I'm sure, at some point and probably numerous ones in the past, you've been asked a simple question by a small child about politics, a question about some term the child has just heard on the news, say, "the House." Is that like our house? the child inquires.
You smartly determine to keep your answer short and blissfully relevant to your auditor's level of comprehension; yet before long, you find yourself swimming in a hopeless explanatory morass of representative democracy; redistricting; the importance of state legislatures and political control of the state house -- oh Christ, another one?; the underlying corruption of corporate contributions and the urgency of public finance; and maybe even Speaker "Uncle" Joe Cannon's insufferable tyranny that, praise be, came to a rebellious end early last century.
The child, of course, wandered dazedly to the kitchen at "representative demo...." You screwed it up, big time; you forgot the essential component of "KISS," despite your initial determination to stay the course of short and simple.
It's an easy trap: What adults often take for granted, children find eerily, boringly abstract -- and that is precisely the lesson the White House has learned with respect to its heretofore health-care education of the "low information" electorate.
President "Obama started in the spring with the 'experts agenda,' " explained a professional health-care analyst to the Politico. "He talked about implementing health information technology, 'bending the cost curve' on health spending, reforming the health care delivery system and funneling more federal dollars into research comparing the effectiveness of medical treatments and procedures."
The result, said the analyst, was that "the whole debate drifted in a direction that was disconnected from the core concerns of the American people," not to mention their lay comprehension. Hence Congressional Democrats are now "fretting," reports the Politico, "that Obama has ceded the summer to critics who [don't use terms like 'bending the cost curve' and who have] packed town halls to shout at lawmakers."
Indeed, Democratic inhabitants of the original object of our discussion -- "the House" -- are now showering in panic. And for good reason. Late yesterday afternoon, for instance, Charlie Cook, of the respected Cook Political Report, found the political environment in need of this urgent update: "[T]he situation this summer has slipped completely out of control for President Obama and Congressional Democrats.... Many veteran Congressional election watchers, including Democratic ones, report an eerie sense of déjà vu, with a consensus forming that the chances of Democratic losses going higher than 20 seats is just as good as the chances of Democratic losses going lower than 20 seats."
The latest Gallup, Cook further cautioned, reveals that among independents -- Hello, Blue Dogs -- Congress' job disapproval rating now stands at a staggering 70 percent. Concluded Cook, "We believe it would be a mistake to underestimate the impact that this mood will have on Members of Congress of both parties when they return to Washington in September, if it persists through the end of the Congressional recess."
In what tangible form an appreciation of that mood takes is, at this point, just about anyone's guess, but there's no doubt that President Obama will take much of the heat for it.
The Senate, too, knows how to read polls, which is likely why its leadership tried making such a splash yesterday with warmed-over, yawning news it probably can't use. Reconciliation, blared the Wall Street Journal: "[S]eeing little chance of bipartisan support for their health-care overhaul, [Senate Democratic leaders] are considering a strategy shift that would break the legislation into two parts and pass the most expensive provisions solely with Democratic votes."
Here's where I feel like the child. Because, I mean, wait a minute -- You, you parliamentary-procedure experts of varying political persuasions, have been telling us for months that reconciliation is, you bet, perfectly doable, fundingwise; yet the procedure, you've always added, would strip the legislative guts of virtually everything being funded, which themselves would then require separate, filibustered votes. All funded up and no place to go. This would advance the cause -- how?
Anyway, even leadership talk of such a procedure gives at least the appearance of leadership action; a little jolt for the pro-reform troops' morale, out there in the embattled boondocks.
Could Obama's pedagogic leadership have been better? That's indisputable. Yet exactly how, is the tricky part. This White House was determined to avoid the strategic mistakes of the Clinton administration, such as delivering public lectures on our "moral obligation" to pass health-care reform and insure the uninsured. But, there it is, this week, raising just that argument, only because it needs a new approach, even an old one. Good luck. The insured -- the majority -- mostly don't give a damn.
But what the White House is fundamentally bucking is something that too many on the critical left refuse to acknowledge: This country, at its characteristic core, notwithstanding the retaliatory blip of the 2008 election, is a center-right nation. And it remains one because it won't listen to those boring adults who see a spectacular train wreck coming if we don't change our immature, uninformed ways.
Still, there is long-term hope, as framed by none other than that half-American foreigner Winston Churchill: You can always count on Americans to do the right thing, after they've exhausted every other possibility. On health care, we simply haven't exhausted all of them yet.
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Single Payer Is The Only Route To Health Care For All
"Based on?"
"Money saved by reducing the overhead from upwards of 30 percent to 2.5 percent will be more than enough to cover the 48 million uninsured Americans."
"Otherwise?"
"Millions remaining uninsured and a multitiered privatized system in which rich people receive optimal care while the rest of us fight amongst ourselves for whatever resources are still available."
"The answer being?"
"For starters how about a one day general strike as per Larry Flynt's recommendation today.."
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 !
Obama's "leadership" conundrum
There's a good reason why Obama has not been showing good leadership on the public option--he's finding it difficult to be a good liar. Wandering around the country lying to liberals about how he favors the public option when he knows perfectly well it has already been jettisoned behind closed doors has befuddled him perhaps more than he imagined it would. What we are witnessing is an intelligent man with a severe case of cognitive dissonance. Not a pretty sight. If we get a public option of any kind it will be because Obama is drug kicking and screaming into it by those ungrateful House liberals, who, is P.M. will religiously tell you, usually know their place and allow the adults--the corporatists-- to rape the downtrodden with impunity, just the way he and Obama apparently like it. I'm glad Obama is taking a vacation. He needs to decide whether he truly wants to jettison his base, or perhaps come up with a better lie for them, or a better strategy for delivering it. Who knows, he might even do the right thing and stand by them in the end. But I won't hold my breath. And in the end, I fear the House liberals will do exactly what P.M. and Obama want them to do and roll over. Again.
Most of the commentary on
Most of the commentary on this issue is idle, because it is founded on the silly notion that a bill might not be passed this year. Eight years of Bushism following six years of Gingrichism has caused us to forget how major initiatives develop. What's going on now is intra-party negotiation, while the media run around with their hair on fire.
No, the relevant
No, the relevant commentary is based on observations that Obama is either weak-kneed and feckless, or is overtly shilling for healthcare profiteers. A bill passed this year, in this environment, could easily be the greatest gift ever given by a sitting government to a set of wealthy, colluding pirates (unless you count the recent Wall Street Bailout).
"Any bill" is not automatically better than "no bill".
You ignore reality, again
Of course, what is really going on is the fact that K Street lobbyists are controlling all the Republicans and the Blue Dog Democrats, including Obama.
What they didn't count on was an aggressive WE THE PEOPLE, who are demanding legitimate health care reform be enacted, and are using the real threat of voting out unresponsive Democrats during their next primaries.
Now that Howard Dean is also involved, the vote threat is more than credible, much to Rahm Emanual's chagrin. Blue Dogs are stuck between a rock and a hard place. Do they vote against the insurance industry and lose their bribe money? Or do they vote against WE THE PEOPLE and risk losing their seats in Congress?
Meanwhile, Obama sits uncomfortably straddling the fence, perplexed by the massive progressive backlash. But that's his own fault:
'Indeed, this is what you get from a White House that is run by Rahm Emanuel and former Baucus staffer (and famous corporate bum-licker) Jim Messina: A White House that plays hardball, but only with progressives. It is a White House that ignores its president's own progressive campaign rhetoric, treats congressional progressives as second-class citizens, and treats corporate shills as the most important players of all.'
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-sirota/the-obama-double-standard_b_264072.html
"This White House was
"This White House was determined to avoid the strategic mistakes of the Clinton administration, such as delivering public lectures on our "moral obligation" to pass health-care reform and insure the uninsured."
Of Course! The last thing we want our leaders talking about is tripe like "moral obligation".
...no, its far more comforting to hear them steer off from needed societal progress because "...we have an existing system; starting from scratch would be too disruptive". I guess PM would say that here Obama was avoiding the strategic mistakes of the Lincoln administration; those guys simply didn't know how to "go along to get along" the way our modern leadership has learned. "Emancipation" indeed!
Where Is The Substance Of Leadership?
The appearance of leadership is exactly what Obama has provided, not just on health care reform, but on every major issue facing this nation. what we needed (and still need desperately) is the SUBSTANCE of leadership.
Obama didn't lead when the banks were being giver their no-strings-attached bailouts, nor when credit "reform" was pushed through the Congress of Corporate Whores before We the People could catch on to the expanding national scam. Obama didn't lead when the banks shipped all that TARP money offshore into the secret accounts of their "high-flyers" rather than into the troubled mortgages of the distressed homeowners about to be foreclosed by these pirates. Obama can't lead when he meets with the leaders of other nations who have taken all of the steps that Obama shunned (see esp: France, Germany, Hong Kong and Japan) and who (by varying margins) have raised their economies above the level of recession while we look a second dip in the face. Obama won't lead when it comes to the wars of conquest begun by his predecessor. He won't lead when it comes to civil and human rights. He just won't lead regarding anything which benefits those who voted for him. Even the CARS automotive bailout only benefits the industry executives since so few of the workers now being rehired will keep those jobs very long.
About the only thing I can say that is positive about Obama's term to date is that he remains the better choice when compared to the square dance team of John Crashplanes and Caribou Barbie the Mooseburger Flipper. If they were on the floor, the Chinese would not be quite so patient in leaving their money sit in US coffers, but would instead be seeking repayment as fast as it could be arranged.
Obama's great leadership
I think Obama is a great leader. He led the Democrats straight to K Street where they proceeded to kick out the Republicans.
Now that's change you can believe in that remains the same!
Enmity and contempt
The Repubs have earned and deserve my hatred and my enmity. They are subhuman filth and should be shunned by all decent people.
The Dems are rapidly earning and deserving, again, merely my contempt at their incompetence and impotence.