Uh-oh. They, the Republicans, God love 'em, have gone and poked the bear.
In most Democratic administrations this sort of public admonition would be standard operating procedure, but for Obama's young team, it's a seismic breakthrough: "The (m-f-ing) Republican leadership," charged chief of staff Rahm Emanuel yesterday, "has made a strategic decision that defeating President Obama's health care proposal is more important for their (m-f-ing) political goals than solving the (m-f-ing) health insurance problems that Americans face every (m-f-ing) day."
Ah, "a return to normalcy," as Warren G. Harding once neologistically put it: in this case, the White House and Congressional Dems on one side, the GOP on the other, with no pretensions of bipartisan cooperation or common purpose, because, simply, there isn't any. There hasn't been all along.
There could have been; in fact cooperation and common purpose could have been the Republican Party's path to regained respectability -- a political objective that had them befuddled; they thought it over and opted not only for obstructionism instead, but obstructionism in its most malicious form.
They always overreach. Political sabotage is generally designed -- here, dear Republicans, is what seems like a superfluous primer -- to weaken the opposition and its goals, with some electoral benefit accruing to the saboteur in the process. But in the matter of health-care reform, while achieving (at least momentarily) the former, the GOP has utterly blown the latter, with public opinion polls showing a consistently meager confidence in the pseudoconservative party.
This is the Democrats' chance, since, as the NY Times reports this morning, however belatedly they "now say they see little chance of the minority's cooperation in approving any overhaul." The GOP's "purposely strident tone" has backed Democrats into a partisan corner of, one hopes, internal common purpose -- no longer can their Max Baucuses wear the dense, impenetrable armor of bringing those Chuck Grassleys along; and what's equally hopeful is that -- see Rahm's comment, above -- the White House now "hope[s] to make the case to the American people that it was Republicans who had abandoned the effort at bipartisanship."
That second development, especially, perhaps singularly, is huge, because it unstops the previously existing bottleneck of triangulation. Not only are Republican negotiators unofficially out, it seems, but the White House can no longer claim to be suffering under the Senate finance chairman's intolerable sufferance of GOP fiddlesticks.
In brief, if the Obama administration makes good on its apparent intention to engage a partisan war, then Mr. Baucus will sit marooned, ally-less.
Still, it would be foolhardy to presume that Congressional Democrats will unite in common purpose against unified adversity. In politics there always exists the wiser "should be," but the "is" always prevails, and what Capitol Hill's Democratic Party is, is fragmented, and, at least fractionally, backward. In perpetuity.
Hence, notwithstanding all those thrillingly militant reaffirmations yesterday, from both the White House and Capitol Hill, of a public option as central to real health-care reform, that component remains the Ottoman Empirelike "Sick Man" of a sensible peace. The numbers in the Senate, a compromising Max Baucus or no compromising Max Baucus, persist in stubbornness.
That doesn't mean, however, that all progress -- even fundamental progress -- is necessarily doomed.
Remember universality? Do you recall when that was the principal goal of health-care reform, way back before anyone had even heard of this kind of public option or that? Well, it's making a comeback, of sorts, in priority; most notably, I noticed, in Paul Krugman's weekend piece, "The Swiss Menace."
Krugman, in a rather cheerful search for the upside of things, wrote that "Obamacare," through "a combination of regulation and subsidies," essentially mirrors Switzerland's health-care system of universality. "Everyone," he wrote, "is required to buy insurance, insurers can't discriminate based on medical history or pre-existing conditions, and lower-income citizens get government help in paying for their policies."
And that, anyway you cut it, would be progress. Looking at reform from the angles of cost-cutting and simple humanity, single-payer would be superior, no doubt about that. Yet that, of course, is also politically impossible. Secondarily there's the public option, whose arch benefit, as I see it, is its backdoor potential to single-payer.
But, Krugman emphasized, in what I found to be a major reintroduction of alternative reform, "a Swiss-style system of universal coverage would be a vast improvement on what we have now."
So we conclude with what Republicans will start lying about next: mandates.
Equation !
Equation !
$1.042trillion (cost of reform) + $245bn (cost to reflect annual pay raise of docs) = $1.287bn (actual cost of reform).
$583bn (the revenue package) + $80bn (doughnut hole) + $155bn (savings from hospitals) + $167bn (ending subsidies for insurers) + $277bn (ending medical fraud, a minimum of 3%) = $1.257trillion + the reduced tax on the wealthiest = why not ? (except for magic pill, an outcome-based payment reform & IT effects and so forth)
In relation with medical fraud, please visit http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=111967435, you will be stunned ! Thankfully, in May 2009, the Obama administration announced a new task force made up of officials from the Department of Justice and the Department of Health and Human Services to work on health care fraud.
Thank You !
No More Health Catrina !
"Pseudoconservative" is good;
Nothing is free
Sorry, PM,...
"Hope" is nice, ....
... but it's no substitute for reality.
Where's Harry?
Doesn't Matter
Watching the demise of the Republican party
Keep it Simple Sherlock
Obama must realize that the President is not a deliberating senator, cajoling mediator, or glib folk hero. He's a leader. Here's what I suggest he declare, then move forward to pass the reform bill, and leave the critics behind to lick their wounds:
"Our Public Option is simple, All Americans will be free to choose Medicare early, and pay for that coverage from the money they and their employers send to private health care insurers. All uninsured Americans will be required to enter Medicare early, and pay for it as they are able. It will be pay as you go."
If cuts to current Medicare benefits already provided to elders is necessary to pay for this reform - then identify those cuts and tell them that it's their patriotic duty to pitch in. Were all in this together and all must pay, but their children will have no worries about going bankrupt over cancer and the grandchildren can see the doctor whenever necessary.
Sounds good to me
Simple Question
I like that. For once, a column that tells it like it is. Calling this radical right-wing party "conservative" is Orwellian doublespeak.
Single-payer is still an option, with many dozens of congresspersons co-sponsoring Kucinich's bill. If the Democrats won't even give us a public option, send a message to them next election by voting Green.
It's a simple question: Do they stand for citizens or corporations? If they don't support single-payer or a public option, they stand for corporations, and should be treated as the enemy in the voting booth.
"Staffed By Idiots?"
John Aravosis seems to have the right idea about the Obama administration being either liars or "staffed by idiots" (http://www.americablog.com/2009/08/somebody-at-white-house-needs-to-be.html) and concludes with what seems to be the best question to ask about Obama's regime: "Is this what the next four years are going to be like?"
Promoting change like Candidate Obama did implied that he had a vision for the country, and he seemed to express in his speeches that he had a plan to get us there. In hindsight of his accomplishments so far, his talents are wasted in Washington. He should be working on Madison Avenue in New York creating advertisements for drug and insurance companies.
To quote a Fame-us 'Merkin who had a way with words, "fool us once, cain't be fooled agin!"
Who Moved His Cheese
What would we fight for?
Obama really has given his army nothing to fight for. He pulled he one thing many of us wanted (single payer) off the table before doing anything else. Now, depending on the time of day, there is/isn't going to be even a public option.
Armies usually have a reason to fight. The Dems are caving on everything that the Republicans want. I am not about to lift one finger to support the Republican agenda. If we get nothing, that would be better than a crappy plan the Republicans won't vote for anyway. If the Dems blow this, it is time go back to the Green Party.
To generalize Barney Frank's
To generalize Barney Frank's wonderfully refreshing response to the fool with the Hitlerized Obama picture, trying to argue with Republicans is like arguing with a dining room table.
Just don't. Call them what they are and do what's right. Ignorance requires a remedy, not a voice.
So, Pres. Obama set this up? Giving Repugs Rope to Hang Selves?
This is the longest game ....
"YES, PRES. OBAMA IS THAT SMART...... YES, WE ARE THAT STUPID"
Maybe you should speak for yourself.
Welcome to the Party
New Term for the Thugs..