The thugs are carrying the day

If you want that markert driven solution, "The Public Option Insurance Bailout," then you should be attacking Rahm, (0.00 / 0)

according to Jane Hamsherover at Fire Dog Lake.
http://campaignsilo.firedoglak...

The Baucus Caucus: PhRMA, Insurance, Hospitals and Rahm

By: Jane Hamsher Wednesday August 19, 2009 12:01 pm

The GOP needs the money of PhRMA and other disgruntled businesses to fund its 2010 war chest. Just as it was during the bank bailout, the goal of the White House was clear: more important than saving the financial system was keeping the financial institutions happy and stop them from financing Republicans.

Who would think that way? Whose primary objective would be to keep anyone from funding a GOP ascendancy, to sell out health care reform worth billions for a hundred fifty million in pro-reform advertising? Who would think to ask PhRMA to run ads in the districts of vulnerable freshmen, as well as Blue Dog Mike Ross, who is anything BUT vulnerable? Certainly not some policy wonk.

But ask yourself -- would consider it a victory to use the "public plan" as little more than a political pawn with which to threaten stakeholders and force them to stay at the table, with no thought as to the emotional and moral consequences suffered by the people who had pinned their hope on having one?

Someone who had worked as the head of the DCCC. Who remembered the 54 seat swing to the GOP in 1994 after the failure to pass health care reform. Someone whose sole goal was a "political victory," so the White House could be 14-0 not "13-1."

Someone like Rahm Emanuel, who works through the Blue Dogs in the House to make the House bill conform to the deals he sets up in the Senate. Rahm wanted a public plan with "triggers" and had been pushing for it since January. Lo and behold, who is insisting that any public plan in the House have triggers -- Mike Ross and the Blue Dogs.

The PhRMA deal on July 8 says that there won't be any drug price controls, and the next day, Blue Dogs Heath Shuler and Debbie Halvorson author a letter demanding -- no drug price controls:

Instead, they are asking Waxman, Rangel and Education and Labor Chairman George Miller (D-Calif.) to support the drug industry's offer to spend30 billion help cover those costs - a deal that is backed by the White House and the Senate Finance Committee.

The American Hospitals Association deal was signed on July 8. The hosptals want higher medicare reimbursement rates for rural providers. On July 15, the Blue Dogs threaten to block health care reform -- if it doesn't increase reimbursement rates to rural providers.

And suddenly, the hospitals are spending $12 million running positive ads about health care reform with PhRMA and the AMA.

Mike Allen said earlier this week that "this weekend's comments by White House officials simply acknowledged the long-obvious reality that the idea of a government-run insurance plan was partly a bargaining chip."

If you look at the cat-and-mouse game played between the Democrats and the Republicans, support expressed by the President for a "public plan" meant "don't you dare." A commitment that the bill will be "bipartisan" (since the GOP would never agree to one) was a signal that there would be no public plan.

The White House never cared about getting Republican votes -- it cared about keeping the Republicans from peeling off the dollars of stakeholders like PhRMA. Giving in to "Republican" demands was cover for writing shitty things into the bill that would keep the stakeholders happy. They didn't need Republican votes, they never did, and they never truly cared. As long as the money stayed out of their campaign coffers, it was all good.
If a public plan gets into a final health care bill, it's going to be because of public pressure, because people who put Obama in office demand one. Because in the grand scheme of White House priorities, it was something that could acceptably be dealt away in pursuit of a higher political objective by the guy who was calling the plays: Rahm Emanuel.

See, the Dem leadership really could care less about the public option. And that's why  single payer was off the table. Because if single payer was on the table then the public option would have been the fall back position. But they didn't want the public option as the fall back position, they wanted it as the bargaining chip.

I'm calling the White House, not Grassley's office. I'm telling them that they lied about the single payer, they lied about the public option, and that I know that they lied.

The Dems could care less about health care reform. It's all a bunch of lies.

You can call Grassley's office if you want. Go ahead. Waste peoples time and efforts.  

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by: Steve W. @ Thu Aug 20, 2009 at 15:57:05 PM UTC

Ok, Lewison brought it up (0.00 / 0)

so I'm going to repeat my mantra once again.

Mandate + No Public Option = Fascist Health Care

When the government mandates that citizens who have been abused by the health care industry be coerced into entering into a forced contract with them, then we have entered into the final phase of crony capitalism, and it is being unveiled as a fascist health care system.

Lewison is spot on when he asks the question:

Oh, you're not interested in making that argument? I didn't think so.

I don't expect that progressives and the "left of the left" will take kindly to having to support a president who foists a fascist health care solution upon them. Methinks it will be the final straw that pushes the left into leaving the democrats behind and retreating into supporting third parties, electorally, once again.

A "horrible political miscalculation?" That would be an understatement. It would open up Obama to a full scale onslaught from the left, from which his presidency would most likely not recover.

Somebody needs to go to the White House, and exorcise the place of all things DLC left remaining, lest they take down the presidency.

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by: JC @ Thu Aug 20, 2009 at 18:29:59 PM UTC

The presidency (0.00 / 0)

is the reason for the mess.  LACK OF LEADERSHIP!  Politics over substance.

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by: Craig Moore @ Thu Aug 20, 2009 at 18:33:02 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Sobering assessment (0.00 / 0)

from Canada:  http://www.thestar.com/comment...

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There's plenty of evidence that the look-ma-no-hands approach hasn't helped, and it probably made the painful politics of health care hurt more, not less. For one thing, the president has outsourced his signature legislative proposal to a political entity - Congress - that has a public approval rating of about 30 per cent in most recent polls, far lower than the president's own standing...

With no White House plan to serve as a political marker, it's been every member for his or her self. That's why there are competing Democratic plans, and rifts within rifts in the party. Vacationing lawmakers have no single plan to defend or even explain to the throngs of detractors - and, sometimes, supporters - who are turning out in the heat to harangue them.

Without the president even setting out clear lines about what will or won't win his signature, there is no political penalty to be paid by any Democrat who crosses Obama.

And who can even tell when he's been crossed?
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by: Craig Moore @ Thu Aug 20, 2009 at 18:49:42 PM UTC

[ Parent ]