Negotiations and Swan Songs

by: David Sirota

Tue Sep 15, 2009 at 09:22


Mike Lillis has an important story over at the Washington Independent reiterating a theme we've been talking about for months here at OpenLeft: Namely, that one of the major problems in the health care debate was the Democratic Party's insistence on - and D.C. progressive community's complicity in - beginning the health care battle from a position of weakness. Specifically, the Professional Left (as distinct from the activist/grassroots/local left) began the fight not by pushing President Obama to stand by his previous single-payer promises of the past, but by pushing the compromise public option:

By choosing the public option - not single payer - as the left-most negotiating point, Democrats left themselves with few places to go but toward more conservative proposals for insurance reform, experts say, including the co-op model and a system of triggering public plans only if private insurers fail to meet certain cost and coverage targets. In the blood sport of congressional negotiating - which dictates that you over-ask, and then move toward your goal during the subsequent bartering - Democrats were asking merely for the public plan they wanted in the final bill. The move, some experts say, provided Republicans with greater leverage to fight the public option.

Perhaps, when this is all over, the Professional Left will have - finally - learned something about negotiating. However, before we get to that point, we've still got a fight to wage for the public option, because it's not dead. Not at all.

The new chairman of the Senate HELP committee, Tom Harkin (D-IA), is now promising that a health care bill with a robust public option will pass by Christmas. Meanwhile, the Progressive Caucus looks like it may be strengthening its demands for that very objective.

The X-factor will be President Obama. Can he muster an LBJ-esque burst of legislative arm-twisting to pass a real bill with a real public option? Or will be continue to court a Republican Party that he doesn't need, while defending a handful of conservadems he should be able to roll? If it's the latter, its a good bet this will be his legislative swan song, as the Congress will feel emboldened to ignore/water down the rest of his agenda for the rest of his term.

I discussed this last set of questions with former Sen. George McGovern on my Colorado radio show yesterday. McGovern, who was in the Congress when Medicare originally passed, worked closely with LBJ, and had some interesting thoughts on whether Obama can muster the same strength. Listen here.

David Sirota :: Negotiations and Swan Songs

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Negotiations and Swan Songs | 72 comments
yeah, a public option was supposed to be the compromise (0.00 / 0)
treating single payer as completely untouchable just made single payer into the official "lefty" position. it's no surprise that we're fighting for it.

it's just common sense. if you're trying to sell a house for $300k, you ask for $350k.  

Who did the compromising, then? (4.00 / 5)
I've been seeing the meme that the "public option" (or "plan") is the "compromise" position with single payer for a while now.

But so far as I can tell, the single payer advocates were compromised for, by others. They weren't at the table, even the "professional left" table.

So, got a link on where and when the compromise took place, and who was involved in it?

For example, PNHP is a single payer advocacy group with 15,000 members. I would have expected them to be at the table. Were they? Or how about Health Care Now? (Not to be confused with the fauxroots HCAN).

So, where was the compromise table?

I am in earnest -- I will not equivocate -- I will not excuse -- I will not retreat a single inch -- AND I WILL BE HEARD.  

[ Parent ]
exactly my point. (4.00 / 2)
they left single payer advocates out of the talks, as sort of a pre-compromise to show good faith to republicans. instead, it was just a pre-surrender, to show weakness to republicans.
[ Parent ]
It's hard to avoid the conclusion... (4.00 / 6)
... that the entire process is ending up where it was designed to end up: With a bailout for the insurance companies, with people forced to buy junk insurance through the mandate.

I am in earnest -- I will not equivocate -- I will not excuse -- I will not retreat a single inch -- AND I WILL BE HEARD.  
[ Parent ]
Which would be a politically (4.00 / 1)
disastrous outcome for Obama and the Dems.   Suicidal even.

Hard to believe the crew which played it so smart against a tough Hillary team could be so stupid as to back a bill which would financially screw so many millions of modest income folks.  

If they do turn out to be that stupid, then we are looking at another Jimmy Carter presidency ...

[ Parent ]
Well, that would explain the 2013 implementation date, right? (4.00 / 3)
And as for "financially screw"... Well, I paid attention during the TARP negotiations, so it doesn't surprise me at all.

In fact, a model where the objective of the administration is to rationalize and consolidate rent-seeking behavior by large financial institutions fits our current plight rather well. Not saying it's the only model, but it certainly ought to be "on the table."

I am in earnest -- I will not equivocate -- I will not excuse -- I will not retreat a single inch -- AND I WILL BE HEARD.  

[ Parent ]
Failure . . . (0.00 / 0)
. . . was the plan
[ Parent ]
Success... (0.00 / 0)
... was the plan.

Just ask yourself for whom.

I am in earnest -- I will not equivocate -- I will not excuse -- I will not retreat a single inch -- AND I WILL BE HEARD.  

[ Parent ]
Yeah but that has limits (4.00 / 1)
it's just common sense. if you're trying to sell a house for $300k, you ask for $350k.  

That doesn't mean that if you ask for $1,000,000, you'll get more than $300,000.  

Where you end up in a negotiation should represent the balance of power between the two contending sides.  That's an oversimplified summary when you've got as many "sides" as there are fighting over healthcare, but it's still a useful concept.  

That means that it's only helpful to name Medicare-for-All as your first position if you have the power to make that a real position -- that is, if the other side believes that you have the power to stage (and possibly win) a real fight to win that position.  If you don't have that power, and the other side knows it, it's pointless to propose it.

The real question isn't so much about bargaining tactics ("start at 10 and end up at 4, start at 12 and end up at 6") but about whether our "side" underused our own, actual power.

[ Parent ]
my point is you ALWAYS get less than your starting position. (4.00 / 2)
so why did we start out negotiation position at "public option"?

you pointed out a lot of complexities that matter: you can ask only for so much more before you seem absurd, and sabotage your own credibility. but it's not like we asked for too much. we made a simple and fatal error by starting with the compromise position -- the minimum we were willing to accept.

(I use "we" really loosely.)

[ Parent ]
I agree that abandoning Medicare-for-All was a very bad move (4.00 / 1)
As to why they did it this way?  My guess is that it kind of flowed downhill  The Dems' party leadership were not going to pick a fight with the Obama Administration on this one, and the progressives weren't going to fight the party leadership.

People in power are unlikely to do stuff that upsets the institutions that they're in control of.  And engaging in a big, internecine fight over healthcare reform would have threatened the Party, and important institutions in DC.  It's just not worth it to them.

Which is why the impetus really needed to come, IMHO, from outside the Forbidden City.  We needed Congress and the White House to see Medicare-for-All not mainly as the solution to the healthcare crisis, but as a solution to the strikes/federal building occupations/general social unrest problem.

[ Parent ]
I like the "Forbidden City" meme (4.00 / 1)
It's as good as Versailles!

I am in earnest -- I will not equivocate -- I will not excuse -- I will not retreat a single inch -- AND I WILL BE HEARD.  
[ Parent ]
The easy route will be opening up interstate competition. (0.00 / 0)
...market-driven reform...meh. (How's that working for us with the banks?)

They only call it class war when we fight back.
If one couples the idea that insurers compete across state lines (0.00 / 0)
with the idea that states will be supported and encouraged (funded, that is) to explore new mechanisms, such as single payer and other non-profit options, is it not possible to plot a pathway toward national single payer?


"It sounds wrong...
     ...but its right."
[ Parent ]
no, it would be a race to the bottom (4.00 / 2)
like what happened with credit card issuers.

Join the Iowa progressive community at Bleeding Heartland.
[ Parent ]
I tend to agree with you (4.00 / 1)
But I'm starting to think someone needs to start planning for how to deal with a bad bill becoming law.


"It sounds wrong...
     ...but its right."
[ Parent ]
Accuracy is vital. (4.00 / 1)
There may have been times in Obama's life when he supported actively Single Payer. And quotes can be found. He never promised single payer however. He ran on health reform that is to the right of what is being readied now. He ran. last summer in the primaries, and last fall in the general election on a health reform set of proposals that many did not like, and many said so at the time, including here.

Your assumption that creating a frame of betrayal may make people angry, may make them want to fight harder, in your estimation, but in reality it creats despair and anger and contremplation of non-productive actions, including recent cries here on openleft of "I'm just quitting politics"

Accuracy, on the other hand, that Obama was driven left by social action, driven left by organizing, and did not promise reforms on health that have been given up.

I can be angry at the FISA debacle, and even cry that those votes were a betrayal. But here in Health reform, possibly just because of our organizing (hoorah) we do not have a betrayal all.

Please, be accurate first. Truth is a better motivator in all cases.

I was writing a post that agreed with your main thrust however, which got lost in a rewrite, trying my criticism clear. (0.00 / 0)
I think the drive to a win, assuming the whip of the pledge block Chris wrote about yesterday, that we should see reports of soon. is successfulk, and as Mike Lux says,
they stand and deliver

Then we may just have that confident, reaching for real change attitude we need. A good win here, and a real PO is a win, interim coverage till 2013 is a win, an end to precons is a win, should set the stage for further wins.

Thanks David

[ Parent ]
I'd say this is the truth (4.00 / 4)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

I mean, it doesn't get clearer. Let's not start debating facts - it's a fact that Obama promised voters he was "a proponent of single payer." To pretend otherwise is to debate whether water is wet.

[ Parent ]
He also (and as candidate and President-Elect) (4.00 / 3)
Promised an open and transparent process that considered all options. Instead, he got busy making backroom deals with Big Pharma.

BTW, David, whom do you include in "Professional Left"? Is MoveOn part of it? Jane Hamsher? Digby? Chris Bowers? How far down the pecking order does one have to go before one finds people who criticized the public option strategy? And how many today dare ask "what kind of 'public option,' available to whom?"

Though I appreciate you signaling the need for a critique of what got us here, it seems your conclusion is -- as the big progressives have been telling is for months -- to whip for public option, without regard to whether it's really "robust," "strong," etc. If I've got you wrong, please set me straight.

[ Parent ]
he didn't run for president (4.00 / 2)
promising to implement single payer, and he didn't appoint White House staff or cabinet officials who were single payer advocates either.

How were we supposed to hold his feet to the fire on this one, David?

Join the Iowa progressive community at Bleeding Heartland.

[ Parent ]
By any means necessary (0.00 / 0)
to overcome the structural and political obstacles. Some of which were placed and exploited by the President and others in the WH.



"It sounds wrong...
     ...but its right."

[ Parent ]
Well, if Obama's statement before the AFL-CIO... (0.00 / 0)
... and the YouTube don't make you think of some starting points, there's probably not a lot Sirota (or anyone else) can do to help you.

I am in earnest -- I will not equivocate -- I will not excuse -- I will not retreat a single inch -- AND I WILL BE HEARD.  
[ Parent ]
He even attacked Hillary in Iowa (0.00 / 0)
for supporting a Health Care Mandate.

[ Parent ]
David we argued here on openleft about the difference between Clinton's and Obama's Health proposals! (0.00 / 0)
It was a big debate here. It was one of the things that caused real division. The part about actually running for president on a platform is pretty damn important.

I never expected the man who ran on the platform he ran on, to suddenly switch to single payer, NO ONE arguiong for or against any candidate during the discussion about whether or not to endorse or run a common campaign for Obama ever, ever said, yeah but once he said "single payer" in a  speech, so we know thats his promise.

I am not happy with his fight level, I want a better Bill, but it simply is not rue, not true at all, that primary candidate, or Democratic Party Presidential Candidate lead ANYONE to believe he was promising single payer.

That is arguing the facts.

Citing that we cannot believe that Obama is 'really' in support of Public Option, because he only promises it in every speech softly, and then saying 'we had to believe' he would absolutely deliver single payer, because of a speech several years before he became a candidate is a shockingly obtuse comparison.

[ Parent ]
But look at what I said (0.00 / 0)
I said that the progressive movement made a decision not to pressure him on single payer. That's the only point I was making. I'm not sure what you are arguing about.
[ Parent ]
The progressive movement chose to support Obama enthusiastically (0.00 / 0)
and never seemed to make that support contingent on his committing to fight for Medicare-for-All once he took office.  And, BTW, no one was going to make that demand of Hillary or Edwards, either, and virtually no one lifted a finger for Kucinich, who actually did publicly support Medicare-for-All (though he's never been a good candidate or run a big enough campaign to be genuine challenger for the Oval Office).

Caveat elector.

That being said, yes, the progressive movement could have pushed much harder for genuine, structural reform.  But having supported Obama (and, implicitly, to a large extent, his platform), that kind of pivot is hard to carry out.

[ Parent ]
This was the way I remember it... (4.00 / 1)
Edwards was held up as a champion by pushing Hillary and Obama to the 'left' on health care.  A lot of us laughed at that considering Edwards was about as centrist as they come.  Kucinich wasn't going to win and those of us who have known all along that single-payer was the only thing that would really fix the our health care system were told it was political not possible.  We were told by the Clintonites that Hillary's plan was better than Obama's and we should vote for her because of that, but as a single-payer advocate her plan was so similar as to make the distinctions laughable.  We were off the reservation even before the primaries started (unless you really thought Kucinich had a chance!).

The problem with Sirota's argument is that once we crossed the road of taking single-payer out of the presidential platform, it was indeed a politically impossible position to take after the fact.  You can argue that the Progressive Caucus in Congress should have pushed to have single-payer as the starting point of negotiations, but who the hell was going to listen to them?  Obama, Reid, and Pelosi had no reason to listen.  The mandate was health care reform, not single-payer.  That said, I actually would be surprised if a majority of the Progressive Caucus can be found on record saying they support single-payer.

As Atrios likes to say, 'You can't unshit the bed.'  Crying about single payer after the election is just, to use another scatological cliche, pissing into the wind.  I could buy the idea of using single-payer as the starting point to push negotiations in favor of pushing votes to an improved compromise that might actually pass, but Pelosi and Reid have been weak negotiators since 2006, so I don't see where we ever had a chance in this race especially with regards to Obama who was obviously already in the single-payer-is-politically-impossible camp by the end of 2007.

[ Parent ]
Yeah thats true, thats a good point and its god point on how we judge and keep fire on the feet of people we support. (0.00 / 0)
But when a candidate drops a policy, we can't think that thats OK, later when they get elected they will pick it up again, or p[rotect ourselves with "well while it wasnt in the platform, it was in earlier speeches so I assumed"

We are, as the main thrust of your article says, aslo responsible, us, posters, bloggers and activists and professional lefties aslo responsible for where we are now.

There have been numerous articles on the paucity of left think tanks, policy institutes, democracy institutes tactical schools and the like in America. This is still where the problem lies, and it is still part of what we, we her on the left need to do. Blame is spreadable.

We still havent even begun to build the same level of these organizations that the right has.

[ Parent ]
"Blame is spreadable" (4.00 / 4)
Thank gawd for that.

Otherwise, we might have to hold Obama accountable for something.

I am in earnest -- I will not equivocate -- I will not excuse -- I will not retreat a single inch -- AND I WILL BE HEARD.  

[ Parent ]
lol (0.00 / 0)
hahahaha

We have now heard you humbly accept, without excuse or equivocation, your own portion of the blame, earnestly.

[ Parent ]
Really? How? (0.00 / 0)
Explain, please.  

I am in earnest -- I will not equivocate -- I will not excuse -- I will not retreat a single inch -- AND I WILL BE HEARD.  
[ Parent ]
That, my friend, was sarcasm. (0.00 / 0)

[ Parent ]
Well, good (0.00 / 0)
Seeing as how this "little single payer advocate" been advocating for single payer on a daily, and more than daily basis, since early 2008 -- with no assistance oddly, or not, from the "progressive" blogosphere, the professional left, or the extremely open and transparent administration.


I am in earnest -- I will not equivocate -- I will not excuse -- I will not retreat a single inch -- AND I WILL BE HEARD.  
[ Parent ]
That long? (0.00 / 0)

[ Parent ]
Not nearly long enough (4.00 / 1)
(assuming this is sarcasm).

But very long and very consistently by the standards of the blogosphere -- even including paid shills for fauxroots organizations, I might add.)

I am in earnest -- I will not equivocate -- I will not excuse -- I will not retreat a single inch -- AND I WILL BE HEARD.  

[ Parent ]
A lawyerly parsing of words (4.00 / 1)
Bill Moyers:

In 2003, a young Illinois state senator named Barack Obama told an AFL-CIO meeting, "I am a proponent of a single-payer universal healthcare program." ...

There was only one thing standing in the way, Obama said six years ago: "All of you know we might not get there immediately because first we have to take back the White House, we have to take back the Senate and we have to take back the House."


All of which we did.

Anyhow, for some, the distinction between "promising" a policy, and being a "proponent of" that policy is highly significant. Seems rather lawyerly to me, but whatever.

I am in earnest -- I will not equivocate -- I will not excuse -- I will not retreat a single inch -- AND I WILL BE HEARD.  

[ Parent ]
which tells me (0.00 / 0)
that either Obama was always insincere or has recently become a sellout, but it doesn't tell me how the left could have had leverage behind the single-payer position in Congress this year.

Join the Iowa progressive community at Bleeding Heartland.
[ Parent ]
This merely speaks to the question of fact (0.00 / 0)
Only.

For the other issue that you raise, that's surely the point of Sirota's post?

I am in earnest -- I will not equivocate -- I will not excuse -- I will not retreat a single inch -- AND I WILL BE HEARD.  

[ Parent ]
This is exactly not true. And it is the nonsense of not making a distinction (0.00 / 0)
NO ONE arguing about supporting Obama in the primary EVER said anything about single payer. This simply not true.

No support, or Obamacrat, Obamadreamer, or Obamabot or Obama (nice eh?) ever ever ever said, we have to elect this guy, he is going to give us single payer.

[ Parent ]
Put down the pOm pOms, please (4.00 / 1)
Let's step through this slowly:

1. Sirota writes of holding Obama to his "single-payer promises of the past" [italics mine]

2. I give the quote, and a  date: 2003.

3. The response? Obama didn't run on single payer in 2004.

Yes, and?

I am in earnest -- I will not equivocate -- I will not excuse -- I will not retreat a single inch -- AND I WILL BE HEARD.  

[ Parent ]
Youre need to insult disables your ability to see, and disables your ability to comment. (0.00 / 0)
No one ever has any doubt as to what you will say, and it never helps the conversation. As I have said before I think you may have an ability to contribute, you seem to have the intelligence, and a grasp of some facts. But we have yet to se if you have the desire to help. That is, in the final analysis the point.

Isn't it.

A promise is a thing. It isnt just a word. It has precedence and consequence. When we are speaking of a promise made by a politician, it means somehting. When we speak of someone having promise, like you for example, we are speaking of the fact there are all the factors that would lead to one to believe that in the future, there could be a skill, a benefit  or soemthing needed or worked for. Bach had promise as a composer.

But that is not the same as making a promise as a candidate running for office. Which is an oft reneged contract. Obama did not promise, running for the democratic nomination, nor running for President, anything even REMOTELY like Single Payer. I was prepared for that, and suggested ways that we might be able to wring something close to it out of him when he got elected. I did that several times during the Primary. I said, during the primary, that Obama may be forcible, using thses methods, to move left.

The methods were organizing and organizing.

Siss! Boom! Bahh!

Turn and Kick and Kick and

Ta Dah!

[ Parent ]
Ya know... (4.00 / 1)
... some people find continual cheerleading and obfuscation just as insulating as a little snark.

My recommendation to you would be to develop a thicker skin.

I am in earnest -- I will not equivocate -- I will not excuse -- I will not retreat a single inch -- AND I WILL BE HEARD.  

[ Parent ]
"Insulating" (0.00 / 0)
That would be "insulting."

"Insulating" would be the "thicker skin" part.

I am in earnest -- I will not equivocate -- I will not excuse -- I will not retreat a single inch -- AND I WILL BE HEARD.  

[ Parent ]
And by obsfucation of course you mean clarity. (0.00 / 0)
And by cheerleading of course you mean, not making stuff up.

Look at this wild unbeliveable praise:


Obama did not promise, running for the democratic nomination, nor running for President, anything even REMOTELY like Single Payer. I was prepared for that, and suggested ways that we might be able to wring something close to it out of him when he got elected. I did that several times during the Primary. I said, during the primary, that Obama may be forcible, using thses methods, to move left.

Now that I have exposed myself, how will anyone ever take me seriously?
[ Parent ]
Repetition is not responsiveness (0.00 / 0)
And, as I mentioned, some of us having our time sucked up by offpoint non-responses as insulting as others seem to find a bit of snark.

Here is what I wrote:


1. Sirota writes of holding Obama to his "single-payer promises of the past" [italics mine]

2. I give the quote, and a  date: 2003.

3. The response? Obama didn't run on single payer in 2004.

Yes, and?

The comment above repeats point #3 at greater length. Obviously, Sirota (and the record) show that Obama was a "proponent" of single payer in 2003 (as before the AFL-CIO).

This is the position that he should (in some views) be held to.

Absent a functioning Wayback Machine, events in 2004 aren't relevant to a statement made in 2003.

I am in earnest -- I will not equivocate -- I will not excuse -- I will not retreat a single inch -- AND I WILL BE HEARD.  

[ Parent ]
That's one statement from before he hit the national scene (4.00 / 2)
and he made tons of statements contradicting that in the years since.  Anyone who clung to that one statement, ignored Obama's entire campaign and his platform, and believed that they were voting for someone last November who'd actually support and fight for Medicare-for-All once in office was deliberately lying to themselves.
[ Parent ]
Who said "clung to" (heh)? (0.00 / 0)
Not Sirota.

I am in earnest -- I will not equivocate -- I will not excuse -- I will not retreat a single inch -- AND I WILL BE HEARD.  
[ Parent ]
Yes, I am characterizing anyone using that comment from 2003 as evidence (0.00 / 0)
that voting for Obama last November meant voting for a President who would support and fight for Medicare-for-All as "clinging to" this shred of evidence in the face of mountains of contradictory evidence in the years that followed.

Hell, Al Gore and Dick Gephardt were pretty consistent anti-choice voters in the House, and they changed their minds on those issues.  No one thought that they were voting for an anti-choice candidate by voting for Gore in 2000.  He'd long since changed his position on the issue, and going back to some vote from 1981 or a quote from a year after that wouldn't change what his position had actually become in 2000.  And Gore actually behaved as an anti-choice legislator in the House -- did Obama acutally write a single-payer bill in Springfield, or help move one through the state senate?

[ Parent ]
Except nobody on this thread is doing that (0.00 / 0)
The statement Obama made in 2003 before the AFL-CIO is what he should be held to -- it's the best policy.

If there's somebody on the thread doing what you claim, it's not Sirota, or me.

I am in earnest -- I will not equivocate -- I will not excuse -- I will not retreat a single inch -- AND I WILL BE HEARD.  

[ Parent ]
Out of curiousity... (4.00 / 2)
... does Harkin define what he means by "robust"?

I am in earnest -- I will not equivocate -- I will not excuse -- I will not retreat a single inch -- AND I WILL BE HEARD.  
not that I've seen (0.00 / 0)
and I have e-mailed his office on this issue with no luck.

Join the Iowa progressive community at Bleeding Heartland.
[ Parent ]
Email again, and maybe we can get people calling. (0.00 / 0)
Perhaps a front page article here on openleft for a talk, or maybe he could come on. (Well we can ask)
[ Parent ]
So, we know what we're for without knowing what it is? (0.00 / 0)
Check. Got it.

I am in earnest -- I will not equivocate -- I will not excuse -- I will not retreat a single inch -- AND I WILL BE HEARD.  
[ Parent ]
Yep (4.00 / 1)
Instead of pinning them at the 1 yard line and forcing them to claw their way up field we got a touchback and they already started off at the 20.

If we started off focusing on single payer from the beginning I think right now instead of debating the inclusion of the public option we would be debating how robust it would be.

can't agree (0.00 / 0)
If we started out focusing on single payer it would have immediately become apparent that we didn't have the votes to get single payer out of any of the relevant Congressional committees.

Also, Obama did not run for president on single-payer, so I don't see what leverage we would have had with the White House.

I don't think the "professional left" was wrong to advocate for a public option. "You would be forced to give up the insurance you have now" would have become a powerful talking point against single-payer anyway.

Join the Iowa progressive community at Bleeding Heartland.

[ Parent ]
The whole dynamic would be changed (0.00 / 0)
Look, the fact (as you see it) that single payer was a non-starter does not detract from its value in negotiation. If the "left" had been seen in the public square as sacrificing a very strong single payer plan to appease the likes of the Coporocrats instead of giving up the idea before the negotiations even began, then it would be much clearer which side has been dealing in good faith. Furthermore, the PO (however one defines it) would clearly be seen as the compromised position.

Obama needs a far left option, even if it would never be adopted whole hog. Imagine how much negotiating space Obama would have (assuming he wants to push to the left) if he could say, "Look, guys, I know its tough to take, but the only thing standing between you and a nation wide single payer plan is this robust PO that has no triggers. What do you say?" Now, it may be that President O would not take advantage of that situation, but as it sits right now, he doesn't have that option even if he wanted to exploit it.


"It sounds wrong...
     ...but its right."

[ Parent ]
I absolutely agree that that's what we want Obama to say (4.00 / 1)
In fact, that's the way we'll win whatever it is we end up with in this Presidency -- by Obama playing the reasonable mediator between established power and us crazies out here with torches and pitchforks.  And if we create the threat, I think the strategy will work whether his heart is fully in it or not.

The key question is whether we had the ability to make that a legitimate threat.  I mean, in principle of course we have the potential for that power -- we could carry out a nationwide general strike and win it in a couple weeks.  The question is whether we're in a position -- ideologically, organizationally, etc -- to do what's necessary to build that power and execute a plan to use it.

[ Parent ]
Not sure who you include in "we" (4.00 / 1)
But I'd argue that "we" (you and I) will never know whether the Democratic Party members (in WH and in Congress) had the ability to make such a strategy work, because it seems no one in DC thought it was a good idea.

OTOH, maybe that last paragraph really means that the answer to your question is "no". The Democratic party is not a legitimate threat to the Corporocrats and Right wing Fundamentalists.  

"It sounds wrong...
     ...but its right."

[ Parent ]
The establishment Democratic Party is in no way, shape, or form (0.00 / 0)
a legitimate threat to the Corporocrats.  There are certainly individual Congresscritters who are sympathetic to our issues and politics, but institutionally it's hopeless, absent a very substantial existential threat posed to established institutions of power.  

That threat will be posed from outside the Forbidden City, or it won't be posed at all.  Which is one of the reasons why I don't have tons of enthusiasm for primarying our way to a progressive Democratic Party.  Aside from the difficulty of the individual primary fights, getting somewhat more sympathetic people into that system isn't going to change the system very much, or change our relationship to it.

[ Parent ]
I agree (0.00 / 0)
Hard to write legislation from outside, unless one goes the route of lobbyist, though.


"It sounds wrong...
     ...but its right."
[ Parent ]
David, how is it the fault (0.00 / 0)
of the "professional left" that we didn't have the votes to get single-payer out of any of the relevant Congressional committees?

If we had started out insisting on single-payer, we would have had to pivot to advocating for the public option at most a month or two later than we did.

Join the Iowa progressive community at Bleeding Heartland.

This why we need to start from object fact when analyzing tactics and policy (0.00 / 0)

[ Parent ]
no pivoting needed.... (4.00 / 1)
we'd merely have to acquiesce to a bill that included an extremely strong "public option" (like one that turned "medicare for all" from a 'single payer' solution, to a 'medicare option for all').
[ Parent ]
I love the phrase medicare option for all. (0.00 / 0)
Thats something we can press for, that solves soem of the wording criticism that democrats have been charged accurately for, thats something that we can run on in 2010.

It is perfect wording, and it show the path toward single payer, which is our goal four to you sir, four!

[ Parent ]
The whole thing was botched from the get-go, and probably intentionally so (4.00 / 2)
Most of the chaos and nonsense could have been avoided had Obama simply proposed opening up Medicare coverage to all who wanted to buy into it. The structures would have already been in place, and the right wing would have been left in a position of having to attack Medicare - a strategy doomed to fail.

Either Obama is terminally naive or true reform was never really on the agenda.

giving the single payer arguments a hearing.... (4.00 / 3)
...ultimately, this disaster was caused by the enforced exclusion from the public discussion of the arguments in favor of a single payer system.    And ultimately, that exclusion originated in the White House, which signalled to the media very early on that single payer would not be part of the discussion, and made sure of it by empowering Baucus and his "gang of six" at every opportunity.

Obama didn't have to advocate for single payer -- all he needed to do was come through on his campaign promise of a "transparent" process in which all ideas would be considered.  Single payer advocates were satisfied with that promise from Obama, despite his campaign efforts to distance himself from single payer, because single payer advocates know that the facts are on their side and that an "open/transparent" process would result in an outcome favorable to single payer.  (If not a single payer bill itself, something that would evolve into single payer like access to medicare for all Americans.)

So while the "savvy" progressives who liked the access that they now enjoyed and wanted to maintain it by not challenging Obama on health care certainly share the blame (like FDL, OL, Kos, etc, etc. etc), the real betrayal was Obama's -- he flat out lied to us about the openness of the process, and it was that promise of openness that convinced progressives that Obama was worth supporting.

I don't know where it started (0.00 / 0)
but, yeah, dropping single player without extracting something for doing so was a major mistake in the earliest stages of the negotiations. The starting position should have been a single payer option with all the bells and whistles one can imagine.  

"It sounds wrong...
     ...but its right."
[ Parent ]
Single payer was not "the professional left's" to "drop"! (4.00 / 3)
Again, since single payer advocates were excluded from the entire process, the "compromise" was not "the left's" to make!

I am in earnest -- I will not equivocate -- I will not excuse -- I will not retreat a single inch -- AND I WILL BE HEARD.  
[ Parent ]
Re LBJ and Medicare, this assertion (4.00 / 1)
The X-factor will be President Obama. Can he muster an LBJ-esque burst of legislative arm-twisting to pass a real bill with a real public option?

greatly exaggerates and misunderstands Lyndon's role in passing Medicare.  

In fact, if LBJ had had his way and was truly as capable of just twisting some arms to get his desired outcome, he would have succeeded only in getting a modest MedicareLite bill passed in the fall of 1964.  That was his goal as he demanded of reluctant House W&M Chairman Mills:  pass a hospital expenses for the elderly bill and do it quickly, before the election, to use against anti-Medicare Barry Goldwater in November.  

Mills, impervious to the Johnson Treatment, turned him down, figuring that the promising election returns for Dems in Nov would open up things such that a much stronger bill could pass, easily, in the Congress of 1965.  Which is what happened -- LBJ emerged after Nov 64 with a working progressive majority.  Mills quickly went to work to beef up the House bill by cleverly incorporating two AMA/Repub substitute bills into his basic W&M bill (the "three-layer cake" outcome).  That left only one roadblock in Congress to deal with, Senate Finance Chair Harry Byrd, who was already favorably disposed, for personal reasons, to not block Johnson.

Back then Johnson and the Dems, coming off the huge 64 landslide, were working with a major gale-force wind at their backs in enacting Medicare.  Obama, coming off a solid but non-landslide win, with far less of a sure working majority for progressive change because of Repub obstructionism and sell-out corporatist Dems, has had a much harder road to travel than LBJ.  He can be relevant to a good outcome though, and must try to lay down the law with conservadems as he continues to improve his pitch for a solid bill with the public.

Thanks for the history (0.00 / 0)
Wilbur Mills -- who'd a thunk it!

I am in earnest -- I will not equivocate -- I will not excuse -- I will not retreat a single inch -- AND I WILL BE HEARD.  
This alternative universe you people live... (4.00 / 1)
...would be amusing if the consequences weren't so dire.  

How many times to people need to be hit over the head before they realize the president and Congressional Democratic leadership are not working to our benefit?

No plan that drastically cuts into industry profits will be advocated for or allowed a vote.  Period.  That includes any strong public option, which ever since June has only be further watered down.

Wake the hell up.

Negotiations and Swan Songs | 72 comments




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