I find myself gripped in a bitter argument- with myself- about the fate of health care reform. It's sort of like watching the schizophrenic Gollum in the Lord Of The Rings saga fight angrily with himself over how to deal with Frodo: "the master is so nice to me, he takes care of me and wants to help me" vs. "I will strangle him, I will crush his head against the rocks, I will feed him to the giant spider". In my case, the raging fight with myself goes more like "But there are so many nice things in this bill, I really like a lot of it, and I've wanted this bill for such a long time" vs. "those evil insurers are screwing us again, I want to kill this bill, crush it against the rocks".
Okay, now that I've officially admitted that the health care fight has driven me crazy, let me take a step back and look a bit more coolly at this whole dynamic, and how we turn this chickensxxt into chicken salad. Here are some thoughts as we move forward:
1. I think everyone in this battle needs to be honest with themselves about the negative consequences of all the paths forward. I hate to make this analogy, but this is feeling a little too much like Afghanistan to me right now, in that all of the choices have big downsides, and we each have to pick the choice we think has the smallest. Passing a bill with no public option will demoralize the Democratic base, tick off millions of Americans forced to buy insurance without the choice of that public option so many wanted, make the 2010 elections very problematic, embolden the big business special interests on the next big issues Democrats face, and create little downward pressure on insurance rates which will probably mean rising health care costs for the next several years. Going to reconciliation means serious delays as we wait for bills to be split apart, parliamentary rulings with a great deal of uncertainty to them, more negotiating over how to remake the bills and get the voters, further delaying tactics by the Republicans, more filibusters of the part of the part of the bill that can't go into reconciliation, less time for climate change and jobs and immigration reform, and the likely loss of important parts of the current legislative package. Killing the bill entirely means we lose all the good regulations and expansions of coverage in this legislation, create a devastating political loss for the President and Democrats in general, lose the chance to finally enshrine in America the idea that health care is a right not a privilege, lose momentum for future legislative fights, and quite possibly the blow the last chance in a generation to get anything big done in terms of health care. Whatever people are saying in public as they position themselves for the final days of battle, I hope they aren't fooling themselves that any of these paths is trouble free.
2. The details still matter enormously. Right now, way too many of the details favor the insurance industry. Assuming this goes to conference committee, we shouldn't just be focusing on the big things that have gotten all the attention, like the public option: progressives in the House should be fighting like tigers for the less visible but incredibly important things like improving the language on community rating, insuring people earlier, and taking more of the burden for paying for Medicaid off of the states. Some of those details may be a lot easier to improve than the high profile items.
3. One of the things progressives should absolutely extract before they even consider voting for this is a promise from Obama, Pelosi, and Reid that health care is revisited again, through reconciliation and in general, to keep improving the legislation as long as the Dems are in control. This should absolutely not be one of those deals where leadership says, "okay that was hard, we'll never go back to that issue again". Progressives should also demand a firm promise from Obama that the primary person doing the implementation of this bill in HHS should be a strong progressive, because the initial regs on this bill will be hugely important.
4. One final thought here: two of the progressive leaders I respect most on our current political scene are Howard Dean and Sherrod Brown, and the fact that they have taken diametrically opposite positions on the legislative tactics regarding whether to move the bill forward doesn't bother or surprise me in the least. This is a hugely complicated issue, and I think the good and the bad in this bill make it a close call, as do the specifics on legislative tactics. Progressives should not be attacking each other over the different calls we are all trying to make.
This has all become a mess, both policy wise and even more politically. Progressives have become divided among ourselves over how best to navigate the incredibly rocky shoals in front of us, but we should keep talking with each other and pivoting off each other as we try to improve this bill.
Digby writes admiringly of the move by several Democratic senators to surprise Sens Vitter and Coburn by co-sponsoring what they thought was a poison pill amendment to the Senate health care bill to require all members of Congress to enroll in the Public Option. It's a brilliant bit of bluff calling. The video clip she posts is enjoyable, Franken is proving worth the fight it took to get him there. One of Digby's commenters captures what happened here perfectly:
Like many conservatives, Coburn and Vitter have internalized their cynicism and assume that others are similarly corrupt and selfish. It must astound them that liberals actually want to rely on the services they would have the government provide.
Not understanding and appreciating one's enemies leads to truly stupid mistakes like this.
Xenos | 12.04.09 - 10:47 pm | #
It is this sort of thing that liberals need to get better at.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is determined to get a health care bill passed in the Senate by Christmas.
This is a momentous time, as John Nichols writes in The Nation:
...Harry Reid has a health-care reform bill, and it is advancing. Indeed, with Saturday night's 60-39 Senate vote to open a historic debate on the measure, the movement humanize America's healthcare system -- which began almost 70 years ago -- is closer to a congressional breakthrough than at any time in its history.
It won't be a cakewalk, though. Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) has famously threatened to torpedo the bill if it includes a public option. This week he tried to rewrite history. "This is a kind of 11th hour addition to a debate that's gone on for decades," Lieberman told reporters that "Nobody's ever talked about a public option before. Not even in the presidential campaign last year." Brian Beutler sets the record straight at Talking Points Memo: In fact the Obama campaign's health policy white paper explicitly called for the creation of a public option.
According to Mike Lillis in RH Reality Check, progressive senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) is feeling optimistic about the public option's prospects.
Also in RH Reality Check, reproductive health policy analyst Jessica Arons reports that the merged Senate bill does not call for the much-debated abortion restrictions encoded in the Stupak amendment to the House bill.
In the Progressive, Ruth Conniff takes a closer look at the controversy over the latest mammogram guidelines from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, a commission appointed by the Department of Health and Human Services. Compared to the old guidelines, the new recommendations suggest that women start getting regular mammograms later and wait longer in between screenings.
Liberals and conservatives are accusing the federal government of cheating women out of preventative care to save money. But as Conniff explains, more mammograms aren't necessarily better. There's just not much statistical evidence that screening women in their forties saves lives. In this age group, regular mammograms are more likely to generate hair-raising false alarms than lifesaving discoveries. Furthermore, mammograms use x-rays, which are inherently carcinogenic. That doesn't mean that mammograms are dangerous, just that unnecessary exposure should be avoided. Conniff writes:
...[O]verscreening and overtreatment are as much of a plague in the U.S. medical system as cost-cutting measures. And looking at breast cancer screening rationally, as the federal panel has done, makes a lot of sense.
Speaking of public health, as I report for Working In These Times, the Occupational Health and Safety Administration has published new guidelines to help retailers reduce the risk of crowd stampedes and trampling deaths at Black Friday sales. Have a safe and happy holiday and good luck standing in line for that $99 Blu-Ray player.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about health care by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Pulse for a complete list of articles on health care reform, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.
Yesterday, we had our first success in the progressive legislation monitoring project. Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio said that he would try to push Senator Byron Dorgan's S 195 in the banking committee, in order to increase the amount of oversight and transparency in TARP. In conjunction with a few state blows, we had been preparing an action alert for either today or tomorrow to call members of the Senate banking committee and ask them to help push S 195 through. Since Senator Brown gave me the assurance we were seeking form those phone calls, for the time being we can put direct action on S 195 on hold. Of course, since there is no guarantee it will pass, we will continue to monitor the situation as it develops.
After our article on Senator Brown's comments yesterday, the Drum Major Institute posted a comparative analysis of S 195 and its counterpart in the House, HR 384. The basic thrust of the analysis was that HR 384 was superior to S 195, since the latter lacks provisions on how the money should be spent, and thus cannot guarantee money will be spent to mitigate foreclosures. I actually agree with this analysis, even though I intend to keep pushing S 195. My hope is that, in the event that S 195 makes it through committee, that amendments can be offered to the bill before it passes through the chamber.
The problems with S 195 also reveal a feature of the progressive legislation monitoring project that I should point out: we will only be working with bills that have already been introduced to Congress, not with theoretical legislation. Further, the only specific tweaks we will suggest to any of the bills that we support will be in the form of amendments, and those amendments will also have to be legislation that was previously introduced to Congress. For example, Senator Diane Feinstein's S 116, requiring that $10 billion in TARP money go to state and local governments who lost money by investing in certain financial institutions, would be one possible amendment to S 195 we might try to push.
About an hour ago I had a chance to speak with Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, who sits in the Banking committee. I asked Senator Brown that, in light of HR 384 ready to pass the House, would he help push Senator Dorgan's S 195, which has been referred to the banking committee and which places similar oversight and transparency requirements on the Wall Street bailout money. His response was both clear and positive: yes, he would try to push S 195 out of committee, and that "we" (I assume he meant himself and other banking committee Senators) would speak to, and work with, Chairman Dodd in an attempt order to make it happen.
This is news gives real hope that additional legal restrictions will be placed on the second $350 billion in TARP funds, and that the House's effort to pass HR 384 will not be in vain. I will try to follow-up with Senator Brown's office on this matter later in the week, checking in and progress and looking for ways that we can assist in his efforts.
Further, I also was able to speak to Senator Byron Dorgan. I told him that the Open Left community was ready to help pass S 195, and that we appreciated his efforts in introducing the bill. He thanked us for our support. Thank you, Senators Dorgan and Brown.
I was going to stay out of the VP debates, because as I mentioned the other day the formula for getting it right is really complex, and I could easily make a case pro and con for a bunch of different folks. But because it is all everyone wants to talk about in DC these days, I have continued to think about it as I have listened to everyone's arguments and counter-arguments, and I have decided that I do indeed have a favorite. Since I know all of you are just dying to know what I think (okay, maybe not, but what the hell), here's my argument.
Amidst all the discussions about Barack Obama's potential running mate, the single most important consideration is being consistently overlooked.
The office of vice-president exists so that the president can be swiftly replaced in the event of his death, removal or incapacitation. Indeed, this is why we have vice-presidents. These individuals are only a heartbeat away from the most powerful office in the world.
This is such a stark consideration that it really ought to narrow things down somewhat regarding whom Obama should choose. Far too many discussions that I have observed treat the "running mate" as some kind of special electoral buddy, whose primary responsibility is to somehow grab votes that Obama could not secure on his own. Much of the reasoning behind the purported electoral impact of the running mate is ill-founded, speculative and secondary to our principal goal of electing representatives that we believe in.
The VP speculation talk on openleft is dead on in fleshing out the key issues facing Obama. As Bowers points out, the conventional wisdom is that Obama must pick a balancer to shore up support in a key swing state or demographic he can't carry, or a national security/ foreign policy expert to make up for his supposed lack of experience. Bowers idea of the reinforcer pick is compelling and I think an accurate read of what would our candidates should have done in the past 30 years or so.
However I think both ideas miss the key criteria that should be used to judge a VP pick: economic experience and credentials. By November the US economy will be moving from recession to crisis. Obama will want to have on the ticket when voters are making their decision a name that will drive home to voters that the Dems are the best answer to address the economic crisis that the Bush Administration caused.
Sherrod Brown was elected to the House of Representatives in 1992 and defeated Republican incumbent Mike DeWine to move up to the Senate in 2006. Chris has suggested him as a possible Vice President.
I thought I would look at youtube to get a sense of how Sherrod Brown would perform as a VP candidate. Personally, I'm very impressed, but look for yourself...
How he dealt with Wolf Blitzer repeating Republican talking points:
By now, you have probably seen the poll showing that while Clinton supporters want a Clinton-Obama ticket, Obama supporters do not want an Obama-Clinton ticket. Gallup:
Only 42% of Democrats nationwide want Hillary Clinton to be the Democratic vice presidential nominee if Barack Obama wins the presidential nomination, while 55% think he should pick someone else. By contrast, the majority of Democrats -- 58% -- would like to see Obama nominated as vice president if Clinton heads the ticket.
The reason for the disparity is that a relatively small number of Obama supporters -- just 29% --favor Obama choosing Clinton as a possible running mate. Seventy percent say they'd rather he choose someone else. In contrast, a majority of Clinton supporters -- 53% -- would want Clinton to choose Obama for vice president if she is nominated.
Similar percentages (a majority of both Clinton supporters and Obama supporters) say they would want their own candidate selected for vice president should the other candidate win the Democratic nomination for president.
The reason for this, I think, is quite simple, and relates to my longstanding argument that the Democratic nominee should choose a "reinforcing" choice for vice-president, rather than a "balancing" choice. Hillary Clinton has repeatedly floated the idea of Obama being her Vice-President, and as such her supporters are following her lead in thinking he would be a good choice. By the same token, Obama has never floated Clinton as his Vice-President, and has even repudiated the idea of a "dream ticket" on multiple occasions. As such, his supporters are following his lead, and looking elsewhere for a a possible VP choice.
Presidential nominees really are leaders, no matter what we hyper-engaged activists might think of them. When many people support a candidate, they also tend to support many subsequent arguments that candidate comes to make, including who would make a good Vice-President. This is one of the reasons why it is essential that the Democratic nominee chooses a Vice-President who makes sense according to the broad campaign arguments that candidate used to win the nomination. If you are running on experience, then choose a nominee who fits that profile. If you are running on change, early opposition to the Iraq war, and national unity, then choose a Vice-President who embodies those qualities. If your supporters are going to follow your arguments, amek sure that those arguments make sense.
Which Democrats makes sense as Vice-President according to the arguments that Barack Obama has put forth during this campaign? While here are many factors to consider, the most important ones are to pick someone who opposed the war from the start, someone who has an aurora of "change" about him or her, and someone who has a bi-partisan track record. Here are the strongest possibilities I can think of:
Brian Schweitzer, MT-Gov: Among the disappointing small number of Governors, Senators, and members of the House leadership who opposed the war from the start, Schweitzer really sticks out as having the most change and unity cred. This is a man who talks of needing a shower after spending too much time in D.C., and who picked a Republican as his Lt. Governor. He also has both progressive movement backing and appeal to the old Perot style voter. I have no idea what his relationship with Obama is, but he certainly makes a lot of sense given the Obama campaign message thus far.
Jim Webb, VA-Sen: Jim Webb fits the anti-war and bi-parisan criteria pretty well. As a 60-something white dude from Virginia, the "change" cred it lacking a bit, to say the least. Another huge mark against Webb is that he just isn't the most energetic campaigner. I was talking to someone very familiar with Web's 2006 Senate campaign the other day, and he said that the idea of Webb as VP was pretty laughable given Webb's campaigning style. A lot of people like this pick on a structural level, but on a personal level Webb himself doesn't make much sense as a Vice-President.
Sherrod Brown, OH-Sen: Sherrod Brown remains one of my three personal favorite picks (Pelosi and Feingold are the others), given that he would help win Ohio, provide an economic populism necessary in an election such as this, and that he would give a progressive face to the future of the party. His bi-partisan and "change" image are less clear than either Webb's or Schweitzer's, however.
Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House: Pelosi has the anti-war and "change" cred, but probably not so much "bi-partisan" cred. Obama picking Pelosi makes sense as a May or June early announcement, since it would pretty much lock down the nomination for Obama. Otherwise, this would actually be a big step down for Pelosi, given that she is too old to run for President in eight years. Also, do we really want Steny Hoyer as Speaker? I think not. Still, she does make sense as a way to bring the nomination campaign to an end.
Kathleen Sebelius, KS-Gov: I have no idea where Sebelius was on the Iraq war before it started, but she does have strong change and bi-partisan cred. On the bi-partisan front, she convinced numerous Republicans to actually switch parties, and has worked with a Republican legislature during her six years as Governor. If she was against the war, and if she could improve her campaign style, she might make sense.
Russ Feingold: Feingold is an interesting pick, because even though he has been in D.C. for a while and even though he is thought of as the ultimate progressive fighter in the Senate, he actually has real bi-partisan (McCain-Feingold, Patriot Act reform, good government proposals) and change ("outisder") cred. Also, I would love for Feingold to be VP, and Pelosi to be Speaker. I triple dog dare Republicans to try and impeach President Obama in that circumstance, what with their two worst nightmeres as second and third in line, respectively. Also, no one in the Senate has more anti-war cred than Feingold.
Those are the choices that seem to make the most sense right now, even if they make sense in different ways. Maybe I am just dreaming by throwing Feingold in there, since there is no one in the country who I would rather see as President. But hey, he does fit the Obama campaign argument, he comes from a swing state, and he has endorsed Obama already. Obama-Feingold 2008?
Byron Dorgan gave a barnburner of a speech on our broken fiscal policy, trade policy, and regulatory crisis. He went after hedge funds and called our fiscal policy reckless, and then added the following: "The world see it. The markets see it. We're acting like a drunk who pretends that no one sees him drink."
More Byron! Incidentally, Dorgan is the bulldog who championed net neutrality from 2005-2006, and he along with Ron Wyden advanced our goals substantially. He also has a book out titled 'Take this Job and Ship It'.
Sherrod Brown then spoke, and he talked about how more progressives in the Senate are auguring a new progressive era. He's intensely focused on the middle class and plant closings, continuing on the theme from his election campaign.
Schumer also spoke, and discussed how the Reaganite era is dead. In 1980, people felt they could do it on their own, and Reagan, backed by very wealthy 'economic royalists', convinced them he was their leader to get the government off their back. Today they no longer believe this, so the Reagan model of eliminating government no longer has popular support. A lot of people don't realize that Schumer is a Reaganite Senator, whose thinking is organized around the 1980 and 1982 class of Democrats who were elected in spite of a severe anti-liberal tide.
The book, which features both Matt Stoller and Chris Bowers, takes a look at the populist movement building on both the Right and Left. It is much different from my last book in that it is investigative, firsthand narrative journalism - all brand new material, rather than analysis/synthesis of information already available. I tried to write a book that is engaging both for political junkies and non-political junkies - and that's why this book is much more novel-like than a typical political book.
Among other places, my travels took me to New York city for a behind-the-scenes look at Lou Dobbs Tonight; Redmond, Washington to accompany union organizers at Microsoft's headquarters; Dallas to join shareholder activists planning resolutions at the ExxonMobil stockholder meeting; Helena, Montana to witness a groundbreaking tax fight in the Montana legislature; Washington, D.C. to shadow three U.S. Senators (Bernie Sanders, Sherrod Brown and Jon Tester); Las Vegas and Chicago to attend YearlyKos Conventions; Boulevard, California to camp out with the California Minutemen; Meriden, Connecticut to explore the Ned Lamont for Senate campaign; and Albany to study the most powerful third party in America.
As we begin the holiday season, it is important that we take the time to remember why we fight so hard to elect progressives who care for everyone to office.
Right now, food banks across the country are running critically short on supplies. Charities, church groups and volunteer organizations that work to feed the hungry are in desperate need of assistance and many are being forced to ration food and turn hungry families away. This is a national crisis and we all need to help!
Recently, U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown, a Twenty-First Century Democrats' endorsed candidate in 2006, introduced emergency legislation to provide funding for the nation's food banks. The Senator's bill would give additional support for The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP), which is the most immediate federal solution to the national food bank crisis. Senator Brown's legislation is a good first step, but it will take more than government action to address this problem.
We all need to work together to help feed the hungry people in our communities this holiday season. America's Second Harvest, a national food bank network, has a Food Bank Locator Tool that you can use to find an organization in your area or you can give to the group directly.
No family should go hungry. We have the resources to feed all of our people, but we need to make the right choices to see that it happens. We work to elect progressive Democrats because we want to build a better future for our country. But electoral politics is just one part of the effort to improve the health, safety and economic security of our citizens. Please think about those in your community that need our help and give to your local food bank today!
We at Twenty-First Century Democrats wish you and your family peace this holiday season and throughout the New Year.
The last time I played any kind of formal role inside the Democratic Party was being a (volunteer) vice-chair of the finance committee for the Clinton-Gore re-elect, right after leaving the White House in mid-1995. Since that time, I have chosen to work outside the party system, focusing on trying to strengthen and revive the outside progressive infrastructure.
While that continues to be my primary focus, this year I decided to break my ban on helping party committees because of a unique set of circumstances, and agreed to do some consulting for the Ohio Democratic Party (DOP). The reasons I decided to do so are as the following:
1. Ohio's central importance electorally. For all I believe in expanding the map and the 50-state strategy, in any kind of close election, it is still very likely that we will need Ohio's 20 electoral votes to get to 270. On top of that, there will probably be six or even more competitive US congressional races, and the Ohio State House could be retaken after 12 years of Republican legislative domination. That is not only important for making Ohio more progressive, but the congressional redistricting battle coming up following the 2010 elections.
2. The new state party. Gov. Strickland, Sen. Sherrod Brown, and the rest of the impressive group of statewide officeholders have made a major commitment to rebuilding the Ohio Democratic Party, which with occasional exceptions hasn't been really strong in at least a couple of decades, and probably longer. I know Doug Kelly, the new executive director, and he is a top-notch operative, and the team there is committed to rebuilding the ODP infrastructure from top to bottom.
3. Ted Strickland and Sherrod Brown. These guys had been two of favorite my people in Congress for a long time, both strong progressives who were among the leaders on the right against the war resolution, and who have been great fighters for working people. When they ran for governor and senator, respectively, last year, and even ran as strong unapologetic progressive champions, it was the first time in 14 years that the Democrats had won major statewide offices in Ohio.
I spent most of the weekend in Ohio at a strategy session for the ODP, and came away even more excited and impressed about our chances in 2008. With a strong progressive Secretary of State, Jennifer Brunner, a lot of the problems in 2004 that Ken Blackwell created in trying to disenfranchise voters will be gone. And with a governor and senator committed to making it happen, the state party is going to be a major factor in winning the state.
The thing that always impressed me the most about each meeting this weekend was that Strickland and Brown, who were both there for most of the time, were both repeatedly using the phrase "building the progressive movement." They see the Democratic Party's mission as building the progressive movement for the long haul, which was thrilling to me as a person who has sat in hundreds of party meetings over the years where the word progressive movement never came up.
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