This blog will discuss many issues pertaining to current events and encourages others to discuss and do the same. The goal is to raise the level of discourse and hopefully have a good time sharing thoughts and ideas.
Showing posts with label health care reform. Show all posts
Showing posts with label health care reform. Show all posts
The House of Representatives has passed the health care reform legislation by a vote of 219-210 late Sunday evening.
This final vote brings to a close a long debate that has taken place over the last year, but for many, the hard work is just beginning. Many activists are adamant that this legislation should be the starting point for more comprehensive and lasting reforms to the health care system. Jane Hamsher is one such activist and has posted a "mythbusting" piece about what this legislation does and doesn't do. Hamsher states:
The Firedoglake health care team has been covering the debate in congress since it began last year. The health care bill will come up for a vote in the House on Sunday, and as Nancy Pelosi works to wrangle votes, we’ve been running a detailed whip count on where every member of Congress stands, updated throughout the day.
We’ve also taken a detailed look at the bill, and have come up with 18 often stated myths about this health care reform bill.
Real health care reform is the thing we’ve fought for from the start. It is desperately needed. But this bill falls short on many levels, and hurts many people more than it helps.
You can click here for a PDF version of the "18 myths" that Hamsher references in her post.
As Democrats revel in the passage of this historic legislation tonight, Republicans went down swinging. Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) even went so far as to shout "Hell No" during the end of the period for debate:
After the initial passage of the legislation, members of the House were to vote on a Republican motion to recommit the bill over the issue of Federal funding for abortion. Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) is a pro-life Democrat who had initially objected to this bill's so-called inclusion of Federal funding for abortions, but rose to urge members of the House to vote against recommitting the bill based upon this issue. As Stupak was making his remarks, there was a call for order and then you could hear someone yell out, calling Stupak a "baby killer". Here is the video:
As of this writing it is not clear which member of the House shouted this at Stupak. It was initially reported that the shouter was Rep. Tom Campbell (R-CA), but he was quick to say that he was not the culprit. He did give Talking Points Memo a few more clues to who may have been responsible:
Christina also reports that Rep. Tom Campbell (R-CA) told reporters that the "baby killer" was "clear as a bell."
I didn't look but it came from the floor, behind me and to the left.
And this:
It was close enough I decided not to turn around and look. ... It was in my area. I thought it was a southern accent.
Campbell returned a few moments later and said, "other people agree with me it was someone with a southern accent."
Campbell also said that some of the Republicans on the floor recognized the voice but would not say who it was.
The California Republican then came out again -- a third time -- and told reporters that "that is where the Texans sit. Californians are in one row, Texans sit behind us. I am being told it's a Texan. The people who know won't give it up."
Like many others, I have written numerous entries about the tea-party movement and their rhetoric at various protests around the country. I wrote about how the Cincinnati Tea Party and 9/12 Project posted a letter comparing the actions of the Obama Administration to Hitler, I wrote about a local town hall forum where protesters shouted down and chased Rep. Steve Driehaus (D-OH), and this is what I wrote back in August:
...this type of anger is not rooted in, nor is it specifically about, health care reform. This is the same kind of rage that we saw during the campaign for President when the right-wing supporters of John McCain claimed that Obama was a terrorist, that his friends were terrorists, and that he was going to destroy America. This is the same kind of rage that we saw once Obama took office and tea parties were organized in opposition to the stimulus. This is the same kind of rage that we see from time to time when the issue of race is brought up either in the Henry Gates case, the nomination of a Latina to the Supreme Court, or the legitimacy of Obama's birth certificate. They claim that Obama is a racist, a foreign-born operative, and imply that he isn't really "one of us". This rage has now morphed into the opposition to health care reform, but it still has the same ugly undercurrent that is all too recognizable.
This ugly undercurrent reared its head once again yesterday with a tea-party protest in Washington.
As Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) and Rep. Andre Carson (D-IN) walked past tea-partiers on the Hill, protesters shouted "kill the bill" and some also shouted "nigger" at the two members of Congress. This was not an isolated incident as it was also reported that when Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) was exiting a building earlier in the day, he was greeted with shouts and being called a "faggot" which prompted the crowd to erupt in laughter.
In a third disturbing incident, a staffer for Rep. James Clayburn (D-SC) reported that Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-MD) was spit on by a protester. Cleaver's office released this statement in response to the incident:
For many of the members of the CBC, like John Lewis and Emanuel Cleaver who worked in the civil rights movement, and for Mr. Frank who has struggled in the cause of equality, this is not the first time they have been spit on during turbulent times.
This afternoon, the Congressman was walking into the Capitol to vote, when one protester spat on him. The Congressman would like to thank the US Capitol Police officer who quickly escorted the others Members and him into the Capitol, and defused the tense situation with professionalism and care. After all the Members were safe, a full report was taken and the matter was handled by the US Capitol Police. The man who spat on the Congressman was arrested, but the Congressman has chosen not to press charges. He has left the matter with the Capitol Police.
This is not the first time the Congressman has been called the "n" word and certainly not the worst assault he has endured in his years fighting for equal rights for all Americans. That being said, he is disappointed that in the 21st century our national discourse has devolved to the point of name calling and spitting. He looks forward to taking a historic vote on health care reform legislation tomorrow, for the residents of the Fifth District of Missouri and for all Americans. He believes deeply that tomorrow's vote is, in fact, a vote for equality and to secure health care as a right for all. Our nation has a history of struggling each time we expand rights. Today's protests are no different, but the Congressman believes this is worth fighting for.
As the health care reform legislation is gearing up for a vote by the House of Representatives, it is clear that the ugly undercurrent, which was evident during the summer town hall meetings, has once again bubbled up to the surface. As Barney Frank told Talking Points Memo, the health care reform debate has indeed become a proxy for other underlying sentiments.
When Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) flipped his position and agreed to vote in favor of the current health care legislation earlier this week, many progressive activists from around the country felt as if they had been kicked in the gut.
Kucinich has long been a Democratic hold-out, voicing his staunch opposition to any health care legislation that did not include a public option. The fact that this legislation does not include a public option has caused a rift between those on the Left who feel that passing the current legislation is an important means to an end and those who feel that legislation without a public option is simply a giveaway to the insurance companies.
This disparity between progressive positions was on display during a very interesting and constructive conversation on today's Democracy Now!. The guests were none other than Rep. Kucinich and Ralph Nadar. While lengthy, the whole segment is worth watching and I have included it at the bottom, but here are a few highlights from the transcript that illustrate perfectly the difference in position.
AMY GOODMAN: Have you ever received as much pressure as you’re getting right now, as you have gotten right now, right down to your flight on Air Force One with President Obama?
REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: The pressure doesn’t really come so much from the outside. I mean, I had people who are for this and against it with equal intensity. What the pressure comes from, being told that you might be singularly responsible for the passage or failure of an initiative and having to live with the implications of that.
Amy, I did not want to be in the House on Sunday night with my voting card, you know, and a finger in the wind about what to do. And looking at the bigger picture here, I’m hopeful that in making this decision to switch in favor of voting for the bill, that we can use this opportunity to, down the road, push for the kind of health reform that I am for, that I stand for, that I’ve worked my life for. But it’s not going to happen in this bill. And there’s a point at which you just have to maturely look at the situation as it is and say, no matter what I do, it’s not going to change this bill. And I’ve tried harder than anyone, but, you know, it’s just not going to happen.
JUAN GONZALEZ: Ralph Nader, what about this issue of the seventy-seven other members of Congress who pledged not to support this bill? We’ve had quite a few of them on this show—Raul Grijalva, Anthony Weiner. What about the others who also have gradually agreed to support this bill?
RALPH NADER: They’ve all caved. They’ve all been put into line by the majority rulers in the House. So that’s not going to change, Juan.
What—I think Dennis Kucinich has been known as the great dissenter in the Democratic Party—against the criminal wars of aggression in Iraq and Afghanistan, for impeaching Bush and Cheney, for single payer, on and on. His subcommittee hearings, which are almost never covered by the press, provide a standard for what House subcommittees should be investigating all over the country. But I think he owes an explanation to hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of progressive Americans, many of whom who watch this show, who have clinged to Dennis Kucinich as the great dissenter, as the principled person, as the person who will hold the banner high. “The Star-Spangled Banner” has this phrase, “And the flag was still there.” But for the progressives in this country, they want to keep saying, “And Dennis Kucinich was still there.” So I would like him to go all over the country, after this malicious vote by the Democrats in the House, and address audiences all over, starting a complete new wave for full Medicare for all before this bill kicks in in 2014, so all the members running for reelection in 2010 are going to have to face it.
And I hope people will visit the videos that are on singlepayeraciton.org to show how many of his colleagues react when they’re confronted with a reporter asking the question, “The majority of the American people, doctors and nurses want this system. They want free choice of doctor and hospital. They want the insurance companies displaced with full single payer. Why aren’t you for it?” You look at their faces as they try to squirm out of that. That’s the moral position. They know it. But they’re caving into the enormous lobbying power of the drug and insurance companies, which are deploying over 2,000 full-time lobbyists on Capitol Hill as we speak.
AMY GOODMAN: Dennis Kucinich, your response? And also to Jane Hamsher, founder of Firedoglake, who asked if you were going to be giving back the money to people who gave to you all over the country because you said you would not support healthcare reform without a public option?
REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: First of all, with respect to Jane Hamsher, I talked to her yesterday, and I also indicated through my campaign early yesterday that anybody who contributed, you know, with the hopes that I was going to vote against the legislation unless it had a public option, that of course they’re going to get their money back, because I changed my position.
Now, with respect to what Ralph Nader just said about the need to keep a strong public—a strong single-payer campaign going, absolutely. I mean, you know, I haven’t changed my position one bit on single payer. I’m not suddenly saying, “Oh, gee, this for-profit model is something we ought to consider.” I don’t like it. I just want to make sure that everyone understands that the minute this bill is done, reforms within the context of a for-profit system, we have to accelerate that, and at the same time, a parallel track of continuing to pursue single payer. I agree with Ralph Nader on that.
On Tuesday evening, the Eastern Hills Tea Party gathered at the Madeira City Hall to hold one of their periodic meetings and to discuss the national debt. Just prior to 7pm, between thirty and forty people gathered outside the main meeting room looking through tea-party literature and eating some cake to celebrate the one-year anniversary of the founding of the Cincinnati Tea Party. As seven-o-clock came around, citizens were ushered into the main chamber in order to hear from the night's featured speaker, former Republican member of Cincinnati City Council and former Hamilton County Commissioner, Phil Heimlich.
Heimlich is the son on the famed Dr. Henry Heimlich (who is credited with inventing the "maneuver" which bears his name), sat on Cincinnati City Council, and was a Hamilton County Commissioner. Heimlich was also a candidate for the 2nd Congressional District of Ohio, but lost his bid in the 2008 primary to current Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-OH). Currently Heimlich runs one-minute television segments on WXIX-TV which he calls "The Hard Truths with Phil Heimlich".
The former Council member was slated to speak at this tea-party event on the issue of national debt, but Heimlich's presence at a tea-party gathering was puzzling given his stance on health care reform. Take this recent blog entry where he discussed how it is moral and Biblical for the government to provide health care for its citizens (emphasis mine):
I’ve heard many “believers” say it’s the job of the church, not the government, to take care of the sick. But Proverbs 29:14 says, “If a king judges poor people fairly, his government will continue forever.”
These and other scriptures command those in power to help the less fortunate.
Forty-six million Americans are without health insurance. Millions more have coverage that is wholly inadequate — so inadequate that over 60 percent of bankruptcies are due to medical bills. This need is unlikely to be met by the church or individual donors.
The Bible directs our leaders to meet this need — and do it efficiently — so as not to violate the Biblical principle of stewardship. But to do nothing is like the servant who, when given money to invest, buried it in the ground. Jesus said, “Throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (Matthew 25:30)
Heimlich is saying that the Bible tells government leaders to meet the needs of those who do not have health care. In other words, the government should provide its citizens with health care. This is quite a different narrative than has been heard since the summer months when tea-party activists shouted down Congressmen and held rallys denouncing a "government takeover" of health care.
What is more, Heimlich's wife Rebecca is the Ohio State Director of Americans for Prosperity, an organization that has been very involved in organizing opposition to the health care reform legislation that is being circulated in Washington. A few months ago, Rachel Maddow discussed how this organization is corporately funded and how it has disseminated falsehoods in their fight to energize tea-party movements and defeat the health care legislation:
This is what these groups do. They're experts at fake grass roots campaigns that promote corporate interests. Americans for Prosperity is the group that ginned up anti-stimulus rallies earlier this year. They also organized what they called the "Hot Air Tour" to campaign against the whole idea of global warming. They were the ones who sent Joe the Plumber around the country to rail against the Employee Free Choice Act, which is pro-labor legislation.
This oil industry and Republican operative billionaires club is according to the Republican party spokesman today, just average middle class Americans. Just regular American folks sitting around the kitchen table thinking about whether they can get away with saying that the government, continuing its long standing policy of encouraging living wills, is really a secret plot to kill old people.
One other thing about Americans for Prosperity, their most visible spokesman, is a man named Tim Phillips. He is the President of the organization and we've asked him to come on the show to talk with us about the group. Tim Phillips got his start in fake grass roots with a firm called Century Strategies, run by Ralph Reed. Century Strategies is famous for having duped Christian groups into lobbying for energy deregulation. You know, like the Bible said.
[...]
These guys are the pros. This is an industry. Americans are showing up at these events to shout down the discussion, to chase their Congressmen, and they are enraged. And they're enraged at least in part because they're being riled up by over the top, fabricated conspiracy theories about health care. And they're being directed and orchestrated by the corporate interests that do this for a living and do it very well.
[...]
To talk about these town hall events as some organic outpouring of average American folks who have concerns about health care is to be willfully blind to what is really going on, which is professional P.R. operatives generating exploitative, manufactured, strategically deployed outrage in order to line their own pocket.
These P.R. spin misters get paid a lot of money for doing it. The corporations they work for get to kill legislation that would hurt their profits. And the real people who they launch into these town hall settings after they're told that health care reform is a secret commie plot to kill old people and to mandate sex changes, those real people get more, and more, and more and more angry, and more, and more, and more alienated, and ultimately they get left, like the rest of us, with a health care system that is broken and doesn't work in the interest of the American people, but does work in the interest of the corporations that profit from the way the system is now.
This is professional, corporate funded Republican staffed P.R., and it should be reported as such.
This is the context in which Phil Heimlich was to give his remarks at the Eastern Hills Party meeting on Tuesday night. It seemed as if schizophrenic conservatism had hit overdrive: Heimlich posts a blog entry advocating government-provided insurance but has long been a staunch Republican whose wife now is a State Director of an Organization that has been instrumental in drumming up the anger of citizens to oppose health care reforms. I attended this tea-party meeting to see if I couldn't figure out what was going on here.
Heimlich was introduced by the facilitator of the meeting and took the stage making a joke about his wife. "I had to rush my, you know my wife is very demanding," Heimlich started, "She made me take her to the hospital Saturday morning just because she had appendicitis."
He went on to discuss how his wife recovered enough to have him drive her to Columbus on Monday so that she could participate in a huge health care protest that was organized by Americans for Prosperity. He also mentioned that she was also involved in organizing the "Hands off our Health Care Rally" that was held on the other side of Cincinnati that same evening. "She's really doing some exciting stuff," Heimlich said of his wife's organizing efforts.
After praising his wife's courage and "exciting" efforts in organizing citizens against health care reform, Heimlich apologized for not wearing a tie to this event and said his tie-less appearance reminded him of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. "I don't mind that the guy brutalizes his own people, rigged the election and the guy denies the Holocaust, but the guy is such a shabby dresser," joked Heimlich, "He outta stop by Brooks Brothers or something and get a pair of pants before he goes to the UN or something like that."
Heimlich then began his talk on the financial troubles that face the United States with why the tea-party crowd should listen to him on this issue. He admitted that the only economics course he took was Economics 101 during his time at Stanford, but said that he finds it interesting that the economists who are viewed as experts on the issue are all getting it wrong. Heimlich especially went after Nobel Prize recipient and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman:
"Here is a guy who won the Nobel Prize for Economics, he's Professor of Economics at Princeton, a columist for the New York Times; his solution to the economic problems facing our country, do you know what it is? Bigger stimulus. He thinks the problem is that we are not spending enough. That's his solution."
[...]
"So my point is just that, I don't know if having a big economics degree necessarily qualifies you to speak about some of the crisis, the financial crisis that our country is facing."
So the first reason that the tea-party members should trust Heimlich's views on economics are because even though he has only taken one economics class, he doesn't think that a Nobel Prize winning Professor of Economics like Paul Krugman, is qualified to speak about the economic crisis? An interesting (and somewhat confusing) stance.
After appealing to the crowd that he is just a normal guy who "has something to say" like "you might have something to say", Heimlich launched into his views on the national debt. He told the crowd that if they take away anything from his talk, they should understand that "The United States is broke". He slammed the United States government for out of control spending that has led to a "$14.5 trillion dollar debt" that is complicated by billions in borrowed interest.
Sounding at times like an apprentice of Ron Paul, Heimlich told the crowd that while they are concerned with cutting spending on social programs, the problem also lies in spending on wars and the military. He criticized Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-OH) and Rep. Steve Driehaus (D-OH) for taking funds so that GE could produce a "duplicate engine" to the F-35 aircraft; a project that Heimlich views as "wasteful spending". Heimlich also outlined the how the spending on the Iraq War is out of control:
"Most of us on our side, we thought that was the greatest thing in the world. Maybe it will turn out that way, but you know, what I don't get about that is that there used to be a situation in that region where you had...two countries that basically hated each other. You had Iran and Iraq and you know what they did? They went around killing each other. They fought a war for eight years and even though it was pretty terrible for their people, for our national security that was a pretty good deal."
[...]
"Now why the heck we spent, what will be, $1 trillion dollars, 4,000 lives, 100,000 lives of Iraqi civilians, why we did that to get rid of one of the bullies so that now the other bully is dominating the region, I don't know. But it seems to me that if we are going to be truly fiscally responsible, if that's really what we are after, then we have to be fiscally responsible across the board."
Heimlich made the case that since the U.S. is mounting a debt that will never be repaid, it will affect everyone's personal finances. He claims that this calls for radical action (emphasis mine on a point I will come back to):
"I think we all ought to start thinking about being a little less patriotic. I'm all for electing the right people...I'm all for everything that you guys are doing, I think this is an incredible, incredible turnout you have here, my wife works with tea-parties all over Ohio and I think it's great, but I gotta tell you something. I think it's time to start thinking about protecting ourselves. I do. Protecting our families."
[...]
"I think the bottom line is, let's not run our lives like the government runs theirs. That make sense?"
As Heimlich concluded he chose to take a few questions. As I sat through his presentation, I couldn't help but continue to think about the apparent contradiction that his presence at a tea-party meeting posed. After all, in that last quote, Heimlich stated that he was "all for everything that you guys are doing" and that his wife's work with other Ohio tea-parties was "great"; yet his own blog post where he advocated for government-run health care seemed to contradict his support for the tea-parties and the work that his wife was doing.
As the Q&A continued, I asked about this contradiction. Below is the video of my question, Heimlich's response and the aftermath:
Clearly, Heimlich was only interested in, as he stated, criticizing Republican hypocrisy on this issue instead of taking a firm stand either single-payer or the public option, like he hinted at in his blog post. You could see that members of the tea-party were not pleased to hear his stance on health care reform and even gave some pushback.
After this segment, Heimlich exited the main chamber to allow the tea-party meeting to continue. I followed Heimlich into the lobby with my digital audio recorder in hand and asked him what health care reforms he would like to see implemented. (Note, another man who had attended the meeting was standing with us and he is the third voice you hear in the audio)
It is interesting that Heimlich has such strong criticisms for members of his own party, even calling them out on their inaction during the years of President Bush. What is also interesting is Heimlich's condemnation of the partisanship that surrounds the health care debate when he openly says that he is "all for" what the tea-parties are doing and that his wife's efforts with the tea-parties are "great" and "exciting". The level of partisanship has been been well-documented at these tea-party rallies and for Heimlich to suggest that he supports the efforts, but is outraged by the partisanship in the debate, is disingenuous.
Heimlich also states that he is "not necessarily a member of the tea-party" when I asked him if he is worried about Republican influence, but his presence at these events and in telling members that he is "all for" what they are doing sends mixed messages at best and makes his self-described hate of hypocrisy ironic at worst.
As White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs makes the rounds saying that health care reform will be the "law of the land" within the week, it is continually important to examine the demise of the public option.
In August of last year, when the Obama Administration started to waiver on supporting the public option, I wrote the following which still holds relevance to the situation that we find ourselves in today:
In this instance it is important to remember that while President Obama may offer his support for the public option, it doesn't necessarily mean that he would veto legislation that did not contain such a provision. The Administration is looking for a win on this issue and I think it is pretty clear that if a political win can be obtained through passing a bill that doesn't have the public option attached, then Obama will probably sign such a bill. We have seen this type of behavior from Obama throughout his political career and it is what led many to emphasize (pre-2008 election) that Obama is a centrist Democrat who is more willing to adapt to existing institutions than fundamentally fight to change them.
[...]
If Obama chooses to spend his political capital by signing a bill that does not fundamentally change the health care system and is a watered-down version that contains mild reforms, then it is almost certainly going to be a failure. It will be a failure for the millions of Americans who are in need of health care, it will be a failure for progressives who voted for Obama last November, and it will be a failure for true reform.
Not only has President Obama and the Democratic leadership shown that they are not married to the public option, they have shown a gross failure in leadership in working to pass this provision that they all say they support. If they say they support the public option then why wouldn't they fight for it? Because the Senate Democrats and the White House really don't support this provision quite as much as they may say. This clip from The Rachel Maddow Show last week illustrates this perfectly:
and yet somehow Dennis Kucinich is the bad guy because he has stated that he will vote against the current legislation if it does not contain the public option?
These are interesting times.
Here is Kucinich stating his piece during a radio interview with Ian Masters from last week:
President Obama has drafted and released his own 11-page plan for health care reform ahead of the planned bi-partisan summit. The President's plan is said to bridge the differences that are found in the Senate and House legislation and will almost certainly be the starting point from which a renewed debate will take place.
Igor Volsky describes some of what is in the President's plan:
The Obama plan maintains key elements of the Senate proposal but also incorporates stronger anti-fraud provisions and allows the federal government to review insurance rate hikes. On a call with reporters Pfeiffer insisted that the administration has not determined “on which path to move forward with”, but the bill’s substance suggests that Obama is hoping to bypass a prolonged-Senate debate and use the reconciliation process to fix the Senate bill and convince reluctant House progressives to pass the Senate legislation.
Volsky also has a great table that breaks down the differences in the three bills that you can check out by following the link above.
Jason Rosenbaum also does a good job at breaking down some of what is in the bill.
Here is how he describes Obama's employer-based plan:
The President’s plan, though not a full "pay or play" system, moves towards reconciling the House and Senate bills. If a business does not offer coverage, it must pay $2,000 per worker to help cover the cost of insuring its employees. The White House estimates that this amount is one-third less than the average amount businesses would pay under the House proposal.
and on taxing middle class plans:
The President’s plan does not do away with the excise tax entirely, but it makes some significant changes. The threshold at which the tax kicks in was moved from $23,000 as the cost of a health care plan in the Senate bill to $27,500 for families and from $8,500 to $10,200 for individuals, and the tax would not kick in until 2018.
In addition, dental and vision benefits won’t be part of the cost calculation, in effect raising the threshold higher.
Perhaps one of the most interesting elements that Obama's bill does NOT contain, is a public option. Though the public option remains quite popular with the populace, Obama's spokesman Robert Gibbs has indicated that it will be up to Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) to get the Senate to pass this piece of the health care puzzle.
We have seen this before during the health care debate. The House says it’s up to the Senate to determine what can pass. The Senate says it’s up to the White House to expend the political capital to get it across the line. And the White House punts it right back to Congress. Nobody wants to actually be responsible for the demise of the popular measure, but everyone wants to be on its side. Therefore you get the preposterous claim from Dan Pfeiffer today that the President didn’t include a public option in his proposal, but he supports it.
So once again we are back to wondering if the public option is going to survive another round of debate and negotiation. If Obama supports the public option, he sure has a funny way of showing it. If he really thought it was a plan that he could get behind, he would put it in the legislation that has his name on it. Since he did not do this, one can only surmise that he does not feel strongly enough to put his full weight behind a true public option.
As for the Republicans, here is a situation that fully illustrates their tactics on this matter.
Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) sent a letter to the White House on February 8 asking them to post online any health care legislation that they wanted to discuss at the health care summit. Boehner stated:
If the President intends to present any kind of legislative proposal at this discussion, will he make it available to members of Congress and the American people at least 72 hours beforehand?
Since this meeting will be most productive if information is widely available before the meeting, we will post online the text of a proposed health insurance reform package.
Boehner then attacked the White House for doing what he had asked them to do in the first place:
"A productive bipartisan discussion should begin with a clean sheet of paper," Boehner said in a statement.
It will be interesting to see what happens at this summit.
I have not yet had the opportunity to watch all of President Obama's Q&A with House Republicans from earlier today, but from what I am reading it was a pretty interesting spectacle to watch.
Presumably the Republicans thought they'd get a chance to grill the president on live television. But instead, Obama – following on from his state of the union address on Wednesday night – turned the tables by highlighting the Republicans who opposed his policies and refused to bend, yet were prepared to "turn up and cut ribbons" when their constituents reaped the rewards.
Obama also displayed a rare grasp of policy and legislation, wrong-footing his questioners to their face with some stern rebuttal and in some instances quoting their own positions back to them to highlight the contradictions.
Good. I think this is a necessary exercise for the President to engage in at this point. Don't get me wrong, I don't think that the result will be any type of bipartisanship; Republicans have already made it clear that they are going to oppose Obama on everything that he proposes. I do think that it is necessary for the President to push back on the insane rhetoric that has dogged him since the campaign. For example, here is Obama addressing the Republican narrative on health care:
Don't we live in a funny society when the need to operate from within reality is something that needs to be pointed out?
I just got done "live-tweeting" during President Obama's first State of the Union Address and am going to give my initial reactions to the speech.
First and foremost I thought that this speech was what President Obama needed to do politically and ended up delivering a strong overall speech that will probably give him a slight boost in the polls. I don't like to dwell on or get lost in the political accomplishments of the speech because I think it can dilute from the overall substance of what was said.
On substance, Obama had a lot to tackle and if you missed the speech, you can read it here. Obama talked about a top priority of creating jobs in 2010:
We should start where most new jobs do - in small businesses, companies that begin when an entrepreneur takes a chance on a dream, or a worker decides its time she became her own boss.
Through sheer grit and determination, these companies have weathered the recession and are ready to grow. But when you talk to small business owners in places like Allentown, Pennsylvania or Elyria, Ohio, you find out that even though banks on Wall Street are lending again, they are mostly lending to bigger companies. But financing remains difficult for small business owners across the country.
So tonight, I'm proposing that we take $30 billion of the money Wall Street banks have repaid and use it to help community banks give small businesses the credit they need to stay afloat.
He went on to talk about energy, the climate and the need to make America more innovative on a global scale. His remarks on Health Care were much much anticipated and here is a clip of what he had to say:
Our approach would preserve the right of Americans who have insurance to keep their doctor and their plan. It would reduce costs and premiums for millions of families and businesses. And according to the Congressional Budget Office - the independent organization that both parties have cited as the official scorekeeper for Congress - our approach would bring down the deficit by as much as $1 trillion over the next two decades.
Still, this is a complex issue, and the longer it was debated, the more skeptical people became. I take my share of the blame for not explaining it more clearly to the American people. And I know that with all the lobbying and horse-trading, this process left most Americans wondering what's in it for them.
But I also know this problem is not going away. By the time I'm finished speaking tonight, more Americans will have lost their health insurance. Millions will lose it this year. Our deficit will grow. Premiums will go up. Patients will be denied the care they need. Small business owners will continue to drop coverage altogether. I will not walk away from these Americans, and neither should the people in this chamber.
and frankly, there was not much more on the topic of health care reform than that. Obama simply put out a call for those in Congress to pass the reforms because they had come too far already. This really leaves us no closer to actually making Congress fix the current version of the bill and Obama did not mention anything about putting things like the public option back into the bill.
A couple of other notable moments from the speech:
1. Obama called for the repeal of the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy. This is certainly overdue and I know that many gay activists were very happy that Obama explicitly referenced this during the speech.
2. Obama chided the recent Supreme Court decision that will end up allowing a tidal wave of corporate money into political campaigns. The interesting part came when Justice Sam Alito reacted and verbally responded (what looked like and what is being reported as) "That's not true". Watch:
This is notable because the Supreme Court is usually silent and expressionless during the State of the Union, even refraining from clapping when the President enters so as to continue to express impartiality. Many have already stated that this is Alito's "You Lie" moment.
3. Obama explicitly stated that troops would begin to come home from Afghanistan in July 2011 and that "all combat troops" will be out of Iraq by August 2010. Earlier this week I highlighted the confusion within the Obama Administration surrounding his Afghanistan policy and while Obama reiterated this date, he failed to lay out any specifics regarding an exit strategy or whether this withdrawal is condition-based. More is needed on this topic from the Administration.
4. Obama addressed the partisanship that has plagued his first year in office, at times sounding like a high school principal. For me, the best line during this portion of the speech was:
To Democrats, I would remind you that we still have the largest majority in decades, and the people expect us to solve some problems, not run for the hills. And if the Republican leadership is going to insist that sixty votes in the Senate are required to do any business at all in this town, then the responsibility to govern is now yours as well. Just saying no to everything may be good short-term politics, but it's not leadership.
Nice thought right? Something tells me that tomorrow is going to be the same.
These are my very raw and very rough reactions to the speech and there will be much further discussion on this over the next few days and weeks. Check back for more insight and analysis.
UPDATE: One more item that just came to mind was Obama seemingly denouncing the brand of conservatism that we saw under the Bush Administration:
From some on the right, I expect we'll hear a different argument - that if we just make fewer investments in our people, extend tax cuts for wealthier Americans, eliminate more regulations, and maintain the status quo on health care, our deficits will go away. The problem is, that's what we did for eight years. That's what helped lead us into this crisis. It's what helped lead to these deficits. And we cannot do it again.
I think this was important, but it makes me wonder why he is validating Republican views by calling for a spending freeze if he is so critical of what got us into this mess in the first place.
Remember yesterday, when I talked about how Democrats need to pay attention to populist views in order to not suffer the same defeats like we just saw in Massachusetts?
Well, it looks like on the issue of health care reform, the Democrats are tucking their tail between their legs and putting the issue on the back-burner:
"I don't see the votes for it at this time," Pelosi said. "The members have been very clear in our caucus about the fact that they didn't like it before it had the Nebraska provision and some of the other provisions that are unpalatable to them."
"In every meeting that we have had, there would be nothing to give me any thought that that bill could pass right now the way that it is," she said. "There isn't a market right now for proceeding with the full bill unless some big changes are made."
Fairly ambiguous especially considering that she goes on to say that "we have to get a bill passed". While her statement makes mention of "big changes" that need to be made, we have come so far in the wrong direction that it is hard to view her comments as anything other than applying the brakes to the process.
Politically, I don't see how this can be a smart move. Not only for the reasoning that I mentioned yesterday, but because this is surely going to give the tea-party crowd as well as the GOP a leg-up.
From a practical standpoint, the current legislation is not good and needs a lot of work to repair the damage that was done to it when it was in the Senate. If the Democrats are serious about doubling their efforts to make this legislation better, then great, but it would simply be naive to expect that conclusion from all that we have seen take place thus far. If they are really going to put this issue on indefinite hold, then the last several months can only be viewed as a giant waste of time.
Early this morning the Senate voted to end the period of filibuster on the health care legislation by a vote of 60-40. Not surprisingly, the vote broke down along party lines with all the Senators who caucus with Democrats voting to end the filibuster. This is a big step in moving this legislation forward as Democrats and the White House are pressing for a final vote before Christmas.
It is no secret that this legislation has devolved into a complete mess. Republicans are still against any kind of reform, Moderate Democrats have worked to strip the bill of the public option and Medicare buy-in, and Progressive activists are now split on whether to support or kill the Senate version of the bill.
While there is still some good discussion on the pros and cons of the legislation there are some revealing moments that show just how ugly this debate has become. Take this item from last night when the ailing Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) was wheeled into the Chamber to vote at 1am. Byrd's presence was not necessarily required for his vote to count, but the Republicans insisted that he travel to the Chamber to cast his vote in person.
Before Byrd arrived for the vote, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) took to the Senate floor and indicated that Americans "pray that someone can't make the vote tonight". Watch:
The Senate hasn't just lost a bit of its collegiality. It's become heartlessly ferocious -- a place where the death of an honored friend presents an opportunity to kill his legislation, and in which the infirmity of an ailing colleague is seen as a potential path to procedural victory.
While Republicans continue to oppose any type of health care reform, Progressives are also divided after Sen. Joe Lieberman's (I-CT) successful attempt to strip out the Medicare buy-in and the public option from the Senate legislation. Howard Dean has been very vocal in his calls to "kill the bill" and other progressives are also also advocating that health care talks turn to reconciliation in order to save robust reforms to the system.
Jane Hamsher at Firedoglake has been working very hard on the issue of reform for many months now and has compiled a "Top 10" list of reasons why progressives should oppose the Senate Bill. Here they are:
Top 10 Reasons to Kill Senate Health Care Bill
1. Forces you to pay up to 8% of your income to private insurance corporations — whether you want to or not. 2. If you refuse to buy the insurance, you’ll have to pay penalties of up to 2% of your annual income to the IRS. 3. Many will be forced to buy poor-quality insurance they can’t afford to use, with $11,900 in annual out-of-pocket expenses over and above their annual premiums. 4. Massive restriction on a woman’s right to choose, designed to trigger a challenge to Roe v. Wade in the Supreme Court. 5. Paid for by taxes on the middle class insurance plan you have right now through your employer, causing them to cut back benefits and increase co-pays. 6. Many of the taxes to pay for the bill start now, but most Americans won’t see any benefits — like an end to discrimination against those with preexisting conditions — until 2014 when the program begins. 7. Allows insurance companies to charge people who are older 300% more than others. 8. Grants monopolies to drug companies that will keep generic versions of expensive biotech drugs from ever coming to market. 9. No re-importation of prescription drugs, which would save consumers $100 billion over 10 years. 10. The cost of medical care will continue to rise, and insurance premiums for a family of four will rise an average of $1,000 a year — meaning in 10 years, your family’s insurance premium will be $10,000 more annually than it is right now.
Under the threats from Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and at the insistence of Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, the Senate has dropped the Medicare buy-in provision from the health care legislation.
Lieberman's reversal on his support for such a buy-in has been all over the blogosphere and has cast a shadow on whether he has been acting in good faith or if he is simply trying to stick it to liberals.
It so happens that the New York Times put up an interesting piece that included this (emphasis mine):
Mr. Lieberman had supported the Medicare buy-in proposal in the past — both as the Democrats’ vice presidential nominee in 2000 and in more recent discussions about the health care system. In an interview this year, he reiterated his support for the concept.
But in the interview, Mr. Lieberman said that he grew apprehensive when a formal proposal began to take shape. He said he worried that the program would lead to financial trouble and contribute to the instability of the existing Medicare program.
And he said he was particularly troubled by the overly enthusiastic reaction to the proposal by some liberals, including Representative Anthony Weiner, Democrat of New York, who champions a fully government-run health care system.
“Congressman Weiner made a comment that Medicare-buy in is better than a public option, it’s the beginning of a road to single-payer,” Mr. Lieberman said. “Jacob Hacker, who’s a Yale professor who is actually the man who created the public option, said, ‘This is a dream. This is better than a public option. This is a giant step.’”
So by Lieberman's own admission, he opposed (at least in part) this piece of the health care legislation because liberals were enthusiastic about it. Did Lieberman not think that liberals would be enthusiastic about such a proposal when he supported it just three months ago? It is ludicrous to think that Lieberman is objecting to this on principled grounds. It is much more likely that his love affair with the insurance industry combined with his vehement disgust toward liberals, has led him to take pause.
The White House, which is more concerned with passing any version of health care legislation regardless of the strength of the public option, naturally urged the Senate Dems to capitulate in order to move the process forward. All of these developments have made the prospect of robust health care reform a bad joke and progressives are expressing their rage not only at Lieberman, but at Emanuel as well. Check out this new ad by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee:
With these recent developments, progressives are split on their support for this bill. Howard Dean has come out and voiced his support for killing the Senate version of the bill and going back to the House for reconciliation. Others, like Chris Bowers at OpenLeft, are questioning if progressive support for "killing the bill" will actually backfire and end up helping the Senate legislation pass.
What Lieberman has done with placing himself in a pivotal opposing position on this piece of legislation, is force the hand of the White House to give in to his demands in order to move this process forward. It matters not to the White House how robust the reforms are in this legislation, as long as some kind of reforms get to the President's desk.
There is much talk among progressives over who is going to suffer politically for watering down this legislation in the midterm and 2012 elections. While political consequences have their place in these discussions it should not obscure the fact that the real suffering is going to take place with the ordinary citizen who will continue to get denied health care coverage by their insurance company, who will continue to see premiums rise, and who will continue to incur debt in the absence of affordable coverage. There is something wrong when thousands of people regularly show up for free health care clinics in the so-called "greatest country on Earth" because it is their only affordable option.
Shame on this incessant capitulation to the status quo.
In case you were looking for something to make your stomach turn at the start of your week, I want to point to the recent comments made by Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT).
Over the weekend, Lieberman told Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) that he would vote against any health care legislation that would include the Medicare buy-in compromise and that would contain a public option.
He said during the interview that the fastest growing group of uninsured are those 55 to 65. For that reason, the ticket proposes an expansion of Medicare to allow those and older to buy into the public program. There would still be a buy-in price but it would be less than buying private insurance, he said.
Lieberman added that he supports mandating that no one can be denied coverage because of pre-existing conditions and that everyone be required to have health insurance.
As to how 47 million uninsured will afford coverage, Lieberman said only 12 million don't have insurance because they cannot afford it.
By allowing citizens who are not eligible for Medicare or Medicaid to buy in for a rate below the private market, the government can extend coverage to more of those who are currently uninsured, he said.
Incoherence is no crime, of course. But it is telling. Lieberman could have simply opposed the public option because it implied too much government involvement in the marketplace. Instead, he opposed it based on things that wouldn't happen, or weren't happening, and never softened his position as those statements were successively exposed as fraudulent. That, again, suggests something more fundamental than a policy argument.
Or take Lieberman's procedural decisions. The Medicare buy-in compromise was developed by the so-called "Team of Ten": the five liberals and five moderates that Harry Reid asked to meet and develop a path forward. Lieberman was asked to join the original group. He skipped the meetings, eventually being replaced by Tom Carper. That puts his opposition in a different category than Nelson and Snowe, both of whom dug deep into the process, working on issues and in groups and signaling clearly what they could and could not support.
[...]
If you had attempted to forecast Lieberman's behavior based on his past positions, you would have failed. His support for Medicare buy-in, and for various other health-care bills, would quickly have misled you. If you had attempted to forecast his behavior based on the attitudes of his constituents, you would also have failed. They support the public option and oppose health-care reform, while Lieberman professes to believe the opposite. But if you had attempted to forecast Lieberman's positions based on his ongoing grudge match with the liberals who defeated him in the 2006 primary, you'd have nailed it perfectly. He has, at every point, taken aim at the policies that liberals support, even when they are policies that Lieberman himself has supported.
Lieberman's obstructionism certainly points more toward his seemingly insatiable appetite for sticking it to liberals rather than a principled objection to the current legislation. How does the White House respond? By telling Sen. Reid to compromise with Lieberman:
The White House is encouraging Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to cut a deal with Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), which would mean eliminating the proposed Medicare expansion in the health reform bill, according to an official close to the negotiations.
But Reid is described as so frustrated with Lieberman that he is not ready to sacrifice a key element of the health care bill, and first wants to see the Congressional Budget Office cost analysis of the Medicare buy-in. The analysis is expected early this week.
It’s quite convenient that what Joe Lieberman is demanding — no public option, no Medicare buy-in — happens to look just like the Senate Finance Committee bill that the White House wrote with Baucus...Joe gets his way by giving Obama what he wanted anyway. Sweet.
Wells Fargo Securities analyst Matthew Perry said Lieberman’s comments are good news for managed-care stocks as anything that delays health-care reform is a positive for the group.
“Every time the reform seems less likely that it will happen, the entire group trades higher,” said Perry, who has advised his clients to buy shares of Wellcare Health Plans Inc. (WCG), recently up 1.3% to $36.74, and Humana Inc. (HUM), up 1% to $42.26.
Among the other recent gainers in the sector, Aetna rose 2.7% to $32.65, Cigna Corp. (CI) added 2.3% to $36.41 and Well Point Inc. (WLP) gained 2.7% to $58.07. Meanwhile, UnitedHealth Group Inc. (UNH) added 1.6% to $30.99.
UPDATE: Video of Lieberman supporting a Medicare buy-in just three months ago:
A few of the primary criticisms that those in the Tea Party movement and those in the Republican Party have leveled at the Democrats and single-payer advocates is that so-called "free market" solutions should be implemented to reform the health care system.
Two specific points that I have heard from these groups is that the U.S should implement "common sense reforms" including allowing insurance companies to sell coverage across state lines and passing tort reform. You can hear these points discussed at the recent "We Surround You" event that I covered on Fountain Square here in Downtown Cincinnati.
Yesterday, House Republicans had their health care reform bill (which contained many of these so-called "common sense reforms") scored by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and it wasn't a pretty story.
...the CBO analysis also concluded that under the GOP plan, 52 million nonelderly Americans would have no insurance in 2019 -- even more than the 50 million in 2010. By comparison, the House Democratic bill would reduce the number of nonelderly Americans without coverage to around 18 million over the next decade.
The GOP bill is an amalgam of market-oriented measures that would limit medical malpractice lawsuits, expand the use of tax-sheltered medical savings accounts, let people shop for insurance outside of their own states, and make it easier for small businesses and hard-to-insure people to get coverage. The ideas reflect conservatives' suspicion of sweeping new programs, federal spending and additional regulation.
Unlike the Democratic plan, it does not include subsidies or other provisions that would make coverage more affordable to people of modest means.
"What we've learned over many, many years is that the reason people don't have insurance is that they can't afford it," said Drew Altman, president of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, an nonpartisan health policy research group. "You can't make much progress toward helping the uninsured unless you help them buy it."
The Democratic bill, in other words, covers 12 times as many people and saves $36 billion more than the Republican plan. And amazingly, the Democratic bill has already been through three committees and a merger process. It's already been shown to interest groups and advocacy organizations and industry stakeholders. It's already made its compromises with reality. It's already been through the legislative sausage grinder. And yet it saves more money and covers more people than the blank-slate alternative proposed by John Boehner and the House Republicans. The Democrats, constrained by reality, produced a far better plan than Boehner, who was constrained solely by his political imagination and legislative skill.
This is a major embarrassment for the Republicans. It's one thing to keep your cards close to your chest. Republicans are in the minority, after all, and their plan stands no chance of passage. It's another to lay them out on the table and show everyone that you have no hand, and aren't even totally sure how to play the game. The Democratic plan isn't perfect, but in comparison, it's looking astonishingly good.
As the debate over health care reform continues to rage on, the news program Democracy Now! hosted a round-table discussion today on this very topic. As both Houses of Congress work to negotiate versions of health care reform, it is important to continue a healthy and vibrant dialogue on the public option, single payer and why there are those who are so adamantly opposed to reforming this system. This discussion is worthy of watching as it discusses many of these issues.
Locally here in Cincinnati, there was a talk that was held by Dr. Milton Fisk on health care reform. I covered the event and will be making the video footage available of the entire talk in the very near future so be sure to check back for that.
Until then, here is the roundtable discussion from Democracy Now! featuring:
Elisabeth Benjamin, vice president of Health Initiatives at Community Service Society of New York, Dr. Oliver Fein, president of Physicians for a National Health Program and professor of clinical public health at Cornell University and Lois Uttley, co-founder of Raising Women’s Voices for the Health Care We Need.
This past Sunday, close to 100 local activists and concerned citizens gathered on the corner of 5th and Walnut streets in Downtown Cincinnati to march in support of health care reform. Members associated with Organizing for America, the AFL-CIO, Cincinnati Progressive Action, and the local branch of the International Socialist Organization all helped to promote this event and their messages ranged from supporting President Obama's call for a public option to calls for pressing members of Congress to have a dialogue about the adoption of a single-payer health care system.
Activists began gathering a little before 11:30am on a chilly Sunday morning, carrying homemade signs and wearing clothing that expressed their support for health care reform. As organizers began to pass out materials and leaflets, about a dozen anti-health care reform activists (some wearing shirts indicating their membership in the Cincinnati Chapters of the Tea Party and 9/12 Project Organizations) made their presence known. They carried signs implying that President Obama is ushering Socialism and Marxism and voiced many of the same concerns that have been heard at the various town hall meetings that I and many others covered throughout the country this past August.
Unlike some of the town hall meetings, those who are not in favor of health care reform were outnumbered by those in favor of fundamentally amending the health care system. Local candidates for Cincinnati City Council Nicholas Hollan, Anitra Brockman and Greg Harris were also in attendance to show their support for health care reform and as you will see in the video that I have provided below, all three spoke at the event.
The march lasted for about an hour, snaking through the streets of Cincinnati and through the hoards of people who were making their way down to Paul Brown Stadium to attend the Cincinnati Bengals game. I even heard a few cries of "Who Dey for Health Care" as I covered the event.
Below is some video footage of the march including the speeches by Nicholas Hollan, Anitra Brockman, Greg Harris and organizer Nathan Lane:
There has been a persistent talking point coming out of some on the Right when discussing the issue of health care reform. To make the case that the United States does not need radical health care reform, you often hear that the United States has the best health care system in the world.
New research has just come out from the Pew Research Center (h/t digby) and according to Americans, our health care system is "fairly average". Check out this chart (If you have problems reading the chart, click on it for a bigger version):
The President did a great job last night on selling the country on the need for health care reform. He made the moral case, and every metric indicates that people were overwhelmingly moved to support his plan. That's the good news for the White House.
The not so good news: the White House has been trying to get out from under the burden of supporting the public option for weeks. The trouble is, every time they try to do it, the President's numbers take a huge hit. And so last night he came out and indicated that a public plan would be a part of his reform package.
Last night, President Obama proved that he is still the master of rhetoric we saw during the campaign by delivering his first unambiguously excellent speech since those halcyon days on the stump.
[...]
One good speech rarely ends discussion and there is still much legislative work to be done. But the President accomplished as much as an address of this kind can, and his remarks deserve to be treated with the dignity and respect he showed all the other serious participants in the health care debate. It was an excellent speech.
He sounded like a winner. Like all great preachers, he started methodically and built to crescendos. The Republican responder, Charles Boustany of Louisiana, sounded like a whiner, crying, Deficit, deficit, and government-run, government-run, and built toward nothing. Obama charged the Republicans with specific lies. He made the obligatory gestures toward bipartisanship, including the unexpected shout-out to John McCain, who had campaigned in favor of mandatory catastrophic insurance--and I don't want to be cynical about those gestures, even though I think he's naive about the other party's intentions--but that's not where his stresses fell.
To be honest, I had a hard time paying attention to anything President Obama said Wednesday night after he said this, let alone taking him seriously on the subject.
[...]
Contrary to what he claims, the reason that medical expenses in the US are skyrocketing is not inefficiency and waste. Nor, contrary to what the Republicans are claiming, is it malpractice insurance; this was solved at the state level two years ago, and malpractice insurance rates are down across the board. The main reason that health care costs have skyrocketed is honest-to-gods scarcity. And that scarcity is entirely artificial. And his approach does nothing to address the artificial scarcity of doctors, or the artificial scarcity of newly (wrongly) patented drugs. And the other reason why health care costs have skyrocketed is flagrantly corrupt profiteering in both the insurance and pharmaceutical industries.
It is telling that so many people who claim to be speaking on the side of Truth, Justice, and the American Way of Journalism have consistently focused their outrage-o-meters at individual townhall attendees, political broadcast entertainers, and the lesser lights of a lame (if resurgent-by-default) opposition party, while letting walk nearly fact-check-free the non-irrelevant occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. If calling out lies and misrepresentations about a significant policy proposal is such pressing journalistic business—and it should be!—you'd think the watchdogs might start with the guy doing the proposing.
[...]
There was one line in the speech last night that pointed to an alternative, more promising future: "My guiding principle," Obama said, "is, and always has been, that consumers do better when there is choice and competition." Unfortunately, the president evinces zero understanding of how increased regulation can reduce consumer choice, even or especially when the government joins the competition. And even if he did see the connection, we'd have good reason to suspect that he wouldn't talk about it openly with the American people. That, ultimately, worries me more than a senior citizen who wants to keep the government out of Medicare.
President Obama addressed a joint session of Congress this evening in a nationally televised address on the topic of health care reform. I decided to tune into NBC's coverage of the address which was hosted by Brian Williams and featured commentary from Kelly O'Donnell, Host of Meet the Press David Gregory, and NBC political analyst Chuck Todd.
I tuned prior to the speech when Kelly O'Donnell was reporting that Sen. Olympia Snow (R-ME) has a direct line to the President and that she has encouraged him to drop the public option from his proposal from health care reform. Brian Williams followed up by putting the historical nature of Obama's spech into a weird context. Williams compared the historical moment to President Bush addressing a joint session of Congress after the attacks of September 11 and to President Johnson addressing Congress after the assassination of President Kennedy. While the issue of reforming health care is an important issue, putting President Obama's speech into this context seemed like a really odd comparison for Williams to make.
After Chuck Todd made some of his typical observations from inside the beltway about Obama needing to create "political space" for Democrats, Obama entered and gave a speech that packed more punch than I had anticipated. Prior to the speech, it was known that Obama was going to reveal some details on where he stands on health care reform, but Obama's tone (while measured during some moments) was at times stern and drew some interesting responses from the Congressmen in attendance.
The President started out with a statement that his Administration did not come to Washington to simply fix problems, but to "build a future". He launched into historical references where past Presidents that have attempted to reform health care and made note of Rep. John Dingell (D-MI) and his efforts at reforming health care by introducing the same reform bill at the beginning of each session of Congress.
Obama went on to outline the problem of America being the "only advanced Democracy" and "only wealthy nation" to force the hardship of lack of affordable health care on its citizens. Obama then spoke to advocates of a single-payer health care system and those who advocate for the elimination of employee provided health insurance. Obama lumped both groups into the same category and said that either of these plans would be too much of a radical shift for those who already have insurance plans. Obama said that it is his wish to build on the parts of the current system that work and to fix the parts that don't.
The President then outlined his plan which he stated would provide "security and stability" to those who already have insurance, provide insurance for those who currently don't, and slow the costs of health care for all involved. Obama outlined the basic tenants of his plan in which he stated that those who already have insurance and are happy with it, can keep it and that a new "Insurance Exchange" will be created over the next four years to provide incentives to insurance companies to compete in providing Americans with health insurance at lower costs.
Obama also spoke of providing tax credits to those who can still not afford insurance plans and Obama gave his support to a public option that would be available to compete with the insurance companies. Obama stressed that this public option, while important, should not be overblown by the left, the right, or the media because it is simply one portion of what is being proposed.
Obama moved on to address the misrepresentations that have circulated at many town hall meetings and by many members of Congress. Obama called the claims that the government would form "death panels" a "lie, plain and simple". He also said that no federal dollars would be used to fund abortions and that in no part of the bill does it say that illegal immigrants will be given health care. As Obama stated this last point, you could hear rumblings on the floor of the chamber and you could hear Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) shout out either "that's a lie" or "you lie" (I have seen both reported). I can't recall another moment where a member of Congress shouted out that the President was a liar during a joint session of Congress though I do find it a fitting representation of some of the behavior that some of the Republicans and some of the attendees of town hall meetings have engaged in during the month of August. I am sure that interviews with Rep. Wilson will be numerous tomorrow and I wonder how he will defend his outburst considering that the facts are not on his side.
Obama finished by quoting portions of a letter that the late Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) wrote back in May and Obama paid tribute to Kennedy's life-long work on the issue of health care reform. I thought this moment was fitting and it also allowed for Obama to cite the bipartisan work that Kennedy had engaged in with John McCain, Charles Grassley, and Orin Hatch while highlighting his own wish for bipartisan work on this bill. NBC's Political Analyst Chuck Todd seemed to miss this moment as in his post-speech analysis he stated that Obama had only mentioned two Republicans during his speech - President Bush and John McCain.
The Republican response, given by Rep. Charles Boustany (R-LA), was short and can be summarized by Boustany's statement that he had hoped the President would announce that he would scrap the current reform plans and start all over again. He also stated that this reform was nothing more than a "government run" proposal. Super.
While I thought Obama's speech was a good one (while surprising in its tone at times), I am skeptical to learn more of the details of his plan. Certainly I agree that the system needs to be reformed and that health care costs are out of control, that is not in dispute. It is the details of how serious the President is about fighting for the public option and how much the Conservative Democrats will be able to control the debate that is in dispute. It is also worthy of note that the ridiculous claims that we have seen some Republicans advance, are probably not going away any time soon. It will be interesting to see if this continued approach will result in stalling the legislation or will be successful in convincing Republicans to vote against any type of legislative reform.
This battle still has a long way to go and I will be posting further analysis and observations about this debate as we continue to move forward.
President Obama will be addressing a joint session of Congress and the nation this evening on the topic of health care reform. The intended goal of Obama's address will be to clarify some of the details that he would like to see included in a final version of the health care legislation. Up until this point, Obama has let Congress do much of the legwork in negotiating various provisions that are present in the various bills that are under consideration.
There has been much discussion surrounding the "public option", or a government-run insurance program that would compete with the private insurance companies. While it appears that the House should be able to pass a health care bill with a strong public option, it is unclear whether the Senate will be able to muster 60 votes needed to pass a bill with a public option. Because of this, it now appears that Obama is going to express his support for a public option in his speech this evening, while not ruling out signing legislation that does not contain such a provision. From Politico:
In a speech meant to reset debate on the centerpiece of his first-term agenda, Obama can be expected to use language similar to his Labor Day remarks in Cincinnati, where he said: “I continue to believe that a public option within that basket of insurance choices will help improve quality and bring down costs."
Anxious to navigate treacherous divides in the Senate, the president will stop short of drawing a line in the sand, as many liberal House Democrats want. He will not demand that a public option must be in any reform bill he signs, the sources said.
In other words, the President is leaving open the possibility that he will compromise on the compromise. As I have stated previously, the original compromise is the public option. Ever since a single-payer system was declared "off the table", there are some progressives who accepted discussing the public option as a workable compromise to the exclusion of the preferred system. These progressives, like Jane Hamsher, have been instrumental in their activism and getting members of the House to commit themselves to voting for a bill only if it contains a robust public option.
Now, after a month of wild town hall meetings that were ripe with misinformation, we are seeing continuing signs that the White House is not married to the idea of a public option and would be willing to pass legislation even if the final bill does not contain such a provision. Just listen to how careful White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs is with his language this morning on NPR's Morning Edition:
Gibbs flat out states: "The public option is not the most essential part of health care reform...even though the public option, the President believes, is a valuable tool, as I said, to create choices and competition."
Look for this to be a microcosm of Obama's speech tonight. Obama will walk the fine line of expressing his personal preference of incorporating a public option, but will allow plenty of room for the health care legislation to continue to be weakened by members of Congress who wish to continue with the status quo. The President wants some kind of reform passed as it will be a big political win on which Democrats (and Obama himself) will be able to put on their resumes in the next elections. I just fear that we are seeing more evidence that Obama is more willing to adapt himself to existing institutions than to work to fundamentally change them. This is an area where we need fundamental change.
