BREAKING: Robert Gibbs will announce if secret deal was cut to kill public option

by: AdamGreen

Tue Mar 16, 2010 at 12:28


After boldly pressuring Joe Lieberman for opposing health care reform with a public option yesterday, Obama is on a roll.

Today, he boldly endorsed Sunshine Week:

"As Sunshine Week begins, I want to applaud everyone who has worked to increase transparency in government and recommit my administration to be the most open and transparent ever, an effort that will strengthen our democracy and ensure the public’s trust in their government. We came to Washington to change the way business was done, and part of that was making ourselves accountable to the American people by opening up our government."

Recommitting to transparency has obvious implications for the public option.

This means that Robert Gibbs will have a very exciting "yes" or "no" answer at today's 1:30pm press conference about whether the secret deal to kill the public option reported in the New York Times is true:

Not to worry, Jim Messina, the deputy White House chief of staff, told the hospital lobbyists, according to White House officials and lobbyists briefed on the call. The White House was standing behind the deal...

Several hospital lobbyists involved in the White House deals said it was understood as a condition of their support that the final legislation would not include a government-run health plan paying Medicare rates — generally 80 percent of private sector rates — or controlled by the secretary of health and human services.

“We have an agreement with the White House that I’m very confident will be seen all the way through conference,” one of the industry lobbyists, Chip Kahn, director of the Federation of American Hospitals, told a Capitol Hill newsletter.

I know that everyone from Russ Feingold to Joe Lieberman implied that Obama said one thing in public but then did the exact opposite on the public option. But he will deserve great credit today when this fresh breath of transparency lets the American people know about what actually happened.

UPDATE: Nevermind. Turns out it was just an empty press release. No transparency to see here.

AdamGreen :: BREAKING: Robert Gibbs will announce if secret deal was cut to kill public option

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BREAKING: Robert Gibbs will announce if secret deal was cut to kill public option | 31 comments
And if the answer is "no"? What then? (0.00 / 0)

I'm POSITIVE it will be... (4.00 / 3)
I mean, a promise is a promise, right?


[ Parent ]
Not nearly as bad as the broken promise (0.00 / 0)
about not "nation-building."
[ Parent ]
The problem isn't just that a secret deal was made (4.00 / 7)
President Obama can't propose legislation.  Nor can he offer amendments or vote on it.  All he can do is lobby Congress.

What bothers me isn't merely that Obama cut deals with the insurance industry.  Or that he did it in secret, in violation of his express pledge to open the HCR process to sunshine.

No, what really bothers me is Obama's zealous advocacy.  See, it would be trivial for Obama to go back to the insurance lobbyists and say "Hey, I fought against the PO, but once we were forced to go the reconciliation route, my hands were tied.  You should have gotten me a vote or two from across the aisle."

The WH is virtually a lobbying arm for the insurance industry.  Politically, what has Obama gotten in return?

Why is the industry lobbying against him then? (4.00 / 1)

[ Parent ]
You believe that? (4.00 / 7)
A) It's called heads I win, tails you lose. A job well done by insurance industry lobbyists.

B) Optics. It helps pass a pro-insurance industry bill to be able to say "the insurance industry opposes it." All the arguments Obama has made in recent days against insurance companies argue for a public option, not for requiring by criminal penalty that people buy policies from insurance companies.

Again, this transparency will be refreshing. 30 minutes and counting.

[ Parent ]
Damn straight I believe that. (0.00 / 0)
AHIP and the Chamber are airing scare attack ads about this evil bill.
[ Parent ]
Ha ha! (4.00 / 5)
So, let me get this straight.  Republicans oppose this bill.  The insurance lobby opposes this bill.  Blue Dogs have to be bribed to support this bill.

So, why is it about to pass?  It must be because liberals are so overwhelmingly powerful in D.C. that they can ram legislation through Congress despite the opposition of all the other stakeholders.  

Too bad that when the liberals decided to ram through the legislation over the objections of everyone else that they forgot to make the bill actually liberal.  Oops.

[ Parent ]
And thus how you can tell this is about branding (4.00 / 5)
The most "liberal bill since the 60s" is not liberal. It is in fact a right of center bill and one that has plutocratic elements pushed by the insurance industry. No one has yet to explain to me why a mandate as of this juncture is still necessary. Indeed, why has the penalties for the mandate increased overtime as the bill has become weaker?  
[ Parent ]
Wish I could recommend your comment a million times. n.t (0.00 / 0)

[ Parent ]
They aren't. (4.00 / 9)
This will require you to understand the bigger picture outside of the last year with regard to the debate.

Back when Ezra Klein was not shilling for the Washington Post, his and other blogs covered the issue of health care.

Everyone- I mean everyone based on the polls knew that health care reform was coming. Indeed, the goal of the industry was never to prevent a bill from passing. It was to make sure the right type would pass given the long term issues that the industry was facing with an aging population.

Anyway, this is a meandering post. Here's a good example of what was happening even before the last year. The industry understood that Americans based on the polls wanted universal coverage. Their response was that they should change the definition of what constitutes universal coverage. What you see in the bill is largely what they wanted the definition to be- insurance, but not necessarily health care.

If you want to see some polling from a while back, I always use this link:

http://www.emergingdemocraticm...

The value of the info is illustrate just how consistent the public has been and how much the bill is a product of industry lobbying to get the bill it wanted given what the were the public constraints due to the public wanting reform.

[ Parent ]
By the way, good examples of this is the (4.00 / 1)
no insurance to under insurance issue and excise tax issue of how one can claim "universal coverage" while providing less and less actual health care services.  
[ Parent ]
Yeah, right (4.00 / 4)
Please, WTF do you think they are lobbying against? The individual mandate?  You think they are lobbying against having millions of young and healthy Americans being forced to buy insurance, subsidized by the government?

The lobby WROTE THE FUCKING BILL for Baucus' finance committee.  Now you think they are lobbying against it?  Why?  Because Obama says they are lobbying against it?  Please.  Don't be a sucker.

Have you not noticed insurance companies jacking up insurance rates around the country over the past coupls of months?  Do you think that makes people support or oppose HCR?

[ Parent ]
If they cut a deal with the insurance industry.. (0.00 / 0)
They should ask for their money back.  The Insurance industry has done everything they can to kill this bill.

It appears that the pharma deal is dead, since pharma is no longer advertising for reform.

And if there is a deal with the hospitals, I don't see why the WH is holding onto that one.  The hospital lobby is the weakest of the three and does not have a lot of purchasing power vis-a-vis campaign contributions.

The conspiracy theories don't really make sense... the evidence doesn't support them at the moment.

REID: Voting against us was never part of our arrangement!
SPECTER: I am altering the deal! Pray I don't alter it any further!
REID: This deal keeps getting worse all the time!

[ Parent ]
When did you come to this debate? The last year? (4.00 / 6)
Because when I see comments  like yours, it makes me think many of you are naive. The industry's goal was not to kill the bill. Your miscalculation and that of other progressives on this is often amazing to me. The goal of the industry was to redefine the policy making such that private health care would come to be considered as universal health care. They telegraphed this move years ago when they started a push to redefine universal health care. Indeed, they have largely won in that they have fixed consumers with this bill and the policies are subsidies by the government  
[ Parent ]
And, yet, they are pressuring congressfolk to vote no... (0.00 / 0)
...and spending millions to kill the bill.  

If they were onboard, they would be doing what Pharma did last year--big ads in FAVOR of the bill while pushing congress to do its bidding.

REID: Voting against us was never part of our arrangement!
SPECTER: I am altering the deal! Pray I don't alter it any further!
REID: This deal keeps getting worse all the time!

[ Parent ]
Bruhrabbit should know... (4.00 / 4)
sometimes lobbyists want to be thrown into that briar patch.

"Please, whatever you do, don't pass that bill that forces every American to buy my overpriced and unpopular product!"

Personally, I haven't seen a single ad against the bill.  What I have seen is my insurance premiums go up by 17% and my co-pays double.  If the insurance industry was trying to send a message that HCR isn't necessary, they picked an odd time to look like greedy, amoral corporate scumbags.

I'm not saying that they haven't ran some ads as you say, but I suspect that any millions that may be spent now pale in comparison to the BILLIONS that the industry will earn or save by not killing the bill and by co-opting reform efforts for a robust PO or single-payer.

The insurance industry knows something that you have not caught on to: appearing to be against the bill gives legislators political cover to support it because it looks less like an industry handout.

[ Parent ]
The vast bulk of the insurance industry's efforts went into influence the language of the bill (4.00 / 3)
There were something like multiple times the number of lobbyists for each member of Congress. Whole sections of the bill were drafted or reviewed by the industry before even the general public saw it.  
[ Parent ]
By the way, that's why when they killed the PO (4.00 / 4)
some industry lobbist type according to Americablog sent out a statement basically saying "we won." That's because despite whatyou think they a) knew the regulations were things they had already been able to work around at the state level and b) for the other reasons I cite.
[ Parent ]
read the quickhit i posted of the new york review of books article by michael tomasky (0.00 / 0)
http://www.nybooks.com/article...

See also Paul Blumenthal's article for the Sunlight Foundation which is footnoted by Tomasky:

On September 7, Baucus' bill made a private circulation on the Hill; pharmaceutical industry cost-cutting did not exceed $80 billion. Five days later, the New York Times reported that PhRMA planned to spend up to $150 million in an advertising blitz in support of Baucus' bill. The Times noted that the ad spending "...would be a follow-up to the deal that drug makers struck in June with Mr. Baucus and the White House." On September 16, Baucus released the full text of his legislation to the public.

http://blog.sunlightfoundation...

so much for how much they're trying to kill the bill.

[ Parent ]
what has he gotten? (0.00 / 0)
a health care bill.  that's what he wanted, and that's what he got.
[ Parent ]
Politically, what has Obama gotten in return? (0.00 / 0)
$, "mission accomplished" parties, and some faux corporate grousing about the "socialistic" Obama Administration.



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

[ Parent ]
Easy (maybe) (4.00 / 2)
Obama got legislation that feels comfortable to him, to his way of looking at the world and politics. He happens to share his worldview with a lot of Republicans, probably all of them, and corporate lobbyists. Progressives and traditional Democrats, however, find his worldview totally out of touch and amoral in this case.

Throwing money at a deliberately broken health care industry when it is literally a matter of life and death for people, that's beyond the pale. It would be one thing if private insurers had acted for the social good and failed. Instead they've worked to create monopolies and to take premiums while delaying and rejecting valid claims.

But it all makes sense for Obama and his ilk. And it makes me chuckle when the media call Obama a liberal. Yeah, right. Any sixth grader who can read Obama's policies can tell you most of Obama's policies to date are 100% certified Republican.

[ Parent ]
Jayzus! (4.00 / 2)
I'm about ready to quit clicking over here.  The cognitive dissonance is killing me.

Read that blockquote about Obama endorsing Sunshine Week and stand it alongside this:

Tuesday, Mar 16, 2010 05:17 EDT
Obama threatens to veto greater intelligence oversight
By Glenn Greenwald

I guess the words, Recommitting to transparency, have different meanings for different people.

meaning? (0.00 / 0)
A person that can justify escalating a war during an acceptance speech for a peace prize clearly has a different set of meanings than I.


"It sounds wrong...
     ...but its right."
[ Parent ]
Old News? (4.00 / 3)
Adam, I thought this secret deal was outed a few weeks ago, perhaps in discussions a few weeks ago about the articles telling us Rahm Emmanuel is a genius?

I agree with @space above, the issue is not really any secret deals. Clearly Obama feels comfortable with the corporate Republican health care positions. He doesn't see any need for a comprehensive cost effective solution that responds to the total failure of both the private health insurance markets and its regulators. Like Republicans everywhere, Obama believes the markets can heal themselves with minimal government involvement.

Of course, the 99% of us who are not wealthy, who either have no insurance or are not sure our insurance claims will be denied, we know how greedy companies and their CEOs have gamed the system. It is little surprise to me to hear 45,000 Americans die a year for lack of insurance. Obama and the Republicans, not so much. Certainly they don't act as if those deaths matter or they would have responded last year in a comprehensive way that addressed the real problems with health care in this country. They didn't.

What shocks me, perhaps, is that Obama has effectively tied the hands of Congress on at least two critical health care issues -- drug costs and the public option, while pretending to give Congress full leeway to create legislation. That's evil, in my book. It's not quite a sign of the apocalypse but it is a clear sign our government is broken. If I were a progressive member of Congress, I'd call the President out on his scam.

I think the key (0.00 / 0)
words are "at Medicare rates."  The House passed version was not.  The Senate version closest to passing was not.

This does not prove Obama dealt away the PO.  At best it shows he dealt away the PO at medicare rates.  

You and your facts!!!! (0.00 / 0)
We can't let that get in the way of a good conspiracy!!!

REID: Voting against us was never part of our arrangement!
SPECTER: I am altering the deal! Pray I don't alter it any further!
REID: This deal keeps getting worse all the time!
[ Parent ]
Facts may not get in the way of a good conspiracy, but lack of reading comprehension can (4.00 / 1)
Several hospital lobbyists involved in the White House deals said it was understood as a condition of their support that the final legislation would not include a government-run health plan paying Medicare rates - generally 80 percent of private sector rates - or controlled by the secretary of health and human services. [emphasis is mine]

"Controlled by the secretary of health and human services" means negotiated rates, since it would be the HHS Secretary doing the rate negotiating.  And guess what?  That was the kind of public option that passed the House and was considered by the Senate.

[ Parent ]
compare these two examples (4.00 / 2)
http://blog.sunlightfoundation...

Tauzin's job change became fodder for a campaign ad that then presidential candidate Barack Obama ran in the spring of 2008 simply titled "Billy." It featured the candidate, sleeves rolled up, talking to a salon of gasping Americans about the ways of Washington. "The pharmaceutical industry wrote into the prescription drug plan that Medicare could not negotiate with drug companies. And you know what, the chairman of the committee, who pushed the law through, went to work for the pharmaceutical industry making $2 million a year." The screen fades to black to inform the viewer that, "Barack Obama is the only candidate who refuses Washington lobbyist money," while the candidate continues his lecture, "Imagine that. That's an example of the same old game playing in Washington. You know, I don't want to learn how to play the game better, I want to put an end to the game playing."

On March 5, the White House held a meeting with major health care industry leaders to try to bring them to the table and see what could be done to gain their support. In attendance were Billy Tauzin, president, CEO and top lobbyist for PhRMA, Pfizer CEO Jeff Kindler, America's Health Care Plans (AHIP) Chairman Karen Ignani, Tom Donohue of the Chamber of Commerce and Robert Wood Johnson Foundations' Risa Lavizzo-Mourey. A day before the White House meeting Tauzin appeared on CNBC touting health care reform and promising to work closely with the Obama administration. In the interview he touted it as an "optimistic plan", acknowledging that the industry did have a few problems but was glad to have a chance to discuss these. Some were caught dumb-founded by this apparent change of heart on behalf of an industry long adverse to health care reforms.

One of many examples.

[ Parent ]
Watching this discussion unfold left me feeling me feeling a little sad (4.00 / 2)
That after so much time, that my life has been, so little has changed.  The naivety of some at this late date is disheartening.  Having been through another national ordeal many years ago, the words here today, made me reflect back to what I felt almost 50 years ago.  Sometimes it is hard to see things, when they are happening.  Some people do.  

Back in the 1960's, before the Viet Nam War became a national, perhaps global, tragedy, Paul Simon wrote some mystical words that I didn't really understand then.  They seem more obvious now.

Hello darkness, my old friend,
I've come to talk with you again,
Because a vision softly creeping,
Left its seeds while I was sleeping,
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence.

In restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone,
'Neath the halo of a street lamp,
I turned my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence.

And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more.
People talking without speaking,
People hearing without listening,
People writing songs that voices never share
And no one dare
Disturb the sound of silence.

"Fools" said I, "You do not know
Silence like a cancer grows.
Hear my words that I might teach you,
Take my arms that I might reach to you."
But my words like silent raindrops fell,
And echoed
In the wells of silence

And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made.
And the sign flashed out its warning,
in the words that it was forming.
And the sign said, "The words of the prophets
are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls."
And whisper'd in the sounds of silence.

I'm always amazed at how history repeats itself.  Whether it is Moses or Simon, we are warned so often of worshiping the false gods, but we keep reinventing them.  It is so much easier to believe in something.  Especially something comfortable.  Which leaves the only question I can think of, Are LCD Gods as bad as Neon Gods?

"Oh. My. God. .... We're doomed." -- Paul Krugman
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.c...">http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.c...">http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.c...

BREAKING: Robert Gibbs will announce if secret deal was cut to kill public option | 31 comments




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