Having been informed in the last few days that I am an O-bot, a cultist, and a Liebercrat by my progressive betters, I would like to note that if the hissy fits of the last week were, as I’ve been told, intended to shape the debate (I guess we all love 11 dimensional chess- hoocoodanode!) and you are going to throw similar amounts of outrage over financial reform, you might want to get started BEFORE the Senate has the bill for seven months.
Unless, of course, you would like to continue the winning strategy of prepping the battlefield with artillery after the battle is over, shooting into the backs of your fellow teammates, and then spend a few days on tv taking potshots at the President and Rahm Emanuel. Your call.
David Gregory sure loves the framing of the Health Care Reform as a total loss for Obama.
*** Update ***
Speaking of, whatever happened to the Audit the Fed/Grayson/Paul initiative?
Just Some Fuckhead
That’s a pretty shitty synopsis of the deliberations that led us to this point.
Edit: But your point is taken. Just pass anything and call it a win.
Comrade Kevin
Rahm EMANUEL. A lot of people do that.
donovong
I am informed that Russ Feingold is voting for the bill tonight, but blaming Obama for all that is wrong with it.
Let the whining begin….
John Cole
@donovong: Feingold has been taking shots since earlier this week.
CJ
But he hasn’t done anything!
Davis X. Machina
Another sellout. By now the only two real Democratic Senators left are Bernie Sanders, who isn’t a Democrat, and Dennis Kucinich, who isn’t in the Senate. And Bernie’s voting the wrong way.
Save us, Senator Lieberman, you’re our only hope.
Brien Jackson
@John Cole:
To say nothing of having been opposed to using reconcilliation 5 months ago. I can get being mad that you didn’t get wat you wanted, but when you actually were something of a procedural roadblock, and you start blaming the White House for not doing enough in the abstract, that’s pretty fucking douchy.
Sly
Good Lord, I hadn’t even thought about that.
Take the amount of ignorance about health insurance and apply it to the only thing in America that is more arcane: financial institutions. HCR will look like the creation of a new post office compared to the demagoguery that will be unleashed next summer.
dr. bloor
@donovong:
This is the only part that Obama gives a shit about.
Brien Jackson
@Sly:
TO be fair, I’m with Yglesias on financial reform; it really is an issue the White House can go all or nothing on.
donovong
@John Cole: Actually, he has been taking shots since January 21. But, most of his bellyaching is principled, I think.
Frankly, as long as he votes for the fucking bill, I don’t care how much he whines.
John Cole
@donovong: I like Feingold, and he can say whatever he wants whenever he wants.
donovong
@dr. bloor: You betcha! See mine above.
gwangung
A lot of the progressive folks still strike me as being as more than a little disorganized and unfocussed.
That means they’re acting exactly as I am.
TCG
Whoa. Low Blow under any circumstances.
donovong
@John Cole: True enough, and I think he needs to be seen as less than a true believer with Obama in order to get reelected next year.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Oo! They’re putting Moist Von Lipwig in charge of it?
rachel
@donovong: Same here. If the bill only brings health insurance availability up to the level of South Korea or Switzerland, it’ll still be a huge improvement.
General Winfield Stuck
My Dinosaurs are laughing.
Malron
I like how we’re about to get health care reform after 100 years of trying and the progressives are claiming it means Obama’s a failure. Fucking brilliant.
Just Some Fuckhead
@General Winfield Stuck: Heh.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
Hey John, Nate Silver agrees that throwing a hissy fit has a positive effect. Oddly, though, he follows that up with this post where he insists that the hissy-fitters put all their cards on the table. Whatever, he’s a stats guy.
Sentient Puddle
Well, I think liberals did attempt to fight the battle from the summer until now. The problem is more that some people just don’t know how to recognize that they lost. Not that that makes the strategy any better, of course.
Corner Stone
Back atcha.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Malron:
No. Not reform. And we’ve had plenty of good health care legislation in the past hundred years.
Otherwise, yer completely right.
Roland X
I have all kinds of rebuttal to mind (aside from the undeniable fact that there are douchebags in the progressive community, just like there are in any group of people larger than ten), but Digby’s a much better writer of such things than I am.
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/bill-killers-by-digby-jon-walker-at-fdl.html
So I’ll let her say it.
rachel
@Malron: And we wonder why it has taken us so long to get this far. Excuse me, there’s a wall somewhere I’ve been forgetting to bang my head against.
BR
If those progressives who are complaining about this bill really want to get a public option, they should be pushing Feingold or Sanders or whoever to attach a public option amendment to the next budget and push that through reconciliation.
That’s the way to get a public option now. When it’s decoupled from a bill that has things that can’t be passed via reconciliation (such as exchanges, etc.), a public option is actually easier to pass.
But I have a feeling that complaining provides catharsis, which is the real point here. So we probably won’t see this happen.
Comrade Mary
@kommrade reproductive vigor: Hey, don’t slam Moist, who is actually pretty competent, in a largely serendipitous kind of way.
slag
Look. When the President f’s up (which he has), we should be more than happy to say so. We’re not Republicans.
Otherwise, I seem to recall this bill being a multi-hissy fit achievement on liberals’ part. The last one possibly the most damaging (as well as the most deserved), but no need to leave the others out of the history books.
John Cole
Well, according to what I have learned the past few days by progressives here and elsewhere, the teabaggers are actually motivated by anti-corporate sentiments, so we should have no problem getting them on our side for financial reform.
Or so I’ve been told by people a lot smarter than me.
mr. whipple
I think it did shape the debate to the extent that people became aware that there are a lot of nuts on the Democratic side.
And you are correct in noting the audacity of using the 11 dimensional chess tactic that’e been so widely derided for the last 11 months.
Exurban Mom
I just read what Al Franken had to say over at the Big Orange Satan, and I think the whining is just plain annoying at this point. http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/12/20/817142/-A-Historic-Step-Forward:-Why-Im-Supporting-The-Senate-Health-Reform-Bill
Just Some Fuckhead
@John Cole:
*blush*
Brien Jackson
@Roland X:
I don’t know what Digby’s issue is, but geezus her writing has just been weird. So on top of apparently thinking the vast majority of the uninsured are voluntarily choosing to be uncovered, she doesn’t think the Nelson language is better than the more expansive Stupak language, or that the House that passed a bill that included Stupak simply won’t stand for the weaker Nelson language.
El Cid
I am interested in finding out the sampling technique used to produce what “progressives” think.
Annie
Screw David Gregory. According to the media, everything is a loss for Obama. Even waking up in the morning will somehow be seen as a loss.
To me the most sickening part of this whole debate over HCR was the right praying for its failure — Somehow, even Jesus is against avoidable health care, and for corporate interests. The fact that Congress men and women who participated in this sham were not shamed by the media, tells me the system sucks.
I am sure that tomorrow the media will talk about how tonight’s Christmas special was somehow a loss for Obama…
gbear
…and there are few people who know as much about total loss as David Gregory. He’s professionally well aquainted with it.
mcc
That’s a pretty shitty synopsis of the deliberations that led us to this point.
I’m just going to ask what I have in every other thread: where the hell were any of the netroots leaders on the mandate six months ago? Half of them were arguing for it.
John Cole
@El Cid: Just ask the people throwing snowballs yesterday at DuPont circle. Those are the true progressives and the real netroots. Or so I have been told.
gwangung
Am I wrong in thinking that passing the public option is now easier if we can pass the current bill?
slag
@John Cole:
There ain’t no party like a KKK tea party!
Also, I should probably add that that statement made me LOL.
Malron
@BR:
This. Instead of attacking the president because he helped open the door to one.
Brian Griffin
@gwangung: I don’t think you’re wrong.
pass it and keep coming back to it with tweaks and improvements.
or we can not pass it, and come back to it in 25 years or so.
actually the one part I’m worried about is that most of the bill doesn’t take effect for several years, which gives bluedogs and other republicans a lot of time to undermine this before it even gets started.
Just Some Fuckhead
@mcc: You could be right. But I can only speak for me. I’ve never supported an individual mandate. I voted for Obama because he was against an individual mandate. He may have changed his mind now (I dunno) but I haven’t.
And just for the record, and I’m sure most here know (certainly John does, we talk), I’m not in that so-called “progressive” group or whatever we’re calling them. I just call ’em like I see ’em.
General Winfield Stuck
@Sentient Puddle:
This is just it. Did they lose? completely? When you put all your eggs in one basket, it is easy to be crushed when you lose that one basket. Even Dr Dean admits there are some good things, some really good things, that would under any other circumstance be praised, but for the PO pony.
And this is not over either by getting a flawed bill made better before final passage to thread the needle of appeasing more liberal house dems and senate conservative dems, — nor the cost train coming down the track to run over the whole thing and us, if costs aren’t seriously contained. Hell, just the ban on rejection for pre existing conditions should be a major major victory.
Necessity is the mother of all invention it is said. And there will be no letup for necessity flagging our asses in the health care arena. We Americans just about always don’t do what’s necessary until the last minute.
And one final carrot, when a bill is passed, the regs will be written by dem beaurocrats from the Act itself and the preamble of intent of congress. FWTW
Of course, I know, none of this changes any angst from “the activist” disappointment, which will be savored, no matter.
donovong
@gwangung: Yes, you must be wrong, because it is not THE PUBLIC OPTION , or something. It could even be stronger and do more in better ways and save more money, but it won’t be THE PUBLIC OPTION.
Now, what did I do with those pearls I was clutching?!?
Just Some Fuckhead
Alright, Feingold and Digby are on the pyre now, too. Who is next?
Davis X. Machina
During the primaries, the Official Party Line was that mandates were essential to any serious plan, and Hillary had ’em, and Obama didn’t.
Now they’re radioactive.
mcc
This is what I want. And unlike passing the health care bill itself through reconciliation, I think it’s totally doable.
Although I at this point almost would like to ask if we would actually rather be asking for some sort of medicare buy-in instead of a separate public option insurer. Buying medicare is closer to what we really wanted to begin with anyway, it kills a couple of right-wing talking points (since we’re not creating a new federal bureaucracy, and the right’s supposed to looove medicare now), and even if we went through reconciliation we probably wouldn’t get the “good” public option (the one with medicare-linked rather than negotiated rates) so that might not be a fight that’s worth it without getting some more progressives in Congress.
I also almost wonder– 59 Democrats were willing to vote for the medicare buy-in, then got screwed by Lieberman. It almost seems likely some of them who might not otherwise would support a separate medicare buy-in vote just to give Lieberman a finger. Senators seem like pretty petty, shallow people.
Just Some Fuckhead
For the record, I never considered Digby to be a TRUE member of the Judean People’s Front.
mr. whipple
She used to be my favorite blogger, but I haven’t been able to read her since about January.
And what’s the deal with all this victimization lately? (ie, hippy bashing) It’s getting as bad as the whining from the poor oppressed Christians and Republicans. In fact, they used to be called the WATB’s.
donovong
@Just Some Fuckhead: Nobody put Feingold on the pyre. Like I said – If he wants to whine about stuff, that’s fine as long as he votes for the fucking bill.
clone12
7 months from now, financial reform will have its oxygen sucked out by all the Lou Dobb hissy fit thrown over the scheduled immigration reform debates. Look for Sarah Palin to denounce the nonexistent Mecha-Latina La Muerte panel where good white Anglo kids are forced by our evil government to eat tacos, speak Spanish, and ogle hot Mestizo women.
calipygian
Why can’t “progressives” take what they can get, take satisfaction in the knowledge that it is a (baby) step forward and will whet the American appetite for further reform in the coming years and leave it at that?
Baby steps, baby steps…And kill the fucking fillibuster.
El Cid
@John Cole: I honestly don’t even know what that means, and I think I’ll choose not to Google it just to avoid the frustration.
FWIW, Nate Silver has a good discussion of how to proceed with clarifying peoples’ perspectives on the HCR issue: “The Insidious Myth of Reconciliation“, by Darth Sidious. Well, maybe not that last bit.
BR
@mcc:
Agreed. I think you’re right that my suggestion would work better with a Medicare buy-in than with a public option, since a Medicare buy-in is easy to sell. Plus for some unknown reason it’s seen as less controversial – maybe because of all the noise made on the public option.
R. Johnston
You’re far worse than any of those things, John. You’re an optimist who lacks a reality based degree of cynicism.
On health care reform the Democratic leadership negotiated with the Republicans whose only interest was to make the Democrats look bad, demagogued against the pragmatic elements of the Democratic party that care primarily about empirical results, and delayed implementation of the most important benefits of the bill until 2014 for no reason other than the fact that CBO scoring falls for stupid Enron accounting tricks. It’s hopelessly naive to believe there’s any chance a party that could do anything that spectacularly stupid will then proceed to both fix this bill with future legislation and to successfully fight off Republican accusations in 2010 and 2012, before most of the benefits kick in, that the bill is all costs and no benefits.
The Democrats are politically incompetent naifs. This legislation will not be fixed. The Democrats will not win the political wars in 2010 and 2012 that the Republicans will wage over this reform package. The Republicans will control Congress come 2012, whether or not the left bitches and moans about the failures of the Democratic establishment, and whether or not HCR as envisioned in current legislation would be better than nothing if allowed to take its course.
John Cole
I’ll kick anyone in the junk who says nasty things about Digby.
gwangung
@Brian Griffin: I’m just thinking that these folks boasting about their muscle should put it to the test and lead the fight. More than willing to follow, volunteer, maybe even do some minor organizing. Ought to be easier, actually, if we can focus on the one issue.
Dlebgud
People saying health care should be stopped for being bad are wrong.
How’s that going to get Dem votes in 2010? What will their message be? “We had majorities, but we got stopped. Vote for me!” Meanwhile Repubs will be crowing how they stopped it.
You’d sacrifice this bill and the 2010 elections to get your way? Go vote for Nader in 2000 why don’t you.
Clinton has been telling everyone, if they’ll listen. Just get something done. He didn’t and here it is 15 years later.
donovong
After all this holyhell over HCR, kinda makes you wonder what the death toll is going to be over all the other issues that are coming down the pipe – immigration, financial reform, climate change. By the time we get to June, they are going to have to install a giant oxygen tent over the Capitol building.
rachel
@calipygian: What is the lefty equivalent of “Wolverines!”?
gwangung
Hmph. I think most good white Anglo kids would gladly learn Spanish for the other two.
John Cole
@rachel: RAHM DOESN’T RESPECT US!
Tonal Crow
@mcc:
When the mandate was paired with a robust public option, many progressives viewed it as the only route to universal coverage, and supported it in that light. The reasoning was: (1) We’ve got to end the preexisting-condition and rescission dodges, but (2) That’s supportable only with a mandate, otherwise people would bankrupt the system by not getting insurance until they’re ill, however (3) That, in turn, works only if we get a robust public option to provide guaranteed competition to keep insurers from using the mandate to rape us.
When the public option got killed, many progressives reasoned that we would be in for a real raping, and began to oppose the mandate.
That’s perfectly supportable reasoning, not mockworthy ideologue-blather.
El Cid
@R. Johnston: Personally I don’t think such moves to court Republicans etc. are ‘stupidity’. There are simply a lot of powerful Democrats who seek a variety of excuses to avoid doing things a lot of ordinary people and Democrats and liberals may want but which are not things which those powerful Democrats want, or to do things which they and their lobbyists and their peers and other powerful forces want but which ordinary people etc. do not. Republicans can be a handy excuse, ‘bipartisanship’ can be a handy excuse, and best of all are the new 60 vote requirement for all legislation.
rachel
@John Cole: You owe me a new keyboard, sir!
Just Some Fuckhead
@donovong:
That’s exactly what I’ve been asking. If legislation can be derailed by *1* Senator, we don’t have a chance with the rest of the stuff. If this Senate HCR bill is the best we can do on an issue that has huge popular support among the electorate, we’ve already lost the rest of the stuff.
The Raven
Actually, we’ve been at it all year. As with health care, nothing seems to help and no-one is listening.
keestadoll
@John Cole
You’re a nice person-don’t let those “progressive betters” get you down. Just remember, opinions are like…well…you know the rest of that pearl of wisdom. :)
Soylent Green
How about “Lemmings!”
gwangung
Given that mandates are prevalent in other health care systems and that getting universal coverage actually kinda implies mandates, I’m not certain I would quite agree.
General Winfield Stuck
@donovong:
I will just clutch my plastic Unicorn that much tighter.
John Cole
@Tonal Crow: Yes, but the weak public option was as bad as no public option, for reasons highlighted on any number of blogs for weeks, but no one said anything about mandates. It was full speed ahead. Only in the last week or so has the genuine freakout over mandates begun.
rachel
@Tonal Crow:
Just out of curiosity, are there any countries haveing government-mandated health insurance where the citizens and residents are mostly unhappy at being forced to buy it? I’ve never heard of one.
Edited to add: I live in such a government-mandated health insurance country, myself, and I just don’t understand what the freakout is about.
Corner Stone
@clone12:
Where can I go to vote for this?
Just Some Fuckhead
@John Cole: That’s because it was only in the last week we found out how well and truly we are fucked. That doesn’t seem that hard to understand to me. (With the caveat that we still may get a sparkly pony with a rainbow mane in conference committee. Oh God, look at me, all pie in the sky naive.)
Tonal Crow
@gwangung:
Of course universal coverage implies mandates…just like I wrote. My point was that something like the public option is necessary to give the insurers enough guaranteed competition so that they can’t use the mandate to turn us into cash cows.
I’m pretty sure that all the other systems that have mandates also have some form of premium cost control.
Corner Stone
@John Cole: ISTR that previous flotations of the evil mandates also had a corollary, something that provided the illusion of choice and competition…mmm, what was that called again?
zhak
I don’t think there will be meaningful financial reform under Obama’s “guidance.” I haven’t seen anything to like about his financial team — they’ve taken care of the nasty greedy sorts who got us into massive financial trouble (ie, finishing what Bush started with his massive Wall Str bailout) and pretty much thrown peanuts (or worse) to the rest of us.
Also, didn’t Obama receive close to a million dollars in campaign funds from Goldman Sachs?
As far as health care reform goes, I’m one of the ones deeply disappointed by a deeply flawed bill. I worry about the people on the borderline — those who are barely making ends meet at it is — being forced to shell out money they cannot afford for policies that will not give them the safety net they would need if they were to become catastrophically ill.
Simply put, I think we should be able to do much much much better than this.
I respect that lots of non-Republicans have varying opinions about this. Many think that something is better than nothing, for instance. I think if too many lower-income people are forced to buy what amounts to junk policies, it will not turn out well on any level: not for them, not for the economy, not for Democrats. Insurance companies should rake it in though.
Shrug.
I just wish we had elected officials that actually cared about people more than money.
I just wish someone with real power stood up & said “it’s wrong to be the only rich developed nation on the face of the earth that puts the greed of big business ahead of the health of its citizens” and then did something about it.
But — argh. Nobody listens to me anyway, as far as I can tell.
mr. whipple
I’m not sure it’s the mandates, although they seem to have become a point of focus.
I think a lot of people are just afraid of change.
El Cid
I still think it was a good idea for Democrats, liberals, and even Obama to reinforce the need to re-balance the separation of powers away from the Bush Jr. super-imperial model of the Executive commands all, but this is what we’re going to get when the Legislative Branch takes the lead.
By the way, as a long-time actual leftist I would find it heartening that now ‘the left’ is considered to be vastly larger than it used to be, except that I don’t think people use ‘the left’ to mean what they used to mean by that a mere decade or so ago.
Tonal Crow
@rachel: And does your country have some form of premium price controls? Or does it just let the insurers charge whatever they want?
Just Some Fuckhead
@Tonal Crow:
Like a basic non-profit health care plan/system/etc.
Everyone acts like this is all a question of dollars and cents but it’s also about morality.
Mike in NC
My wife turned on MTP this morning during breakfast. I’ve honestly seldom watched it, but Gregory spoke approvingly about the resurgent Republican party while smirking at Joe Scarborough and ex-RNC chairman Ed Gillespie (one of the most dishonest pieces of shit ever to set up camp in Washington). Gregory pushed the GOP talking points with Axelrod and Dean until I had to change the fucking channel.
BR
@John Cole:
Exactly. Which sort of makes clear that “progressive” blogs really wanted to declare a win, which meant getting something the public option. They weren’t interested in whether that thing called the public option was actually going to help many folks or not, and didn’t mind the mandate as long as they got their nominal win.
As someone who is “progressive”, I am at a loss when anyone asks me to label myself politically. Because I feel like even the term progressive has been grabbed by a bunch of fools. (Yes there are smart progressives, but they make far less noise.)
I guess I’ll just have to call myself a left libertarian from now on…
Mike in NC
Brick Oven Bill, is that you? What about the armpit hair?
Corner Stone
@Mike in NC:
Watching Kos get mangled by Ed G was pretty damn appalling. It’s like Markos wasn’t very well prepared today, or tanked it on purpose. Really just a bad showing by him.
freelancer (itouch)
@keestadoll:
A lot of ppl have turned into opinions then lately.
Concern troll who really does care
What does John hope to accomplish by insulting lots of people – especially since many are reassessing their position?
I’ve noticed a distinct shift towards acceptance of the bill by former “kill-it”s, especially since it appears that few additional concessions were granted post-Lieberman. And there are some promises to either revisit the legislation or pass additional bills (import drugs, modify subsidies, perhaps give it a go for some public option via reconciliation).
Why, John? Why?
General Winfield Stuck
@BR:
You are welcome to join my Obot Independent Druid Party.
BR
@zhak:
You make several good points, but I just wanted to point out that the Obama campaign was a several hundred million dollar operation – a million dollars is like the take the campaign got during the 30 minutes of any Palin’s speeches.
donovong
@Corner Stone: Good. Maybe he’ll learn from it.
mr. whipple
If you have a Stonehedge replica(and it must be built to scale), I’m there.
Yutsano
@John Cole: You’re upgrading from neck punches. I like the change in style.
BR
@General Winfield Stuck:
Sounds good. Well, the druid part has me a bit weirded out, but only because of this book by John Michael Greer which spent half the time talking about modern druidism as crucial in a post-peak oil world; I guess I’m just not that spiritual.
I’m right there on the Obot party. Which reminds me – has anyone noticed if the distribution of Obama ’08 stickers to Obama/Biden ’08 stickers has changed lately?
I have a hypothesis that the ratio of the former to the latter has increased lately because the folks who got on board for the general are more likely to be fair weather friends.
Davis X. Machina
Is it true that ‘shibboleth’ is the Hebrew for ‘public option’?
mcd410x
Of course, Digby has said this better than I …
This isn’t about health care, if it ever was. It’s about payback for the last 30 years of Republicans fucking up this country. It’s about the Kennedys’ dreams of a better America, now as dead as the Kennedys themselves. It’s about sending the GOP to the trash heap for a generation with policy the American people want.
Instead, like the villain in a James Bond flick, we’ve let them hang around. Once again tempting fate when their laissez-faire, I-got-mine-fuck-you bullshit ought to be dead and gone.
Health care was just the means to an end.
MikeJ
No. It is illegal for companies to contribute to campaigns. Employees of many (tens? hundreds?) thousands of different companies donated a combined total of over $650,000,000.
Just Some Fuckhead
Since we’re calling anything a win now, I’m asserting the Stillers are 14-0 and only two games from a perfect season. If you don’t believe me, you hate President Obama and want 30 million people to die.
Paula
@John Cole:
The weak public options were never finalized. The House version had some real merit, and the Senate version became a bargaining chip exactly one second after Harry included it. We were caught up in all the versions floated and all the rest of it, and no one was happy but no one knew where we would end up. The Lieberman compromise is what caused the earthquake as it became clear that no PO of any kind was going to be in the final bill.
A lot of “pass the bill” folks are caught up in the symbolism at work here. It’s been 100 years in the making and all the rest. The symbolism of the PO was that, even at a tiny level, there was an actual choice offered to America. No, not enough people would be allowed to make that choice at first, but we were told that things would open up in a few years, yadda, yadda, and it was that proverbial “foundation to build on”.
Jane Hamsher and Chris Bowers and NYCeve at KOS started working very hard on the PO effort back in June/July (I can’t remember exactly now, but before Netroots Nation in August). It was one of the first efforts that combined a lot of different groups and it is an effort worthy of tremendous respect. And it was a pragmatic effort to work within the system we have right now – it wasn’t pie in the sky and it wasn’t just whining. It was a genuine whip effort and it kept the PO alive way past it’s shelf date. Because, as I think events should make clear to everyone, only the public wanted the PO. Our president and congress did not.
But “fuck the public” is Washington’s favorite phrase.
Clutch414
What time is the vote going to happen?
I flipped over to C-SPAN 2 from the Vikings/Panthers game and all it has been is that jackass Thune from SD and Brownback prattling on. And Brownback is now vomiting the anti-choice talking points all over the lectern. Wonderful.
Corner Stone
@mcd410x: I can not believe you just said Dead Kennedys.
bayville
I’ve seen the light when it comes to so-called progressive causes thanks to the “liberal intelligentzia”. The same cast of smart libs (Beinert, Yglesias, Chait, Marshall et al) who were key enablers in the Iraq War, the 2002- 2004 campaigns and NCLB – the-look ahead-not-behind-choir.
Pass the bill already. No more complaining here.
Now, I’m sure Obama will get around to tackling the prescription drug problem sometime real soon.
mr. whipple
IIUC, 1 am EST.
JD Rhoades
What makes me laugh is all this talk about how “Obama has betrayed ‘the base”, most recently featured in yet another such diary at the GOS.
The so-called “base” has been threatening to walk out on Obama, stay home, never vote for another Democrat again. etc, etc etc, since before the inauguration. I was hearing “Obama’s no better than Bush, I’ll never support him or any other Democrat again” from alleged “progressives” as early as the whole Rick Warren debacle.
So why the fuck should he kowtow to people whose support is so fragile that their first reaction to anything he does that they don’t like is to scream that “Obama’s thrown us under the bus!” and walk away?
Clifton
You know how conservatism can never fail. It looks like the new dynamic will be that of progressivism will always be the source of Obama’s accomplishments. Even when, you know, they’re actively working toward his failure. But hey, it must be nice to see netroots pundits as dimwitted as the mainstream pundits: say anything, reality proves you wrong, and act as if you knew the outcome all along.
P.S.
John, most of these guys definitely believe in n-dimensional chess, only in the opposite direction. Everything that is wrong can now be attributed to Obama’s super secret but well planned strategy to stop progress in this country.
Steeplejack
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Yeah, she’s definitely People’s Front of Judea. Everybody knows that.
xian
@John:
but of course they will be convinced it some sort of soshulist plot
It’s like the way I always find The Nation harder to read during Democratic administrations.
Cat Lady
We have bingo. Lost in all the sturm und drang is that Obama would have signed a much better bill than the one he’s getting from this Congress. Imagine a Republican president with the Democratic majority Congress we have. I understand the frustration of not getting the My Pretty Pony (TM) public option or expanded Medicare, but the Blue Dogs are now playing the role of what used to be moderate Republicans. The problem is the Senate with the filibuster/cloture rules, and will always be the Senate, and like Cole has said, as great an explicator as Obama is, what on earth could he have said to Ben Nelson or Lieberman to change their ways? But, I am an O-bot. Pragmatic incrementalism. Learn to love it.
Anya
@General Winfield Stuck: Can I join that party as well since I seem to be party-less. According to a recommended diary at GOS the base lost faith in Obama. Since I was considering myself as part of the base I am confused now. All of a sudden I am having identify crisis.
slag
@BR: Yes, many people were concerned back when the first or second threatening of the public option came round that a mandate sans public option would be a big political no-no. But if you haven’t noticed, reporting on what’s actually in the bill at a given moment isn’t always great, so it’s highly likely that the strong/weak nuances weren’t easily come by at the time of discussion. But it was happening. In generalities.
R. Johnston
@El Cid: Courting Republicans and Liebermans who flaunt the fact that they are negotiating in bad faith is stupid. It’s pathetic and weak, and nobody wants to vote for a politician who’s pathetic and weak. Even politicians who want excuses not to bear responsibility for politically tricky decisions and not to disturb the Holy Comity of Sixty should want even less to appear pathetic and weak.
If you absolutely must negotiate with the Liebermans of the world, you do it with pork. And if you feel you absolutely must negotiate with Republicans of the current Senate, your doctor ups your dosage of Clozapine and you take a sabbatical from the Senate.
The Raven
@rachel: “Just out of curiosity, are there any countries haveing government-mandated health insurance where the citizens and residents are mostly unhappy at being forced to buy it?”
Jon Walker deals with this at length over at FDL. The short-short-short summary is that the other countries that use an insurance system regulate it intensely; the proposed US bill has very poor regulation.
In general, it appears–keep in mind that no-one knows how this will fall out–that the US bill will be of considerable benefit to people who are already well off, and of considerable cost to people who are not. On average, it will probably lead to a short-term improvement, but at the extremes there will be people bankrupted, and people denied care who need it. Regardless of who wins and loses among the public, the insurance companies win.
Brien Jackson
@mcc:
Conrad is very much against any expansion of Medicare. That could cause a headache.
zhak
@MikeJ: Yes, I should have been (much) clearer, and I apologize (it’s the anniversary of the death of the best friend — “pet” doesn’t begin to cover it — that I’ve ever had & I’m even more out of sorts than usual). According to OpenSecrets, individuals associated with Goldman Sachs contributed $994,795 to his campaign. The only organization whose members contributed more was the UC system, which totaled $1,591,395.
From OpenSecrets:
cay
This is the last blog I read every day because it’s GRAVY. Don’t stop being John Cole, John Cole!
Just Some Fuckhead
@Cat Lady: Or as an even better thought exercise, Cat Lady, imagine a Republican Congress with a Democratic President.
Wait, they got everything they wanted, didn’t they?
Fuck, nevermind.
BR
@Brien Jackson:
Although if the amendment for Medicare buy-in were to be done from the floor, and then it goes to reconciliation, I don’t think Conrad has the same power as if the amendment originates in the Budget committee.
Tonal Crow
@Paula: Well said.
Comrade Luke
@Brien Jackson:
I read Digby regularly, and while I think her writing has deteriorated a bit (I think she’s willfully naive about how corrupt the Dems are), I have NEVER, EVER read this in any of her writings.
General Winfield Stuck
@Anya:
Of course you can join. I try never to let myself believe the internets are the base of anything, Other than the opinions of the relative few. And that includes me.
Brien Jackson
@Tonal Crow:
Not really, it’s only supportable if you don’t understand the conception of the exchanges. Which, incidentally, I don’t think very many “activists” do at this point.
Stroszek
A couple of points to consider:
(a) Many of the progressives in question have been opposed to this bill since late Summer and have been focused on drumming up opposition, not trying to find innovative ways to substantially improve the bill in the ways that would go unopposed/unnoticed by the Ben Nelsons of the Senate. The efforts to identify regulatory loop holes, though helpful, were only indirectly constructive, as they were mainly intended to promote paranoia and anger, not efforts to patch up the bill (though Reid, to his credit, has responded to a lot of the legitimate concerns with the Manager’s Amendment). Even the ideas that can be credited for keeping the public option alive for so long came from Schumer and Rockefeller, not our online intelligentsia.
(b) Many of the aforementioned progressives think that America’s uninsured are mostly just choosing to be uninsured because they’re holding out for a public insurance program.
(c) Many of them have private insurance themselves.
(d) Many of them entertain Palinesque fantasies that an “insurance mandate,” as opposed to just being a tax incentive for purchasing insurance that you can be exempted from if the premiums are too high, will involve a massive armed crackdown during which government agents will come to your house and force you to buy a high deductible catastrophic coverage policy directly from Karen Ignagni.
(e) Many of them actually think that the tiny percentage of people who are willfully uninsured would actually care if they were given a choice of a public plan they don’t want in addition to a choice of a private plan they don’t want or a marginal income tax hike they don’t want.
(f) Many of them think it was a good idea to repeatedly and loudly inform our nervous and ideologically provincial conservative Democrats that, yes, indeed, contrary to the President’s assurances, the public option and the Medicare buy-in are intended to be the first steps towards a single-payer health care system.
(g) Jane Hamsher also loves framing health care reform as a total loss for Obama.
MinneapolisPipe
Legislation is never pretty. And haggling and bargaining with guys like Toupee Ben Nelson does take some of the shine off Obama’s armour because we want to remain idealistic. But Obama’s doing his best to get a bill passed. Idealism and refusing to compromise on health care really worked well for Hillary in the 90s.
I have a friend that runs a department of UnitedHealthcare. I can tell you that they’re scared sh-tless and calling it a government takeover (the gov is essentially going to limit how much profit they can make with each insurance policy).
In five years, when you will never be relating a story to people about how your mother/cousin/coworker/friend was denied coverage because they had cancer 11 years ago even with a FULL recovery, or the excessive costs of ER visits have been brought down significantly, or the “Cadillac” plans enjoyed by some executives and union members have finally been brought back to Earth…. all this anxiety about every single thing in the bill-writing process will seem less significant.
mcd410x
On a lighter note … when did making December re-run months start for TV shows? I understand sweeps in November, but I recall shows having Christmas eps and now they stop weeks before that’s even realistic … the war on Xmas continues!
MikeJ
@zhak: Meh. Roughly 500 people who work for GS donated to the Obama campaign, fewer than 10 maxed out, fewer than 200 donated more than half the maximum possible. If every GS employee who donated *had* maxed out it would have been less than 2.5M, which is a drop in the ocean of 650M.
In other words, (yawn).
gwangung
@MikeJ: If I recall right, this includes admin/secretarial people as well as managerial and financial types.
marcopolo
As someone who volunteered enough last fall for Obama to have been put in charge of an election day staging location supervising a hundred fifty volunteers and responsible for a dozen polling locations, I don’t take issue with valid specific criticisms of the approach the White House (yeah it is more than just Obama, though he sets the bottom line) took to accomplishing this health care legislation (the Pharma deal, trusting Reid to deliver on time in the Senate, etc…), or with the inadequacies of the legislation as it is now proposed, or with the a$$hattery of a few Democratic legislators in the House and Senate (and pretty much all of the Rethuglicans btw). I even believe that continued outcry is useful going forward to remind the elected officials on our side that their work is not nearly done and how disheartened a lot of their base is which will have ramifications in 2010.
However, anyone on my side of the political spectrum who does not believe, despite such things as the apparent big fat wet kiss that the legislation seems to mostly be for industry coffers, that it also contains much good and will benefit a lot of real people needs to open up to the idea of cognitive dissonance and use a few more brain cells.
Finally, although I am not particularly enamoured with a lot that the Obama administration has done (though I really like our new Supreme), I do sleep easier at night knowing John and Sarah are stuck throwing bombs from the sidelines via comments on the Senate floor and over facebook pages and not through our military. Anyone who forgets the alternative reality we might be living in should get themselves checked for early onset you now what.
slag
@Cat Lady:
You know. Not only is that kind of talk unhelpful, it completely disregards the very tangible and well-documented benefit a public option would have offered. And really, it’s just rubbing salt in wounds that are plenty raw without it. You may have perceived that a public option in the healthcare bill was unrealistic from the beginning, but that’s not necessarily so.
Personally, I don’t know if it was unrealistic from the start, but I and many others made phone calls and wrote letters to try to achieve it. We even visited our representatives’ offices from time-to-time at the behest of our dear masters at OFA in the process. So, far be it from me to harsh your supercilious groove, but I think that attitude is pretty jerky. And always has been–from the start.
Cat Lady
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Please explain to me how anyone other than residents of Nebraska and Connecticut and Indiana can solve the problem of Ben Nelson and Joe Lieberman and Evan Bayh. I’m failing to see what would have made them give you your pony.
The Raven
@JD Rhoades: the difference is the scale of the response. The public option was popular. So now, instead of a few people wavering, the plan’s ratings are dropping in the polls, and so are Obama’s.
Annie
Progressives are fucked because we go after ourselves instead of going after shithead Republicans that from the beginning of HCR and every other change the administration proposed have obstructed any kind of civil policy debate. I really like Feingold, but why can’t he turn his anger against the Republicans. From the beginning, they have distorted the debate, encouraged the tea baggers, given visibility to idiots like Lady Sarah and Lady Michelle, held prayer meetings, and wowed the media.
The administration can’t fight the forces aligned against them, if those who supposedly support them, don’t also push back — rally, present a united front to the media, change the narrative, etc.
Corner Stone
@marcopolo:
When in the name of absolute fuckitall will you dissemblers stop throwing this bullshit out like it’s supposed to mean anything?
It.Does.Not.
MikeJ
@gwangung: Absolutely. That ~500 number came from searching for “goldman sachs” in the employer field of the FEC database. No indication of what their job is.
Tonal Crow
@Brien Jackson: As I understand it, the exchanges attempt to standardize benefit packages to make comparison-shopping easier, and thus competition more effective. The devil in this is, however, in the details.
First, unless the fine print is also standardized (and made comprehensible!), standardizing the benefits will do little to create real comparability. For example, one recent version of the senate bill still permits rescission in cases of “fraud”. Your actual coverage for a catastrophic event might depend heavily upon your insurer’s fine print on this issue.
Second, the exchanges might not provide enough choice to create real competition in many isolated areas.
Third, health insurers still have a significant antitrust exemption. What prevents them from exploiting it to increase all their profits?
The exchanges are a good idea, as far as they go. They need, however, to address these issues and to be opened to everyone. And, until we begin treating health insurance similarly to how we treat regulated utilities, I think we’re going to need some form of public option.
That said, the craptastic Senate bill is worth passing. It’s something we can (but also must) fix.
rachel
@Tonal Crow: The system evolved over time. From what I’ve read, back in the late ’70s, health insurance was sold by private companies. The government passed laws that made insurance mandatory. There were probably hiccups along the way, but I wouldn’t know what was wrong with the original legislation or how it got fixed, as I wasn’t here until the mid-90s. All I do know is that after 30 years, nobody wants to go back to the old system.
Malron
@Paula:
Hamsher, Bowers and nyceve write legislation for Congress?
kay
@The Raven:
How will the bill be of considerable benefit to people who are already well-off?
Stroszek
@Tonal Crow:
Your concerns ignore a couple of important points. First of all, there’s the new medical loss ratio limits which will require 85% of any premium increase to go towards providing benefits.
Second, the tax increase imposed by the mandate already costs a lot less than even a bare bones insurance policy… so the insurance companies don’t have any rational incentive to drive away relatively healthy customers through price gouging. All that would do is encourage profitable customers to ignore the mandate’s tax incentive while unprofitable customers annihilated their shrinking profit margins.
Third, insurers can be straight-out chucked from the exchange (meaning any policies won’t satisfy the mandate) and the Manager’s Amendment already states that any insurers who jack up their rates now will be barred from the exchange.
Fourth (and this is important), insurers are not the cause of our country’s cost problem. They could all go non-profit now and the savings would amount to very little. The cost problem is rooted almost entirely in waste and price gouging among providers.
Fifth, there will be competition in the exchange, including an option of non-profit plans. Though admittedly, competition of any kind won’t do much for the cost problem… as demonstrated by the weakness of the public options that survived conference. The fundamental problem is and will continue to be a lack of negotiating power on the part of public/private insurers (which is the argument for single-payer).
John Cole
@Concern troll who really does care: Sometimes I just feel the need to be a dick.
But I am serious- I have been told repeatedly the last week to stfu, they are just trying to shift the overton window. If that is the case, please start now on the other big issues.
mcd410x
Darla: Now do you know what we’ve become? Lindsey: Enemies. Darla: Oh, no. Much worse. Now we’re soulmates.
I don’t care what you Obots say, by the end of Buffy, Angel was the better show.
Max
@John Cole: Feingold voted against the Mikulski Amendment, so fuck him.
Seriously, fuck him.
jwb
@Just Some Fuckhead: “If this Senate HCR bill is the best we can do on an issue that has huge popular support among the electorate, we’ve already lost the rest of the stuff.”
Probably, but it’s always worth fighting the good fight. Just remember who your real enemies are and don’t let the cynicism help them out.
Stroszek
@kay:
The sudden acceptance of the notion that daily fluctuations in the stock market are absolute indicators of long term financial well being aside, there has yet to be any meaningful indication that this bill will actually increase insurance company profit margins. In fact, the medical loss ratio limits mean many insurers will have to significantly cut back on overhead to meet anything close to the relatively modest profits they pull now. There are two groups of people who we know for sure will benefit from this bill:
Families making between $22,000 and $88,000 a year.
People with expensive medical conditions.
Health service providers and their investors.
Max
Good diary (sorry for the GOS link) about the crazy-ass FDL chick.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/12/20/817242/-Sorry-Miz-Jane-Hamsher.-No.-
rollotomasi
Well said, Paula.
The reason there was not the big stink about the mandate until the last week was that the public option and Medicare buy-in provisions were seen as pressure-valves on the mandate, that a mandate with more options for insurance buyers would make it less of a “mandate.” As Paula noted, the public option has been the Generalissimo Francisco Franco of healthcare reform.
Also, about the victimization, I don’t want to get into a “who started it” thing, but there were some pretty strong vibes or worse coming from the likes of Josh Marshall, Nate Silver, Jay Rockefeller, David Axelrod, Robert Gibbs and so forth that those who would consider “killing the bill” were not serious, or savvy. There was a pretty strong whiff of marginalization in the air re: those still in opposition to the bill that may account for some of the strong reactions, including mine (elsewhere).
Because it does nothing of consequence to curb the steadily increasing political and financial power of the insurance companies and others in the industry, any short-term gains (more insured) stand a very good chance of eventually being reversed (higher premiums/more control over other medical sectors) in the long-term as these companies assert even greater influence.
Also, the assumption that Lieberman was acting against Obama’s true interests that may not be warranted.
You Don't Say
I heard some CNN anchor talk about the “liberal revolt” or “uproar” or something that implied all liberals were up in arms. And I thought now I know how it feels to be a rational, thinking conservative.
Stroszek
Can’t count. Three groups.
Steeplejack
@You Don’t Say:
You mean lonely?
jwb
@Just Some Fuckhead: “That’s because it was only in the last week we found out how well and truly we are fucked. That doesn’t seem that hard to understand to me.” If you only realized last week how well and truly we are fucked, you really weren’t paying attention. It’s been clear for a very long time that the Senate didn’t have even 50 votes for a public option.
Tonal Crow
@Stroszek:
You raise some good points. The medical loss ratios are an important innovation. And while it’s largely true that — at present — insurers are not what’s driving overall medical cost inflation, giving them significantly more power to raise rates easily could make them a significant part of the problem.
On the tax-in-lieu-of-insurance penalty, *today* it costs less than a bare-bones insurance policy. If it continues to be so cheap, many healthy people will eschew insurance in favor of the penalty, and insurers will (with justification) petition to increase the penalty. This will reduce incentives to keep rates low.
On chucking insurers from the exchanges, that sound fine — in concept. Enforceability and actual enforcement, however, will determine how effective this tool becomes.
On competition, I think you have it largely right: we need to wring much more efficiency out of providers. However, we also need to wring more efficiency out of ourselves. Doctors’ visits for the sniffles, antibiotics for colds, scan this that and the other thing, yes I want all the tests, McTripleBaconCheeseMayoBurger with Jumbo fries — all feed the monster. Medicine is damned important, but, for most people most of the time, their own choices are more important to their overall health.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Stroszek:
That sorta throws yer other math into question, doesn’t it?
R. Johnston
Here’s a little puzzle for you to work out:
Insurance company A collects $5000 in premiums per patient. Insurance company A has several options:
1) contract with medical providers to provide services at a cost of $3400 per patient, keeping $600 per patient and refunding $1000 to each patient;
2) contract with medical providers to provide the exact same services at a cost of $4250 per patient, keeping $750 per patient and refunding nothing;
3) contract with medical providers to provide services at a cost of $3400 per patient, contract with quacks to provide completely useless acupuncture, homeopathic services and chiropractic care at a cost of $850 per patient because the federal regulation doesn’t prohibit covering quackery, keeping $750 per patient and refunding nothing.
How long does the Insurance Company A CEO who chooses option 1 keep his job?
Mandatory medical loss ratios encourage waste and increase the cost of care unless they are accompanied by very strict regulation about what services can be covered and how much medical providers can be reimbursed. Such regulations are not part of any health care reform that’s going to be enacted.
rachel
@The Raven:
In other words: they are mostly happy with what they’ve got because they’ve arranged the system so that what they’ve got works for them. Are you now going to tell me that America sucks so much that we won’t be able to do what every other country in the same situation has been able to do?
Brien Jackson
@Tonal Crow:
Well, crudely, the problem with insurers arbitrarily jacking rates is the same problem newspapers have monetizing content; you could do it in theory, but everyone has to do it, and once you get everyone to do it, the incentives shift, and anyone who sells at a lower price stands to gain significant market share. And in this case, there’s also the exchange regulators, who have to improve rate increases and can bar insurers from the exchanges if they’re non-compliant.
burnspbesq
@Davis X. Machina:
Win.
Brien Jackson
@rachel:
I would never bet against America sucking, or at least our government.
Paula
@Malron:
John implied that progressive activitists have been sitting around letting this shit build up and are only fussing about it now that it is too late. That is simply incorrect. Progressive Activists have been working on many fronts, and the whip count effort was a first hard try at really getting into a legislative situation and make a difference, versus the more passive options previously available: write your newspaper, call your representative, etc.
Tonal Crow
@R. Johnston: Also a good point. And it raises the specter of kickbacks from quack providers to insurers. The American private insurance system will be a game of whack-a-mole until we impose public utility-style regulation, or go single-payer.
kay
@Stroszek:
Oh.
Well-off people “benefit substantially” because health insurance stocks went up last week?
Is that the whole thing?
We’re taxing them more for Medicare payroll, so maybe it’s a wash.
slag
@marcopolo:
Should be said again and again and again and…
Brien Jackson
@Tonal Crow:
I keep seeing this, and variations of it, but what I just don’t get about it is pretty straight-forward; if you don’t trust the government the enforce regulations and sufficiently manage te exchanges, why would you trust them to run an insurance plan?
Ed Marshall
@rollotomasi:
Also, the assumption that Lieberman was acting against Obama’s true interests that may not be warranted.
Oh, bullshit. That’s why people sneer at you. It’s because you make up conspiracy bullshit out of nothing. If you would stick to not trying to mind read your way through the news people wouldn’t talk down to you.
Tonal Crow
@Brien Jackson: That just restates the fundamental concept of competition. But what if insurers instead come to a wink-wink nod-nod agreement to increase *all* their profits by arbitrarily raising rates? Do we have the trust-busting guts to fix that?
Stroszek
@rollotomasi:
The issue as I see it is that the mandate isn’t really much of a mandate. It’s not a prohibition on living without insurance. It’s a tax incentive. Ignoring it will still have you playing less than Clinton era levels, you’re exempted from it if the average premiums for the basic plan is out of your reach and anyone with federal subsidies isn’t going to notice the marginal cost difference resulting from the public option’s absence. Certainly, the public option made for a better, more cost effective bill, but the difference without it simply doesn’t strike me as enough to warrant killing the bill. It seems to me that people supported because they thought it would be the proverbial camel’s nose under the tent (ignoring the fact that already have about four camels sniffing around in there).
I also don’t see how the Medicare buy-in would operate as a pressure valve on the mandate. The thing about the Medicare buy-in is that it would actually benefit insurance companies by putting a high risk age group into government insurance. This is also the reason LBJ was able to pass Medicare. While Medicare was a major progressive win, it’s a simple fact that insurance companies don’t want seniors anyway and health service providers love having the government foot the bill for all those super-profitable old people. Again, while the Medicare buy-in made for a stronger bill, it seemed that much support for it among “bill-killers” was rooted in the dubious notion that it was going to substantially pave the way for single-payer. It wouldn’t… certainly no more than the bill’s regulations paves the way for a Dutch-style system.
rollotomasi
Ed Marshall, care to elaborate on how is it B-S? (I guess my comment made it, even though I don’t see it.)
burnspbesq
@Tonal Crow:
That’s easy. The name of the antitrust law doctrine you are referring to is “conscious parallelism.” And if you can prove it, it’s a Sherman Act violation.
All you need is a DOJ that is sincerely interested in enforcing the antitrust laws. Been a while since we’ve had one of those, but I choose to believe in unicorns.
Corner Stone
@Paula:
Shocked! Shocked I is! Cole misrepresented the actions/words/viewpoints of someone he doesn’t agree with?
The horror!
Paula
@Brien Jackson:
My question with respect to the Exchanges is: if your current plan (via the exchange) makes you unhappy, how quickly can you leave it and go to one of the many other affordable, easy-to-evaluate choices that the Exchange will provide? Anyone know? Will we be signing contracts? Will there be early-leaving penalties? Will we be stuck for a year?
rachel
@Brien Jackson: Well, when it comes to war-mongering, that’s certainly true! But my hope is that when regular US citizens see their money go toward something that’s supposed to help them, they are going to demand value for the money–and not shut up until they get it.
One of the problems with the current system that nobody talks about is that while it’s too easy for Insurance companies to abandon clients, it is also too easy for consumers to forgo having insurance. I think that once people realize that they no longer have the option of walking away, they’re going to be more alert to InsCo abuses and more active to stop them.
Tonal Crow
@Brien Jackson: It’s not so much a matter of trust as it is of ability. The regulatory whack-a-mole game is extremely difficult — barring a comprehensive regulatory scheme (as in public utilities) which the bills now gaining ground don’t provide. It takes time to identify issues, evaluate their gravity, decide to bring an enforcement action, find out you don’t have the authority, get a bill passed to get the authority, bring the action, and get a favorable ruling. Meanwhile, three other moles have popped out of their holes.
A government-run insurance plan doesn’t suffer from these issues.
Corner Stone
@slag:
Why?
Brien Jackson
@Tonal Crow:
Well in that rather unlikely event, there’s the national non-profit plans. There’s also political incentives; nothing will light a fire under the ass of 50 Democratic Senators to pass some sort of public plan faster than completely unjustified rate hikes.
Brien Jackson
@Paula:
I actually don’t know that. I would assume there’s some sort of term agreement, but perhaps not. That’s actually the first time I’ve heard someone ask that question.
FlipYrWhig
@mr. whipple:
Seriously. Some people just get off on feeling marginal, and when they get closer to mainstream, they freak out and re-marginalize themselves.
@bayville:
Ya know, having been right about the Iraq war doesn’t necessarily mean you’re right about everything forever.
@Stroszek: Nicely elaborated.
Tonal Crow
@burnspbesq: I don’t believe in unicorns, though the FTC’s recent action on Intel gives me some hope that the Obama administration will sometimes enforce antitrust law.
ploeg
I’d just like to say, for the record, that I’m not the guy who said that he’s determined to be the last President to take up the cause of health care reform. On September 9, 2009. The guy who said that deserves some amount of raspberries, and better get on the stick with the rest of the plan, ’cause I’m afraid that this can’t possibly be it. Thx
R. Johnston
Empirically false, given the clear history of insurance company rate setting, rescission, underwriting, etc. and the fact that we don’t have a public option in the current legislation.
If you think insurance companies aren’t going to find every loophole possible in the current legislation to increase their profits and increase premiums, you’re dreaming of ponies.
The fundamental problem is that for-profit health insurance companies are substantively useless middlemen with no purpose other than to skim as much profit and increase costs as much as possible.
Tonal Crow
@Brien Jackson: Nonprofits aren’t necessarily as virtuous as all that. There’s a big incentive to increase compensation expenses to “justify” rate increases.
jwb
@Paula: They may have worked hard, but imho they didn’t work smart, spending too much time on the inside baseball side of things and not enough on mobilization efforts (I fault Obama as well for not putting sufficient effort into mobilization). Consequently, everyone was caught flat-footed and without a real strategy for the August recess.
Tonal Crow
@Paula: All excellent points. Again, the devil hides in the details.
rollotomasi
Strozek:
The insurance lobby opposes both these things vehemently. Why is that? It is because Medicare buy-in, as with the public option, would have meant that some of this coverage (and premiums) would have not passed through the machinery of the insurance companies. Anything that bypasses the carriers means less control for them, when enacted and likely in the future. Less control means that they can do less re: turning these folks into better paying customers in the future.
Also, as I noted earlier, these options provide a pressure-valve to the mandate because as it stands now for those having to buy, it’s a choice to buy from insurance companies or nothing vs. a choice to buy by government or insurance companies or nothing. Having a competitor on rates may make the insurance companies more reasonable kind of like having a competitor to the lobbyists on healthcare.
Brien Jackson
Wow, just wow.
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/left-right-coalition-calls-for-an-audit-of-the-federal-reserve-before-bernanke-is-reappointed-as-chair-78372177.html
slag
@Corner Stone:
Because it’s so true. And it’s so easy to take what we have for granted that I appreciate when people point out how lucky we are, in the big scheme of things. You disagree?
Stroszek
@R. Johnston:
That’s true in isolation but you have to consider how it would interact with the other regulations that I mentioned. The prohibition on medical history discrimination is really being “underrated” in terms of how it changes incentives for insurers. Again, they can price gouge… but price gouging is only an effective tactic if it can be used to squeeze the most out of your best customers. For health insurers that can’t arbitrarily dump the sick from their rolls, your best customers are going to be the first people to walk away from a plan that makes them pay an extra $1000 to cover Arianna Huffington’s homeopathic remedies. This is doubly true for insurers that will be facing competition from non-profit plans that have access to a national customer base.
John Cole
@Paula: Actually, I was making fun of the people who freaked the fuck out the past few days and decided I and many others here who think the bill, while flawed, still does a lot of good, were nothing but sheeple and obots. And to explain their behavior, they explained they were just pushing the overton window to the left.
If that weren’t insulting enough, I’m about up to fucking here with the “I’ve done more than you bullshit so my opinion counts more because I’m a true progressive.” I’m new to the party and definitely have made some serious mistakes in the past, but I volunteered during the primary, volunteered during the general election, donated money, helped folks on this site raise 50k for the cause, walked door to door, shook hands, made phone calls.
I’m about sick and fucking tired of being shit on by people who think they are purer and better. I’m sick and tired of activists openly working to undercut good reforms and their party and President (all 60 of those Senators are voting for this bill- are they all sellouts?) and telling me because I won’t join in or because I can see the good AND the bad that I don’t care. I’m sick of being told that all the policy wonks suck because they accept compromise. Paul Krugman is a sell-out? And I’m the one who has lost touch with reality? Seriously. And who the fuck do all these activists think pays their bills?
I left one party dominated by extremist lunatics. And there are a lot of folks like me who are definitely upset about things the President has done, wish things were getting done faster, but who just aren’t ready to blow everything the fuck up because a bunch of high-profile progressives with blogs in the DuPont Circle region of DC don’t have their pony yet.
Read this blog- there are a lot of good people here who worked for the election of Democrats, who care a great deal about the issues, are engaged, and who think this bill, while flawed, is worthwhile. You want to kiss them off? Fine. There is room in this system for tea party wingnuts on both sides of the aisle. You all talk about losing the progressives as if it is losing the base. I hate to tell you this, but there are a lot more people out there like me than there are David Sirota or the folks who write at the HuffPo.
And the most annoying god damned thing is most of us would like the same thing as our activists, but we apparently can count to 50 and 60, a skill that apparently gets lost in activism school.
And I’m not directing this explosion at you, Paula, because you seem nice and sincere. Consider this a general John Cole blow-up.
FlipYrWhig
@rollotomasi:
Bellowing and/or moaning that anyone who was generally in favor of a bill that moved in the right direction was a wussy sell-out who liked “punching hippies,” as has been the featured argument on Kos, Atrios, FDL, HuffPo, Digby, etc. for several consecutive months of high drama, might have been a poor choice, then. It’s the kind of thing that tends to bring out “strong vibes or worse” or hot steaming cups of STFU.
mr. whipple
Watching the Senate. Called into recess until midnight. Vote will be at 1:01 am, EST.
eastriver
Wow, that’s a whiny post, even for you, JC. Just the sort of half-attack, half-vicitimization crap you vented all last week.
Howard Dean was playing the kind of bare-knuckled brinksmanship that few others on the left were playing. Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson were certainly playing (but not from the left). They declared that they would KILL the bill if they didn’t get what they wanted. Howard Dean was doing the same thing. And that got Bernie Sanders to grow a spine for a few minutes. Which in turn (and I firmly believe this) shoved Nelson and Holy Joe into line, along with the others.
Would Dean have actually, for-real, have killed the bill? It doesn’t matter. What matters is if others thought he would. And they did. So it worked.
Done.
Paula
@Brien Jackson:
“nothing will light a fire under the ass of 50 Democratic Senators to pass some sort of public plan faster than completely unjustified rate hikes.”
In all seriousness, why would you believe that? They can’t bring themselves to cap credit card interest rates which are usurious and indefensible.
Ed Marshall
@rollotomasi:
That someone is supposed to take the idea seriously that Lieberman was secretly working for Obama to tank the Medicare expansion.
Comrade Luke
OK, this is the second time I’ve read this here tonight, and it’s complete bullshit. I’ve never seen any progressive state in any way, shape or form that America’s uninsured are basically patient grifters.
And calling the PO the “Pretty Pony” option conveniently forgets everything that was given up before debate even began, and is a nice way of moving the goalposts.
Conservatrolls, you’re projecting and full of shit.
Stroszek
@rollotomasi:
I didn’t see any indication that the insurance companies opposed the buy-in. The fact that Ben Nelson was mildly supportive of it was a strong indication to me that insurers were okay with the idea. Lieberman’s opposition can be chalked up entirely to his personal vendetta. Beyond that, the only opposition I was aware of came from hospitals that didn’t want more people paying via Medicare reimbursement rates.
donovong
@John Cole: Amen, brother. Also. Too! You Betcha!
Just Some Fuckhead
@Paula: Looks like John is playing with Stuck’s dinosaur.
Corner Stone
@slag: Of course I disagree. This is about the stupidest sentiment anyone can say at this juncture. It’s meaningless and means nothing. Additionally, it has no meaning.
Tonal Crow
@Paula: Heck, they can’t even bring themselves to make primary-residence mortgages modifiable in bankruptcy. ‘Course, second- (and third-, and fourth-) residence mortgages *are* modifiable in bankruptcy. Hmmmmm.
donovong
@eastriver:
Excuse me, but Howard Dean couldn’t kill a goddam thing in Congress. In case you’ve missed it, he is nothing more than a lobbyist pundit anymore.
Corner Stone
@Brien Jackson:
BWAH-HA-HA-HA-HA!! Exclamation point!
kay
@Stroszek:
Bingo. Providers opposed the Medicare buy-in.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Comrade Luke: Robert Reich had a good post on TPM about how the goalposts kept getting moved until we got to the current bill where even it’s proponents don’t think it’s very good.
Tonal Crow
@donovong: A lobbyist-pundit with significant persuasive power. As we’ve seen, it takes only 1 vote to kill the entire thing. Is it certain he couldn’t have swung that vote?
Stroszek
@Comrade Luke:
That notion is implicit in the idea that there’s going to be a massive backlash from John Q. Voter over the lack of a public option that would only have provided a marginal (or in the case of subsidized policy holders, no) difference in the price of insurance. The fact of the matter is that the vast majority of people who won’t like the mandate aren’t going to like a mandate regardless of who is doing the administrative paperwork… and most of them will probably just pay the tax penalty anyway.
The vast majority of people who will actually be affected by the mandate are just uninsured people who want someone to help them get insurance. The Senate bill will do that and it will do it about as effectively as the House bill. The public option wasn’t key to avoiding whatever backlash will extend from the mandate.
The real problem is the overall growth in medical costs… which is something the public option didn’t effectively address either. But as others have eloquently argued, that’s a problem that will be easier to address now that we actually have a federal regulatory framework to work within.
Jack
@calipygian:
How are the repeals of the PATRIOT, MCA2006 and FISA acts coming?
How’s the Afghan adventure winding down?
How’s Bagram and extraordinary rendition?
GITMO, and all the men tortured there?
How’s Gonzales doing? Yoo?
Seeing a picture?
rollotomasi
FlipYrWhig:
I think you are confusing the bellower and the bellowee.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Jack: I can clap louder than you can type.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
Well, our lunatics are much more interesting than theirs. I mean, after you get done with the homophobes, the rapturists and the graduates of Oral Roberts University, what’s left over there?
At least our lunatics are not committed to a belief system that holds that the world needs to end in order to validate our long term budget projections.
Comrade Mary
For those of you who need a brief mental health break:
Monkey!
Kitteh!
Dan
What i’m not seeing from any of those who are going apeshit over the bill is any alternative, other than Obama using his leadership pixie dust to get Lieberman and Nelson to agree to vote for a public option, or using reconciliation, when the vast majority of healthcare reform provisions can’t go through reconciliation.
Can someone explain to me why waiting another 20 years before someone else takes up the cause of HCR, probaby going for far less than Obama is going for now, is a good choice?
mr. whipple
How does this work with bloggers? Is there a conference call or something wherein they all decide what the message is going to be?
rollotomasi
Strozek:
Google “AHIP opposes public option”.
slag
@Corner Stone:
How so? Seriously. You can’t possibly think our situation now would be comparable should McShame/Palinanity have taken the seat. So, what? You don’t think even contemplating the alternate universe has value because…? It doesn’t get us anywhere? It’s unknowable? What?
Jennyjinx
But have you been called a big PhRma/insurance shill? If not, then you’re still gravy, Mr. Cole.
Since about August, it’s apparently been more productive to go after our own instead of going after the obstructionists. For instance, instead of organizing our own townhalls and counter-tea parties, we were busy calling Democratic House reps that hadn’t signed a pledge of some sort which, of course, made them sell outs. The outrage was so much more effective. Let me know when you start getting Pharma checks, would ya? I still haven’t received mine.
Jack
@Stroszek:
Ferchrissakes, you all need to read Wile. Not once, but twice:
“Imagine if we had a problem with people not being able to get from point A to point B. Some people had cars, others didn’t. Some people were able to get around, others were constantly bumming rides from the rest of us or calling cabs and then stiffing the driver on the fare. So imagine if the president and congress said “We must solve this problem and we are going to do so by mandating that everyone buy a car.”
Now some people would say “OK, we need to solve this whole ‘getting around’ problem. I’m with you there. what if we offered some sort of cheaper option to owning a car like a public transit system. Something that polluted less and didn’t funnel billions of dollars into the car companies, who are after all, a bunch of dicks who sell unsafe cars and then try to cheat the customers on their warranties” and those people would be told to fuck off and eat shit because they were DFHs and because the debate had shifted from “How can we make it easy for people to get from point A to point B who currently can’t” to “How can we make sure that everyone has a car”.
Now, if everyone gets a car that actually runs then the “getting from point A to point B problem” is solved and people are genuinely better off. But the way the law gets passed is that you don’t necessarily get a good car, you might end up with a 1973 Pinto, or a 1985 Yugo (The cutting edge of Serbo-Croatian technology!), or anything that Kia built before about 2003. The car might not run well, it might not even run at all. It might just sit in your driveway and leak fluids all over the place. It might start in the morning but when you were on your way from point A to point B it would break down leaving you stranded in the middle of nowhere, or maybe the brakes fail and you end up plowing into a semi, or someone rear ends you at 10 MPH and you die screaming in agony as gasoline flames burn the flesh from your body. But to some people none of this would matter because they had lost sight of the real problem, people not being able to get from point A to point B, or were too ignorant to understand that just because you had a car didn’t mean that you could get from point A to point B safely. No, to these people the only thing that was important is that everyone now have a car, regardless of quality.”
https://balloon-juice.com/?p=31483#comment-1492894
You guys – esp. Republican apologists like Brien Jackson, who cannot find a compromise he won’t celebrate, and a progressives hate the poor and brown people argument, straight out of Rush Limbaugh, that he won’t make – continue to miss the actual issues involved.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
@mr. whipple:
Machine voice:
“Hello, please stay on the line for an important message for ….”
different tone of voice:
” …AngusTheGodOfMeat.”
first voice:
“If you are …”
second voice:
” … AngusTheGodOfMeat”
first voice:
” … please remain on the line, this call may be recorded for quality control purposes.”
Comrade Luke
@Stroszek:
Your first paragraph contradicts my statement, saying it’s “implicit”.
Then in the second paragraph you state “The vast majority of people who will actually be affected by the mandate are just uninsured people who want someone to help them get insurance” as a fact, thereby proving the first point using yourself as a data point of one.
Nice work!
The only “help” people want wrt insurance is to make it affordable, and to not get kicked to the curb once they actually get sick and need it. Assuming this bill fixes the recission (sp?) problem (which is no given), that helps.
Of course, I’m sure anyone that doesn’t want to buy insurance at that point is just continuing to hold out for a better deal (eyeroll).
Your insinuation that people have the money for insurance and are just waiting for it to get cheaper is insulting, and stating that the “real” problem is growth in medical costs without acknowledging all the other crap that’s going on makes me think you’re a plant from the health insurance industry.
Or just a Republican.
FlipYrWhig
@mr. whipple:
Paula said this earlier:
I imagine it being something like the scene in _The Untouchables_ where Capone walks around the table and beats that guy with a bat. But the capos of the blogosphere, before they bonk you with a wiffle-ball bat, “allow” you to write an embarrassing “Goodbye Cruel World” diary.
Mnemosyne
@Stroszek:
This really can’t be emphasized enough, especially since the kind of reforms that can be pushed through reconciliation are pretty much useless in curbing waste and price gouging.
Insurance is only part of the problem, and sticking it to the insurers without solving the underlying problems with providers is pretty much useless.
Stroszek
@rollotomasi:
I’m aware that AHIP opposes the public option, but the public option and the Medicare buy-in had an important difference: the public option introduced competition for profitable customers.
And while we’re talking about things that AHIP opposes, they distributed a press release last night reaffirming their opposition to the PO-less Senate bill.
Jack
@Just Some Fuckhead:
On a positive note, my wife and I just watched “The Cove.” Real people, real problem, really trying to do something about.
And not compromising with the problem’s originators to “fix” it.
I highly recommend it.
It’s very well made, and for that reason, very, very hard to watch.
Corner Stone
@slag: Really?
Anyone who is using the “better than McCain” talking point at this stage of the game obviously has nothing else to say.
I can imagine an alternative world where Bush enacted marshal law and stayed on for a third term. I can envision a US where Nixon didn’t resign.
McCain did not win the election and he was never going to. Period.
Do not tell me to stop and consider the horribleness that could be a McCain presidency when I’m disappointed with the Obama administration. That has no meaning here. It does not comport with reality. McCain was not elected, the R’s do not control either part of Congress, and to stop and consider the alternatives is a cop out and escapist tactic.
Deal with where we are.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
@Paula: “Jane Hamsher and Chris Bowers and NYCeve at KOS started working very hard on the PO effort back in June/July…”
Hamsher… hmmm, sounds familiar… Oh yeah, this gal?
While I don’t like Bernanke this is an interesting alliance of convenience.
Linky
geg6
Well, Mr. Cole, I don’t think I’ve said any of those things (I’m pretty sure anyway), but I might have thrown a “bullshit” your way a time or two. And I still very much like and respect you and the BJ community as a whole. But I really don’t get or like the meme here that anyone who hates this bill and see more political disaster than good in it is some crazy FDLer or Kossack PUMA who are completely off their rockers. Yes, the left has idiots but it’s not only the demonized (whether done by themselves or unfairly branded) Left that is not happy. And to call it whining when all some of us wanted was to be a part of the conversation and be told that our concerns were valid is ridiculous. As aimai said better than I can in a previous thread, some honest and respectful treatment could have possibly averted the disappointment of people like me. But not only did we not get either of those things, but we got months of complete disrespect and back of the hand treatment from the White House. People begged to be heard or to have the president convince them that this was the only possible outcome. But that didn’t happen. This was not inevitable, this disappointment. This was bad political management. Completely avoidable. There would still be crazies screaming, no matter what, but I and many others were wooable. But nobody even tried. Nevertheless, this is what we have and this is where we are. Pass the fucking bill and move on. But I sure hope the Dems in both the Congress and the White House learned something from this. I know I sure did.
mr. whipple
Yes, but it would feel good nonetheless.
Paula
@John Cole:
“Read this blog- there are a lot of good people here who worked for the election of Democrats, who care a great deal about the issues, are engaged, and who think this bill, while flawed, is worthwhile. You want to kiss them off? Fine.”
I honestly don’t know why you’re screaming at me specifically. I simply tried to layout the series of events that have lead to the place we are now with respect to the PO.
Furthermore, while it is absolutely accurate that the blogosphere is a sliver of the electorate and is not representative of mass opinion I will stand by my contention that what people are unhappy about here, now, will be what the mass public will be unhappy about later. The sheer fact that you switched parties, etc. is an example of exactly that.
Finally, it’s not my job to uncritically support my elected representative. My elected representative should, ideally, be cognizant of the effects his/her decisions will have on constituents. It comes with the territory. They have the power, we don’t. They also have lots of money, and access to lots of smart people who are supposed to be good at messaging and all the rest of it. They’re also supposed to be good at strategizing, but lets not open reopen that can of worms. Suffice to say that if a block of dedicated supporters stop supporting you, you should evaluate your performance in light of their response. Deciding that the supporters are just whiners doesn’t make support magically reappear. You screaming at me ain’t gonna save Obama’s ass in the midterms or 2012.
Jack
@DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal):
The two leaders of the British anti-slavery movement were political adversaries on every other issue of the day. One was a conservative traditionalist, the other a socialist firebrand.
They did manage to get slavery outlawed in England.
General Winfield Stuck
@John Cole:
I’ll take a dozen please.
Just Some Fuckhead
@DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal): Remember when the left and right worked together on Net Neutrality?
That’s why I don’t support net neutrality.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
Hep me! My comment was sent to mod hell for one too many links!
Thanks!
Just a taste of it:
Hamsher with Norquist, Schafly and …? lol!
AngusTheGodOfMeat
Senate session starting now, big vote soon.
Moo!
FlipYrWhig
@Jack: In your re-post of Wile E. Quixote’s scenario, this phrase comes up, and it’s doing a lot of heavy lifting:
Why is it so certain that the insurance that gets offered through these new systems will be so awful or so expensive? Wouldn’t insurance companies prefer to have people paying them rather than sitting it out and paying a fine? The power company gets more money if you turn on all your lights and appliances and just leave them running 24-7, but they don’t encourage you to do that; they’ll actually do energy audits for you and encourage you to be a more prudent customer. Corporations are gaping assholes for sure, but why isn’t it in their self-interest to keep everyone passably happy?
John Cole
@Paula: The last sentences in my mini rant:
DougJ
“I’ve done more than you bullshit so my opinion counts more because I’m a true progressive.”
This is what I hate the most.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Yup. You lie down with the dogs you get the fleas. Or in this case, the ticks.
Just Some Fuckhead
@FlipYrWhig:
Great question. Why aren’t insurance companies operating that way now?
The Raven
@Stroszek: you might, you know, actually cite some sources for your mean-spirited nonsense. But you won’t find them: as late as last week Jane Hamsher was arguing for the Senate bill. There were some progressives who argued that the public option in the Senate bill was a chip to be bargained away and it seems they were right. Even without a public option, progressives might have supported a bill with strong insurance regulation.
But we have not gotten either a public option or insurance regulation. Instead, the insurance companies have been granted, basically, taxing authority, with so little regulation that the lower-quality, lower-cost insurance available will probably be of little use to the people required to purchase it. Why anyone thinks this is going to be set right before another crisis is beyond me. That’s not how the Senate works: we all know that. The normal state of the Senate on controversial matters is deadlock.
Hey, more food for us corvids. Croak!
Corner Stone
@AngusTheGodOfMeat: I for one do not know how you do it out there in AZ. I was just in Tucson for a few days and my skin is dried the F out. I can only imagine what that intense sun does to your leathery ass…ermm, hide.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
Dems don’t have to save Obama in 2012. The Republicans will do it for us.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
@Corner Stone:
Where do you think I get my dry sense of humor?
FlipYrWhig
@Paula:
The blogs were all abuzz about FISA and Rick Warren and the Justice department brief about DOMA. What did the mass public think about those? On the other hand, the blogs were not terribly concerned about Henry Louis Gates, and the mass public was all up in arms. I don’t think there’s a particularly strong correlation there.
Just Some Fuckhead
@DougJ: God knows I love ya, CL but ya gotta move past this superficial who is on whose side bullshit.
kay
@Mnemosyne:
I don’t think we can talk about providers yet. Too scary, and it distracts from our rage at insurance companies.
We’ll be all primed when that obvious truth comes around again, though.
What I don’t understand is why it’s okay to funnel money to health care provider for-profit corporate entities but not okay to funnel money to insurance provider for-profit corporate entities.
Or why the health care provider entity is above reproach or question, and assumed to be operating under some altruistic model.
Stroszek
@Comrade Luke:
It seems to me that there’s some kind of miscommunication between you and I, but I’ll just go ahead and admit that my master plan to shift the landscape of American opinion by trying to change the opinion of hardline progressives in the comment section of an obscure blog has failed. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to roll in a pile of insurance company cash.
@Jack:
Funny analogy, but the public option wasn’t a Volvo by any means. It would have offered the minimal plans at each tier at a marginally lower cost. To that end, it’s more like:
The government decides to build its own car. They call it the “Freedommobile” and it will offer the minimum standards of privately manufactured cars while helping drive down the cost of the car by a few hundred bucks. It’s a good idea, but…
… Councilman Nelson and Lieberman block the “Freedommobile” idea. The mayor and other councilpersons must then consider the negative moral value of slightly higher costs for those who won’t get subsidized cars outweighs the positive moral value of helping most people gain access to transportation while imposing new standards on manufacturers.
And that’s the question we’re at today.
Jack
@FlipYrWhig:
Because there’s nothing written into the legislation to obligate the insurance companies to offer it. There’s nothing written to control them.
They aren’t deprived of their existing exemptions, and the new “regulations” don’t regulate. They don’t even stop the practices which they purport to stop. They just rename the process, and let it continue. Existing condition? No more discrimination. But, you can price the service out of reach. Which does the exact same damned thing. And so on.
On a positive note, for them, they do get a government mandate to make you buy their product, regardless of its quality.
Unless you have such faith that you believe they will collectively decide to offer the exact same gold standard plan to everyone?
Roland X
@John Cole:
You, sir, rock.
IMHO, though, you should try to drop the shotgun when you need pinpoint accuracy. I don’t think you’re an Obot, cultist or (ye ghods!) Liebercrat, but I still felt a need to reply to your post because it seemed to roll all progressive opposition to the current bill into the leftist equivalent of teabaggers. As Digby pointed out, that just ain’t so.
And please note the seemed to in there. Reading your comments added some vital nuance, but that’s not in the original post.
—
(/) Roland X
Hope is a phoenix
P.S.: Yes, some of us thought the mandate was bad mojo from the start, but most of them thought the public option made it more palatable. It meant that at least some of the people in the exchange wouldn’t have to buy crap insurance from the same ruthless bastards that got us into this mess in the first place. Personally, I never thought any version of the PO was enough to offset the mandate, but no one with a real audience was saying it back in August.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
@Just Some Fuckhead:
No prob JSF, I get yer message loud and clear: Grover Norquist and Phyllis Schlafly are great people to team up with!
Ubetcha. Also.
Paula
@Paula:
“I honestly don’t know why you’re screaming at me specifically. I simply tried to layout the series of events that have lead to the place we are now with respect to the PO.”
I’ve noted that while I was working on my reply you added a note saying you weren’t directing the rant at me personally. Or maybe I missed it originally. Anyway, Thanks.
Corner Stone
@kay:
One reason, and I am not defending them at all, is that providers actually “provide” something. It may be a gouge, it may be all kinds of things. But when you need to get well it damn sure is not the insurance company that sticks you in a bed and does the x-rays and sings you lullabies as you fall asleep in your private room on your cadillac plan.
Jack
@FlipYrWhig:
This required a separate response entirely.
No.
Not just no.
But, hell damned no.
A corporation doesn’t care about everyone. That’s not what it’s supposed to do. Human happiness is not the concern of the board. Shareholder happiness is. It doesn’t have to keep everyone happy. It has to meet its goals, profit from its agreements, and get as much market share as it reasonably can. If will use government towards those ends, if government is a better investment than advertising or corporate espionage. Or if its a good back up to those.
If making you very unhappy helps, so be it. Especially if you don’t own Senators.
It’s not like you’re going to join a fighting union and firebomb the corporate headquarters. Or march on Washington with more than placards.
Are you?
If shareholder happiness means poisoned meat, and the corporation can get away with, it will.
And it will use government to stifle opposition.
Because a corporation, especially one with resources, has a lot more clout than you or I alone.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
Is it just me, or does Lamar Alexander look like a pederast?
John Cole
And the stupidest thing about this is the Kos diary leading the recs thinking Jane Hamsher and the activists should take all take a hike.
Is the concept of symbiosis dead? Can Democrats honestly only keep a coalition together for like 30 days in November every 12-20 years? This is the most frustrating party ever.
I give up for today. I’m off to bed.
Just Some Fuckhead
@kay: Well, to the extent you have a point (ie. our own NHS is not attainable), a case can be made that at least doctors and hospitals, for instance, provide a service that is worth paying for.
Having said that, I’m on record as bemoaning the huge monies they demand.
slag
@Corner Stone: There’s definitely a lot of truth to that argument. On the other hand, some alternate realities are more likely than others. And admittedly, the point is a lot like the “but children are starving in the former Yugoslavia” argument we may have heard as kids when we didn’t want to eat our peas. Which often didn’t help.
But I feel like, in bridging disappointment, we gotta start somewhere. I, for one, am pretty darned happy with Sotomayor. So, there’s at least one in the “Yay for us!” column. And then I count up from there. This attitude is mostly a defense mechanism, of course, because it’s pretty hard to see how we can meaningfully continue trying to improve the state of the world without appreciating what’s good in it.
mcc
@AngusTheGodOfMeat: You know what I sort of wish existed was like a twitter feed where people would just update “WHAT IS HAPPENING IN THE SENATE RIGHT NOW” so that I could watch and know when votes start and stuff without having to leave open a vestigal-limb video feed [with poor Macintosh compatibility to boot].
Or a way to get, like, the closed-caption feed for CSPAN without having to get video/audio.
Tonal Crow
@FlipYrWhig:
They’d even better like raking in premiums from suckers to whom they then deny treatment based upon head-bangingly warped interpretations of unreadable fine print.
Not if they can make more profits via rape. That’s why markets serve the general welfare only with sufficient competition and wise, enforceable, enforced regulation.
AhabTRuler
It’s not a bloody region, it’s a goddamned neighborhood. And aside from Public Citizen and the Scientologists, it’s just not that special (well, there is the Leather Rack, but anyway…).
Steeplejack
@FlipYrWhig:
Maybe more like this.
Just Some Fuckhead
@DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal): I see yer GN and PS and raise you one Joe Lieberman.
Stroszek
@The Raven:
That position simply doesn’t make any sense. It’s not as if the regulatory mechanisms have significantly changed over the last few months. To my knowledge, the Senate bill still permits the existence of DOJ, HHS, personal law suits, and the various appeals processes that it will establish. Moreover, the viability of a sustainable public option is dependent on the effective regulation of its private competitors. Without effective regulation, it becomes a free-for-all dumping ground that would only be affordable to subsidized policy holders.
But I’ll concede that maybe Hamsher did genuinely support the bill a few weeks ago and her concerted effort to undermine support for the bill’s regulatory aspects simply arose from a failure to understand how the public option was wholly dependent on those provisions that she has spent months dismissing as “useless.”
mr. whipple
Watching McCain rant with the sound off. He really is a mean, bitter bastard.
GET OFF MY LAWN!
AngusTheGodOfMeat
Shorter John McCain from the Senate floor:
“Oh yeah? Well you might pass your bill but you will be sorry! YOU HEAR ME? YOU’LL BE SORRY!”
AngusTheGodOfMeat
According to John McCain, this is the first time in history that deals have been made in the back rooms.
slag
@DougJ:
I don’t know. I think that attitude is fairly on par with demeaning the whole enterprise by continuously referring to a piece of legislation that would have improved many lives and actually saved us some money in the process as a “pony”.
Condescension is condescension.
FlipYrWhig
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Because it’s in their interests to purge their rolls of the sickest people before they cost them oodles of money. But if they can’t do that anymore, it should be more important to them to keep their customers than to cull them. Right? I mean, I suppose that’s potentially naive of me, but I feel like that’s the bargain: we’ll supply you a bunch more healthier and young people as customers if you promise to use that money on sicker and older people. So they should have less incentive to fuck with the sicker and older people who need their help the most.
Bill critics want to say that the insurance companies will keep on fucking with the sicker and older people while siphoning off more money from the healthier and younger along the way. But with more choice and more transparency, consumers should be able to vote with their feet and leave the most nefarious companies. I know that that’s very free-market/invisible hand-ish, which is not my general political view, but I don’t think American politics can be made to gravitate in any other direction than that.
I’m thinking of the whole health care bill as the equivalent of something like _Consumer Reports_. They don’t try to stop you from being a consumer. They try to edify you into a smarter one. I’m sure anarchists and radicals don’t much like being treated as “consumers.” But the rest of us are OK with it, if we just have some idea of how not to get ripped off too badly along the way.
Corner Stone
@AngusTheGodOfMeat: I always assumed it was from munching on the rye.
Tonal Crow
@Jack:
That’s the theory. In reality, all too often *management happiness* is the directors’ concern, so the totality is even worse than you wrote.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
@Corner Stone:
I like my rye neat, in a glass.
Jack
@FlipYrWhig:
It’s not consumers versus anarchists. It’s not radicals versus everyone else.
Sure, some of us pretty leftish. Hand up in the air, here.
But I’m talking to former Marines, doing construction contracting work, still wrapped in that special kind of Marine flag, who register (I) and aren’t boat rockers.
And they were on board with public insurance.
Sold on the idea, even though there’s not much about their worldview that would qualify as “der soshulism.”
Now they’re pissed, and they’re a lot more likely to be taken in by false populism and Republican fauxrage than the radicals you seem to disdain.
Just Some Fuckhead
@FlipYrWhig: So you’ve answered your own question, then. The question is how much actual reform there is here and how much more of the same we’ll get, and how much new bad stuff will be introduced by essentially forcing us to buy whatever they’re selling.
Jack
@Tonal Crow:
I’ve managed multi-million dollar operations. I agree with you, entirely. I’ve had to retool a roll out (after getting competing vendors on board, which is no small feat) because some MBA was sure his pet theory just had to work.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
@Just Some Fuckhead:
A little background at what I am seeing:
Jane Hamsher’s defenders are saying that in no way was she saying that there should be an alliance between progressives against the bill and the Teabaggers. This is repeated over and over at Kos, go see for yourself. They are saying that Jane only meant that those progressives and the Teabaggers want the bill killed for the same reason and that she left it at that. Problem with that is that in the comments section of her post about this, Jane links to this announcement of her joining forces with ‘the other side’ and it is clear that she indeed does think an alliance of convenience with the Teabaggers would be benificial to both parties.
Just like that quote I put up from the press release she linked to in her comments, she is indicating that this is a viable option for them. I guess she is ready to strike out on her own and intends to take some progressives with her.
Marriage of convenience my ass. She was all Hillary, full throttle and the Teabaggers hate Obama for one reason or another with race being one of the biggest reasons (IMO).
You want to endorse this shit then be my guest because I sure as hell won’t.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
You know who else forced his people to buy whatever he was selling?
No, not Lee Iacocca. Fucking Hitler!
kay
@Just Some Fuckhead:
You set me up on providers, and then you bailed, to go chasing after insurance companies, which are universally loathed. Easy. Very easy target.
I’m now the person who attacks nurses, so thanks for that.
Jack
@DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal):
Justin Raimondo (a conservative) publishes and promotes the work of American, British and Israeli socialists, because they share a common opponent.
Should he shut down antiwar.com, because those socialists think his conservative ideas are less than salutary?
Paula
@FlipYrWhig:
The gay community is pretty unhappy about DOMA, and they are directly impacted. Ditto Rick Warren.
Henry Louis Gates was a tempest in a teapot and everyone’s over that.
FISA has always been an abstraction so far as the public at large is concerned. (Probably one of the reasons Obama felt he could risk flip flopping on that one.)
OTOH: the blogosphere has been railing since Day One about the way the bailouts have been handled. They’ve been agitating about the failure to deal aggressively with foreclosures. A majority of the public now believes that Obama favors Wall Street over Main Street.
The netroots were screaming holy hell for years about Bush Admin abuses. Can the general public specify those abuses the way we could? No. But did the general public eventually conclude, in overwhelming numbers, that the bush admin was an embarrassing failure. They fucking did.
The netroots has also been decrying Obama’s failure to get out front and work for this bill for months. And it’s going over like a led balloon. And when it passes, which I believe it will, it won’t be the success it could have been.
The netroots has also been complaining that Obama seems to bend over backwards for republicans. My Mom, and 72 year old lifelong Democrat but not what you’d call a Netroots activist, nevertheless, wants to know why Obama seems so afraid of republicans?
We don’t have a perfect track record, but we have a damned good one when it comes to predicting where the shit will hit the fan.
Tonal Crow
@FlipYrWhig: That works only with the right kinds of enforceable, well-enforced regulation. If there are significant loopholes — e.g., I seem to recall a recent version of the Senate bill still allowed rescission for “fraud” — we’ll be right back at the regulatory whack-a-mole game. And I know that I keep harping on enforcement, but that’s the linchpin of any regulatory scheme. You can write the most beautiful statutes, and regulations to implement them, but if you lack the ability or willingness to vigorously enforce them, your scheme does little to dissuade the bad guys.
mr. whipple
Damn straight. But they got Mercedes, and all I got was a Cordoba.
FlipYrWhig
@Tonal Crow:
So why isn’t this that?
@Jack:
“Corporate responsibility” might be a glittery sham, but they still do it. Even Walmart tries to look warm and fuzzy. So pleasing the public, or affecting to please the public, rather than just ruthlessly subjugating them seems to be at least somewhat part of the agenda.
Again, I think that corporations _do_ have too much sway, and I _would_ rather see the government fulfill many functions that corporations now do, but given that corporations don’t seem to be going away anytime soon, I’m more interested in giving them a push in the direction of competent customer service. Even if they profit from it, let their profits come from doing things that serve people better.
Stroszek
@Just Some Fuckhead:
And given that there’s really not that much force behind that “force,” it’s a good deal. I would oppose a bill with a draconian mandate without the appropriate exemptions, but this bill doesn’t have one. In fact, the weakness of the mandate and the pressure that weakness puts on insurers is the primary reason they oppose this bill.
rollotomasi
AHIP stated that the buy-in would accelerate Medicare bankruptcy; I don’t see where that could be construed as being neutral. As for opposing the Senate bill, it would not surprise me in the least that the industry goes after the carcass after its successes re: gutting the option and buy-in.
Also, are you talking about the insurance industry that has quadrupled my premiums and my out-of-pocket maximum in ten years within a group plan (meaning, I’m not the only one)? Are you talking about the insurance industry where, for instance, Wellpoint (formerly Anthem), Inc. executives, paid themselves a bit less than $7 million in 2000 as a mutual company and increased that to between $20 million and $68 million annually from 2001 to 2008 once demutualized and having stock shares enabled all sorts of creative dervivative payments based on stocks? Are you talking about the insurance industry that has increasingly interfered with my primary care physician’s treatments and prescriptions over the last few years?
What I don’t think some people recognize and others don’t want to is the extreme shift in political and financial power in the last few years to these financial entities, including insurance companies, and that this bill does practically nothing to change that dynamic.
Jack
Obama’s own group, OFA (Florida), is in revolt:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1209/30768.html
Jack
@FlipYrWhig:
We have the words “greenwashing” and “astroturfing,” perhaps, to explain the difference between image campaigns and actually working to benefit the commonweal.
slag
@kay: There are a lot of us with you on the provider argument. Though, there are examples of providers who both keep costs down (comparatively) and dislike the Medicare reimbursement structure. Mayo Clinic. So, I for one, was hoping to see tweaks in Medicare reimbursement as well as expanded public insurance. Some of which they seem to be doing (or at least seemed to be doing); some of which they’re not even trying for. Baby steps, I guess.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
@mr. whipple:
Yeah, but that Rich Corinthian Leather!
Just Some Fuckhead
@kay: Haha. I didn’t bail on providers. I’ve asked for an explanation of how this bill will rein in provider costs and it’s either through some sort of financial magic I can’t comprehend or it’s not actually in the bill but we’ll get it later, ubetcha. I’m just attacking the bill for what it does, not what it doesn’t do. Make sense?
And YOU, with the nonstop attacks on Florence Fucking Nightingale.. you really hate America, don’t ya?
Tonal Crow
@FlipYrWhig:
As I pointed out elsewhere, there were very recently significant loopholes (e.g., on rescission; probably on plans’ fine print) and I expect that there still are. Also I haven’t seen the enforcement mechanisms. Someone mentioned the ability to bar insurers from the exchanges, which is good — if it’s a practical tool and it gets used when justified.
You know why Bush isn’t in jail for warrantless spying, even though he admitted to that felony on national TV? Because there’s no good way to enforce the law against him.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Stroszek: If it’s so easy to avoid the individual mandate, why have it?
Jack
@Stroszek:
You think that insurance companies which cut deals with the White House prior to its request that Congress tackle health insurance reform are actually opposed to this?
That insurance companies are displeased with the continentalization of RomneyCare?
AngusTheGodOfMeat
Thank heavens for streaming video, otherwise I would have to watch the Confounding Nabob Network, which apparently thinks I cannot understand what is going on unless it is being explained to me by David Gergen.
David.Fucking.Gergen.
Just Some Fuckhead
@DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal): I see your long explanation of nutpicking and destroy you with my trump card: Stuck is on your side. Yes, Stuck, the single dumbest human being on the entire planet.
I win. Wrap up the internetz and send them to me express mail so I get them before Christmas.
rollotomasi
#279 was to Stroszek:
Additionally, do you think a “government” insurer would be anywhere near as likely to get away with quadrupling premiums without public outcry and someone held accountable? When it’s a business, we tend to pass it off to the market at work. But the market for medical services is not one set-up for going out and finding the best deal like a car. It is not a free market.
FlipYrWhig
Oooh, many points crossing in the aether… makes me look like I’m not listening.
@Tonal Crow:
@Just Some Fuckhead:
I agree with both points. I’m just more hopeful about the new regime than you are.
@Jack:
We’ve been around the block on this before, but I still say that there’s not a huge difference between public insurance and subsidized private insurance, either in terms of cost or in terms of the psychological impact of the mandate. I think we just are on opposite sides of a line.
I don’t disdain radicals. I have trouble believing that many self-styled radicals are all that sincere (scars from academia). And I know I’m not one. If we’re addicted to corporations, I’m more invested in “harm reduction” than in ending it now. I think this bill is like a Nicoderm patch. We’re still on insurance nicotine, but at least we’re stepping it down.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
You can say what you want about The Cove, but those dolphins are good eatin’.
Stroszek
@rollotomasi:
I would argue that that shift isn’t recent at all. There’s a reason that efforts at instituting national insurance has failed repeatedly over the last 60 years. The fact that this bill will still be the most significant progressive achievement in the last forty years should tell you:
(a) pervasive corporate influence over our government isn’t new
(b) progressives need whatever foothold they can manage if they hope to make any further gains on this problem in their lifetime
And to answer your questions: Yes, I’m aware that medical costs are rising. I’m also aware that executive compensation is absurd, though executive salaries aren’t really a significant contributor to your rising premiums. But these realities are why I support instituting a federal framework for regulating insurers and subsidizing the health care of the lower middle class despite the fact that some good ideas were removed from the bill for bad reasons.
FlipYrWhig
@Jack:
Apropos of little, I love the word “commonweal” and have been using it all the time in another context.
Paula
@FlipYrWhig:
The consumer reports comparison is apt. And that’s the problem. In Canada (I know we’re not going to get single payer, I’m just sayin) you know if you’re sick, you can go to the doctor and hospital and you just do it. You don’t have to try to review a bunch of plans, compare stuff about that things that will affect other things that haven’t happened yet, and then, when sick, pay a bunch of separate charges to every provider involved (the hospital, 2 different doctors, the lab, prescriptions), which, depending on your deductible, might be a mere annoyance or might be prohibitive. You don’t worry about your bills while you’re in the hospital or recovering. And you don’t have to contemplate going through some kind of hearing or process to reverse either a treatment or a payment decision.
You live with a sense of rock strong security that blankets you and makes life, in these trying times, a lot less frightening and stressful.
People, originally contemplating HCR, thought it was going to result in something that would create that kind of feeling of security. We’ll see if this bill does.
slag
@Just Some Fuckhead: Ezra notes some of the cost containment initiatives directed toward providers here: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/12/change_to_the_senate_bill.html. Also, I’m not sure how many of the provisions noted in that Ron Brownstein article from a while ago remain standing, but those were good.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
What is really pissing off the Republicans now is that once the Senate bill passes and conference begins, the Republicans are out of the loop. Nobody needs their input on any provision of the final bill. The Democrats basically get to go into a locked room and write their own bill.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
@Just Some Fuckhead:
That argument is about as effective as Corey’s in the other thread.
Press reset, you need to reboot as it seems some processes of yours have become corrupted. Hope it isn’t malware. ;)
Tonal Crow
@rollotomasi:
You almost never see this concept mentioned, let alone explained, in the MSM. A market works fairly and efficiently only if (1) all of the parties understand what’s being offered and (2) all of the parties can realistically just walk away. The car market more or less satisfies these requirements, so it has a variety of sellers and many passably-satisfied buyers. The health-insurance market often fails to satisfy either or both requirements, hence its current dysfunction.
Just Some Fuckhead
@DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal): You are clearly experiencing a reading comprehension problem. Let me repeat:
Stuck.
:)
BTW, Stuck, I’m just kidding sorta.
Edit: BTW, I’m not making an argument, CL. Just kicking Stuck for fun.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
@Just Some Fuckhead:
I know your name well JSF, thus the good-natured ribbing y’kno…
/nodnodwinkwink
;)
FlipYrWhig
@Paula:
Oh, I’m sure it won’t even approach that. But we’re still as a nation strangely susceptible to Cold War-era demagoguery about “government control,” and I think that’s why so much of the original pitch was that if you like what you have, you can keep it, and why the objectives haven’t ever been as total as would be warranted if the point were to get everyone covered at the lowest price. Because at least half the country is very suspicious of The Government, both on the right (ATF, IRS, OSHA) and on the left (COINTELPRO, CIA, FBI, Tuskeegee). So we have to kiss a lot of ugly butt to be able to let the government do much of anything, even when the government would be damn good at it.
And it’s still better than what we have now. As long as it’s regulated and enforced and what have you. But I feel OK about that prospect.
Stroszek
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Two reasons:
(a) It still creates a significant incentive not to game the prohibition on medical history discrimination at the expense of current policy holders.
(b) It ensures that people who do hold off on buying insurance are still helping cover the increased cost of their delayed participation.
This is what the mandate is supposed to do, and that’s why we have the mandate.
At the same time, the mandate is not strong enough to enable insurers to go wild without consequences.
Your response (which I believe originated with kos) seems to assume that the mandate only exists to empower insurers, but there is a middle ground in which we still create an incentive to purchase insurance while still giving the people the choice of walking away or being exempted if the circumstances demand it.
Now, you could argue that a better way to do this is to add to the cost of the bill by just creating a tax incentive instead of a de facto tax increase coupled with a tax credit. I think there’s merit to that viewpoint, but we’re beyond that point and, again, I don’t think it will make a substantial difference in terms of the overall impact of the bill.
@rollotomasi:
No, but given that medical costs and premiums are going to be rising with or without a public option, that raises the possibility that the public option would be repeatedly used as an example of the “failure” of public insurance in future reform efforts.
With that said, we’re kind of getting off course here. As I said, the public option is a good idea and I was disappointed that it was taken out. I’m not anti-public option. I’m pro-anything-other-than-what-we-have, including single-payer. However, the question now is whether the cost of the public option’s removal outweighs the remaining benefits of the bill. I think that the benefits of the public option were marginal enough that this is not the case.
Mnemosyne
@Tonal Crow:
You know, I keep seeing this, and I think, “Really, we want to establish a precedent that people can lie to get insurance and not face any penalty for doing so?” Should someone with three car accidents be allowed to lie and say they have a perfect driving record and the insurance shouldn’t have any recourse if the person then gets into a fourth accident?
Just Some Fuckhead
@DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal):
Yih, I’m kinda a big deal.
mr. whipple
Aaaaaand, we’re voting!
rollotomasi
Stroszek: I support instituting a federal framework for regulating insurers and subsidizing the health care of the lower middle class despite the fact that some good ideas were removed from the bill for bad reasons.
Like someone said above in regards to Bush’s wiretapping, a federal framework for regulation is a lot different than actual enforcement, not only with senator’s wives on boards such as Wellpoint’s, but also with a government that practically seems to be merging with the private sector in delivering services.
And don’t shrug off executive pay as not significant. It is just as significant for the insurance companies as for the banks. When pay for executives and managers (and these options are not just for top executives) is incentivized by the bottom line, their allegiance is to the shareholders and not to the insured. (When insurance companies were mutual companies, the insured “owned” the company.) Btw, earnings per share at Wellpoint has more than tripled in eight years, so these incentives have been successful.
You didn’t want to tackle my questions straight on, did you?
I don’t blame you; there are no reasonable answers for the insurance companies who quadruple premiums except for bottom line greed.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
Show time. The vote is about to begin.
mr. whipple
I can’t believe these party line votes.
Stroszek
@rollotomasi:
As I said to Raven, if you’ve lost faith in the government’s capacity for regulation, then you had no reason to support any incarnation of this bill for one very simple reason: the viability of the public option itself is dependent on the effective regulation of its private competitors. It’s not single-payer. Without effective regulation, it would simply become a high risk pool for subsidized policy holders with premiums spiraling ever upward.
In regards to your other point, I would say that you are not addressing my point straight on. I’m not arguing that for-profit insurance is better than non-profit insurance. That’s a straw man that falls outside the scope of what we’re discussing. I’m merely pointing out that executive pay and even insurance company profits as a whole aren’t the driving force behind rising premiums. Rising premiums are almost entirely a result of rising medical costs and given that rising medical costs eat into insurer profits, they have every incentive to combat them. The fact that they’ve failed to do so despite it being in their selfish interests is actually the best argument for single-payer.
EDIT: Now, executive pay and insurance company profits have been the driving force in encouraging companies to target sick policy holders as a way of cutting costs instead of negotiating better rates with providers. But that’s a problem that this bill addresses via regulation.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
@Just Some Fuckhead:
You don’t say? I run into you constantly in RL but what puzzles me is that you keep morphing and I can’t keep track of exactly what race or sex you are or where you live. You seem to be all over the country, hell, world! I see you on TV, in movies and even on Blue Ray! Is this some bizarro multiple personality disorder from some dimension in the Twilight Zone?
;)
rollotomasi
To be clear, my anger is directed at the medical industry and its enablers, not at someone with a different viewpoint. I’m out.
mr. whipple
And there was much rejoicing.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
Oh oh, what if Joe Lieberman had his fingers crossed behind him when he voted “Aye?”
rollotomasi
Stroszek, sorry I bring up related issues that you deem outside of the scope – which is a nice cover in any discussion, but the dramatic increase in these companies’ political and financial power in recent years does present a big problem in regulation going forward – one that this legislation simply does not address. I have brought up many examples of this power, and you simply pretend it’s not germane? It is going to be harder to reign in these companies, not easier.
Really out now.
The Raven
“Can Democrats honestly only keep a coalition together for like 30 days in November every 12-20 years?”
Only if the public is behind it. That’s the problem here: the more people learn about this plan, the less they like it.
Corner Stone
@AngusTheGodOfMeat: That’s barley any kind of a comeback at all.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
@Corner Stone:
Wheat are you talking about?
sandflea loves jeffreyw
bash progressives, wash, rinse, repeat
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
@AngusTheGodOfMeat:
Naah. Lieberman probably noticed that Kos and his minions want the bill to die so he fucked with it and then voted for it just to slap them in the face. Twice. Also.
;)
bob h
Surely the politics of financial reform are going to be easier. How easy is it going to be for Republicans to threaten filibusters on behalf of bankers?
MNPundit
@bob h: They won’t have to. Obama loving gives them money remember? If he sees a pitchfork, he’ll jump in front of it to save them and then give them a stern talking to.
Well if that’s the way he wants to play it, then I have no problem going right through Obama with those pitchforks and torches to get the banker.
Corner Stone
@MNPundit: Never forget, Obama scolded the bankers severely and made sure they knew, “My administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks.” So, they know damn well they better mind their P’s and Q’s.
I still giggle at the blind faith and worship a lot of people displayed on this thread:
Pitchforks into ploughshares
But I’m sure all those loving them some tough Obama vs Bankers rhetoric all knew they had voted for the pragmatist, realist, centrist, etc. and were not the naive fanboys as displayed.
Tonal Crow
@Mnemosyne:
The parallel to auto insurance doesn’t work because one goal of HCR is universal coverage — everyone in the risk pool. If insurers can kick people out of the risk pool, you no longer have universal coverage. Also, of course, insurers often have abused the “fraud” exception to rescind coverage to people who unintentionally omitted to mention minor medical conditions sometimes predating their applications by decades.
xian
isn’t there a mailing list? townhall or townhouse or something?