Nice to see some democrats still have some fight left. A Bill Without a Strong Public Option Will Not Pass the House Obama needs to step up next week or he will piss off a lot of people that first believed in him.
I'm curious to see if Dems have learned anything over the last month. Their messaging has been atrocious. At the very absolute least, they need to: * Stop talking about universal coverage. Yes, that's a goal and purpose. But 250 million Americans DO have health care now. They are in the midst of a severe recession, are scared of growing government, and want to know how this helps them. Covering someone else is not their priority and doesn't benefit them. Stop making it the centerpiece. * Start talking about how it benefits those 250M people. More competition. More choice. Lower costs. Less fights with insurance companies. etc. Keep it simple. * Stop yapping about public option vs. co-ops vs neither. No one except policy people understands that stuff. It doesn't help your argument. I completely understand why Americans are turning against this because the Dems aren't defining the goals or defending it well. I've seen some better stuff the last week - I'm hoping they are learning. Get the public support first and then you can implement the policy.
Agree Major, Obama has been horrible on the message But the public option is the key to reform. Drive down prices, promote competition. And he has public support, 70% of the country favors a public option. But you are right! We need to hear more on how we as a nation can't sustain the current system and why we need reform.
Sherrod Brown layin' it down! "Congress is Writing the Bill, the President's Not" Despite several indications that the White House will ultimately not go to bat for a public option, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) says he's seen no signs that the White House will change course--but if they do, he's not budging. "I know that the White House is debating it internally," Brown said in an interview with TPMDC. "But Congress is writing the bill, the President's not." "The White House should not take progressives for granted," an animated Brown told me. "It's not just the conservatives he needs to be in the fold. It's the progressives who've been in the vineyards fighting for reform for years." As co-author of the public option provision in the Senate HELP Committee's health care bill, Brown is one of the Senate's strongest advocates of the public option. But he still leaves open the possibility that he'd vote for a bill without a public option in it. "'m not going to say I will not support it if it doesn't have [a public option]," Brown said. "It's not the only thing that matters in this bill. Guaranteed issue is a very important.... insurance reform is very important." "The most important thing is the public option," Brown said. "I don't know for sure if I would support it with out a public option but it would be hard to get there.... We're not going through this to write some namby pamby bill so we can check a box and say we did health care reform." The White House is considering a number of ways to pass health care reform, but, according to one official, are concerned about striking a deal above all else--and that may entail maintaining an uneasy alliance with major health care industry stakeholders. "If the insurance companies are satisfied with this bill it's not a good bill," Brown said. "It's clear that if the major interest groups line up for this bill it's not doing what it's supposed to go."
Agreed - but when polled on what "public option" means, no one has any clue. In a survey that only gave 3 choices on what "public option" refers to, only about 35% of people got it right. In other words, everyone was just guessing. So while people say they support it, it's too much detail for what people really care about. I don't think it helps to talk about it when it's so controversial - while it gets support, it also gets vehement opposition ("big government"). It's much harder to oppose "more choice" or "lower costs" so those should be the messages he focuses on.
could you articulate, precisely, why we can't sustain the current system, which, after all, is hundreds of billions of dollars (US!) cheaper than anything herr professor doktor obama has proposed oh wait! Obama has not actually proposed a plan- he's outsourced that to Aint Nancy!
wait, you have a problem with Congress writing a law? Do you understand the meaning of the words legislative branch?
Congress usually does not write laws...lobbyists do. See BAPCPA 2005. That was written entirely by the lobbyists for the credit card industry.
It’ll be very interesting to see how this plays out. I’m obviously further away from the pulse of the American public than most of you are, but I see some interesting developments in the strategy Obama has taken so far. He didn’t define a clear proposal prior to the break and he left the issue up for discussion over the summer. The result of that, it seems to me, is that the Republicans have shown that they have nothing of substance to offer. The trick of planting screamers at the meetings has backfired on them. Their scare tactics have pretty well been debunked, (although it does take time to get this message out to all the seniors and other vulnerable people and I’m sure there’s still work to be done there). They blew a lot of smoke, but now that smoke has almost all blown away and they’re left with their pants down around their ankles. The polls show that people still want change, however, and if Obama comes back with a solid plan leaning to the conservative side in order to pick up most of the moderates then I think a lot of people will get behind it. The Republicans don’t have a lot of fire power left, nor do they have much credibility left. They’ll probably go back to screaming but many fewer people will be listening this time, and I think Obama will have the ear of most of the moderates now.
I'm not going to fault Pelosi for wanting a public option (I do too), but saying something like this publicly is only going to further reinforce the belief that the Democrats are disorganized. Right now is not the time for the Speaker of the House to be disagreeing with the President - they need to hash their differences out behind closed doors and then present a unified front to the press. Otherwise, the Republicans will use this to further divide the Democrats and prevent any meaningful health insurance reform - which is exactly what they want.
I'm disheartened by what I'm reading about Obama's willingness to drop the public option, but I am heartened by Sherrod Brown's response. Pelosi doesn't matter as much. I don't see any problem getting the public option through the House. The Senate is the problem. But if a group of senators is willing to stand up for the public option, I still like its chances. Obama's speech is make or break. He's had a lot of those and he's nailed every one of them. And he's never been armed with such good arguments or been blessed with an audience so ready to hear them (the uninsured, underinsured, those who have or know someone with pre-existing conditions and those who are struggling to pay for their health care). I think that, to a large extent, his presidency is riding on this speech now. Good thing he's so good at that sort of thing.
Consider yourself repped. I agree that the house won't be as much of a problem as the Senate. I believe that they have the votes for a majority even if Biden had to break the tie to do it. They don't have enough to break a filibuster. I think they have to be successful at painting the idea of a filibuster on this issue as obstructionism, and make it politically costly for the GOP to filibuster the bill. It will be tough job, but I think it's possible given the Republican's track record of unwillingness to work the Dems on pretty much everything so far.
"To do what" is the question. To do something they can legitimately call health care reform? Definitely, but that's a very low standard. To fulfill Obama's central campaign promise and do something that ensures universal or near-universal health care at an affordable price for all Americans, regardless of pre-existing conditions? That is a complete unknown right now. The only way I've heard of that we could get there is with the competition the public option brings. And, so far, there are only about 45 votes on record for it and the White House is reportedly backing away, working on something that's been referred to as "Universal Health Care Lite." Progressives and other supporters of the public option (in other words, affordable universal health care) need to stand up strong and stubborn. If they'll do that and Obama will get on board with them, he can bring this all home with his speech. The whole thing could turn around over night. And if it doesn't, it will represent a massive failure and a historic lost opportunity.
Sure - it's very simple. Health care costs are going up at a rate substantially higher than inflation or wages. If you can do basic math, you can see the problem with that. The health care reform plans have costs up-front but are supposed to be designed to decrease the rate of increase of health care costs. It may not work, but it answers your question of why the current system is unsustainable.
The most expensive part of health care today, and that continues to increase, is the vast volume of paperwork that must be done for everything. The administrative costs are enormous. If you can control those costs, you can contain the problem.
