So after my last blog post telling how I decided not to go on the cruise that I won in the contest last year, I got talked into a compromise on the trip: to my complete astonishment, went from planning a nice quiet weekend at home and all day every working day in the office this week, to being talked into getting up at 2:30 in the morning Saturday and flying last minute to San Diego to board the cruise for a couple of days worth of panels and networking before debarking the ship at the port of Mazatlan Tuesday morning and getting back here last night at midnight. So now I’m all fresh and perky for the health care battle the next three days. While I deeply regret missing the big showdown with the insurers, and the chance to join all kinds of cool people in getting taken away by the police (including: Anna Burger, Deepak Bhangava, Jeff Blum, Justin Ruben, Jonathan Tasini, Medea Benjamin, Leslie Boyd, and Michael Kieschnick), my couple of days of cruising were worth the craziness.
On Christmas Eve morning, Senate Democrats followed through on their promise to pass their version of a health insurance reform bill before the Christmas Holiday, delivering what has been hailed by many liberal commentators in major media outlets as an "early Christmas gift." However, American workers concerned about the rising costs of health care, the poor quality of service provided by private insurance for those who can even afford it, and the millions of people left behind by for-profit, market based health care ought not get too excited about the Affordable Health Care for America Act. This "early gift" is more like a lump of coal!
Health care workers, activists, and patients, as well as labor leaders and rank workers in general -- many of whom voted the Democrats back into power in the "hope" they'd deliver a Universal, National Health Service -- have been left feeling confused, frustrated, and downright betrayed. The Senate bill, like the House version, cedes even more power to the already influential private, for-profit insurance industry: the same industry that financed the Democratic Party and President Obama's victorious electoral campaigns in 2008 while simultaneously padding the war chest of the Republican Party. They also bankrolled the fear-mongering and reactionary tea party "movement," which turned the longstanding American tradition of town hall meetings into an "at your own risk" excursion in 2009. That is to say, the health care industry funded both "sides" of the "debate," and now stands to reap a tremendous profit from their investment; all at the expense of the American working class.
The Senate bill differs little from the version passed in the House back in November. For the first time, individuals will be required by law to purchase insurance policies and maintain coverage, or pay punitive tax fines for non-compliance. Much of the language of the regressive Stupak Amendment, which prohibits the use of federal funds "to pay for any abortion or to cover any part of the costs of any health plan that includes coverage of abortion," is included in the Senate bill. A tax on so-called "Cadillac" insurance plans will hit unionized workers especially hard and undermine generations of struggle by workers for a decent standard of living. The insurance industry will receive billions of dollars in additional profits, guaranteed by the personal mandate, fine scheme and taxpayer funded subsidies, and gain access to new markets as the privatization of Medicare/Medicaid continues unabated and Medicare faces upwards of $400 billion in cuts. The industry also gets to keep its decades-old anti-trust exemption.
This scheme will cost American taxpayers over $800 billion dollars over the next decade and will do next to nothing to control costs; handing the great bulk of that money to the same private, for-profit insurers who have made a killing (literally!) denying Americans coverage or providing extremely limited and unreliable coverage, driving up costs and forcing many working class individuals and families into bankruptcy and poverty. Even more despicable is the 12 year market protection extended to Big Pharma for name-brand and high-tech prescription drugs, effectively a government guarantee of private corporate profits. Over 20 million people will still be left uninsured by the Senate bill, and countless more will be left without access to the health care they really need because, as many people have learned in the recent economic crisis, insurance does not guarantee access to actual care, especially not "affordable" care.
Of course, the only health care guaranteed to be "affordable" to all is universal, FREE health care and we can only have this by demanding, organizing for and winning a "Medicare for all" reform that includes everyone and leaves no one out, along the lines of the now-defunct HR 676 or SB 703. Public opinion polling has consistently shown for nearly a decade that Americans prefer such a national universal program over market-based proposals, and back in 2005/06 many leading Democrats paid lip service to such legislation, even promising to pass it if only American voters would deliver Democrats a "super majority" in the House and Senate. Well, the Democrats got their wish, and all American workers got was this lousy bill for $800 billion, which we get the "gift" of paying for over the next decade.
As many Americans crowd the post-holiday lines at our local department stores, seeking to return or exchange unwanted gifts, we ought to remember that the party-line vote to approve the Senate Democrats' bill was 39-60, with the Republicans favoring doing nothing and the Democrats supporting what amounts to a multi-billion dollar handout to the industry which is directly responsible for the death of 60 people in the US each and every day and the bankruptcy of thousands. Neither of these corporate, capitalist political parties represents the interests of the American working class, who make up the vast majority. America needs a working class party, an independent, mass party of labor based on the unions to fight uncompromisingly for the real interests of the majority. Only thus can we end the rationing of health care services based on economic privilege and win FREE, QUALITY health care for all as a human right!
The health care debate has officially arrived at its most critical juncture. Joe Lieberman’s “I will never compromise in any way whatsoever that could hurt Aetna” tantrum, which proves definitively once and for all that he needs to be stripped of his committee chairmanship and targeted for defeat by Democrats in 2012, has brought progressive groups, activists, and members of congress to the brink of a decision we fervently hoped we could avoid making. Absent some miracle of policy creativity or leg breaking persuasion, progressives are going to have to make a choice: do we give in on the public option but then use our leverage to demand the most progressive possible legislation on everything else in this bill, or do we say no to the whole bill, forcing Democrats to start over or give up entirely on passing the health bill? (Reconciliation in my mind is a form of starting over given how complicated it is procedurally, and given that the bill would probably have to broken up into at least two different pieces of legislation to pass it.)
First though, other than thoroughly denouncing Lieberman for the arrogant, insurance flack that he is, I think progressives should hold our powder and wait to see the next maneuver by Reid and the other Democrats. There is still a chance that a creative new approach on the policy side, combined with extreme pressure on Lieberman from the political side, might resolve this situation in some manner progressives could possibly live with. I think we should save our flamethrowers and grenades for a day or two to see what happens next, because I know Reid and others inside are continuing to work this thing internally. And with the news this weekend catching everyone by surprise (Lieberman had actually signed off on the compromise before he decided to oppose it), I honestly don’t think we have enough information to make a decision yet anyway. Given that we literally don’t know what bill Reid is intending to introduce yet, it’s hard to know whether to oppose it or support it.
So I’m holding my powder for the moment. Reid came through on putting the public option in the original merged bill, and he came through in delivering 60 votes for the motion to proceed with debate, so I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt for a while longer. But I go back to what I have written before, and what those of us at Openleft have demanded in our petition to Reid: one way or another, you have to deliver. Get it done, whatever it takes, Senator: breaking Lieberman’s legs (metaphorically, at least), reconciliation, the nuclear option, they all work for me. Whatever it takes. In terms of that ultimate decision I discussed at the beginning, while I’m not ready to make that decision, I know what my inclination is: stand up to Lieberman. One man’s tantrum should not determine the fate of the entire Democratic party’s policy decisions. While I have been more understanding than many progressives of why Reid doesn’t want to go the reconciliation route, for example, I think we should be ready to do it if that is what it comes down to. It would be problematic on many different levels, but whatever we have to do to get a good bill should be done. Whatever it takes.
I remember the day in 1997 when I listened to my doctor tell me that I had a very large ovarian cyst, also, that I was likely to have a miscarriage. She said it was good that my body seemed to be taking care of things on its own, because the cyst could rupture and hemorrhage and they couldn't operate if I was pregnant because it was a Catholic hospital.
My doctor wasn't mean about it, she just couldn't give me this operation that she'd told me about a minute previous I needed to avert a threat to my life.
I was lucky that I miscarried. As the hormone-induced changes in the cyst caused pain that made it hard to stand upright in a matter of days, it's a good that I didn't have to go through the trouble of finding another hospital covered under my insurance. I went quickly from the terror of waiting to know if I could get that operation to the grim realities of going through it and recovering.
It turned out all right, but I've always remembered since then that I once sat helpless in a doctor's office watching her eyes slide away from mine to the floor as she refused to say anything when I pressed her to tell me what would happen if there wasn't a natural miscarriage. She just skipped ahead to how someone with my blood test results wasn't going to be pregnant much longer.
Opponents of abortion like to center their arguments around the fetus and talk about whether it's a person. Which basically means to me that they don't think women are people with the basic right to determine the conditions of their lives and what will happen to their bodies, who can be forced to suffer or die because it will make someone else feel better.
One thing that every major policy initiative the Obama administration has taken/has been forced to take on (most of them are in the latter category given the stakes) early in their term have in common is their overwhelming complexity. I am glad we have a President with real brains and a mind that can understand complexity, because when I think about the problems we have, and what it will take to solve them, the idea of George W. Bush, John McCain, or Sarah Palin being in charge gives me a bad case of the shivers. Think about what is on this President's plate: solving the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, dealing with the mess in Afghanistan, finding a long term international solution to climate change, finally reforming health care in a comprehensive way, dealing with an utterly out of control and corrupt financial sector, finally finding a fair and comprehensive solution to immigration reform. I know I'm missing some big things, but you get my point. There's not a single issue on this list that is simple to resolve, either substantively or politically. This level of major issues and crises to handle really does rival only a few other Presidents- Washington, Adams, and Jefferson in our nation's earliest days, Lincoln in the Civil War years, FDR. So thank goodness he's smart, and thank goodness he has surrounded himself with a lot of really bright advisers, because to make progress- let alone resolve- these issues is going to take a huge amount of brain power.
The White House has said it will do anything to "get a win".
Clearly, there are several Democratic Senators who will vote no, even if they vote for cloture.
Which means that with 50+ Congressmen willing to stand firm for the Public Option, it only requires 10 Senators willing to stand firm for the public option to force the President to go all in for the Public Option.
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