Today, Representative John Shadegg (R-AZ) took bad faith to a new level, claiming he supports single-payer in a discussion with David Shuster on MSNBC:
"The reality is, this bill is going to reward for-profit insurance companies that have done a disservice," Shadegg said. "This bill is going to give them exactly what they wanted. The insurance industry, the for-profit insurance industry, wanted an individual mandate and that's what they're getting out of this bill. The for-profit insurance industry did not want a public option because they don't like competition and guess what? They're getting that."
Then, after some back and forth with Shuster: "I would support single-payer."
"You would support a government-run medical system?" Shuster asked.
"Absolutely," Shadegg said. "I would support forcing American insurance companies to compete. Right now they have a monopoly.
But Obama is pushing a public plan that he claims will somehow co-exist with private insurance. Shadegg isn't buying it.
"Ultimately, that so-called public plan, or government plan, will run the private sector out of business, because the guys that are operating the public plan are setting the rules for the guys running the private plan," Shadegg says.
The congressman says Obama does not want people to think he will replace private health insurance. That's because of Democrats' bitter experience with the plan pushed by Hillary Clinton when her husband was president.
"I think Hillary figured out after the fact that when she proposed to dramatically change the healthcare system in America at a time when most Americans were relatively happy with their healthcare, she scared people," Shadegg says. "She wanted the same thing that Obama wants, but she was more forthright in proposing it, saying look, we need to go to a single-payer system. And she lost the fight."(...)
"The question is, through what mechanism do you deliver health insurance?" Shadegg says. "Do you put them in a government-run program that forces everybody into a one-size-fits-all kind of cookie cutter system and is run by the government and therefore not subject to the rules of competition, or alternatively, do you facilitate every American being in a system driven by choice, one that produces competition to hold down costs and drive up quality?"
And then, top up the ante, in October Shadegg described single-payer as the step before a Soviet-style gulag:
You know, it occurs to me, and I'll go through these other scandals very quickly, but what we're really getting here is we're not just getting single-payer care. We're getting full on Russian gulag, Soviet-style gulag health care.
So yeah, I believe Shadegg is being honest here. He isn't just cynically parroting left-wing complaints about the bill or anything. He really supports single-payer.
The health insurance bill currently under consideration in Congress would forbid states from providing their residents with healthcare. An amendment correcting that problem was passed in committee last July and then quietly removed. A new campaign is asking the Democrats who voted for that amendment to withhold their votes on the bill until it is reinstated.
Several states' legislatures are close to enacting single-payer healthcare bills. This is a complete healthcare solution that eliminates the for-profit insurance industry, lowers the cost of pharmaceuticals, reduces bureaucracy, and provides universal coverage. As President Obama explains: "Now, the truth is that, unless you have a — what’s called a single-payer system, in which everybody is automatically covered, then you’re probably not going to reach every single individual."
Canada did not create a civilized healthcare system nationally until its provinces led the way. Clearly Congress is dragging behind the states in our country, and it is through state successes that we will eventually compel the U.S. government to provide our people with this basic human right.
Hawaii has a single-payer healthcare system. California's legislature has passed a single-payer bill three times but not yet found a governor to sign it into law. Single-payer healthcare bills are advancing in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Minnesota, Massachusetts, and a growing list of states, including New Mexico, where State Senator Jerry Ortiz y Pino, a long-time supporter of single-payer healthcare, is running for Lieutenant Governor. In Minnesota, single-payer champion John Marty is running for Governor.
Why is Single-Payer Health Insurance (Almost) "Off the Table?"
2009, in American politics, was a year spent arguing about health insurance reform. Right after he took office, Barrack Obama signaled to Congress that one of his top priorities would be to receive a health insurance bill that he could sign into law, hopefully by the fall.
Many committed and sincere activists, who had worked to bring about reform of health insurance for years, were perplexed by Obama's refusal to consider a government run single-payer health insurance system (SP) for America. Our next door neighbor to the north, Canada, established such a system in the 1970's, where government pays for virtually all health care, but doctors and hospitals remain mostly private. Canadians love their system of health insurance. It covers everybody with a generous government plan, and costs about half of what the American system does.
So why can't we do the same thing in the U.S.? The easy answer is opposition from the private insurance industry. They have money to burn on Washington lobbyists, and they really hate SP. A just, government-run health insurance system that covered everybody would mean the end of private health insurance in America. Of course they hate SP. How could they not?
When you see the millions of dollars that people like Senators Nelson or Lieberman collect in campaign contributions from private health insurance companies, it's
tempting to say, "That's it! That's why they oppose SP." Tempting, but incomplete.
If any possibility for progressive change in America is to become a reality, it must receive the backing of the labor movement. This backing is absolutely necessary, but not necessarily sufficient. It takes support from outside labor as well, to move things in a good direction, but the labor movement is definitely the big guy here.
By "labor movement", I mean the people who really control the money that comes in every month from the members in the form of dues. People like AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka and SEIU president Andy Stern. Those two are a big part of the reason why the public option (PO) got as far as it did as part of health insurance reform this year. Both of them really backed it. On the other hand, I've never heard either of them support SP.
I know, many local labor councils have voiced support for SP. But, like Deep Throat reminded us, we should follow the money. If you figure an average of $30/month from 13 million members, unions in the U.S. have a cash flow that
places them in about the middle of the Fortune 500. Labor controls a lot of money, and almost none of those big bucks are controlled by SP supporters. The real leaders of labor sit atop international unions; that's where the dues go every month, and those guys are not for SP.
Why is this? Union members are everyday people, like you and me, and single-payer would be great for us. What's the deal?
Put simply, union leaders guard their own personal interests, just like the rest of us. They don't just look after the interests of their members. And the main interest that every union leader has to take care of every day is to keep the dues coming in. Get more dues, if possible, but never let collection go down. A decrease in dues could threaten the institutional survival of any union.
Since around 1990, American unions have been very worried about losing members (dues), and the organized portion of the workforce has been getting smaller and smaller. One way to counteract this is to try to organize new members, which isn't going very well. The other way is to try and keep the members they have. A very important element of keeping present members on the rolls is to have union contracts that provide more money and better benefits than workers have who are not members of unions.
That, I think, is the big problem that Trumka and Stern have with SP. It would mean that everybody, members and non-members alike, would have the same health care benefits. So, if health care is the only consideration, why would anybody want to remain a member of her/his union (and keep paying dues?) No point in it, if the same health insurance was available to those who quit the union. Of course, health care is not the only consideration, but it's a big one, a really big one.
It looks to me like big labor leaders consider SP a threat to their institutional survival. I believe that is why it's "off the table", as far as Obama is concerned. Without the support of big labor, there is just no way Obama could get SP past Baucus, Lieberman, Nelson, and the private insurance companies.
But the idea of a robust PO just might have gained the support of labor leaders. Trumka and Stern came out for one, probably because they figure they could secure a better deal for their members than the general public, since private insurance would not be eliminated. Maybe union members would get private hospital rooms and spa vacations. Who knows?
By "robust" I mean a PO that would provide health insurance to anybody at any time with no penalty for age or pre-existing condition, ("guaranteed issue.") Private insurance would also be forced to follow these rules. A robust PO would piggyback on Medicare rates, but not join Medicare, and demand that any provider that takes Medicare should also accept the PO. And we could get started with a less than robust PO, and improve it over time.[1]
I believe that Obama needed the left (SP backers) on his side in order to get the PO past its' opponents, which are mainly insurance companies. As we all know, that was not the case. Thousands of SP backers kept insisting on
SP, when the PO really needed their support. It reached the point here in Seattle where Senator Patty Murray was shouted down at a health care rally by chants of single-payer! single-payer! She was trying to voice support for getting a health reform bill from Congress and was an identified supporter of a PO. Good grief!
Another interesting reason that SP is off the table is lack of support from the public.
I recently came across a fascinating poll, Voter
Attitudes on a Public Health Plan, by an outfit called Lake Research Partners. I had already seen a number of polls that seemed to indicate public support for SP. But after I read the Lake poll, I realized those other polls asked the wrong questions.
The Lake poll asked people to compare 3 different situations for health insurance in America, and say which they would prefer. 1. All private insurance-15% preferred.
2. All public insurance (SP)-9% preferred. 3. A combination of public and private, where people can choose (PO)-73% preferred! 4. Don't know-2%.
After studying the Lake poll, I realized that the polls that seemed to show majority support for SP had not included in their questions the idea of "public only." I'm sure private insurance companies are well aware of the lack of support among the public for a program where people get no choice, where they would have to give up what they have and take what the government offers. I can just imagine the "Harry and Louise" ad blitz we would see if SP ever became a serious issue in Congress!
This story, lack of public support for SP, might be different if there was institutional muscle (big labor) behind SP. Maybe folks could be won over. But, as I have already said, support from the big guys in the labor movement is just not there.
I did say "almost" off the table, didn't I? California just might be an exception to my analysis. A bill for a State SP system has passed the legislature in California twice, only to be vetoed by the Terminator, er, Governor. Currently, SB 810 (SP) has passed the CA State Senate again, 22-14, and been sent to the house for consideration this summer. 22-14 doesn't look like enough to override a veto by Schwarzenegger, so we'll have to wait and see. But still, SP has come very far in California. What's the deal there, how did they get this close?
For one thing, we're talking California here. There is a rich, progressive, left wing tradition in the big state. Upton Sinclair organized End Poverty in California, and almost became governor. Berkeley students braved fire hoses and humiliated the House Un-American Activities Committee there. California was the spiritual center of the anti-Vietnam War Movement. Ceaser Chavez organized farm workers
and led legendary strikes there. They have an economy there bigger than most nations. The huge economy gives them a certain independence in these matters. Bedsides, California prides itself on being a little different from the rest of
the country.
Two points on labor in California: Andy Stern and SEIU have been just about kicked out of the state by a vibrant and courageous SEIU local that now sees itself as a separate union with the name of National Health Care Workers Union (NUHW). NUHW leaders, under president Sal Roselli, don't appear to be having much to say about health insurance in California. I think that's wise; they should stick to organizing. But, I bet Roselli, a true progressive, is not anti-SP like his old boss, Andy Stern.
My other point about labor there is that it's possible that big names in the film industry fill labor's institutional muscle roll. Many stars have appeared at California OneCare (California's SP advocacy group) rallies. OneCare looks like it has a few bucks to spend on campaigns and educational efforts; I bet a good part of their money comes from Hollywood (bless their hearts!)
Some, like the San Francisco Chronicle, think that many of the Democrats in the legislature who are voting for SP now, are only doing it because they know it will be vetoed. It's a no-cost way to poke at Schwarzenegger. It will be fascinating to see what happens next year, if a Democrat is elected governor this fall (2010.)
All of this leaves us with the question, "what should we be doing?" The answer depends on whether or not Obama and the Dems can get a health care bill passed in the next six weeks or so. I agree with New York Times columnist Paul Krugman; the proposal unveiled by the White House on 2/21/10, deserves all the support we can muster. It covers almost everybody in America with affordable, decent health insurance, and its' passage would greatly strengthen the Democrats over the coming years. After it passes, maybe something could actually be done about unemployment. If it doesn't pass, the Republicans will get a huge boost, and might be able to re-take Congress this fall.
It would be great if the Senate petition to include PO under reconciliation were to take off and lead to including a PO in the legislation this year, but I have my doubts. The time for building support for the PO was last spring, when Obama could have joined us. I've already commented on what the left forces in the health care reform movement were up to back in May. Thousands of people took to the streets on May 30th, 5000 here in Seattle alone. In the Seattle parade, I'm pretty sure that I carried the only public option sign, and then Senator Murray got shouted down during her speech. I'm afraid that we've missed our chance for the PO for a while.
Assuming the bill passes, and Obama signs it, there's not going to be much interest in health insurance reform for a while. Progressives should closely watch how reform is implemented. Maybe it will work for a while, maybe not.
If the Republicans manage to stop the bill, it will be obvious that we need to build a bigger, stronger mass movement, so we can overcome the "Party of No" (Republicans.) If we do decide to build that movement, I would suggest that we consider our main slogan carefully. We should rally around simple and powerful words that make it easy for everyday people to join us. SP won't work; that's what I wrote this whole paper about. PO isn't a very catchy tune, either. PO, like SP is too complicated to organize a grass roots movement around.
I suggest that the success we had with the slogan "Health Care is a Right", here in Seattle in 2005, should be considered. 13,000 people signed our petition, then the city council put it on the ballot, as an advisory measure for voters
to agree or disagree. 102,000 (70%) of our fine voters said Yes! I think what happened here could be repeated across the country. When it was tried in Chicago and Tacoma, it worked just as well. If we had millions of Americans voting and marching for "Health Care is a Right", I bet Obama and the Dems could push the Republicans out of the way, and really get something done, like health insurance reform with a robust PO.
A bill to create single-payer healthcare in California has passed that state's senate for the third time now. Californians just need to persuade a governor to sign it. Single-payer healthcare bills are advancing in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Minnesota, Massachusetts, and a growing list of states, including New Mexico, where State Senator Jerry Ortiz y Pino, a long-time supporter of single-payer healthcare, is running for Lieutenant Governor.
Now North Carolina house candidate Marcus Brandon has pledged to introduce a bill to create single-payer healthcare in that state. Brandon, whom I know and like and who worked for Congressman Dennis Kucinich's 2008 presidential campaign, is a candidate in North Carolina House District 60. That's near Greensboro, where I can just picture Marcus sitting at a lunch counter and refusing to be provoked.
Last week, House Democrats killed two provisions that could have given us the best health care in the world: single-payer. But we've still got a chance in the U.S. Senate.
Single-payer health care is the only kind that would both control costs and cover all Americans.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had pledged to hold a House vote on single-payer, but she broke her promise, and did not allow the vote.
Even worse, Speaker Pelosi stripped a provision from the health care bill that would have allowed states to try single-payer.
As a final insult, the House approved an anti-choice amendment that will remove abortion coverage from millions of health insurance policies.
That's just not good enough.
Americans deserve a healthcare system that will cover everyone and won't bankrupt anyone.
Let's make our voices heard for real health care reform. Sen. Bernie Sanders has introduced S. 703, a bill that would create single-payer systems in every state to cover all Americans.
America's political geography is fundamentally dysfunctional: we draw political divisions--most notably between states--along the bottoms of significant rivers, thus dividing regional ecosystems in half, rather than drawing those divisions along ridgelines. There's an understandable historical reason for this, of course: rivers are natural traditional dividing lines. People inherently tend to gather together on one side or the other. They've done so for eons. But even so, that doesn't make it any less dysfunctional today.
The same is true in a more abstract sense. We tend to draw conceptual divisions in same sort of naively naturalistic way, even though the functional result is deeply frustrating. Take, for example, the ongoing health care battle. It's the natural inclination of people on all sides to assume that the important distinction is whether we have "X" feature or not--whatever "X" may be. Obama says "X" is "cost controls" and he supports the public option as a means to that end. Most folks in the blogosphere would say that "X" is the public option. Some have argued that "X" is single-payer. But my view is that all these Xs are like river bottoms--or sometimes even just puddles--when what we ought to be thinking about is the ridgelines. It's the ridgelines that determine the broad outlines of things.
I have, for months now, predicted that this was going to come down to what Barack Obama really wanted. We assumed the president would want "what works," particularly after fetishizing pragmatism throughout his campaign, which meant that he would require a real public option. But he had also fetishized bipartisanship. And then there were those side deals ...
President Barack Obama is actively discouraging Senate Democrats in their effort to include a public insurance option with a state opt-out clause as part of health care reform. In its place, say multiple Democratic sources, Obama has indicated a preference for an alternative policy, favored by the insurance industry, which would see a public plan "triggered" into effect in the future by a failure of the industry to meet certain benchmarks.
The administration retreat runs counter to the letter and the spirit of Obama's presidential campaign. The man who ran on the "Audacity of Hope" has now taken a more conservative stand than Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), leaving progressives with a mix of confusion and outrage. Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill have battled conservatives in their own party in an effort to get the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster. Now tantalizingly close, they are calling for Obama to step up....
"Everybody knows we're close enough that these guys could be rolled. They just don't want to do it because it makes the politics harder," said a senior Democratic source, saying that Obama is worried about the political fate of Blue Dogs and conservative Senate Democrats if the bill isn't seen as bipartisan. "These last couple folks, they could get them if Obama leaned on them."
....
It seems that the administration believes that it's better to deliver a bill that will not work than to take a chance on losing some seats. Since it's nonsensical to think that that Republicans would take those seats because of the public option but not health care reform over all, they must believe that they must deliver a devastating blow to the majority of their own party in order to prove their bipartisan bona fides and give Rahm's Blue Dogs a tea bag to take home with them. (Certainly, nothing would make the villagers happier...)
If the reports we are hearing are true (and that's a big if) it looks like we have bigger problems.
I quote this at length because I think it captures the larger situation exactly. It identifies the ridgelines. And in doing so, it clearly reveals why Obama is, at bottom, a conservative, notwithstanding some cultural inclinations to the contrary. When all is said and done, he wants to change things as little as possible, his desire for change is driven by a perceived necessity to avoid disaster, and the priorities and parameters of change are dictated by doing as much as possible for those representing existing power, and doing as little as possible for everyone else. This is what classic Burkean conservatives believe in, along with the ideal of unifying the polity, and marginalizing all divisive forces.
Divisive forces, for those not clued in, means you and me, pardners. Every bit as much as Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck. For a classic conservative like Obama, it really makes no difference whatsoever if the divisive forces are right or rational. All that matters is that they resist going along. And because of Obama's essential conservatism, it's you and I who are the problem in Obama's eyes. Not Baucus, Nelson, Lieberman & the like. You and I. We are the problem.
And since we are the problem, we've got to get a whole lot better at it. Because if we can make ourselves insoluble, then that will force Obama to accept us, however much he may hate doing so.
And that is the only way that we will get what we want.
And what do we want? That's where the ridgelines come in once again.
is Countdown's Free Clinic partnership events shaping up. I honestly don't know if they can pull this off fast enough to make a difference in the short term, soon enough to win the battle in this go-round. But this is the sort of thing we need to start seeing in terms of changing the whole zeitgeist. The contrast between these mass events of public healing and the jackassery of the tea-partiers should be particularly striking.
It took a couple of years of this sort of thing to build up the momentum for the really big stuff during the New Deal, so I think that if we focus on building strength, and pulling off events like this, our strength will only increase in the years ahead. Maybe not the Conservadem's, but they're really not my concern. And since Obama loves them so much, he's not my concern, either. He will come to us when there's nowhere else to go.
I want to be clear, I'm not giving up on us getting a decent bill this year. But I think that if we take a longer view--and don't buy the Versailles CW that it's got to be now or never--then we'll be much better prepared to hang tough in the short run, and not fold. And that's what's needed to win.
Don't get me wrong--I want health care reform to pass this year. But I want us to be both as clear and strong as we possibly can be. And I want to draw a very clear distinction between the logic of Versailles and the Democratic leadership, and the logic of progressive Democrats out in the wilds of America.
Inside Versailles, there can be no doubt--if the Democrats don't pass health care now, it will be dead for another decade or more--and so will the Democrats. There can be no doubt about this, just as there could be no doubt that Iraq had WMDs, and that Bush's election in 2004 signaled the consolidation of a permanent GOP governing majority.
In other words, it's pure and utter crap. Maybe it will happen. Maybe it won't. Nobody knows for sure. But we do know what follows from assuming that it's true: a wholly uncalled-for degree of Democratic paralysis. In virtually all other walks of life, what's more American than saying, "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again"?
But when it comes to health care reform, we're supposed to stand and salute the proposition, "Take anything you can get--brown rice, seaweed and a dirty hot dog--and call it a victory, no matter what." Could there possigbly be a more cowardly, unimaginative, downright un-American fore-ordained loserattitude than that?
Political Poison: None For Me, Thanks...
Furthermore, if we recognize the obvious--that an individual mandate forcing people to buy private crapolla insurance is pure political poison, then how can we not be willing to see health care "reform" die this year, rather than pass such a suicidal bill into law?
As Digby wrote, regarding individual mandates, and potential Constitutional challenges:
Reform advocates will undoubtedly look back on all this and wonder if the politics of single payer would have actually been easier. In this particular respect, it almost certainly would have been. There's no doubt that the federal government has the power to tax for certain benefits or compel payments to outside parties for certain optional privileges (like driving.) But whether it has the power to compel all citizens to pay money to particular private interests is an unknown. Who knows what the Roberts Court will decide on that?
Of course, if a public option is in place it's a different argument altogether, isn't it?
Sigh! None of this would have happened if only we'd had a constitutional lawyer as President!
I don't think that it needs to come to this. In fact, I think that being willing to let health care reform die may well be the key to ensuring that it doesn't. "Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it." -- So wrote Goethe, and he was absolutely right. The converse of that is, "If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything." And that's become the Democrat's de factor operating script ever since 1994.
After 14 years of operating out of fear of failure, isn't it time we started operating out of hope of success?
At the very least, can't we just stop trying to out-stupid the Republicans? Because in that game, even when you win, you lose.
As Ian Welsh points out, what passes for a public option in the bills now being considered (a "public option" that isn't even guaranteed to pass, nor should it in its current state) is not scaring Big Insurance or Big Pharmaceutical companies. Why is this? In an earlier blog entry, Welsh describes the reasons why (I've boldfaced the most relevant points):
Because it has no built in customer base, which increases its upfront expenses for advertising and a sales-force significantly. People who have company healthcare plans can't join.
Doctors, hospitals and so on are not required to accept it, and providers will not accept it if it provides below market rates unless it also provides large numbers of patients, which it can do because it isn't pre-populated and isn't a good buy for insureds unless it can provide a low premium, which requires it to pay low rates.
It must make a profit in order to return the money up-fronted to it, and it has only 10 years to do that, but it has to start from scratch, as noted above.
The most that can be said in favor of the weak "public option" is that it MIGHT be used as the dumping ground for the poorest patients, who for various reasons aren't qualified to receive Medicaid - and even then, it's unlikely that such patients will be granted access to adequate health care under the program.
A new study (prepublication draft here) by Harvard researchers finds that lack of insurance is responsible for about 45,000 deaths per year. This is the equivalent of the ninth-leading cause of death according to CDC statistics--none of the others of which can be reduced to zero by a simple act of Congress. A 1993 study put the figure then at 18,000 deaths annually. The new study was an update of the earlier one.
Nearly 45,000 people die in the United States each year - one every 12 minutes - in large part because they lack health insurance and can not get good care, Harvard Medical School researchers found in an analysis released on Thursday.
"We're losing more Americans every day because of inaction ... than drunk driving and homicide combined," Dr. David Himmelstein, a co-author of the study and an associate professor of medicine at Harvard, said in an interview with Reuters.
Overall, researchers said American adults age 64 and younger who lack health insurance have a 40 percent higher risk of death than those who have coverage.
The findings come amid a fierce debate over Democrats' efforts to reform the nation's $2.5 trillion U.S. healthcare industry by expanding coverage and reducing healthcare costs.
BTW, using the EPA's standard valuation for a human life, $6.9 million, that works out to an annual cost of $310.5 billion--about 1/8 (12.5%) of the total 2.5 trillion spent on health care.
On Friday, guest host Lawrence O'Donnell began Countdown's healthcare coverage by reporting on the findings:
Unfortunately, O'Donnell didn't stay focused on the report for long, but it was the introductory frame he used.
We are coming down to the home stretch on healthcare, and we have seen the results of the first couple of rounds of crazy that have been sent forth in an effort to stop the process.
In addition to the Town Halls, opponents are flooding the email inboxes of America's "low information" voters with no end of lies. Those emails are getting passed around and around and around, and by now some of them have probably appeared in your inbox.
But it's summer...and who has time to respond to this stuff?
Well, guess what, Gentle Reader: I've already done the hard work for you.
Today's story is an email response that you can send right back to your "inbox friends". It's a reminder of some of the frustrations that we all share in this country and some explanations of what's being proposed...and a few words about socialism, to boot.
So get out there and copy and paste and forward and reply, and let's see if we can't fight the madness, one email at a time.
One of healthcare reform's greatest champions died last night. Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) succumbed to brain cancer at the age of 77. During his 46-year career in the senate, Kennedy's name appeared on virtually every major piece of progressive legislation from civil rights to economic justice, to healthcare. Kennedy called healthcare reform "the cause of my life."
Jack Newfield of The Nation remembers Kennedy as the senate's fighting liberal, the "best and most effective senator of the past hundred years."
We are left with weak, squabbling, visionless Democratic puppets and a President whose domestic reform policies are adrift-sliding towards the horizon with each passing day.
The loss is a blow to healthcare reform. Alex Koppelman of Salon notes that with Kennedy's passing, the Democrats have lost one of their most effective bipartisan deal-makers. Democrats will also be down a vote in the senate for the foreseeable future because Massachusetts state law doesn't allow for the appointment of an immediate replacement.
Naturally, with congress on vacation, wackos are rushing in to fill the media vacuum. Eric Boehlert asks in AlterNet why Republicans the only ones allowed to get angry about healthcare reform, or anything else. He notes that in 2003, the media decided that Howard Dean was too angry for prime time. During the Republican National Convention in 2008, SWAT teams were sent to raid the homes of suspected anarchist protesters. And yet, conservative demonstrators in Arizona are allowed to tote rifles just outside the security perimeter of a presidential event.
RNC Chair Michael Steele raised eyebrows by championing single-payer healthcare in an op/ed in the Washington Post framing the GOP as defenders of Medicare.
Odd that Steele has so much love for Medicare, but none for the nation's other leading source of government-run healthcare, the Veterans Administration (VA). This week, Steele accused America's other leading public insurance provider of encouraging veterans to commit suicide, based on a booklet published by the VA which explains living wills, advanced directives and other key concepts in end-of-life care, Rachel Slajda reports for TPM DC.
Progressives have been doing a great job debunking the death panel and death book myths, like this creative photo essay from TPM. But we're scarcely addressing the misconception that underlies them: The idea government-administered health insurance is inherently more prone to rationing than private health insurance.
Newt Gingrich and other prominent opponents of reform claim that a public option will restrict choices and deny care. What they don't say is that for-profit insurance is rationing. When your insurance company covers an old drug for your condition, but not a new one with fewer side effects, that's rationing. The company is restricting your treatment choices to improve its bottom line. When an employer or an insurer decides not to cover mental health care, that's rationing. The entire business model is predicated on charging people more and giving them less care so there's more money left over for the stockholders.
No health insurance can cover every treatment, no matter who runs it. But public insurance has two major advantages: 1) Public insurance tends to be cheaper to administer; 2) The tough choices about what to cover are ultimately in the hands of the voters, not health insurance bureaucrats with an eye on the bottom line.
The whole town hall concept is turning out to be a strategic blunder for the White House. The format makes legislators and the media sitting ducks for extremists and astroturfers who want to paint themselves as typical citizens. As Sandy Heierbacher of the National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation writes in YES Magazine:
[T]he town hall design sets the stage for activist groups and special interest groups to try to 'game' the system and sideline other concerned citizens in the process. As Martin Carcasson, director of Colorado State University's Center for Public Deliberation, recently pointed out, "the loudest voices are the ones that get heard, and typically the majority voices in the middle don't even show up because it becomes a shouting match."
How much more clear can the Republicans be? They are not interested in bipartisanship. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), supposedly the Senate's leading reasonable Republican on healthcare, couldn't even be bothered to rebuke a town hall participant who hinted about assassinating the president, as Raw Story reports.
If the Democrats want healthcare reform, they are going to have to go it alone. Let's hope they pass a bill that would make Sen. Kennedy proud.
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The U.S. House of Representatives has committed to bringing single-payer healthcare to a vote following summer recess. Stranger things have happened, greater obstacles have been overcome, than what would be involved in winning that vote, winning in the Senate, and compelling the president to sign the bill. We have a moral responsibility to put everything we have into trying; and even a near-victory will advance the cause.
The Senate Finance Committee is reportedly very close to finishing its healthcare legislation. But as the bill's details leak, anticipation is quickly turning to dejection in progressive healthcare circles. Early word has it that the almost finished a bill includes no public option, no employer mandate, and no insurance exchange. Steve Benen of the Washington Monthly explains why the Senate Finance Committee bill is going to suck.
At TAPPED, Scott Lemieux argues that if the Senate legislation doesn't have a public option or an employer mandate, we'd be better off not passing a healthcare bill. Conventional wisdom is that even a bad bill would be better than nothing: Once we get the basic infrastructure for universal healthcare in place, it will be easier to build on that rather than starting from scratch. However, as Lemieux points out, a bill with no public option would only further entrench the insurance industry and make it easier for them to block reforms in the future.
Remember that the bill that comes out of the Finance Committee still has to be reconciled with other versions, like the version from the Health Education Labor and Pensions Committee. So, it's possible that progressive Senators will win some concessions. However, as we've discussed before, the Senate is the key to passing healthcare reform, and the Blue Dogs are the key to passing the bill in the Senate. Whatever comes out of the Finance Committee is going to carry a lot of weight with the Blue Dogs.
It's no wonder we're fighting over a bunch of lackluster options. As Isabel MacDonald observes in AlterNet, corporate-run media has virtually banished all talk of single-payer healthcare. If you're a single-payer advocate and you want to get on TV, you have two options: Be Bernie Sanders or get arrested in the Senate.
Democrats should try implementing a radical progressive agenda one of these days-they'll be accused of doing so, anyway. Amanda Marcotte of RH Reality Check notes that even though universal healthcare is more likely to cover iPods than abortions, mainstream media and the anti-reform brigade insist on discussing abortion funding as if it were a live option. Here in the real world, pro-choicers don't even have the votes in Congress to overturn the Hyde Amendment, which bans the usual sources of federal funding for abortion. According to some experts I interviewed a few weeks ago for a forthcoming article, there might be a clever legal way to set up the healthcare program so that its funding wouldn't fall under the Hyde Amendment, but no one expects the Democrats to even try.
Make sure to keep an eye out for Ms. Magazine's summer issue, which contains a moving profile of assassinated abortion provider Dr. George Tiller by Michele Kort. The piece is titled "The Man Who Trusted Women" after Dr. Tiller's credo, a phrase that one admirer paid their last respects with, via a funeral wreath with the words "Trust Women" emblazoned in the center. Kort quotes Tiller explaining what that quotation means in practice:
"Chromosomal abnormalities make up about 24 percent of our [late abortion] patients, and sometimes the heart, the lung, the intestines, all of this is outside of the body [of the fetus]. Most places in the United States say that even if you have this kind of a problem you may not have a termination of pregnancy. ...What this says is that...women are not smart enough, they are not tough enough and they do not love enough to make these family decisions about their children and their families."
James Ridgeway of Mother Jones reported that Tiller's alleged assassin, Scott Roeder, was savoring his moment in the media spotlight while he sat in prison, awaiting his first court date on Tuesday. Roeder has been bragging lately about his bigshot anti-choice friends and hinting at a broader conspiracy. Maybe he'll take a few more terrorists down with him. That would be a bright spot on a bleak healthcare landscape.
If the Finance Committee produces a bill with no public option, no employer mandate, and no insurance exchange to bring down costs, then insurance industry gets everything and we get nothing but orders to buy their crappy product. Let's hope things shake out for the best.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about health care. Visit Healthcare.newsladder.net for a complete list of articles on healthcare affordability, healthcare laws, and healthcare controversy. For the best progressive reporting on the Economy, and Immigration, check out Economy.Newsladder.net and Immigration.Newsladder.net.
This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of 50 leading independent media outlets, and created by NewsLadder.
Following a pattern of civil resistance in Washington D.C. and around the country, citizens in Des Moines Iowa on Monday risked arrest to press for the creation of single-payer healthcare, the establishment of healthcare as a human right, and an end to the deadly practices of Iowa's largest health insurance company, Wellmark Blue Cross Blue Shield.
Dr. Ogan Gurel has walked nearly 700 miles from Chicago and tomorrow he will arrive in DC. In his own words below, he explains, "Why I am Walking For Healthcare" - but essentially, it's to deliver The People's Voice to Congress, to counter the powerful special interests & lobbyists in DC that are by en large determining the outcome of OUR health care reform.
Tomorrow Dr. Gurel will be welcomed by The People's Rally at Malcolm X Park (from 1-4pm); and after speaking at the end of the rally, he will take the last steps of the journey to the Lincoln Memorial with the attendees that join him.
When you wake up in the morning and rub the sleep out of your eyes are you surprised to find a great shadowy figure in the room? We are past the Fourth and the "let's celebrate America" holiday feeling only to find that the lobbyists continued to move forward while we were distracted by fireworks and speeches.
The Wapo points out this morning that a large number of former inner-office employees of Max Baucus and Charles Grassley and other active Congressional committee members are being snatched up by lobbying organizations:
Senator Max Baucus met Wednesday with advocates for single-payer healthcare, including Senator Bernie Sanders, and told them that he might drop criminal charges against 13 people arrested for speaking up in his hearings, but that he would not include any supporters of single-payer health coverage in any future hearings. According to one report, Baucus suggested that he'd been mistaken to exclude single-payer but asserted that the process of creating healthcare reform legislation was too far along now to correct that omission.
Senator Sanders said after the meeting that if healthcare reform did not create a single-payer system it shouldn't be done at all, and that within three or four years we would realize we'd solved nothing. He said that it would be better to increase funding for community health centers and take steps to make it easier for medical students to go into primary care, than to enact major reforms that didn't go to the root of the problem.
I can't recall a better corporate news video segment in at least the past decade than the story that Ed Schultz just aired on MSNBC in which he interviews Margaret Flowers of Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) and Senator Debbie Stabenow on the topic of healthcare reform.
