That is the big question everyone is wondering about these days. Most of the traditional media is drooling over the idea of a train wreck, hyping the disagreements and hoping for failure. But the disagreements are also quite real and quite significant. Conservative Democrats don't want a public option, progressives are insisting on it. Conservatives don't want to spend too much, progressives want to be sure insurance is actually affordable to the middle class.
Conservatives don't want businesses to pay anything for their workers' health care, progressives don't want businesses to get a free ride, especially if their workers are being forced to buy insurance. Conservatives want workers taxed on their health plan if it's a good one, progressives would rather have the super rich pay more in taxes instead of the middle class worker with a decent insurance package.
These are tough issues to work out, but I am confident that the White House and the legislative leaders will figure out a way. When legislation is this important to pass - substantively and politically - leaders figure out a path to getting it done. I have seen it happen many different times over the years- seemingly impossible to solve policy differences worked out with patience, muscle, and creativity.
Take the public option. In what is either a sign we will pass health reform, or sign of the apocalypse (or maybe both for certain fundamentalist Christians), conservative Blue Dog Mike Ross and I, one of the original hard core public option advocates, actually agree on something related to the public option. Ross is now suggesting that "instead of creating an entirely new government bureaucracy to administer a public option, Medicare should be offered as a choice." I have fought like crazy for a new public health insurance option to be created for people under 65 years old, but I actually think that this idea is a very reasonable compromise: don't create a new entity, just open up the perfectly good public option we have - Medicare - to anyone who wants to buy into it. That would actually strengthen Medicare because younger, healthier people would be joining the risk pool. And it would satisfy progressives by giving some real competition to the private insurance industry.
Or take affordability. For the fiscally conservative Democrats, they can take reassurances on that issue from the latest CBO report which says that both of the two House bills comes close to (one slightly above, and one slightly below) the $900 billion amount targeted by fiscal conservatives, but they also cover more people, are far more affordable and are deficit neutral.
Here's the bottom line on middle class affordability: the compromise the Blue Dogs forced on the House Energy and Commerce bill made the cost for middle class families $551 a year more, while the Senate Finance bill was a staggering $3,900 a year more for middle class families than the Senate HELP Committee bill. And yet the CBO now says that the better House version of the bill (which is closer to the Senate HELP Committee) is just as fiscally responsible as the "centrist" alternatives that cost the middle class families so much more. When you look at the actual numbers and policy implications of the bills, it's easy to come to terms. In this case, the House bill allows both fiscal conservatives and those of us who want more affordability for the middle class to win.
When conservatives and progressive Democrats in the Senate and House sit down to look at these bills, compromise ideas like Ross' idea of letting everyone buy into Medicare will emerge, and when the merits of the bills are analyzed, I believe that people will come to understand that the political and policy logic of going with the better alternatives in all these areas. This is too important - to the country, to the President, to the Democratic Party - for this not to get resolved.
And if Mike Ross and a lefty like Mike Lux can find a common ground, then anything is possible.
You gotta love the industry guys who make millions (or tens of millions, or sometimes hundreds of millions) on the system as it currently exists who don't understand why anybody else has a problem with it. Like the health care CEO who vastly overpaid for Blue Dog Congressman Mike Ross' business who, in describing our health care system, said "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Or the banker who said about Democratic banking reform proposals, "We don't think that as far as regulation of banks is concerned, that solves any problems we had. The checks and balances under the current system are pretty good."
Then there are the industry lobbyists who demand a major change in law without wanting to give up anything in return. One of the best examples from the health care fight is the AMA, which whines incessantly about curbing medical malpractice lawsuits while never being willing to do anything serious about the thing which would actually curb lawsuits, which is to clean up problems with bad doctors and inferior quality of care. There are 98,000 deaths a year from preventable medical accidents, and a great many of those are by doctors who have screwed up repeatedly. Maybe if the AMA had aggressive plans to shut down the medical practice of bad doctors and otherwise improve the quality of care, then all the complaints about those horrible juries and those nasty family members who sue doctors that kill their relatives could be taken a little more seriously.
Industry leaders oblivious to the harm people - and our economy, and our health care system - are suffering because of the messed up system should think a little more before they complain about attempts to reform the system for the better. Just because your industry is making a ton of money doesn't mean that the system is working peachy-keen for the rest of us.
Industry lobbyists need to learn what for most regular legislators and Hill staffers is what they live with every day: you have to give something real up to get a real benefit. Insurers, you are going to get 40 million or so new customers, subsidized by the federal government, but you're going to have to accept competition from a public plan. Bankers, we just saved your ass, so you're going to need to let us regulate you. Docs, we're giving you lots of new customers too, plus we're open to creative solutions on medical malpractice, but first get rid of your incompetent and alcoholic doctors.
See how this works? It's simple, it's easy, and everyone comes away with something in hand.
Change Congress founder Lawrence Lessig -- with whom I work on campaign finance reform issues -- announced a new TV ad on Friday shaming "Blue Dog" leader Mike Ross on the public option.
In the ad, Keith Olbermann calls out Ross for his special-interest contributions -- and then recent poll numbers show that Ross is siding with those interests against his own constituents.
It's caused quite the buzz. Within hours, it was covered by NBC, ABC, Politico, Huffington Post, The Young Turks, Roll Call...and Rachel Maddow.
In addition to calling out Ross on the public option, this ad gets to the root of the problem: our corrupt campaign finance system, calling for Mike Ross to support fundamental reform.
Lessig's announcement of the ad -- and Rachel Maddow's clip -- are below the fold.
FDL and Glenn Greenwald are both noting something very significant - the $200B that Bush is asking for will probably be doing to initiate a new war with Iran. Blue America, which raised a little over a half a million last cycle, will be pulling off of their Actblue page any candidate who votes for this money. That's very significant, a line in the sand.
The Iran link is another reason WA-03 Brian Baird's support of the surge, and his support of the $50B, is so pernicious. Even if he only wants to support the surge, the money will probably be diverted to military operations in Iran. Hopefully, we can recruit state Senator Craig Pridemore to challenge Baird in a primary. Pridemore is a veteran, has won in the district, is well-respected and liberal, and can beat incumbents.
I added some content yesterday on the Bush Dog campaign. Here's a FAQ on what a Bush Dog is, and here are instructions on how to profile one. We've had new profiles written on AR-02: Vic Snyder, AR-04: Mike Ross, IL-08: Melissa Bean, NC-11: Heath Schuler, and TX-23: Ciro Rodriguez. I particularly like Ciro's profile, since he was a netroots candidate yet won his last race without our endorsement or help. You'll also note that Melissa Bean has two profiles now on the Bush Dog Blogroll, and that's very good. It's useful to have multiple perspectives. Getting to know these people, who are probably going to support money for Bush and a war with Iran, is important.
