown in the exchange due to patient dumping. That’s what the CBO concluded, anyway:
Jack
@John S.:
Yes, because the people who made it a flawed package will all pull a volte face and realize they need to “fix” the flaws they coded into it…
mr. whipple
That’s exactly it. That’s why people like Sherrod Brown will vote for the bill, warts and all. Because it will help people, and it’s a step in the right direction.
He’s not worried about voter backlash from madates for ‘crappy’ insurance, his heart is in the right place by asking if, on balance, this bill will help people who need it. Which, imo, is where the focus should be.
I find it odd that the same people who claim this will create a huge backlash among the young who will be forced into buying insurance are the same ones claiming how useless the current crop of Democrats are. If they suck so bad, and if these people in the majority are getting you nothing, why worry about backlash?
Jack
I cannot for the life of me understand what could have gotten my post # 59 dumped into the moderation gehenna, Jibeaux. But if it comes out, I’ve a reply to you there.
jwb
@Noonan: Yup, the biggest obstacle to getting this done is that the centrists would prefer that HCR just went away and would not be unhappy if the bill dies. That’s what leaves those who want HCR without leverage in the negotiation.
raptusregaliter
Yes, by all means. Let’s throw thirty million people under the bus. The poorest of the poor. Let’s force them at gunpoint to buy the crappiest insurance. Let’s make sure that they have sky-high premiums so that they have even less money for food and housing. And let’s make sure that their co-pays are so high that will be afraid to go to the doctor–which they can’t afford anyway, because of the premiums. Let’s hasten bankruptcies for millions, because they’re just families and are clearly not as important in the grand scheme of things as a political “win” for a political party.
I’m a 45-year-old self-employed man who had a small basal cell carcinoma removed from my scalp 10 years ago. I am uninsurable. Under this proposed travesty, I will be charged at least three times as much as others in the “have-not” class, and I will probably pay twice as much as those who have employer-sponsored insurance. The government will force me to pay this money to a for-profit insurer, and I will NEVER see any benefits. By my calculations, I will be bankrupt in 3 1/2 years.
But let’s make sure we pass this bill, because it would really suck for the party if we didn’t.
John Sears
@jibeaux: As usual, Ezra’s right and he’s wrong. The costs are a problem at all levels, but the massive waste of the private insurers, with their 25% overhead, is definitely a factor. We could chop them out and use that savings to fund some serious reforms in other areas.
I’m all for the government regulating provider costs and setting prices for health procedures. The best way to do that would be to have a single payer model, where the government effectively dictates pricing by what they’re willing to pay.
Or you could just set the prices directly. Some European countries do that, especially with basic procedures, and it works well enough.
cintibud
OK, one argument I keep seeing bandied about is that there are provisions which will come back to bit us in the future and the Repubs will make political hay on that. My question is are these bad provisions so written in stone that after it’s been demonstrated to be a bad idea they can’t be modified or removed? Wouldn’t it be possible to present a “don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater” argument and challenge the Repubs to support closing loopholes?
They won’t, but then it would be clear that they just don’t want reform period. For example, if the mandates are just too unpopular wouldn’t that be the time to propose a *strong* public option or Medicare buy in? The centrist position will be to increase subsidies or close the loopholes, the Rebubs will either have to pick an option (ha!) or just paint themselves again as obstructionists. Eventually that will get old for everyone, not just us.
dadanarchist
Thanks for the Ezra link. I read over what he wrote and I remain skeptical. While he outlines “prudent purchasing” it remains entirely dependent on regulators. The problem is that in insurance, as in so many other industries, there is a revolving door between industry regulators, lobbying and working directly for the industry. So the only guarantee that the insurance companies won’t channel savings from hospital and medical care streamlining into profits for themselves is the probity and dedication of federal regulators.
Forgive me if after the banking debacle, the sad state of workplace safety, the widespread abuses of labor law, and the impotence of the EPA, that I am a bit skeptical at the ability of regulators to stop well-connected industries from doing whatever they want.
At the very least, we would have to have a Democratic administration forever to guarantee that “prudent purchasing” remains prudent….
I hope that there is more in the bill than that…
Shawn in ShowMe
I wholeheartedly support any effort that brings Howard Dean and John McCain together to fight for a common cause. It’s about time that we had some cooperation across the aisle. And just in time for Baby Jeebus’s birthday, no less. Hark the herald angels sing . .
Jack
@John Sears:
Cenk argues something similar, especially noting that the rescission and pre-existing condition reforms become politically less immediate if we simply allow a vote to expand Medicare, since Medicare does not allow for those practices a la the private insurers:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cenk-uygur/radical-new-idea-medicare_b_396749.html
John Sears
@danimal: I’ve been pissed off since about July. I have hated every single bill that’s been floated in the House and the Senate. (Seriously floated I mean).
People like Walker have been talking about the inadequacy of the price controls and risk adjustment for months as well. This is only news now because there’s a risk that Obama won’t get to chalk another mark up in his ‘win’ column, and that outrages people like Chris Matthews.
kay
@danimal:
I saw a really informative post on Kos with the actual legislative language of the requirements for the coverage in the bill. His argument was it wasn’t “junk insurance”.
The poor guy got crucified in the comments.
Mcjoan, who is usually sane, was arguing that charging smokers more for health insurance is a violation of the no pre-existing conditions ban. I mean, come on.
Leelee for Obama
@John S.: I said much the same thing up thread: Teddy would know he’d have years of work ahead of him to improve on the basic framework he had, and he’d be voting for it while he rolled up his sleeves for the next skirmish.
Live to fight…he couldn’t anymore, we have to.
That is all.
Noonan
@jwb: This point needs to be understood better. It’s not merely about what centrists want. It’s that centrists feel like this is just a big pain in the ass and would rather focus on less controversial things. The attitude in those offices on the Hill is that Obama’s agenda is making their life hard. It’s unbelievably selfish and small. But that’s the way it is.
Bill H
While I agree with much of Krugman’s argument, and agree the bill should pass, this is absolute gibberish. It is demagoguery designed to con the ignorant public into supporting a stinking bill.
“Paid for?” The subsidies to support the insurance purchase mandates are reimbursed to the government. Nothing is “paid for.”
“Rein in rising health care costs?” There certainly is no “serious effort” to reduce billings generated by doctors, hospitals, drug companies, etc. Whenever anyone supporting the bill talks about “costs” the next words out of their mouth is “federal deficit” because they are not talking about cost to people using medical facilities, they are talking about cost to the federal government to implement the reform and are calling it “health care costs.”
Sure this “reform” should pass so that some more people can get health insurance, but spare me all the nonsense about “reining in costs.”
cfaller96
Noonan and Davis X. Machina:
When I say “negotiations are still ongoing,” I mean two simultaneous things:
1. Lieberman, Nelson, et al aren’t done gutting this thing. They have yet to explicitly commit to supporting this bill and for cloture. THEY ARE NOT DONE FUCKING US YET.
2. Because of #1, liberals still have the opportunity to withdraw support and make this bill better (by, for instance, requiring the mandate be dropped).
This is a negotiation, and there is no “final product” that has 60 votes. Read that last again. Signaling unconditional support for something that is subject to change and very likely to get worse in the near future is a path to long-term failure. Yet John and DougJ and Krugman and Ezra and Nate want to do exactly that. They signal their exhaustion and capitulation in this negotiation by saying “OMG JUST PASS SOMETHING AND YOU LIBERALS STFU!” They want to fail over the long term, because succeeding is just too damn hard and stressful and the liberals are assholes and blah blah blah.
Withholding support (i.e. being willing to walk away/”kill the bill”) until the other side gives something in return is the way to get something you like, both short and long term. All options should remain on the table for liberals, and it’s really a fucking stupid attitude to yell at them for doing this (Ezra, Nate, John, DougJ). They’re doing their best to improve the bill, stop trying to get in their way.
Guster
@mr. whipple: Okay, two things. One, you’re not making an argument. If I say, A + B are insufficient, then you reply, ‘Oh, yeah? Well, C + D are insufficient, too! So there!’ you’re talking gibberish, and trying to distract from the real point.
Two, I’m not making an empirical claim about the House bill’s virtue. I’m saying that it was acceptable to the vast majority of people to whom the currently proposed nonexistent still-being-negotiated bill is not acceptable.
Three, I’m talking about fighting, not about achieving. I think that a good number of lefites would say that Pelosi did fight, and got crap, but Reid and Obama did _not_ fight, and got crap.
Four, I am willing to deeper my disappointment in Pelosi, too, if you think I should.
Jack
@John Sears:
What do you think, in brief, would be the consequences of allowing private employers and persons to negotiate with Medicare for coverage of employees/families?
jenniebee
@jibeaux:
If your position on this is that you want something and there is no amount of shit you won’t eat in order to get it, what you’re going to do is eat a lot of shit and still get disappointed.
jibeaux
@John Sears:
Where did you get a 25% overhead number? I have seen estimates of profit margins at around 3.3%. It also seems to me to be a real possibility of actual competition with the exchanges. What we have now is a theory that there is competition and choice, but nothing in reality. In my state there is one insurer that you can try to buy from if you’re a self-pay customer. It’s like a Time Warner Cable model, and it sucks.
John Sears
@Jack: I always ask people about the rescission issue: why would they WANT to cut you?
I mean, if they’re allowed to set whatever price they want, and allowed to set low annual limits, and allowed to set up provider networks however they please (so that they have a crippling shortage of, say, oncologists and you can’t get your chemo), and are allowed to deny claims willy-nilly without oversight, and are allowed to do age-rating at up to 3:1 on old people, and in exchange for all this they get a permanent seat on the government gravy train…
Why would they care? It’s such a small price to pay for a permanent underclass to extract wealth from.
geg6
@General Winfield Stuck:
You know what? I’ve decided that stupid shit is not worth my time. It’s up to you to decide whether I mean flaming is stupid shit or I’m meaning something else. Either way, I really don’t give a damn about people who lie and distort to make a point. That’s why I use the pie filter.
Noonan
@cfaller96:
And what I’m saying is that the left is negotiating against people who don’t give a crap. Negotiations work — like with auto workers and car companies — when both sides have something to win and lose. The problem here is that Nelson and Lieberman and Lincoln etc. don’t see that they have much to gain by supporting the bill.
Da Bomb
@Jack: And you believe Landrieu, one of the Conservadems that wants to block legislation.
Yet again, I shall reference to conference call back in JULY 2009, where Obama states what their strategy is….
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/07/barack_obama_on_health-care_re.html
At about 5:30 p.m. today, President Obama held a conference call on health-care reform that included, in his closing remarks, an unusually thorough glimpse at the White House’s legislative strategy:
The House bills and the Senate bills will not be identical. We know this. The politics are different, because the makeup of the Senate and the House are different and they operate on different rules. I am not interested in making the best the enemy of the good. There will be a conference committee where the House and Senate bills will be reconciled, and that will be a tough, lengthy and serious negotiation process.
I am less interested in making sure there’s a litmus test of perfection on every committee than I am in going ahead and getting a bill off the floor of the House and off the floor of the Senate. Eighty percent of those two bills will overlap. There’s going to be 20 percent that will be different in terms of how it will be funded, its approach to the public plan, its pay-or-play provisions. We shouldn’t automatically assume that if any of the bills coming out of the committees don’t meet our test, that there is a betrayal or failure. I think it’s an honest process of trying to reconcile a lot of different interests in a very big bill.
Conference is where these differences will get ironed out. And that’s where my bottom lines will remain: Does this bill cover all Americans? Does it drive down costs both in the public sector and the private sector over the long-term. Does it improve quality? Does it emphasize prevention and wellness? Does it have a serious package of insurance reforms so people aren’t losing health care over a preexisting condition? Does it have a serious public option in place? Those are the kind of benchmarks I’ll be using. But I’m not assuming either the House and Senate bills will match up perfectly with where I want to end up. But I am going to be insisting we get something done.
After that quote, it seems almost redundant to say that this is the clearest indication we’ve gotten that the White House sees conference committee as the focal point for its efforts.
No mas.. I am done.
I can’t debate with someone who is not being genuine. Who will decide to believe a blue dog democrat who is holding up the process and covering her ass over the President, where there is transcripted conference call laying out what strategy they intended to use the whole time and what he wanted in the bill. There were several bloggers(JJP, Booman, and other progressive bloggers who also have transcript of this same call) and other media figures listening in on that call.
I am waiting to find out how someone will find a way to say that the conference call didn’t involve the President but instead was Emmanuel Rahm being a ventriloquist and throwing his voice to sound like Obama.
Jeebus take the wheel.
General Winfield Stuck
@geg6:
Pie me then, and stop making idle threats.
I didn’t distort anything. My complaint was you bringing a smear here as a link, an article at dkos painting those who are now for this bill as likely Iraq war apologists, and you said you agreed with it, without any caveats whatsoever. If you want to say it was a mistake that you did that, all is forgotten. As I said yesterday, I like you, and it pains me greatly to have this little spat.
Jack
@jenniebee:
Yep.
*
If you sit a lunch counter and the tender serves you a moldy sandwich and you eat it because you think satisfying your hunger sort of outweighs mentioning the mold, that’s your problem.
But, if you’re telling everyone that they have to buy the moldy sandwich because other people are very hungry and you need to help drive down costs for the maker of the sandwiches so they can sell more for people to eat, you may have a logical point on an abstract macro level. (Oh, and if you don’t, you have to pay the tender a non-usage penalty.) But you are still telling people to eat a moldy sandwich.
Jack
@John Sears:
That’s a really good question.
jibeaux
@jenniebee:
Man, hasn’t the “shit sandwich” analogy run its course yet? Can we throw it under the bus or slap it in the face, will it go away? The point is not that there’s no point at which it isn’t worth it. Obviously there is. There is obviously a point at which it is better to just fail. The point is that, from the wonk rather than activist position, we are not at that point. And the other point is just that everyone knows who is interested in change and who isn’t. You can’t be Russ Feingold, say, and bluff that you’re going to walk away if there’s no public option if you’re actually not. They will call your bluff in a heartbeat because they don’t care, and you do, and everyone knows it. It’s just a political reality. It’s been there since the beginning.
batgirl
@DecidedFenceSitter: Those who want to kill the bill (and I include myself in this) don’t want to kill the bill because it isn’t good enough but because it will be a disaster both policy wise and politically.
I will repost Bobby Thomson’s post at #3 because it says it all:
kay
@Shawn in ShowMe:
Howard Dean has somehow managed to divide low wage union workers and high wage union workers, which is saying something.
I didn’t think anyone could do that, but he did.
windshouter
@guster
But if you are negotiating for a car and you really want floor mats and the appearance package and you call the car an environment destroying death trap, I don’t know how you convince your wife that later it was all a negotiating tactic.
And your wife votes in 11 months.
We don’t have a bill, even a proposed bill in the Senate, and we can and under some circumstances should walk away and should not tip our hand (as if somehow I play any role in this at all). However, it’s counterproductive to criticize the provisions in the bill that will be in any bill. Claiming it is impossible for exchanges and regulations to give you anything other than junk insurance is not a negotiating tactic, it’s a claim that at it’s very core, the Democratic proposals have been flawed for 2 years (and I don’t say that’s your claim).
If one thinks that the insurance companies can use a Wookie defense so that regulation and contract law does not apply to them, anything short of single payer will never work. That would be counterproductive as a negotiating tactic.
Da Bomb
@Da Bomb: Damned blockquote function!!!
jibeaux
Oh, it’s turned from shit to mold. I guess it’s different, at least. Can I propose that it’s kind of like a reuben instead? There is lots of nice corned beef on it, and yummy Thousand Island dressing, but there is also sauerkraut, which is nasty. Still, it is food. Can I get it without the sauerkraut? No? Is there any other food at this deli? No? Just reubens? And I have to get the cook from Nebraska who would really rather be texting to get off his lazy ass and make it? But if I don’t, there’s nothing to eat? Maybe the analogy is getting too literal…
Jack
@jibeaux:
I know, cuz it’s so much better to punch the DFH, right?
John S.
This is how every expansion of government programs has been improved over time (Medicare, SS, etc.) you ignorant jackass.
danimal
@jibeaux:
The aneurysm inducing irony is that even a mediocre bill that is passed and becomes the law of the land greatlyincreases our negotiating leverage.
I don’t get how all the armchair generals fail to understand this simple point. The bill can be improved in conference in subsequent legislation, but a failed health care reform bill will just demonstrate to moderates and conservatives that Democrats can’t get anything done.
John Sears
@jibeaux: Profit is what you tell your shareholders you made.
Remember, a CEO’s massive salary, corporate getaways, stock options and benefits are all expenses to them.
They rip their shareholders off too, not just us.
As for the overhead figure, you can ask Physicians for a National Health Plan. http://www.pnhp.org/facts/single-payer-faq#insurance-overhead
As you can see, it varies a lot by the size of your plan. In the individual market, which is what we’re talking about here, as the Exchange replaces that, overhead is often between 20-30%. For a large private health plan, it’s in the mid teens. Medicare’s administrative overhead for comparison is far lower; PNHP says about 3%, I’ve heard 4 or 5 from others.
jibeaux
…and the lazy cook clearly isn’t doing his job, but if you threaten to fire him he’ll leave and take the only key to the cooler with him, so no one will have any sandwiches and all the potential customers will be like wtf? You’re a deli and your job is to make sandwiches and you don’t have any sandwiches? This is the worst deli I’ve ever heard of.
I really do not want to work today. Supposed to snow.
Jack
@batgirl:
I posted the full text of the current Senate amendment (the draft legislation people currently refer to as “the bill”), earlier.
You are correct.
Rescission is not prohibited, factoring in the loopholes. And as John Sears notes, it’s not really a big deal from the InsCo perspective. And pre-existing condition discrimination is banned, but they can still be effectively uncovered, through pricing.
I’m sure, though, at some point a “mature, serious centrist” will tell us that we should accept all this because the same people who made the amendments will, at some undetermined future date, go back on erase their handwork.
jibeaux
@Jack:
Are DFHs standing in front of my reuben? Not getting it.
cfaller96
Noonan:
Absolutely agree. The other side is extremely willing and able to walk away, so that strengthens their hand in negotiations. But that’s not the end of the story, and the solution isn’t to behave like John and Ezra and Krugman. That will only result in MORE concessions that make the bill even worse. The solution is to find some way to become just as apathetic about the bill as the other side- either by making them more motivated, or by consciously becoming less motivated yourself.
In order for you to gain something in a negotiation, you have to be willing to walk away. That has to be a credible threat. And yelling “kill the bill!” is an expression of that threat.
Too many people are angry about the “kill the bill!” crowd, but in reality those people are the ones who are attempting to bring the negotiations to a close, hopefully with something good for everyone. There is no rational reason to signal that you’ll NEVER walk away- that makes you a gutless sucker, and sets you up for failure on this and any other future issue.
My liberal negotiating stance is this: there is no bill that has 60 votes, so there’s nothing to support or oppose yet. In its current iteration, the Senate bill is not good enough to earn support for either cloture or passage, but I look forward to working with my centrist colleagues to come to an agreement.
You’ll note that this is pretty similar to what the progressive senators are saying. They’re still negotiating.
Jack
@John S.:
Thanks for the compliment, and you are still wrong. Bad things are also made worse, and often.
It’s not as if there’s an inevitable historical Platonic form, “bad legislation to be fixed at future date.”
Sometimes jerks make things worse after they make it bad.
I’m sure it’s all just ponies and glitter rainbows and that Nelson and Baucus and Snowe will see the light after they gut this further, and Obama defeats Her Infernal Alaskan Majesty, to usher in the real progressive age…
dadanarchist
Sigh. It is true. I simultaneously want Democratic liberals to stand up for themselves and threaten to blow up legislation, *and* simultaneously realize that the fundamental structural problem is that House and Senate liberals seem to be generally empathetic, while their opponents are variously cowards (Lincoln), whores (Baucus) and sociopaths (Lieberman, Nelson).
The bill, once we know what is in it, should probably pass.
We should be saving our energy for pressuring the Senate leadership to appoint non-fuckwits to their conference committee team.
danimal
Sauerkraut is kind of nasty, never understood the appeal of the reuben. Beef consumption contributes to global warming. Also.
kay
@danimal:
They didn’t figure out why Obama was negotiating with Snowe until Lieberman bailed. Lieberman is to the Right of Olympia Snowe on the public option, which was obvious to anyone, except for public option proponents.
I don’t think they ever had 51 for a public option, the only verified support was 44.
That’s why they didn’t use reconciliation. They never had 51.
TaosJohn
I can tell I’m going to have to stop dropping by here, because you guys are just making me so damn mad: you obviously HAVE health care from your job. I don’t have a goddamned thing. And you want me to pay thousands of dollars I DON’T have for insurance that everyone knows will NOT DO what it’s supposed to do — I know, I had it once — for some misguided and misunderstood political or moral goal that doesn’t even exist, because “health care for millions” will **not*** be improved as a result, rather the very same companies that got us into this mess will be rewarded, premiums will continue to skyrocket, even for you.
Kill the goddamned bill. Medicare for all. PERIOD.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
Yup, the ones who will vote against it now are going to give the ones who are for it what they want if only they would threaten to walk away and let it fail.
I am going to go get some fresh air because the stupid is getting so heavy here that it is starting to condense and drip all over the place. I’ll be back later, stoned out of my gourd and popcorn in hand, just to see how stupid it gets. In the meantime I am sure the idiots like the one I quoted above will keep on chewing the tire rims and sipping on that anthrax.
Steeplejack
@Guster:
Here’s how I do it:
1. Copy the text of the link to your clipboard. Usually I just Ctrl-C (copy) the address from the browser window containing the Web page I want.
2. Write your comment in Balloon Juice comment/edit box.
3. Highlight the text you want to contain the link, e.g., “You’ll love this stupid old song that I found.”
4. Click the “link” button above the comment window.
5. In the ensuing pop-up box, enter the text of the address you want–the actual link. Ctrl-P (paste) if it’s in your clipboard, or you can manually type it in. Note: You must include the “http://” prefix. It doesn’t like URLs that start with “www.”
Here’s what results above:
John Sears
@Jack: People are so gullible. There are a dozen easily exploitable loopholes in this bill.
Provider Networks is my personal favorite. Nowhere in either bill does it specify what sorts of doctors, nurses, facilities and capabilities any plan has to have. Your plan can, and most likely will, have a shortage of every conceivable specialist, so that you have to wait until you hopefully die (or pay out of pocket) for any serious illness.
I hope people like a 6 month wait to see a doctor about cancer or their rapidly failing heart.
Reid put annual limits back in, so the plan could cut you off, no more payments, after any limit they feel like. So, if you do get sick, you’re right back in bankruptcy court.
They also have the power to deny any claim they feel like. Or better still, DELAY any claim they feel like. Bury you in paperwork. Don’t like it? Too bad.
It goes on and on. There are a few specified procedures that have to be covered, a few small areas where coverage of some sort (though not what quality) is specified.
Beyond that, you’re totally fucked.
jibeaux
@John Sears:
I’m aware Medicare’s is far lower. The point is that Medicare’s costs are still going up every year, also at unsustainable rates, because we are paying too much for everything and the system maximizes inefficiencies and duplication. I would tend to think if you compared a coordinated care system, in which physicians of different specialties work together under one umbrella to provide care; in which those physicians are salaried and have no incentive to recommend the marginal procedures; in which there are physicians who can focus on conservative options (there is a great example about prostate cancer in the book Nudge; the basic idea is that people tend to follow physicians’ recommendations. Monitoring may be the best thing for people with beginning-stage prostate cancer, but guess what? There are no physicians who specialize in “monitoring”, and people overwhelmingly do what their physicians recommend.) Anyway, I would think if you had this delivery system paid with private insurance, it would come out light years ahead of our traditional hodgepodge paid under Medicare.
batgirl
@mr. whipple: Judges — it is the main reason (possibly the only one) to vote Democratic anymore, IMHO. Yes, I think both parties are crappy, but I do think there is a real but small difference — judges are on the top of my list of small differences.
So I’m conflicted. I think Obama and the Democrats deserve to lose — they have done an absolutely shitty job of governing. But for them to lose, the winner is the even worse batshit crazy theocrat, trickle-down Republicans. And this makes me beyond angry because what choice do I have except to vote the Democrats? Tell me how I punish them? Our system is irrevocably f**ked and I have no hope for this country.
dadanarchist
You know, I teach history, and this sounds suspiciously like utopianism to me.
Improvement is by no means guaranteed, and with the general weakening to consumer, labor, and environmental regulations by our politicians over the last 30 years, the same people who safe behind their federal pensions and sure-to-be post-political wealth, now want to reduce Medicare and SS benefits, I really don’t understand which group of politicians is going to make this bill better.
Maybe if we should wish hard enough…
danimal
Obama and Reid chose to put together a bill that would appeal to the 60 most liberal senators. We don’t know if the effort will be successful, but I hope the “Obama is a sell-out” camp understand that we could be debating a crappy catastrophic health insurance plan that appeals to GOP moderates instead.
jibeaux
@TaosJohn:
You know, you keep coming by and talking about how what a waste it was for you to pay for health insurance. Wishing you’d gotten your money’s worth out of your health insurance really seems to be one of those “monkey paw” wishes to me.
And isn’t saying “kill the bill, Medicare for all, period” a bit like walking into McDonald’s and saying “STRIP STEAK, MEDIUM RARE, WITH POMMES FRITES AND AN ’85 COTE d’RHONE. PERIOD. Or I am OUTTA HERE!”
Jack
@TaosJohn:
I’m sure the “mature, serious centrists” have a red line. I just can’t tell what it is.
Maybe it really is just “win!,” or something platitudinous, like “but it’s like universal, now,” or maybe it’s just the plateau in glee they get from punching hippies, a sort of law of diminishing returns applied to anonymous superiority rants.
John Sears
Ahh, spam filters.
I just made a comment about how under the reform bills, an insurance company can have whatever provider network they feel like, and keep you on a waiting list until you die, and it’s in Moderation Hell (or Gehenna, if you like).
I keep forgetting not to mention names of medical specialities or procedures when discussing health care. Silly me. Spammers ruin everything for everyone.
jenniebee
This really reminds me of, of all things, the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan. Book 1 was pretty good, books 2-4 were interesting, book 5 indicated a slight decline, book 6 was largely about… meetings. Not like meetings on the street, but about conference table meetings. Somewhere in the book 6-9 range one of the main characters had a wall fall on him – literally, a wall – and dropped out of the narrative for an entire book. By book 7 you could play a Wheel of Time drinking game (a shot every time a female character “smooths her skirts” a shot every time a male character thinks that it was one of his friends who really understands women).
Anyway, around book 9 the comments on Amazon got really hilarious. Readers were dropping away from the trainwreck, and the reaction by the hardcore fans was priceless. The haters just didn’t understand. It was absolutely necessary to stop the glacier-paced plot altogether, nine books in, for exposition. Jordan devotes pages to Ulysses – like descriptions of what each of his hundreds of characters is thinking because he’s world-building. But, they note sternly, he really needs to get back to moving the plot forward sometime soon, within the next three books at least, or they too will seriously think about not buying any more after that, at least not in hardcover.
John S.
Yeah, too bad history proves otherwise.
But keep telling yourself that Medicare and Social Security were perfect the day they were enacted into law and even bear a passing resemblance to what they are today. Of course to do so, you’ll have to ignore the numerous changes made to both programs over the decades that made them what they are now.
Talk about wishing for ponies…
I’ll leave you with a little piece of history to help you along your journey:
Teddy didn’t care for ponies, and neither do I.
Jack
@batgirl:
The French manage to come up with some pretty daffy ways to organize and collapse their Republics.
But, their citizens at least know how to scare the shit out of their betters.
I’m just saying…
cfaller96
You seem to not understand the consequence of letting it fail. Here, DougJ explained (emphasis mine):
That’s the real threat to centrists- they are the ones that will suffer electoral defeat if HCR dies. They are the ones who personally need HCR passage in order to keep their jobs.
And the liberals? They’ll survive a bloodbath in 2010, the base will still support them, and (this is the tricky/important part) the Dems will still have the majority. They’ll have other chances to be part of effective HCR. They can afford to walk away, if Nelson, Lieberman et al go too far.
Shawn in ShowMe
raptusregaliter
You can’t be denied coverage under this bill because of a pre-existing condition.
If you were not being denied coverage now because of a pre-existing conditon, how much would you be paying?
Maybe Jane Hamsher is saying that but the people who have actually read a version of the bill, like the CBO, says that insurance in the individual market will improve dramatically.
There isn’t any enough information to do any meaningful calculations at this point. For example, we don’t even know the answers to simple questions like:
If I’m a single, self-employed person, making 40K a year, what is the amount of my subsidy?
Jack
@jenniebee:
As a fangeek, I must give you +1000.
Jack
@dadanarchist:
I’m trying to imagine the centrist pundit apoplexy if what’s left of organized labor actually withdrew it’s support.
dadanarchist
One of the reasons I love the French: much more than our glibertarians, the French actually live up to that bumper sticker phrase of Jefferson’s: “When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.”
Of course, France has become difficult to govern…
John Sears
@jibeaux: I’m not sure about that, but I’ll ask you this:
Where in any current reform bill does it demand significant changes in our fee for service provider system or set any sort of cost controls nationwide?
Nowhere.
I’d be happy to try that, in addition to real insurance reform. Though as I said, you get cost controls by default under a single payer system, or even under a heavily regulated exchange. I was just reading last night on the Dutch system. It’s fully private insurance run now, through a very robust risk management system. If all insurance companies get X dollars for each patient, properly adjusted for their risk level, then the only way they can make money, especially MORE money, is to lower provider costs and haggle or find better and more efficient methods. It CAN be done, yes.
It won’t be done by this bill. Further, our insurance companies are particularly evil, so they’ll be harder to tame than the Dutch found theirs. Insurance companies in Europe are used to providing supplemental plans; they were bent over a chair by their respective countries a long time ago, and have learned to be much better corporate-citizens as a result.
John S.
@dadanarchist:
If you teach history, then you should know better. Quoting Steve Benen:
The politicians that enacted sweeping reforms weren’t the same ones that improved upon the legislation. Do you REALLY think Lieberman is going to be around in 2012? Do you REALLY think that the Congress is going to look exactly the same way it does by the time most of this legislation takes effect in 2014?
Improvement is by no means guaranteed, but you have to have SOMETHING to improve upon to even stand a chance of doing so. You most certainly cannot improve upon nothing, and that is guaranteed.
jibeaux
@John S.:
That’s a very good read, thank you.
cleek
ah, but our dear petulant brethren are out to turn modest success into a catastrophic political defeat. they just do not understand that politics is not magical.
geg6
@jibeaux:
There’s a HUGE difference between overhead costs and profit margins. The overhead (administrative costs, salaries) numbers I’ve seen bandied around are 20-30% as an industry average. Another name for this is medical loss ratio, which is the percentage of your premium that goes to actual health care. Here is what the medical loss ratios for the largest private insurers were way back in 2005:
http://www.pnhp.org/news/2006/march/medicalloss_ratios_.php
I think we can safely assume those haven’t gone down and, much more likely, have increased since 2005. The original bill had that cut 90%, but the CBO nixed that:
http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2009/12/14/cbo-90-mlr/
John Sears
@dadanarchist: France is nothing. ITALY is impossible to govern. By European standards, France is middle of the road.
People see massive annual strikes as vacation season in France. It’s a cultural thing. To outsiders, it looks like anarchy, but it’s really not.
Jack
@John S.:
Why do you continue to ignore the galvanizing social circumstances and the outside-of-government pressures which drove those issues, and which no longer obtain today?
geg6
@General Winfield Stuck:
The article named names. I didn’t see your name there. I didn’t see the name of anyone on this blog there. I still agree with it and I still say it’s a damned lie to say I painted anyone here with that brush.
jwb
@jibeaux: Yup, this is the problem I’m having with the “kill the bill” crowd: they think that Lieberman or Nelson or a half dozen other centrists cares if the bill dies, when as far as I can tell they’ll be pleased as punch if the bill dies.
Jack
@John Sears:
This is true. I was just lightly snarking by ellipsis as to how politically tame Americans have become.
The centricitists mumble about incrementalism in Social Security as if reds and leftists hadn’t been so successful as to provoke violent reaction and waves of sedition laws, and arrests…and eight hour days, the abolition of child labor and social security.
They mutter about process and fixes as if MLK, Jr and MX weren’t scary fucking threats to those in power…
jibeaux
@geg6:
I understood that distinction, but the larger point remains. Everyone knows that even Medicare’s costs are unsustainable. The enemy isn’t the big bad evil private insurers, the enemy is the costs of health care. The costs of treatment, diagnosis, drugs, hospital stays, all of it. Focusing only on the public option aspect of it is like trying to balance your budget by saving on your light bill when you’re making payments on a ’09 Lexus.
For John Sears, that may be a valid point about how cost controls in other areas are lacking. Atul Gawande thinks otherwise, I’m not an expert. But this is not the complaint you hear from liberals, not a complaint you heard much a week ago. What we hear now is this absurd sudden reaction against mandates, as if they were adverse to cost control instead of BEING the cost control.
batgirl
@Jack:
And this is why I don’t just blame Obama, the Democrats, etc. I blame the easily entertained, easily manipulated, uneducated Americans that seem to make up a majority of our country.
I just spent the morning arguing with a union guy working on my home who spews the Fox news and Glenn Beck line. The American car industry — its all the union’s fault. Taxes — how dare they tax the extremely wealthy. American workers want to make too much money. Those damn entitlements except he doesn’t seem to see social security as one of them. Those damn entitlements are the poor and immigrants “sucking on the teat” of government. And so on.
I almost told him to turn off Fox News. I wish I had though it wouldn’t have made a difference.
We should be in the streets and on strike demanding real health care reform but we are too busy uncovering Tiger Woods’ mistresses and protecting the assets of the poor corporations, Wall Street and the filthy rich because why? Freedom?
jenniebee
@jibeaux:
It’s getting pretty close. You’re looking at a situation now where the tax on benefits, the lack of a guaranteed affordable insurance option for people with pre-existing conditions, combined with the individual mandate has the potential to create a substantial negative impact on the people we all care about.
It really doesn’t matter if we have universal insurance if getting it makes the working poor poorer and the “coverage” doesn’t actually cover anything anyway. If all this bill does is take the folks who are dying and going broke from being uninsured and add them to the group of folks who are dying and going broke from being under-insured, all at the low, low price of adding to the number of under-insured by taxing benefits and, for extra s&g, pissing people off by making it compulsory that they play a part in this Kabuki Hamlet, then why is it a good idea?
People keep saying that this is the new civil rights act or the new Medicare act, but it looks to me a lot more like the new No Child Left Behind – a bunch of well-meant, good ideas, wholly corrupted in the process of making them law, and then made mandatory.
kindness
Reconciliation is the only way a bill can be passed that will continue to elect Democrats. Pass the current bill and you are only guaranteeing a Republican Majority for many election cycles.
Why is that so hard to see?
jibeaux
@jwb:
Exactly. If it gets past a filibuster, they are as likely as not to vote against it anyway, AFTER having extracted all the blood they can in the meantime. They don’t care about it on the merits, and politically it’s a wash for them either way.
John Sears
@Shawn in ShowMe: The CBO says that prices on the exchange will be 13% HIGHER than the individual market, but for somewhat better care.
Somewhat better than nothing, perhaps. If you can afford it. Which many people won’t.
As for your subsidy level, under the Senate Finance Bill, which is the framework here (Reid is still keeping this Grand Compromise a secret but the finance bill is his personal favorite), you fall between the 350% and 400% of poverty line brackets, which means your expected annual premium contribution is between $4,549 and $5,198 dollars. You would then be liable for $6,000 dollars per year of out of pocket costs.
Can you afford to pay $11,000 dollars in a bad year if you get seriously ill, on a $40,000 salary?
Jack
@jibeaux:
“Everyone knows that Medicare’s costs are unsustainable”?
Everyone?
Assuming for a moment the validity of your appeal to magical, transcendent authority, does “everyone” also know that this is the guaranteed condition for all future time, as well?
Jack
@jenniebee:
This.
dadanarchist
Again, it is 2009, not 1968. We have a legislative chamber much more hostage to financial and corporate interests than the 1960s congress. I don’t see why that is so difficult to understand.
Sure, but the way elections are going, they are going to cost more and politicians are going to be more captive to private wealth. Unless this trend is reversed, I don’t see why Congress and especially the Senate becomes any less subservient to corporate donors.
I agree that it should probably pass (withholding judgment until I see the final bill) but I am much less sanguine than others about the chances for future improvement.
cyntax
@jwb:
No not at all. What I think is the WH cares if the bill dies, and progressives threatening to blow it up might get the WH to at least start trying to twist the arms of Lieberman and the centrists as opposed to the arm twisting they currently seem to be doing in favor of capitulation:
jibeaux
@jenniebee:
Well, that line is going to be different for different people. As far as I can tell, almost everyone who is a genuine health care policy wonk has come down on the side of more good than harm, and it does not seem to have tipped any of the leftist Senators yet, either.
jwb
@cfaller96: No, your analogy is off. In this case, the other side doesn’t care if you walk away. In fact, they’d prefer it because they didn’t want to make a deal in the first place. Really, you’re only hope is to find some leverage elsewhere and if progressives were smart (which they don’t seem to be), they’d be scouring the agenda for things that the centrists care deeply about and convince 41 senators to hold up action on that.
cleek
@Jack:
will the US exist “for all future time” ?
if you can’t answer that, your question doesn’t need answering.
jibeaux
@Jack:
Everyone should know that. I’m not responsible for ignorance.
jwb
@kay: I agree that there are not 50 votes in the Senate for the public option, which is why reconciliation has never been on the table.
dadanarchist
So true. It is why I only go to do research in France in the spring and fall; the archive workers frequently have one day strikes when it is a particularly nice day in the summer.
Jack
@jibeaux:
People with very, very good insurance and investment portfolios agree with each other.
I take comfort from that.
Jack
@jibeaux:
Aw, that was a sad little deflection. Please return to at least half witty pokes at my impromptu analogies…
John Sears
@Jack: I had a class on alternative interpretations of social change that was based around the theory that non-violent protestors only work in environments where the elites feel, whether accurately or not, that they are imminent danger of violence from other actors.
The argument was that MLK, Jr only succeeded because the government was too terrified of Malcolm X and the Black Panthers and so forth.
Note that the threat of violence doesn’t have to be externally credible, just credible to the elites.
It’s related I suppose to Disrupting the Quotidian theory, that social change comes when you interrupt the daily life of the people, even in relatively small ways. The risk of death from terrorism, for example, is shockingly low; the risk of dying of a car accident, shockingly high. Yet the former was an interruption to our routines and produced full fleged mass hysteria; the latter, a far graver threat to life, is ignored, because it evolved so gradually and we’re used to it.
But man am I off on a tangent here. I wasn’t criticizing you, I just like to mention Italy’s totally bugfuck insane system of governance, because I’m a Poli-Sci nerd. They’re my favorite, watching their electoral process is like watching a child build sand castles and then smash them while pretending to be Godzilla.
cfaller96
Just curious, do you think President Obama understands this? Do you think he’ll accept no passage of a bill, if he knows that Lieberman and Nelson pushed it so far to the right that progressives walked away? Do you think he won’t intervene in that case…on behalf of progressives?
He might not, but I doubt it. If he didn’t do anything to prevent a killed bill, then I’m not sure what the point of HCR was to begin with. If not even President Obama cares about passage of the bill, then just trying to gain leverage for the next debate becomes the only thing to salvage from this debacle.
jibeaux
I have a little bit of a crush on cleek. It’s the succinctness, I think. I no haz it.
I can’t believe no one wanted to run with reuben analogy. There’s room for a whole expanded cast of characters there, if y’all were creative enough.
John S.
@Jack:
Why do you continue to ignore the lessons of history that don’t happen to make your proscribed strategy look very practical?
The lesson is that you take what you can get, and you find ways to fix it later. Don’t take my word for it, take Ted Kennedy’s word for it.
I think he knew a little bit more about passing (or not passing) healthcare reform than either of us.
jwb
@TaosJohn: So you don’t have health insurance? I’m just asking because you are one of the few people without health insurance that I’ve heard come out against the bill, and I give much more weight to the opinions on this matter of those without insurance since they are the ones who will be most affected by it.
jibeaux
@Jack:
If you’re looking for proof that the ever-spiraling costs of health care, including for Medicare, are unsustainable, I suggest the following link.
dadanarchist
.
Really? They are threatening to go after DeFazio? I find this: a.) infuriating – DeFazio is a solid, excellent progressive, pragmatic but not centrist. Fuck them if they go after DeFazio. b.) Hilarious. He is pretty beloved in his district and generally Oregonians don’t take kindly to outsiders fucking around in internal Oregon politics or being told who to vote for.
John Sears
@jibeaux: Go read Jon Walker at FDL. Yes, I know, it’s FDL. Read him anyway. He’s great, amazingly informed, and hates the Senate bill with a passion hotter than a thousand suns.
He’s been on about cost controls for months. His big issue is risk adjustment and adverse selection in the exchanges, followed by the Excise tax of course. He’s the one who had me reading up on Dutch risk adjustment last night, the bastard. I wanted to play games on the computer, but noooooo…
jibeaux
@jwb:
He is also 64 — I think we know what 65 brings– and considers the money he previously spent on health insurance wasted. Repeating myself again, but that’s a monkey’s paw wish.
Jack
@John Sears:
My kin in fair Italia confirm your description. Reminds me of a discussion I had with my wine wholesaler, once. She was in Spain and Italy on a product review, and she (with great humor and exasperation) described Spain as “highway built, manana, manana” and Italy in very similar terms to your own.
*
Stepping back a bit, I’m just of the opinion that a big part of the problem is a really docile populace.
John Sears
@dadanarchist: Hahaha… priceless.
I seriously love France for its tolerance of that sort of behavior.
The Republic of Stupidity
Guster:
And therin lies the genius of capitalism as it’s now practiced in these Ewwwwwwwnited States…
The many are now paying as much as they can be scared into for as little as they can get… kinda like a protection racket, no?
“Sure… you’se can go widout insoiance, but don’t comes cryin’ ta me iffin supin happens ‘n yer not covered…”
dadanarchist
More good stuff from that Pete DeFazio article:
That is how *all Democrats* should be talking.
jwb
@kindness: I don’t think there are the 50 votes to pass it through reconciliation, even if that’s a tactic they are willing to use.
jibeaux
@John Sears:
If your priority is cost controls, and immediate cost controls, then you would’ve had problems with all of this for months. It’s not like something awesome was there and got stripped out. It’s been a common criticism, and I don’t object to it. I object to those who have suddenly decided to use it NOW, following the loss of the weak public option. It’s like Michael Moore (obligatory: fat) objecting to the Iraq war because it is a distraction from the war in Afghanistan. This is an extremely valid point — if you didn’t also object to the war in Afghanistan like Moore did. It’s just being added to the arsenal by people who don’t believe it or don’t care.
burnspbesq
I didn’t know Krugman had a guitar with notches carved in it to commemorate his sexual conquests.
Learn something new every day around here.
jwb
@John Sears: What would happen today if you got seriously ill without medical insurance on a $40,000 salary?
Xanthippas
If you’re not persuaded by Krugman, try Nate Silver instead.
Jack
@John S.:
To repeat: I think you are ignoring all of the external-to-Congress factors in favor of a very, very narrow view of “incrementalism.”
I think you are focusing on the successes of this approach, even though they apply to wholly different species of legislation, and ignoring all the set-backs and outright failures.
I think you are, as dadanarchist mentioned, willfully neglecting that 2009 is not 1968, and that for 30 years the pressure groups which enabled “incrementalists” to wave the boogie man of revolution and social collapse at stonewallers have been systematically dismantled.
We now have “free speech zones.” Even at the height of segregationist push back, it was more than just the bandanna wearing college anarchists willing to take a stand…
dadanarchist
This is exactly right. I can’t think of a single piece of progressive social legislation that was passed in the US that wasn’t preceded by wide-ranging and disruptive social conflict and the threat of violence from some segment of protest/activist movements.
Of course, this is *our* failing and not the presidents.
It reminds me of that FDR story people have been trotting out about how FDR wanted to pass social legislation, but he also required the people to *force* him to do it.
cyntax
@dadanarchist:
It sure seems like a misallocation of resources to go after DeFazio as opposed to Nelson or Landrieu.
This and the story about Rahm telling Reid to give Lieberman everything he wants nicely illustrate that the WH isn’t above the fray, they just aren’t twisting the arms I think they should be. OK, that’s fine. But that means that being quiet and sitting down won’t get you anything with this Admin so if progressives want a shot in hell at good legislation, the last thing they should do is go quietly.
jibeaux
@Jack:
And people who have health insurance and a political axe to grind and hate Joe Lieberman want to kill the bill. I mean, are we really dismissing health care policy experts as people with “really, really good health insurance now”, despite being unlikely to be affected whether it passes or not? Or is this the Bush administration where anyone with more than eleven years of schooling is an elitist ivory tower dweller not in touch with the common man?
John Sears
@jwb: You’d go bankrupt, quite probably die.
Same as the insurance plans under the reform bill.
Only the government chips in a bit so you go bankrupt slower.
And in exchange, institutes an Excise tax (senate version only) that gradually turns all insurance plans into shit.
kay
@jwb:
Fifty Senators had a chance to commit to a public option. Sherrod Brown sent them a letter. Thirty signed.
Fourteen more committed (sort of) through public statements or voting a bill with a public option out of committee.
44 is not 50. I don’t think they ever had the votes for reconciliation.
The Republic of Stupidity
Jack
‘Everyone knows’? Oooops… logical fallacy there… appeal to popularity…
Leelee for Obama
@Jack: The use of the guillotine during the French Revolution must needs concentrate the minds of the aristos, wouldn’t you think? After all, they still exist and only a bit of lubrication would put them right back in play. We have always been more civilized in our approach, and therefore less likely to drag the aristos to the lamp posts. I’m not saying we’re wrong, but it does knee-cap the serfs considerably.
dadanarchist
Ha ha, I’m sending this to my friend who is half Italian! She always tells us stories of how dysfunctional Italy is, and how that is exactly the way people like it.
Jack
@dadanarchist:
Perhaps because many of the people who benefit from the eight hour day are not likely to know the significance of Lawrence (my city of birth)?
John Sears
@dadanarchist: Strongly supported by the Iraq protests’ failure too.
Some of the largest, if not the largest, non-violent protests of all human history.
Had absolutely no effect. Nobody felt threatened.
John Sears
@dadanarchist: Only in Italy do you alternate goverments between a socialist and a quasi-crypto fascist who makes his money with tv networks featuring lots of girls in bikinis.
Jack
@Leelee for Obama:
Yes, because what I’m advocating in mentioning again and again and again American fighting unions, and MLK, Jr and American social protests of intensity and scope is really the French Revolution against the ancien regime of a corrupt and degraded monarchy, which preceded these American periods of social unrest by more than a hundred years…
gopher2
This is an Antitrust problem. Stop the monopolies, enforce the contracts, and buying insurance will be as easy as going with Geico.
John Sears
@Leelee for Obama: I think he was referring to the more modern mass strikes.
Which as Dadanarchist pointed out, are suspiciously timed to coincide with beach weather.
As I said in my comment, the threat merely has to SEEM credible to the elites. It doesn’t have to involve any actual campaigns of terror. Elites also often view harm to their economic interests as violence, so you can use that lever if you’re forceful enough. Threaten nationalization, regulation, what not.
John Sears
@Jack: Personally, I think the guillotine was a proportional response to absolute rule.
Someone had to prove that, in fact, God was NOT on the side of the nobility.
If a king deposes a king, you can still say God loves the royals. It took the blood of a tyrant to disprove their claims to divine authority once and for all.
jenniebee
@geg6:
The BC/BS I worked for was the only employer I’ve ever had who, when I told them my salary requirements, my boss said “oh, we can do better than that for you.” The money they threw around was unbelievable.
dadanarchist
I know that one, but I was a Wobbly for a number of years…
Hearts starve as well as bodies; bread and roses, bread and roses.
Jack
@John Sears:
That’s a point, and it’s worthy of discussion, in my humble estimation. I just wasn’t advocating it they way LeeLee portrayed it.
I think some of the folks still loyal to Obama, or the political process, or any number of reasonable positions think that we “DFH” are out to burn the world until we get everything perfect, now, right now.
Which is not the case.
It’s just that sometimes, to get what you want – you kind of have to not give it up right away at the first round of negotiations.
And sometimes it helps to have the other guy believe you really intend to get what you want.
kay
@burnspbesq:
Did you see this?
“This poll confirms that voters get it,” Jim Dean, the head of DFA and the brother of Howard “kill the bill” Dean, emails. “The Senate bill doesn’t actually ‘provide’ 30 million Americans with coverage — instead it makes them criminals if they don’t buy insurance from the same companies that got us into this mess.”
That’s the quality of the debate here, and the honesty of the opponents.
“It makes them criminals”. Of course, any mandate was going to “make them criminals” including the mandate to purchase a public option on an exchange, but Dean slides right by that inconvenient FACT.
Christ. Wait until the teabaggers get a hold of that.
Jim Dean is spreading a blatant lie to terrify people, and liberals are endorsing this? Disgusting.
burnspbesq
@John Sears:
OK, I call.
Describe a bill that you would find acceptable.
Then tell me how you’re going to get it through both houses of Congress.
And when you admit (as you must if you are being honest), that there is no way you could get a bill that you would find acceptable through both houses of Congress, please just stop talking.
It’s time for a reality check, Firepup.
John Sears
@Jack: I’ll admit to kind of borrowing from Terry Pratchett. He says the same thing in one of the Guards book series from Discworld.
I know you weren’t advocating a reign of terror, of course.
If we had a king, I probably would be. Divine right authority doesn’t sit well with atheists after all.
Bill H
@jwb:
That’s not the point. His point is that Congress is claiming to “fix the problem” with this reform. But if “fixing the problem” leaves one paying out $11,000 on a $40,000 salary, then they have damned well not “fixed the problem,” and their claim is false. He’s not really any better off with the reform than he was without it.
burnspbesq
@kay:
Yeah, I saw that. I get all the DfA and ActBlue emails. I just reserved a place for Jim Dean in the same circle of Hell that I have earmarked for David Addington.
Just Some Fuckhead
@jenniebee: This.
Also, it’s good to see a Jen coming out against this.
jenniebee
@John Sears:
You do realize that the guy who made very nearly this exact argument in favor of – let’s face it – using the death penalty to eliminate political opposition, was himself guillotined for purely political reasons 18 months later?
Just sayin’
kay
@Jack:
Hey. Idiot. Are there criminal penalties associated with this mandate?
Or are so-called liberals just trying to scare the shit out of people by making stuff up?
“instead it makes them criminals if they don’t buy insurance from the same companies that got us into this mess.”
There’s your ally Jim Dean, who apparently has no fucking idea what a criminal penalty IS, but is shooting his stupid mouth off.
You’re the “reality based community”? My. Ass.
You know, when you adopt tactics like this you lose all credibility. And because you adopted tactics like this, that’s great, as far as I’m concerned.
John Sears
@burnspbesq: See, the funny thing about reality is that it doesn’t conform to legislative agendas.
If you try to pass a law against reality, you fail.
Indiana once passed a law that set the value of pi to 3. That didn’t work.
Similarly, these bills do not address the underlying problems and are doomed to failure.
I’m pointing out reality. Can any acceptable bill pass? Maybe not. Can we pass a bill that doesn’t make things WORSE, as the Senate bill does? Yes. Yes we can.
Or we could do nothing, and wait until people wake up to reality.
To anyone who tells me to shut up, I have one standard response, which I avoided until the end of this comment because I wanted to be an adult and address your point first.
That response?
“Go fuck your mother.”
John Sears
@kay: Yes there are. If you don’t get insurance, you get a tax. If you refuse to pay the unjust tax, you go jail.
Just like Thoreau.
John Sears
@jenniebee: Of course.
However, France today is better off without a King, don’t you think?
John Sears
I have to run, all. Late for lunch with the ball and chain.
kay
@burnspbesq:
Disgusting. It plays into and off every fear about liberals and “big government”.
And, of course, it’s a blatant lie. There’s that.
Jack
@kay:
I know your MO is to set up a windmill, lower your lance, and joust at it with all fervor, but you are (again, again, again) arguing points I haven’t made.
This time you’re also attributing “alliances” so that you can attack the position you believe I have based on the position someone else has (hey, that’s like Teabaggers hating on Obama because he sat on a board with some dirty hippy, isn’t it?).
dadanarchist
Not to mention that they were plotting against the French Republic and preparing to reestablish autocratic rule in the wake of an Austrian invasion. No to say that some people, like the remarkable Duke of Orleans, Louis Phillipe II, who surrendered his title of nobility and renamed himself Philippe Egalite, or for that matter, Condorcet and Lavoisier, didn’t deserve their fates.
Arno Mayer covered all this in his intelligent and non-hysterical book, The Furies.
burnspbesq
@John Sears:
If you seriously believe that the United States Attorneys are going to allocate scarce prosecutorial resources to enforcing evasion of the excise tax, you’re even dumber than I previously thought you are.
Christ, this is pointless. None so blind as those who refuse to see.
Green balloons!
jibeaux
@Just Some Fuckhead:
I’m a Jen who’s for it. Doesn’t anyone who’s against it notice that, so far, none of even the more liberal Senators, who are giving up a hell of a lot out of their ideal bills, seem to have been swayed by the Dean arguments? Doesn’t that say something to you about the political realities we’re looking at? I mean, if it’s going to be killed, at this point it’s looking like Nelson is the lone gunman.
Leelee for Obama
@Jack: And I am not advocating it either, Jack. My point is that our history points to use of the ballot, not violence. The people who need their minds concentrated don’t run in elections thst regular folks vote in. The people who do run in such elections need the money of our modern aristos to do so, and win. We have not, as a nation, a history of violent threats to those folks, as the French have. Our Lord class has little to fear of whatever we can bring to bear, unless and until our political class perceives the anger of the lower classes. As someone mentioned above us, mass protests are not as effective as they once were. If workers here strike, they can ship jobs overseas or hire more undocumented people, and that’s the problem here, I think. Since I can remember, we’ve been told to vote with our dollars, and I have done that as well, but isn’t it amazing how the spending in the country has dropped to very low levels, and the Corporations are still plugging along, making money?
Again, not saying that violence is the right method, because I don’t believe in violence. I was just pointing out that so many of the tried and true protest methods are not as strong as they used to be.
cyntax
@kay:
Well aren’t they prosposing making the IRS the entity responsible for evaluating your healthcare realtive to your income and for punishment of non-compliance (the fines)? So yeah, that probably means you could get jail time, but that would be a pretty extreme case I imagine.
danimal
@kay: I agree. 51 votes aren’t there. Reconciliation has been a pipe dream; there’s a reason the folks trying to pass a bill have passed on it. Contrary to most of the commenters I’m seeing, I believe most Democrat congressional representatives will do anything they can to pass a bill.
There are a few that prioritize contributors over constituents or come from conservative states. Getting these last dozen or so senators on board is really hard work.
We’re seeing a lot of progressive “Clap harder” thinking these days. Either the votes are there or they aren’t. If they aren’t, we need to make the bill palatable enough to attract 50 or 60 supporters. The political pros are virtually unanimous that 60 is the way to go for a whole host of reasons, but it’s not because they are all sell-outs or wimps.
There is a lot of emotional projection going on instead of reasonable analysis about what is possible in today’s congressional environment. Half a sandwich is possible; getting the whole reuben (single payer) isn’t likely, and never has been.
jwb
@cfaller96: I think if Obama can’t get 60 senators to vote for cloture then the bill won’t pass and having the progressives yelling they won’t vote for the bill narrows his strategic options. I’ve never said that the bill should be accepted no matter what, but I just don’t think any decision should be made until after it comes out of conference and that until conference we should keep as many strategic options as possible.
rachel
@John Sears: Or anybody in one of those countries that has “soshulized medicine”. Every single one of those countries has devised some way to get healthcare for it’s citizens, and in every single one of those countries the citizens pay for it either through higher taxes (Canada) or through state-mandated insurance (Switzerland). There was no way ever that Progressive Pixies were going to sprinkle magic dust on Congress and get healthcare reform for US citizens at no greater cost than what we’re paying now. At least the teabaggers had the sense to understand that.
burnspbesq
@John Sears:
The only intelligent thing you’ve said in this entire discussion. My Moms is teh awesome.
dadanarchist
Fixed myself – what’s going on with editing?
Jack
@Leelee for Obama:
You have a truncated and inaccurate view of American history, especially the history of social progress. The ballot may valorize the power of some few actors to act on legislation dear to popular sentiment (good or bad, with all manner of consequences, intended or otherwise). But its use does not necessarily precede that sentiment. And often, it comes as belated response, as the structural validation of changes already in the works but far more threatening to class or power rule than when contained and directed by law.
I’d recommend Zinn as a really good place to start.
FlipYrWhig
This abbreviation and phrase really need to go away. Especially because this whole debate has been conducted by a bunch of people who seem to think that making themselves punchable makes them hippies.
kay
@cyntax:
Forget it. You’re now in death panel country.
Congratulations. That’s a huge win for liberals. You’ve officially adopted the bullshit scare tactics of the Right.
Just Some Fuckhead
@jibeaux: I think we’re all cognizant of the fact that our millionaire-class Senate serves a different constituency, regardless of the needs of the proletariat. Hell, most of them helped Danger Monkey double the deficit from 5T to 10T.
That is why it’s even more important for us to agitate for change we can believe in. Not to point at them and say “Look, they know what is best..”
Jack
@Just Some Fuckhead:
You’re right. It is a “father knows best” argument we’re being asked to accept. Damn.
Jack
@kay:
The irony is palpable.
dadanarchist
This must be Howard Dean’s fault too:
Ben Nelson: Scale Back Coverage
Now what?
cyntax
@kay:
Gawd, you’re reactionary.
The IRS would be the agent that determines these things, right? At least that’s what I’ve read. And we both know they can put people in jail. As I said above, that seems unlikely but it’s not necessarily impossible.
So bringing it up as a possibility does seem like hyperbole, but not an outright lie.
kay
@danimal:
What progressives refused to do was look at the incentives and influence of providers. They still won’t. They’ll just insist that “Medicare for all” solves health care cost explosion, and it doesn’t.
Medicare expansion didn’t fail because of insurance company opposition. Insurance companies would love to shuffle everyone 55 and older onto Medicare, and insure everyone else.
It failed because of provider opposition.
There’s a reason they refused to do that. Because then we have to start talking about health care, not health insurers, and talking about health care involves making choices.
Jack
@dadanarchist:
And in other depressing news:
http://www.chris-floyd.com/component/content/article/1-latest-news/1887-dred-scott-redux-obama-and-the-supremes-stand-up-for-slavery.html
Davis X. Machina
@ John Sears
Not in any [i]current[/i] reform bill, though it is noteworthy that Massachusetts is discussing doing away with fee-for-service and moving to capitation for providers where the insured patients receive it subsidies.
eyepaddle
@Robin G.:
This. In a goddamn nutshell.
I’ve practically gotten dog-kicking angry over every step to the right this bill has taken. And then come to and taken a look at history, recent and otherwise. If this folds up I really don’t see anything getting accomplished by progressives in this country for a few more decades at least.
I see a lot of things coming up on our plate, climate change, financial reform, etc that at least as contentious as HCR and if we reward obstructonism this completely, well, that’ll be all we will get until President Palin steamrolls some moronic bullshit through the senate.
jwb
@Bill H: No, the question is not about “fixing” the problems—no bill is going to fix all the problems—the question is whether the bill offers material improvements for society as a whole.
dadanarchist
Uhm, no. I realize that the history of American unionism isn’t taught in schools anymore, but your statement is demonstrably false. Well into the 1930s, strikes featured sabotage, gunfire, bombs and violence between union members, radicals, scabs, Pinkertons, and boss-bought thugs.
jenniebee
@jibeaux:
I see that too, and it does give me pause, but the lack of serious discussion by those wonks of the negative repercussions is exactly what fails to convince. They keep on saying “focus on the shrinking positive, not on the price.”
The case that Republicans keep making is that there’s no point in trying to make government work, because it can’t. Democrats, rightly, have pointed out that if the public elects Republicans, they are putting people in charge who are going to actively try to make government fail. If Democrats, the moment they get put back in control of government, launch an ambitious new program that makes people worse off, not better (even on the promise that making it worse was an important first step to make it better in the future if voters will only reward Dems for making it worse to begin with), or even that shakes out – through marginal improvements for the working poor, higher costs to states for medicaid, and taxing really good insurance so that the people who are satisfied with their insurance now, stop being so satisfied (and, incidentally, know who to blame for it) – to a net sum zero, then Democrats lose the “government can be a force for good” argument. Spectacularly, lit up in neon lose it.
The 45K unnecessary deaths that have happened this year while Congress chatted about it are tragic, and the government could do any number of things to prevent those deaths. But we lose the competency argument when we pass something merely for the sake of passing something. And if the principle positive effect of this bill is to move 45K people from dying because they’re uninsured to dying because they’re under-insured, that’s not Hope and it’s not Change: it’s Semantics.
Jack
@jenniebee:
That’s a really excellent note on which to sign off. Thank you, jennie.
baxie
I’m just not getting how passing a bill REQUIRING people to buy insurance (that most of them won’t be able to afford) without any meaningful restraints on insurance company behavior (suggestions to play nice don’t count- the banksters have amply demonstrated the utility of that approach) is anything but a disastrous clusterfuck.
That’s appreciably worse than nothing, so who cares if blowing it up “derails reform” or whatever for some period of time. The status quo is better than this abomination.
dadanarchist
Yes, regrettable but true.
This cuts the other way as well. If we reward Lieberman and Nelson holding Health Care hostage, what happens when those bills come down the pike? What incentive do they have not to pull the exact same shit over and over again until the rest of Obama’s agenda is rendered largely impotent through inserted loopholes and reduced regulations.
In the case of climate legislation, half-measures will kill us all just as effectively as no measures. This is an issue on which extreme and radical action is not preferable, but absolutely necessary.
cyntax
@jenniebee:
Very much this.
Harley Furguson, the Tractorcycle
@TaosJohn:
Yep, at this juncture the only people in my extended family who have insurance are the one who is a union member and the several that happen to live in the UK. I’ll be sixty soon and have not had insurance in over two years.
And I’m against this bill because I think it will make things *worse* rather than better.
I have no trust whatsoever in my government any more, I think they are going to FUBAR anything they touch.
dadanarchist
This, if true, is welcome news:
White House Will Work to Pull Health Care Bill Closer to House Version
Laura W
@burnspbesq:
If I were not so very attached to my previous nomination, I’d almost get behind this for Comment of the Year.
Or maybe Comment Of HCR Thread Number 987,425.
Leelee for Obama
@dadanarchist:
Notice anyone lining up any railroad magnates or bankers running the remnants of the cotton banks that made their bones on slavery being injured or physically threatened here? No, I didn’t. I’m not sure it never happened, but the examples you have here are some serfs being injured killed and beaten by other slightly up the ladder serfs. Like most issues that need more equality between the haves and have-nots, this battle was fought out by the serfs, and in some cases the serfs who were on the side of the angels, won, thank God. Wars are like that, as well. Rich men send poor men to fight for things they may never have, but fight they do, because they might. But, the upper classes rarely get their hair mussed, there are servants and employees for that.
I’m done now, so see you guys later.
Meg
why are you wasting a post by quoting krugman when you could be quoting the excellent piece by glen greenwald on the bill?
jibeaux
making themselves punchable makes them hippies.
Price. Less.
@Just Some Fuckhead:
There are a number of liberal Senators. Bernie Sanders is an honest-to-goodness soc- ialist who sincerely, deeply, believes that there is no place whatsoever for private insurance in real health care reform. To my knowledge, he has made no credible threats of not voting for this. This isn’t about Senators being millionaires. It’s about them knowing more about how the Senate works than the commentariat at firedoglake.
jibeaux
This sounds like a serious rationalization to me for your decision to support doing nothing, when something would help. I’m sorry, but you throw $900 million at a problem that requires money to solve it, the problem decreases.
burnspbesq
@Meg:
Non-functional link. Please try again. I am in need of comic relief, and a Greenwald post on health care reform could be just the ticket.
dadanarchist
Nobody said that there was a level of systematic violence equivalent to the French Revolution. Nonetheless, please look up the following names:
Alexander Berkman
Leon Czolgosz
Luigi Galleani
McNamara brothers
Johann Most
Carlo Valdinoci
The net result may have been the deaths of fellow plebes (which is why propaganda of the deed is not an advisable strategy) but their targets were the rich and powerful.
jibeaux
@Meg:
Your link no work, you spell his name wrong, and glennzilla needs to learn how to get to the point in less than four million words.
slip
@John Sears:
re: cadillac plans and the excise tax.
“In the FIRST YEAR 19% of all plans will be affected according to the Kaiser health people. The CBO says 19% by 2016. That’s an amazingly large number of people whose health insurance will be fucked.”
Since you are citing Kaiser, here is some further information on the excise tax from that source…
So, you would blow up the bill and deny any coverage to around 30 million people because of an excise tax on 19% of 2%. You’re a wingnut troll, right?
burnspbesq
Something to think about.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2009/12/the_mandate_didnt_we_cover_thi
jenniebee
@John Sears:
Well it’s a beautiful idea to think so, but Britain’s had a historically more stable government with a constitutional monarch, which is what France had for the year before they killed Louis. The year after they abandoned the divine right theory of power, they adopted, quite intentionally, the theory of power through terror. No hyperbole, they called it that themselves, and they meant it. Punished “impure political thought” by stripping people naked, tying them together and throwing them in water to drown. The government looking the other way during prison massacres in which children were raped to death. And some cruelties that we generally associate with the nazis, like forcing political prisoners to dig their own mass graves and then bayoneting them to death to save bullets. Really nasty stuff.
Besides, killing Louis didn’t actually end the monarchy in France anyway. Between the rise of Napoleon in 1804 and the Paris communes in 1870, there were only a couple of years in which France didn’t have either a king or an emperor as its head of state.
Incidentally, Louis was fully in favor of the constitution – the last time he saw Lafayette he complained quite rightly – that he was the only politician in Paris who was willing to abide by it.
General Winfield Stuck
@geg6:
I thought you were going to pie me.
Your argument is the same as wingnuts make every day by the smarmy method of smearing via Plausible Deniability / Done with you. On this tread.
dadanarchist
One of the principal groups the excise tax will hit are union members who have negotiated good health care plans, often in lieu of wage hikes. That is why the AFL-CIO, SEIU and other union federations opposed the excise tax, but every indication was that they were willing to compromise on this in exchange for some form of public option.
Now they are getting no public option and the excise tax.
A nice microcosm of how the entire process has unfolded: sacrifice entirely by one side.
kay
@burnspbesq:
The biggest winners here will be Hispanics, 30% of whom don’t have insurance, or access to insurance. Compare that to 6% of college educated whites without insurance.
Only 6% of college educated white people will be at all impacted by this bill, negatively or positively, which may be why the White House is ignoring college educated white people.
Because very little changes for them. Bill or no bill.
Comrade Dread
@burnspbesq
My reply to that would be that I have yet to see any American government in the last 20 or so years of my life do anything to rein in corporations, and in fact, have seen them do much to give them exactly everything they want.
I, for one, find it difficult to take it on faith that our ‘leaders’ (be they Republican or Democrat) are going to have their road to Damascus moment and do the right thing down the road.
I find it more believable, on the contrary, that our ‘leaders’ will probably find some way to just funnel more money to the insurance industry and kick the can down the road until the country implodes.
dadanarchist
No. He wasn’t. He may have resigned himself to it in 1789 to avoid violence, but by 1792 he was trying to figure out a way to get his Austrian in-laws to invade and remove the revolutionaries.
See: Varennes, Flight to
kay
“The latest annual Census Bureau figures show that in 2008 just 5.96 percent of college-educated whites lacked health insurance. For whites without a college education, the share without insurance jumps to 14.5 percent (the number is surely higher for non-college whites who are not union members). Among African-Americans, the share of those without insurance rises to 19.1 percent. Among Hispanics, the share of those without insurance soars to a daunting 30.7 percent, the Census found.”
This is probably part of Axelrod’s political calculation, especially that Hispanic number. If the loudest opposition is coming from a group where 94% have health insurance, you can perhaps see his reasoning.
dadanarchist
Yes yes a thousand times yes…
Nobody has yet explained how a Congressional body that has become more beholden to business interests is going to suddenly improve this bill down the road.
Tax Analyst
@ #119 Steeplejack:
Re:
Hey, Thanks! Who knows, maybe I’ll actually be able to follow the instructions this time. The small words are a big help because I seem to have a mental block on all things “techie”.
Wile E. Quixote
@Jack
Because he’s as ignorant and stupid as any teabagger or Palinite. John S. is dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb. He has no evidence for his “pass the piece of shit and we’ll improve it later” argument and therefore relies upon historical analogies that are at best suspect and at worst completely stupid to attempt to make a point. John S. is no different from a birther or a 9/11 truther; any time you ask him to provide some evidence for his assertions he makes, or counter one of those assertions with evidence or logic he just starts shouting louder and becomes more insulting.
If John S. were intellectually honest and not incredibly stupid he’d know that his Social Security analogy is garbage. When FDR passed Social Security into law in 1935 he didn’t say “You know, we have a problem with people not being able to afford to retire, and we’re going to fix that by forcing them to buy pensions and annuities from the same banks and investment companies that drove the economy off the cliff in 1929 and fine them if they don’t.”. But John S. is too stupid and ignorant to understand this, he’s just repeating something that someone else told him and too lazy, stupid and intellectually incurious to do the research to find out if what he’s been told is true. John S. pathetic, dumb and scared and too stupid, he’s got a kid on the way and is too stupid to realize that the bill he so desperately wants will do nothing to prevent an insurance company from saying to him, after his child is born“Hmmmm, your kid is too small, we’re denying your insurance claims.”.
Tax Analyst
And well, of course, I screwed up the blockquote (post #264). Just providing an example of my technological ineptitude. Always glad to do so.
Tax Analyst
@ #140 geg6 said in response to –
This is basically accurate. A “Profit Margin of around 3.3%” would be a NET PROFIT percentage. “Net Profit” takes into account virtually all expenses, including salaries, which include whatever pay the CEO and other company officers receive. If you have a company that makes any profit whatsoever I can reduce the NET profit to anything I want it to be if I can pay myself (and my cronies) whatever we want to be paid.
I say this even though I DO support passage of the HCR, inspite of its many flaws because if folks want to make informed decisions it’s important that we understand as many of the numbers being thrown around as possible.
Me? I actually prefer just throwing shit out there that makes me feel better. It’s so much easier to vent about what sucks than to think about what can realistically be done at any particular moment in time.
kormgar
Toss me in the camp that thinks that an individual mandate to buy (expensive and crappy) private insurance is going to be an unmitigated disaster.
I just really don’t see the point in the current form of this bill. Healthcare reform is desperately needed, but the Senate bill increasingly looks like a monster that will only make things worse.
To put it another way…eliminate the mandate and we’ll talk. Or put an inexpensive public option in. But don’t give me a god damned mandate by itself.
Wile E. Quixote
If I were a RepubliKKKan I’d be having a blast right now. I’d be looking at guys like John “Progressives can eat shit” Cole and ignorant, fear crazed dingbats like John S. and coming up with some good ways to really fuck them. People like Cole, Krugman and Klein have shown that there is no amount of shit they’re not willing to eat to pass this bill and piss off the DFHs and if I were in the RepubliKKKan leadership I’d be planning up a major shit banquet them. I’d get someone like Lindsay Graham, who is in a pretty safe seat and doesn’t come up for election until 2014 anyways to sidle up to Harry Reid and say “Pssst, I’ll oppose filibuster and support the bill if you add a few things for me, like a permanent repeal of the estate tax and the permanent extension of the Bush tax cuts, oh, and the Stupak/Pitts language”. Then I’d get James Inhofe to sidle up to him and say “I’ll support the bill if you add a few things, like a law making it mandatory to carry guns in national parks and another one making it illegal for women to buy shoes, because women with shoes are more difficult to keep barefoot and pregnant.”
The people for this bill have already shown that there is no principle they will not sacrifice to get it passed and the RepubliKKKans could have a field day with this. I have no doubt that if Ben Nelson gets the Stupak/Pitts language inserted into the bill that John Cole will be saying “Sure, this bill fucks over every woman in the country, but it gives health insurance (not health care, Cole has never been sick and is too ignorant to know the difference) to 30 million people. We have to pass it, reproductive rights be damned. Congress can fix that later.” and will be screaming at any Democratic senator or rep who dares say that passing a health care bill is not worth sacrificing reproductive rights.
Tax Analyst
@ #166 jibeaux said:
I might have been willing to try, but I absolutely detest reuben sandwiches, with or without sauerkraut and any or all of the other wretched, indigestible crap they generally encase that mess in.
The less said about reuben sandwiches, the better, as far as I’m concerned.
But keep throwing shit out there, someone may bite at the bait. It’s got to be more enjoyable than reading a constant barrage of never-ending, unresolvable vitriolic masquerading as informed discussion. (Oh shit, I forgot, nobody promised me “informed discussion” here. Remember BJ’s old masthead statement – it still applies)
Comrade Dread
Why do you hate America?
Now, I can get behind banning mayo on burgers, and just about everything else.
Sleeper
@dadanarchist: eh. I think is just a dilatory attempt at some damage control. I doubt the White House realizes just how badly this is playing out among some of their supporters.
jenniebee
@dadanarchist:
That was actually after the same people who had written the constitution had started attempting to dismantle it. Robespierre at one point declared that the revolution was more constitutional than the constitution and that the constitution had to be abandoned in order to be truly followed… the king was a rat in a trap at that point, and a prisoner of the Paris mob. He claimed that he’d tried to get to an army in order to restore the constitutional government, and who knows, he might not have tried for anything more than that. He didn’t have the money to govern absolutely anymore, or the power as an absolute monarch to raise money from the only people who had any, which is why he called the Estates General in the first place.
oh really
Prediction: The loopholes in this legislation will allow private insurance companies to continue to screw not only their old customers, but also the millions of new customers who are coerced into paying the bloated salaries of their CEOs.
Prediction 2: Everyone will be shocked.
Jack
@oh really:
Prediction 3: The real culprits will be “the Left.” If only those ingrates had just moved rightward…
cfaller96
jibeaux today:
FAIL
Bernie Sanders, two days ago:
Link to prove your failure
jibeaux
@cfaller96:
Yep. But they don’t believe him. There’s no indications that they’re worried about him at all. That’s why I said “credible.”
Chuck Butcher
I don’t think my desk can take any more head pounding.
Some folks want to bring ’60s legislation that was improved to the table as “proof” that the shit will be fixed. There are some real obvious problems with that, but ignored to have a “win.” One that should stick out like a sore thumb, not a single piece of those legislations included subsidies for their opponents. Civil Rights did not subsidize the KKK, Medicare did not subsidize the GOP. Blah, blah… You give great whacking piles of money from unwilling consumers and the federal tax to people who are dedicated opponents who already have huge budgets. Who will fix your fuckups?
I, personally, no longer give a shit about blowback. I don’t give a shit because the people who will get it don’t give a shit. They will next ask me for a 70 seat Senate and money and time and squeal that they’re gonna get whacked. I can avoid your stupid mandates and I won’t ask for the fed’s help. I should make Medicare, my wife probably won’t and will bankrupt me again – yes again. Oh well, fuck ya’ll.
I will tell you that it will take little political skill and just deniability to sell the voters on the GOP in ’10 and on this track, ’12. Those voter demographics you’ve been so proud of will evaporate, the youth and poor votes don’t come around unless they’re enthused – they just throw up their hands and say, “fuck it.” It looks as though I’m going to join them.
I see, “vote against their own interests,” real regularly. A good chunk of that is because Democrats make it sooooo easy. I could give you a lot of reasons (partially legitimate) that the Democrats are seen as screwing those people. Most of those are sociologically meaningless and are simply politically poisonous. Guns leap to mind. Passing unenforced or unenforcable law that pokes people in the eye is stupid or even being in the position of backing it.
This legislation violates both of those, the primary “victims” of choiceless mandates are young and poor(er). Which demographic is that? The legislation pokes a lot of people in the eye and accomplishes…what? Something that needs fixed before it is even voted on or finished writing.
This mess may turn into the final nail in the “government only fucks it up” coffin. Some of you seem to think re-inforcing 30 years of that mantra is a good idea, policy wise and politically. I think you’re real wrong and setting up for some real horrid results.
I’ll admit that after over 40 years of this I’m getting pretty tired. I have always stood on the side of the bottom 1/3 of the economic ladder because they’re always taking the screwing. I really don’t see much point in continuing that and a great big portion of this commentariate says that is so, right along with the Senate and the President. Unintended consequences ARE the devil and you ignore them at serious risk. Pointing this out to any political group is like talking to a wall. You just don’t fucking care.
Intelligent people here repeat blatant stupidity to butress something they’re uncomfortable with. The fuck of it is that this bunch is probably much more responsible and effectively intelligent than the Congress. Oh well.
Meg
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2009/12/16/white_house/index.html
my apologies, i lost my html. glenn comes down on the side of saying that it was obama’s plan all along to work with the captains of industry to get this bill passed. he also avoids the discussions of “BETRAYAL” that seems to be going on here, and instead points to the fact that Obama wanted this stripped-down bill all along, which matches his now-apparent corporatism. Regardless how the left “feels” about this bill, we need to get our hands dirty with policy – Glenn says that it is still valid to say that the bill Obama wants is a terrible one. I tend to agree that we are getting wrapped up in party politics and ignoring how the bill will actually affect disenfranchised people – not just those activists who are screaming the loudest.
and yeah glenn takes forever to make his point but would you rather read a soundbite wapo editorial or someone who actually builds a case with reporting?
Chuck Butcher
I will say this, if the Senate will swallow a large enough pile of dung, you’ll get your mandates and you’ll get your “reform.” The President will sign it.
When this blows up in your faces, politically and culturally, who are you going to ask to bail your asses out – again?
If I, and some others, cannot persuade something over half of this commentariate that where this thing is headed is no fucking good, then it is hopeless. I’m real tired of “I told you so,” working just exactly as long as the Democrats are in the wilderness.
dadanarchist
Nobody Could Have Predicted!
Keith G
Jesus, some people are either fucking stupid or fucking inhumane. This imperfect bill will give many a chance to get coverage. How can turn your back on them?
kormgar
@Keith G:
For me…a mandate to buy insurance in a market that’s about as competitive as cable is a very bad thing.
I’m all for extending coverage to everyone. But doing it by forcing people to buy coverage that they already can’t afford is completely nuts.
Dee Dunn
@General Winfield Stuck:
Debbie Wasserman Schultz knows nothing. Robert Lowry will be taking her place for Florida’s US Congressional District 20 in 2010.
I am not crazy about the way Ratigan handled it, but DWZero continues to make facial contortions and sputter in betwixt his rantings and her own ramblings…Will be so glad to see Robert Lowry in her seat in the 112th Congress.
Debbie Wasserman-Schultz is finished. Be gone, Debbie, be gone!
raptusregaliter
@Shawn in ShowMe:
Just…wow. What color is the sky in your world?