I haven't been writing much about the healthcare bill in Congress right now - I've been writing about this issue for months now, and all that happens is that it gets uglier and messier. A grind. Frankly, I have no idea how staffers and lobbyists deal with the schedule, the endless bickering, the soul-sucking compromises.
In the Senate, of course, the public option was dropped in favor of Medicare expansion. Which, well, I would take as a start towards "Medicare for all." But then Joe Lieberman stepped in, and they dropped the Medicare buy-in. And now, thankfully, Bernie Sanders says he won't vote for the bill without the public option or Medicare expansion. Howard Dean's also speaking out against the legislation:
If I were a senator, I would not vote for the current health-care bill. Any measure that expands private insurers' monopoly over health care and transfers millions of taxpayer dollars to private corporations is not real health-care reform. Real reform would insert competition into insurance markets, force insurers to cut unnecessary administrative expenses and spend health-care dollars caring for people. Real reform would significantly lower costs, improve the delivery of health care and give all Americans a meaningful choice of coverage. The current Senate bill accomplishes none of these.
FDL's Jon Walker has a nice post on the reasons why a lot of us feel the Senate bill unacceptable, and why killing it is a good strategy. Read it. It's pretty much how I feel about this thing. I see the bill as fatally flawed, offering the wrong incentives, mandating that individuals purchase deeply flawed and expensive health insurance that may not cover their healthcare anyway.
There are progressives who do still support the bill. John Podesta:
The Senate health care bill is not without its problems. But if enacted, it would represent the most significant public reform of our health care system that Congress has passed in the 40 plus years I have worked in politics. The bill will give health care coverage to a record 31 million Americans who are currently uninsured, lay a foundation that will begin to lower costs for millions of families, and provide all Americans with the access to adequate and dependable coverage when they need it most.
So, we've talked a lot about what the bill is not. It's not structural reform. What is it, then? At the end of the day, it's a big bleeping social welfare program -- the largest social welfare program to be implemented since the Great Society. And that's really what it's been all along: fundamental reform like single-payer or Wyden-Bennett was never really on the table. The bill comes very close, indeed, to establishing what might be thought of as a right to access to health care: once it's been determined that people with pre-existing conditions cannot be denied health care coverage, and that working class people ought to receive assistance so that they can afford health care coverage, it will be very hard to remove those benefits. It's the sort of opportunity that comes around rarely -- and one that liberals will greatly regret if they turn down.
(By the way, as I understand the bill, most of us will not enjoy the protections against pre-existing conditions, lifetime caps, etc. Most employer-based insurance won't be subject to those new regulations in the near future, although I believe they will eventually be rolled into those provisions.)
That's an argument that's hard to ignore. A greatly flawed bill will actually help millions. Still, I don't think that argument is enough to have progressives go belly-up at the kind of egregious deal-making that's currently going on in the Senate. Hopefully Senator Sanders will stand firm and find a few friends, and force this bill to improve.
The big piece of news being bandied about today is that our favorite "Democrat" - Joe Lieberman - vows he'll block any healthcare reform bill that includes the public option, as he positions himself, according to the Politico report, to be a "fiscal hawk" on the issue. Even though the CBO has time and time again scored any reform bill that includes a public option lower than bills without it. In fact, the bigger and more inclusive the public option, the lower the cost of reform.
And Harry Reid appears nonplussed about Lieberman's threat.
(Frankly, I would like to see the Senate Democratic leadership pull out the stick for a change. You know, strip Joe of his committee chair and deny him of his appropriations requests, and watch how his lobbyist friends abandon ship. No better way to hurt a Senator like Lieberman than to go after his goody bag.)
And as Lieberman disses the public option, its popularity among voters continues to climb.
No wonder a majority of Americans in a recent WSJ/NBC poll think the US is on the wrong track. And while conservatives are off braying, seeing in the results a rejection of liberal politics, if you look closer at the numbers, it's pretty obvious the reverse is true:
-- Obama's approval rating remains at 51% in the poll, exactly where's it's been for the last few months.
-- 43% approve of the president's handling of health care. For Republicans, it's 23%.
- 42% have a favorable opinion of the Democratic Party. For the Republican Party, it's 25%. (Update: The GOP's rating is even worse now than it was during Bush's two terms.)
- On the generic ballot test, respondents favored a Democratic candidate over a GOP candidate, 46% to 38%. A month ago, the margin was only three points in Dems' favor.
- 63% believe the economic problems the White House is dealing with were inherited from the Bush era. That's down from 72% in June, but it's still quite high.
Combine those results with, say, Sarah Palin's popularity, and it's obvious the numbers show that the Republican brand is toxic. That's the real story here. No one scores worse on healthcare than Congressional Republicans. The economy is still seen as a Republican creation. And the likely drop-off in numbers about the direction of the country and the handling of healthcare is likely coming from disillusioned liberals and independents, who see Congress playing politics-as-usual footsies with corporate America.
And politicians know it, too. Those Senators facing tough re-election campaigns are often the public option's biggest boosters. First, it was Alren Specter, who favors a robust and accessible public option. And, more recently, there's Harry Reid, who looks like he's going to include it in the Senate healthcare bill over fears for his approval numbers back home.
The key, now, is to hammer this home, again and again to our elected representatives. Yes, it's work. Yes, it's slow and painful. But, yes, we can move this thing, bit by bit...
Lieberman kept the chairmanship of the Senate Homeland Security committee. There's been much hair-pulling and blouse-rendering from the left blog-o-sphere, and somehow the gesture is supposed to show us we're irrelevant, etc & co. It may be.
Or, maybe Howard Dean's right, if a candidate runs and triumphs on a message of "unity" and bipartisanship, it may be bad form to start the new era with a "purge," as Dean put it.
Whatever. I never really saw the Lieberman vote as a referendum on the progressive base in the first place. Heck, it only came to a vote because Lieberman was "disloyal" to Obama and Democratic Senate candidates, not because of his myriad crimes against his former party, US foreign policy, the electorate, and the concept of reason.
Bottom line: the reason Senate Democrats should have denied Joe his committee chair was to take investigative power over the Obama administration out of his hands. This was the opportunity for the Senate to act in its own best interests. The Senate Democrats fumbled.
Maybe ol' Joe won't abuse his committee chair. Who knows? But if he does...well...we warned you, didn't we?
Senator Joe Lieberman's fate as chair of the Homeland Security Committee and quite possibly his future role with the Democratic party will soon be decided by a secret vote by the seven-member Democratic Caucus, largely for his crime of endorsing John McCain and speaking on his behalf at the Republican National Convention -- or maybe, knowing the Senate, it was because supported Norm Coleman and Susan Collin's re-election bids.
Unfortunately the Senate Democrats are not considering making Lieberman an apostate because of his unhinged hawkishness and unwavering support of George Bush's fantastic adventure in Iraq. Nor for his habit of using the Rovian attacks on the patriotism and loyalty of Americans who questioned the war. Nor for his contempt of the party and its supporters during the 2006 election.
And I, too, could probably forgive Joe Lieberman of all those unpleasantries -- his acts, after all, have had some consequence to his reputation and political future. If he were to face re-election today, he's probably lose, and soundly.
But what I can't forgive -- and what the Democratic Caucus should consider -- is how ol' Joe has used, or not used his committee in the past, and what him holding onto it might mean. This is Lieberman's "crime":
This seems to be routinely overlooked, but take a moment to consider what the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs actually does: it's the committee principally responsible for oversight of the executive branch. It's an accountability committee, charged with investigating the conduct of the White House and the president's administration.
As chairman of this committee for the last two years, Lieberman decided not to pursue any accusations of wrongdoing against the Bush administration. Lieberman's House counterpart -- Rep. Henry Waxman's Oversight Committee -- was a vigilant watchdog, holding hearings, issuing subpoenas, and launching multiple investigations. Lieberman preferred to let his committee do no real work at all. It was arguably the most pathetic display of this Congress.
And yet, now Lieberman acts as if keeping this chairmanship is the single most important part of his public life. Why would he be so desperate to keep the gavel of a committee he hasn't used? I'll let you in on a secret: he wants to start using the power of this committee against Obama.
The last thing we need is another presidency, like Clinton's, marred by Congressional partisan "investigations" into meaningless, trivial, or false accusations. Not to say Lieberman means to use this power, but certainly it's his only means to influence a government that has no more use for him.
I don't care if Joe Lieberman stays or leaves the Democratic party. But, if the Senate Democrats have any political sense, they'll take Joe's committee and give it to someone who'll use in the best interests of the country, not to illuminate his own fading star. Still, that's not a given, considering the Senate's subservience to loyalty and seniority. They might just give Lieberman the committee because he's been around so long.
Lieberman's endorsement of Republican John McCain disqualifies him as a super-delegate to the Democratic National Convention under what is informally known as the Zell Miller rule, according to Democratic State Chairwoman Nancy DiNardo.
Miller, then a Democratic senator from Georgia, not only endorsed Republican George Bush four years ago, but he delivered a vitriolic attack on Democrat John Kerry at the Republican National Convention.
The Democrats responded with a rule disqualifying any Democrat who crosses the aisle from being a super delegate. Lieberman will not be replaced, DiNardo said.
We're all happy about the news, ha ha, Lieberman isn't a delegate any more, etc. & co... Except...why in h*ll was Lieberman ever superdelegate to begin with? He's not a Democrat!
I can't think of a worse indictment of the superdelegate system...
"Being a Republican is important. Being a Democrat is important. But you know what's more important than that? The interest and well-being of the United States of America," the Democrat-turned Independent said in announcing his decision Monday morning in New Hampshire.
"Let's put the United States first again, and John McCain is the man as president who will help us do that," he said.
"I want Democrats to be back in the majority in Washington and elect a Democratic president in 2008. This man [Ned Lamont] and his supporters will frustrate and defeat our hopes of doing that."
Weak. Especially weak, given the quality of this year's batch of Democratic presidential candidates. Even weaker still, given that even Republican voters don't like their candidates - including McCain. But I guess somebody has to be the hero of the DC chattering classes, who just lo-o-o-ove their "independents," even if they are classless liars who think they own their elected offices.
Nancy Pelosi is frustrated. She's being criticized by everybody - left, right, center - Congressional approval is plummeting, largely because it's seen as being unable to follow through on the promises made by Democrats in the 2006 election to end the Iraq war, tackle trade and taxation policy, get stem-cell research money done, among other issues.
And she's probably right. Senate Democrats, after all, have the slenderest majority yet have the additional burden of filibusters. A lot of good Democratic legislation - CHIP, Iraqi withdrawal timetables, extended rest for military units, Medicare's ability to negotiate drug prices - has fallen to Republican filibuster.
The comments also signal a growing unease within the House Democratic Caucus about the difficulty Senate Democrats are having in attracting sufficient GOP support for controversial bills. The Senate gridlock is undermining Democrats' ability to tout the first Democratic-controlled Congress since 1994 and is playing a role in the public's disapproval of the legislative branch.
"It seems like the only way to do things is the Senate way," Rep. Kendrick Meek (D-Fla.) said.
Add that to the fact that a good chunk of Democrats are actually quite conservative. Like, say, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, or old pal Joe Lieberman who, although an independent, caucuses with the Democrats.
First it was Michael Chertoff, now it's rumored that Joe Lieberman will be tapped to be Bush's next Attorney General. I agree that a Lieberman nomination would be a brilliant Bush move, and agree with Marjorie Cohn that it basically halt investigations and put the GOP in charge of the Senate.
I'm not sure it will happen though. For one, Lieberman has been a Democrat and a Senator for a long time. Can he display the proper amount of fealty required of a Bush toadie?
...Lieberman is horrible on national security and soft on oversight. But he isn't a total tool. His confirmation hearings would still involve a lot of demands that he cooperate with congressional oversight...something he is not indifferent to. Would Lieberman promise to enforce congressional subpoenas? Would he have the audacity not to promise?
Don't count on anyone high profile, IMHO. Paul Clement?
Unless you're like me and spending a lot of time following bizarre inner workings of politics, you may not have noticed that Marshall Wittman has gone to take a job with Senator Joe Lieberman (ID-CT). Who is Wittman? He's a former Christian Coalition operative, former Trotskyite, former McCain staffer, former DLC staffer, now going to work for Joe Lieberman who is a DemocratConnecticut for LiebermaniteIndependent Independent Democrat flirting with Republicans despite promising during his campaign that he would do no such thing.
Yargh, that's exhausting. Wittman is going to work for Lieberman because he apparently thinks that Lieberman and McCain are the two last honorable men in American politics. They certainly get played up that way a lot, which does an awful lot to cover up the fact that, policy-wise, they're about as out-of-touch with the American people as anyone can imagine.
Mark Schmitt, a smart observer of D.C., notes that this could be the first step in the creation of the coming "Neocon Party" -- a party that would exist solely to put McCain and Lieberman in the White House. The problem with such a party? These guys aren't centrists. In fact, they're just about the only folks left in the country who think what we should be doing in Iraq is increasing troop levels.
This is what D.C. mistakes for centrism, political actors who seem to fantasize about the glories of war and their own "high-mindedness" while sipping on spiced rum punch.
