By now, notwithstanding the public's mammoth misunderstandings of the various health-care reforms being seriously entertained on Capitol Hill, we should all be clear on at least one thing: the public option is no longer one of them.
No doubt it's still a rallying cry, a slogan, the emotional object of an extended political campaign, and for a few the last principled stand against a swarm of naysayers. But as an actual reform, it's dead.
Dead, dead, dead. And last night, when I read in the NY Times that President Obama, in tonight's speech, intends to "dispel myths that have been swirling around the issue" of health-care reform, I pretty much wished that he'd include the public option as one of them. It swirls, it stalks, it haunts, it hovers -- it creeps among us, but as already toe-tagged.
Persisting in the myth of some sort of miraculous resurrection is merely divisive. It's gone, OK? And talk of a "triggered" afterlife is merely intellectually insulting. Just pull up and over the sheets; in this neurotic Congress it was doomed from the get-go anyway, though we held hope against hope, and there's nothing wrong with that.
But now it's time to dispense with that particular hope -- wholesale -- and move on to reality.
Yesterday I clicked on a link in The Hill and was whisked to a major progressive Website announcing that Sunday was -- get this -- a "good day" for the public option, purportedly because David Axelrod and Robert Gibbs had refused in Sunday interviews to explicitly pronounce it dead. I was a trifle jarred by the Website's story line, but also angered, because surely its author appreciated his own disingenuity; his was fifth-quarter cheerleading, and perpetuating hope among some readers for a decidedly lost cause only bordered on the cruel.
Even some Congressional progressives have given up the game, excluding, of course, its spoken political amenities. "Even liberal Democratic Rep. Jan Schakowsky of Illinois," reported NPR, "says that while a robust public option must be in the initial House bill, it's not a make-or-break issue for her final vote." Said Schakowsky, "Even insured Americans can't get health care. So, yes, the public option is very important; it's important to our base. But so is the assurance that they're going to have health care when they need it." There's an excessive and uneven number of evens here, but you get the drift: the public option is toast. Ms. Schakowsky can count.
As it turns out, at least some high-profile progressives never understood what a public option really meant, anyway, which may explain some of its lingering defense. Last night, for instance, I watched in near horror as prairie populist-progressive Ed Schultz, of MSNBC's "The Ed Show," mangled the public option's relationship to the issue of preexisting health conditions beyond all recognition; Mr. Schultz, you see, was under the impression that only the inclusion of a statutory public option could eliminate such unconscionable insurance exclusions.
I had heard him make this unmistakable mistake before, but reasoned I had somehow misunderstood him. But last night he drove the legislative error home beyond any doubt: The poor man had no idea what he was talking about, yet there he was, whipping up his half-million-or-whatever viewers, I could only assume, into an incensed, uninformed frenzy.
He then cut to an interview with Roger Simon, of the Politico, who was sitting rather stupefied, it appeared, thinking, Should I correct him? Is he at all aware that virtually everything he just said was plucked from some faraway, mystical land of political pixilation? But Simon resisted any pedagogic impulses. One should never correct the host, I suppose; one might not be reinvited for a little network face time.
Also, however, came Michigan's Sen. Debbie Stabenow with some refreshing clarity, although Mr. Schultz wasn't too keen on pursuing the clarifying parts.
Listen up, she said, I happen to support a single-payer system -- Medicare for all -- so my bona fides on a public option are a given. On the other hand, she continued, the public option isn't the whole of the bills floating about. We can still achieve fundamental, progressive reforms, without the public option.
As for reconciliation as an alternative path? Here, Sen. Stabenow corrected a massive misapprehension out there: There probably aren't 50 votes for a public option, let alone 60. (Indeed, the last headcount I saw put its support in the low 40s, which is likely the count the White House has been timidly but knowingly operating on since the beginning.) Schultz hurriedly skipped right past that rather critical observation. Hear no evil ... And that's shameful, because it perpetuates the unreal and further drives a wedge between the dreamy and the pragmatic.
Look, I myself happen to harbor a vague democratic socialism -- I am, you could say, a kind of Bernie Sanders Democrat. So to me, even a public option as originally framed is an unidealistic sell-out and uneconomical monster. One's health should not be subject to profit. Period.
That's not to say a public option wouldn't have helped, but folks on the left -- are you listening, Mr. Schultz? -- need to get a grip on reality: That's not going to happen. The votes aren't there; they never were. Not this year, anyway. And President Obama might as well be stun-gunningly blunt about it.
He won't, of course, because that's not the political thing to do. But in demurring, he's only prolonging an immense distraction and ensuring that the left's internal wedge is driven a little deeper.
Buzz this on Buzzflash.net
Buzzflash?
How can anyone take Buzzflash seriously when it allows a defeatist and right of center writer such as this to post articles? Try commondreams.org, folks.
Again, PM reverses cause and effect
Obama's not merely reflecting reality; he actively contributed to the circumstances in which it became reality. To deny that simple concept forces me and many other commenters to speculate you really are using this forum to audition for a job with the administration - as I said earlier, in public relations.
A mandate without a public option?
Which is what Obama had been declaring today before Congress. How will this work? Will I have to send a copy of my contract with Aetna, UnitedHealth or whomever to the IRS to avoid the penalty? Or will a private, for-profit health insurer appear as a FICA payment on my pay stub? My state does not mandate that I pay auto insurance, if I don't drive. But I can't not stay alive. Or will suicide be my only possible method of not being gouged by a health insurer?
I'd love to hear Obama explain these matters, but I know that paying the auto industry 80 billion dollars to close half of their factories, shitcan half of the UAW, and send the lost work to Mexico and China in order to build cars only for Mexicans and Chinese to buy, you can bet, must eat up every last minute of his workday.
It must be tough being a Democratic president with a matching Dem majority in both houses of Congress. Nothing could possibly happen under such circumstances. At least he's gotten to appoint new auto execs who will realize his dream of destroying a major member of the AFL-CIO. Was the prospect of Chinese laborers making our autos the engine behind the "fire" of his speech to labor a couple of days ago? I believe that was the term Josh Marshall used in description. Pity nobody there was allowed to fire back.
The PM Carpenter Option as the Undead, dividing progressives
More like brain dead, or talking parrot head.
What is Carpenter doing on
What is Carpenter doing on buzzflash? Shouldn't he be working for Faux "news"? This is the same type of rationale that Faux spews ad nauseum every evening.
If the public option is "dead", it's because Obama sold us out.
pitiful
This "analysis" is pitiful and weak. Nice try.
Carpy says, "You're losing, so give up already."
When the going gets tough, there is nothing like cheerleading for the other side, eh Carpy? I'm so glad you never coached the Pittsburgh Steelers.
So how is the public option dead when:
And how is the public option dead when in the House, 60 true Democrats say there won't be a bill without the public option, and the House has yet to vote on the bill?
So Carpy, are you saying there will be no bill at all? Or are you simply mindlessly parroting the Rahm approved propaganda, again.
Why in heaven's name does Buzzflash allow you to post your garbage day after day?
Bernie Sanders
"I am, you could say, a kind of Bernie Sanders Democrat."
Absolutely. Independent Bernie Sanders realizes that congressional Democrats, with few exceptions, are honorless whores to interests of great wealth, and works with them with his nose clamped shut.
What do you think Bernie's reaction will be tonight when Obama makes it clear that we will BE REQUIRED to provide massive wealth to private insurance companies, while they will be held to a gentleman's agreement to treat us nice? You can bet he wont be playing defense for the president.
Apologists are on coming out of the woodwork.
I agree that the public option is no longer an option, but not with Carpenter's assessment that it's the Congress' fault. It's been less than a month that Pelosi formed a congressional bloc to override any bill without one. And during last month, the majority of the Democrats polled in the house were in favor of a public option. When the Senate had up to 45 polled Democrats for a public option in August, the administration had nothing to say about reconciliation.
This is undeniably an issue of leadership. Obama has refused to push for a public option, unlike LBJ who had significantly greater obstacles in 1964 with Medicare but was enormously successful in getting it passed. This administration has been consistently unclear about their position, leading to a barrage of second-guessing by the pundits and media. Finally, he's taking a decisive stand tonight and politicking for unity after months of conflicting messages. There's a certain cruelty in hiding intentions for not delivering on something you promised while keeping the hope alive. Are we going to be told tonight by the media, the administration and Democratic apologists how grateful we should feel for "insurance reform" and Obama's bipartisanship in developing what increasingly appears to be a triggered public option at most?
An Unintended Truth
P.M. aside from the fact that liberals don't really need a reality check from corporate whores pretending to be Bernie Sanders democrats--Gawd, what a laugh--you actually have interjected a bit of reality into your column. The public option is dead. Yes, indeed it is. It has been dead ever since our president killed it behind closed doors before May flowers were in full bloom. I know this and have known it for weeks because I read Firedoglake and the wonderful Jane Hamsher (as well as Glenn Greenwald), who has done unbelievable work on this story.
So the question is--not, why do I continue to harbor fantasies that the public option will become law; but why was it dealt away in a backroom deal in a direct rebuke of his campaign promises, and why has our president been waltzing around the country pretending to liberals as if it has not?
When the final bill does eventually materialize, even the most staunch pro-Obama liberals will have to concede that perhaps they've been had, and that attempting to discern what the president really believes and will stand up and fight for is akin to grasping a handful of air. Your continuous scolds against liberals withstanding, this president has lost my trust. And once lost, it is difficult to regain.
The president has made the political calculation that he can sell out the Left (and many independents) on this issue and win back their support later, or at least enough of them. Who am I to say he's wrong. It takes an educated, informed, consciencious voter to see thru Obama's skullduggery. Apparently, he is staking his presidency on the ignorance of the American people. And who ever went broke betting on that?
Support in low 40s, Obama throws in towel
Carpenter implies that Obama gave up on the public option when he saw that Senate support was in the low 40s. Is that what LBJ did when he saw insufficient support for Medicare or other Great Society programs? Is that what Reagan did when he saw low support for gutting the social safety net and lowering taxes on the rich? If a president believes in something and that president is competent, then that president does whatever is necessary to achieve the goal. What does Obama do? Oh yea, he fights hard to get the bankers their billions, but when it comes to the needs of ordinary Americans he immediately folds. Yea, that's what we want. Either Obama is a closet corporatist or he is a weak little wimp. In either case, Carpenter has no business covering for him on a progressive site.
Exactly! Is nonprogressive Carpy looking for a job with the MSM?
It certainly seems that way ever since he criticized us for criticizing Obama. Either that or he really is another one of Rahm's eager to please stenographer lapdogs barking from the echo chamber.
Saunders would spin in his grave
Bernie saunders would spin in his grave if he were dead when you describe yourself as a Bernie saunders democrat.You mr. carpenter are a Max Baucus democrat and the health care reform isn't splitting progressives,they may be resigned that the corrupt Obama administration has killed it and they have to keep the party together but it is not splitting them.Progressives know the legislation is a piece of horse manure and will end up hurting people as cost continue to rise and more people can't afford health care and are forced to drop it or have their companies drop it.you Mr. carpenter are the lowest form of human being comparing your ideas and self to Bernie Saunders.I hope you get your job at the weekly standard or as a commentator for the corporate newsmedia then we won't have to listen to your lies and propaganda on Buzzflash
Not Liberals - It's Blue Dogs who have "divided" the Democrats
One more day - one more column from P.M. Carpenter, defending the health insurance "status quo."
Liberals compromised down from "Universal Health Care" which was proposed initially by this administration - to "the public option."
That's all the compromise we intend.
The Blue Dogs (or Rahm Emanuel Democrats) have continued to take industry money... and continued to stall real reform.
Look, I'll admit that I'm old.
I still remember the "dark ages," when a man's word was his bond, and a handshake could seal a deal.
I don't like being lied to --- about war, about health care, about anything.
A politician who lies to get votes, doesn't deserve my vote, or my respect.
If Obama lied to us all, about what he believed constitutes "Health Care Reform", which initially was "Universal Health Care" and then "The Public Option", if he has changed his position now that he no longer needs our votes, or our support, for the sake of political expediency, he doesn't deserve our continued support. And... he no longer has mine.
The Max Baucus/Rahm Emanuel Blue Dogs/DINO's have divided the Democratic Party, Not Progressives.
And, they have sold not only their soul, for a few pieces of insurance industry corporate silver, but the soul of what used to be The Democratic Party.
Bernie Sanders Democrat
Taking the liberty of pilfering your phrases, I am a Bernie Sanders Democrat, but I can count. I also want Medicare For Everyone, but I can count. The healthcare bill that will pass will be a giant step forward. Those of us who wish for a public option or Medicare For Everyone need to busy ourselves generating grassroots support for it.