| User Blox 4 |
|
- Put stuff here
|
Barack Obama  |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Rob Kailey is a working schmuck with no ties or affiliations to any governmental or political organizations, save those of sympathy.
|
|
Wed Mar 28, 2007 at 07:09:53 AM MST
|
(crossposted at dailykos.com)
Jacob Hacker writes an article in today's tompaine.com.
What a difference a year makes. Just 12 short months ago, health care was nowhere on the political agenda, and pundits were confidently stating that, after the failure of the Clinton health plan a dozen years prior, Americans continued to be wary of serious action. Affordable, quality health care for all Americans was a pipe dream.
Last Saturday instead of heading out to the golf course or brunch, John Podesta of Center for American Progress got seven Democratic candidates for President to show up in Las Vegas for a Health Forum. Why? Contrary to the so-called "moderates" who said that caution carried the day in November of 2006, Hacker is excited that
The 2006 midterm featured a highly successful drive by winning Democrats to highlight the insecurities created by the new economy, especially on health care. |
| Feral Cat :: We Are Pushing The Agenda -Nevada Healthcare Forum |
Yes, healthcare is a mess but the good news is that people are now in a mood to reform it. Why again? Hacker says that the first reason is
blockquote> the clear failure of the incremental policy strategy of the past fifteen years. Yes, expansions of Medicaid and the creation of state children's program have done enormous good. But they have not stanched the rise in the number of uninsured and underinsured, because employers have raced away from providing insurance even faster than government has signed up new enrollees. And these fixes have done little or nothing to deal with the underlying cost explosion that is the root cause of health insecurity. All the leading Democratic presidential candidates made clear on Saturday that "stay the course" is no longer a viable strategy on the health policy battlefield.
The second reason for the change is the relationship between business and labor both sensing a need for drastic reform.
And the third change: an emphasis on simple, jargon-free policy solutions that really work. There's still too much of the policy wonk in some of the leading Democrats' discussions of health care. But at the same time, there's a refreshing return to first principles. Much ink has already been spilled noting, correctly, that former senator John Edwards had the most detailed and thought-out plan of the leading Democrats who came to Las Vegas. (In the interests of full disclosure, I should say Edwards plan bears more than a family resemblance to the Health Care for America proposal that I have developed as part of the Economic Policy Institute's Agenda for Shared Prosperity.) But Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, despite not arriving with detailed blueprints, were both refreshingly straightforward in their discussion of the big issues at stake-and, beneath differences of emphasis, the ideas for reform they offered were remarkably similar.
Read the rest here.
http://www.tompaine....
Roger Hickey of Campaign for America's Future" gives another critique on Tompaine.com.
In a political system where presidential candidates, not party committees, formulate policy for the parties, forcing the candidates to refine their views early-before a crowd of party and union activists-is not a bad thing. Irresponsibly, CSPAN didn't cover it live, but CAP streamed the event live on the web, and will soon have a transcript available.
http://www.tompaine....
What was exciting for Hickey was not that one person came up with the perfect plan, but that all of them had worked on or knew they better get busy on one.
Everyone expected former senator Edwards to stress the specifics of his plan for health care for all, and he did. The audience was not so prepared for Obama's vagueness, but the Illinois senator stuck to principles on the grounds that he was still working on his plan. But the real surprise was Clinton's forceful diagnosis of the health care problem-and of her failure to win coverage for all in her husband's administration.
She like Kucinich lay the blame at the feet of the insurance industry. Right diagnosis. But what's the cure? Clinton is leaning towards regulation of the insurance company and making them cover pre-existing conditions. Kucinich says that this will still lead to insurance companies insuring only the youngest and healthiest. But can we jump right to Kucinich's single -payer? The good news is that all the Democrats showed up. No Republicans attended. And Hickey concludes by saying:
I'm glad I went out to Las Vegas rather than trying to get the streaming video to work. Being there made me realize how for the Democratic Party this health care vision is very much a work in progress. People need to understand that we have the power-though our tough questions, through the lines we chose to applaud and through our own strong advocacy of what kind of health program the candidates should adopt. We have the power to shape the program and the message, and the winning strategy.
Whenever you read or hear that the netroots and the grassroots had little to do with the election of 2006 and that it was all Rahm and Chuck and smart folks in D.C., remember that it was rather the "Wisdom of Crowds" come to rescue our democracy. I've posted this to give us all a pat on the back who push our candidates towards economic justice for all our citizens.
Video of Podesta and Andy Stern at:
http://thinkprogress... |
|
| Poll |
| Voting. Useful or not? |
|
|
|
Results
|
|
