The Values Voter Summit held a straw poll for GOP presidential candidates, and Huckabee mopped the floor with everybody. Huckleberry got 29 percent, while Romney, Pawlenty, Palin (a no-show again) and Pence got about 12 percent each. Gingrich and Jindal barely moved the needle. Keeping in mind that the voters here were “values voters”, these results indicate that social conservatives seem to be moving away from Palin and Gingrich and into Huckabee’s camp by default, and those are the people who will control the 2012 primaries in places like Iowa and South Carolina. Which suggests a Huckabee-Romney face-off in three years.
Guys like Pawlenty and Santorum have been auditioning to be the “great white hope” for the Bible-beater Republicans, but they have failed to make the sale.
The trick for Huckabee is to shift from his social-conservative emphasis toward the sort of fiscal conservatism which (a) will cut into Romney's support and (b) will attract the GOP army of crazed anti-tax anti-gummint teabaggers.
Saturday, 19 September 2009
Baucus no longer has the votes in committee
Based on the amendments which Senate Finance Committee members have proposed for the Baucus health reform bill, three Democratic Senators are just not going to support the current Baucus bill. Rockefeller wants the House version of the public option, while Schumer and Cantwell want the HELP committee version of the public option.
Meanwhile Menendez and Stabenow want to lower premiums; Wyden wants to expand eligibility for subsidies and for the exchanges – they could possibly sign off on an amended Baucus bill, but only if Baucus is willing to move the bill back to the left and ignore the GOP complaints (and Snowe’s rejection of the bill).
The Republican amendments, meanwhile, are either idiotic or deliberately obstructive or both: amendments about killing both the public option and coops, about sexual abstinence, about abortion, about blocking a non-existent government takeover, about aliens, about czars, about ACORN. Morons.
With Rocky, Schumer and Cantwell supporting the public option (and Kerry possibly following suit), Baucus no longer has the votes to pass his current bill in committee. Some Democrats are undoubtedly pressuring Rocky and the gang to let Baucus pass his bill and then hope that it gets fixed on the Senate floor or in the conference report, but I believe (and hope) that Rocky would rather kill the Baucus plan now, dead dead dead, than trust people outside their control to do it for them later on.
Meanwhile Menendez and Stabenow want to lower premiums; Wyden wants to expand eligibility for subsidies and for the exchanges – they could possibly sign off on an amended Baucus bill, but only if Baucus is willing to move the bill back to the left and ignore the GOP complaints (and Snowe’s rejection of the bill).
The Republican amendments, meanwhile, are either idiotic or deliberately obstructive or both: amendments about killing both the public option and coops, about sexual abstinence, about abortion, about blocking a non-existent government takeover, about aliens, about czars, about ACORN. Morons.
With Rocky, Schumer and Cantwell supporting the public option (and Kerry possibly following suit), Baucus no longer has the votes to pass his current bill in committee. Some Democrats are undoubtedly pressuring Rocky and the gang to let Baucus pass his bill and then hope that it gets fixed on the Senate floor or in the conference report, but I believe (and hope) that Rocky would rather kill the Baucus plan now, dead dead dead, than trust people outside their control to do it for them later on.
Friday, 18 September 2009
Teabagger protest foiled by socialist government employee!
The teabagger protest that never was!
There was supposed to be another teabagger protest in D.C. this weekend, but tragically it fell apart.
Thousands of teabaggers descended again upon the National Mall in Washington, ready to yell and scream and wave signs and grill and barbecue and foment revolution…only to be stopped by a young lad from the National Park Service, right there at Third Street and Pennsylvania Avenue.
“Okay, fellers, we’re going to let you have your we-hate-government hootenanny today. But my boss, the Secretary of the Interior, has decreed that the only people who can take part in your march are people who don’t use all those nasty socialist government programs you’re protesting.”
“So everybody line up while I ask you ten questions.”
Did anybody come here on FAA-regulated airlines, or our roads, or our rail systems, or subways or Metros or bus or lightrail? Did you use any rest areas? You did? Ha, socialist! Goodbye!
While you were here in Washington, did you visit the Capitol, the Smithsonian, the monuments, the WWII and Vietnam memorials, the Arlington cemetery? Have you visited the Statue of Liberty or the Grand Canyon or any national park? Any public parks, beaches, zoos, museums, libraries? You did? Socialist, goodbye!
Do you use public water, public sewage, trash collection? Do you send letters using the postal service? You do? Socialist, goodbye!
Are you protected by the police and firemen and ambulance workers? Are you protected by the military, the CIA, the FBI, Homeland Security? You are? Socialist, goodbye!
Has anybody in your family ever gone to public schools? Public colleges? They did? Socialist, goodbye!
Do you use any products which were developed with government help, such as the internet and email? You do? Socialist, goodbye!
Any military folks in your family getting VA care? They are? Socialist, goodbye!
Did anybody in your family ever get unemployment insurance? They did? Socialist, goodbye!
Did you ever go to a doctor or hospital that ever got government money, or use food, clothes or drugs developed with government funding? You did? Socialist, goodbye!
Do you plan to use Social Security or Medicare when you get old? You do? Socialist, goodbye!
And slowly the crowd dwindled down to….three crazy old Bigfoot-like mountain men who had never seen civilization in their lives. And then the Park Service pointed out that they were standing on a government-built sidewalk and tossed them out too.
There was supposed to be another teabagger protest in D.C. this weekend, but tragically it fell apart.
Thousands of teabaggers descended again upon the National Mall in Washington, ready to yell and scream and wave signs and grill and barbecue and foment revolution…only to be stopped by a young lad from the National Park Service, right there at Third Street and Pennsylvania Avenue.
“Okay, fellers, we’re going to let you have your we-hate-government hootenanny today. But my boss, the Secretary of the Interior, has decreed that the only people who can take part in your march are people who don’t use all those nasty socialist government programs you’re protesting.”
“So everybody line up while I ask you ten questions.”
Did anybody come here on FAA-regulated airlines, or our roads, or our rail systems, or subways or Metros or bus or lightrail? Did you use any rest areas? You did? Ha, socialist! Goodbye!
While you were here in Washington, did you visit the Capitol, the Smithsonian, the monuments, the WWII and Vietnam memorials, the Arlington cemetery? Have you visited the Statue of Liberty or the Grand Canyon or any national park? Any public parks, beaches, zoos, museums, libraries? You did? Socialist, goodbye!
Do you use public water, public sewage, trash collection? Do you send letters using the postal service? You do? Socialist, goodbye!
Are you protected by the police and firemen and ambulance workers? Are you protected by the military, the CIA, the FBI, Homeland Security? You are? Socialist, goodbye!
Has anybody in your family ever gone to public schools? Public colleges? They did? Socialist, goodbye!
Do you use any products which were developed with government help, such as the internet and email? You do? Socialist, goodbye!
Any military folks in your family getting VA care? They are? Socialist, goodbye!
Did anybody in your family ever get unemployment insurance? They did? Socialist, goodbye!
Did you ever go to a doctor or hospital that ever got government money, or use food, clothes or drugs developed with government funding? You did? Socialist, goodbye!
Do you plan to use Social Security or Medicare when you get old? You do? Socialist, goodbye!
And slowly the crowd dwindled down to….three crazy old Bigfoot-like mountain men who had never seen civilization in their lives. And then the Park Service pointed out that they were standing on a government-built sidewalk and tossed them out too.
Baucus loses another Committee Democrat
Right now the Democrats are letting the Baucus train wreck happen. If he actually manages to turn it into a real bill with the help of some grownup Democrats, great, they go for the 60 votes. If not, they do the public option with 50 votes through reconciliation.
But those Democrats are going to be hard to sell. Already Democrats in the Finance Committee are “letting loose” on Baucus for tuning them out and selling out to the Republicans: Baucus spent all summer giving the Republicans one concession after another, and he is extremely unlikely to make the same sorts of concessions to the Democrats. The Democrats could quite easily be just as obstructionist as Grassley has been, and with much better reason. Rockefeller already rejected the Baucus bill, and another committee member, Cantwell, has come out and rejected it too.
With those two defections, Baucus only has a 12-11 score in the committee, counting Snowe who still hasn’t endorsed the bill. So to get the bill out of committee, let alone the Senate, Baucus needs to win over Snowe, without alienating more Democrats. If Rocky persuades Kerry and Schumer to reject the bill also, it’s dead even if Baucus does get Snowe.
So Baucus needs three miracles: he must get Snowe without losing more Democrats, and then hold 60 votes together on the Senate floor without losing any more public-option Democrats, and persuade Obama to support a bill forcing people to give $700-800 a month to crooked insurers or pay a fine – right after he said he won’t allow a crappy bill.
There are more and more signs that momentum is moving in Obama’s direction, and away from the Baucus compromise. CNN’s poll of polls shows that Obama’s approval numbers have stabilized in the mid-50s despite the attacks. The August teabagger attacks backfired in many respects: the Democratic congressional campaign arm outraised its GOP counterpart and now has more than twice as much money as the Republicans. The DNC is using ad money to call out Republicans who lie about health care; the first big one spanks Tim Pawlenty for his “death-panel” nonsense. Crazed birther Orly Taitz is about to be hit with a contempt of court citation: after the judge in her latest case rejected her frivolous suit, Taitz called the judge a traitor and a puppet. Democrats in both Houses are getting ready to introduce legislation revoking the health insurers’ anti-trust exemption; it is this exemption which allows a single insurer to dominate the market in 38 states, which in turn allows them to overcharge us into the poorhouse (so much for competition). Meanwhile the GOP is out of ideas – in addition to all the lies, they are now saying…reform will never ever pass and if it does they will retake congress, blah blah blah. Polls show the American people don’t believe the GOP lies anymore and are unimpressed by the attacks and the teabaggers, so the GOP trick bag is essentially empty.
Remember this also, for later on: Snowe comes from a blue state that supports the public option, and both she and Collins are dropping in the polls (so we could land them both, some say). And recently Snowe expressed revulsion at the constant badgering she’s getting from the Republicans.
But those Democrats are going to be hard to sell. Already Democrats in the Finance Committee are “letting loose” on Baucus for tuning them out and selling out to the Republicans: Baucus spent all summer giving the Republicans one concession after another, and he is extremely unlikely to make the same sorts of concessions to the Democrats. The Democrats could quite easily be just as obstructionist as Grassley has been, and with much better reason. Rockefeller already rejected the Baucus bill, and another committee member, Cantwell, has come out and rejected it too.
With those two defections, Baucus only has a 12-11 score in the committee, counting Snowe who still hasn’t endorsed the bill. So to get the bill out of committee, let alone the Senate, Baucus needs to win over Snowe, without alienating more Democrats. If Rocky persuades Kerry and Schumer to reject the bill also, it’s dead even if Baucus does get Snowe.
So Baucus needs three miracles: he must get Snowe without losing more Democrats, and then hold 60 votes together on the Senate floor without losing any more public-option Democrats, and persuade Obama to support a bill forcing people to give $700-800 a month to crooked insurers or pay a fine – right after he said he won’t allow a crappy bill.
There are more and more signs that momentum is moving in Obama’s direction, and away from the Baucus compromise. CNN’s poll of polls shows that Obama’s approval numbers have stabilized in the mid-50s despite the attacks. The August teabagger attacks backfired in many respects: the Democratic congressional campaign arm outraised its GOP counterpart and now has more than twice as much money as the Republicans. The DNC is using ad money to call out Republicans who lie about health care; the first big one spanks Tim Pawlenty for his “death-panel” nonsense. Crazed birther Orly Taitz is about to be hit with a contempt of court citation: after the judge in her latest case rejected her frivolous suit, Taitz called the judge a traitor and a puppet. Democrats in both Houses are getting ready to introduce legislation revoking the health insurers’ anti-trust exemption; it is this exemption which allows a single insurer to dominate the market in 38 states, which in turn allows them to overcharge us into the poorhouse (so much for competition). Meanwhile the GOP is out of ideas – in addition to all the lies, they are now saying…reform will never ever pass and if it does they will retake congress, blah blah blah. Polls show the American people don’t believe the GOP lies anymore and are unimpressed by the attacks and the teabaggers, so the GOP trick bag is essentially empty.
Remember this also, for later on: Snowe comes from a blue state that supports the public option, and both she and Collins are dropping in the polls (so we could land them both, some say). And recently Snowe expressed revulsion at the constant badgering she’s getting from the Republicans.
Thursday, 17 September 2009
Is Snowe fed up with her party?
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/09/snowe-i-havent-changed-my-party-has.php?ref=fpb
Republicans publicly lean on Snowe not to vote for any health reform bill.
Snowe responds with "I haven't changed as a Republican. I think more that my party has changed."
Translation: screw with me and I'll switch parties.
Sixty-first Senator by next week?
Republicans publicly lean on Snowe not to vote for any health reform bill.
Snowe responds with "I haven't changed as a Republican. I think more that my party has changed."
Translation: screw with me and I'll switch parties.
Sixty-first Senator by next week?
With the Baucus bill dying, that leaves…?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_health_care_taxes
More Democrats complained today that the Baucus bill imposes taxes that will hurt middle-class families. Why did Baucus and Conrad even insert such an obvious non-starter? The liberal Democrats are forced to block the Blue Dogs from taxing American families??
The Baucus plan is doomed. A key House Democrat called it “dead on arrival”. The GOP is publicly pressuring Snowe to reject the Baucus plan (or indeed any other plan). Howard Dean panned the Baucus bill. The Booman guys predict that Kerry, Wyden and Menendez will follow Rocky’s lead in opposing the Baucus bill, which would kill the bill in committee --and if Baucus changes course and moves left, he loses Conrad, Lincoln and Carper. Either way, dead bill.
And that leaves the public option. Bill O’Reilly, of all people, endorsed it, and Senator Cantwell (a Finance Committee member) says she won’t vote for a bill without it. Pelosi, who recently was hedging her bets on the public option, stiffened up today: "I fully support the public option. The public option will be in the bill that passes the House".
Sherrod Brown pounded the message home “We have an overwhelming majority of Democratic Senators, as we have an overwhelming majority of House members who support the public option, and more importantly, as you know Dr. Nancy, a recent survey showed that 70 percent of physicians in this country support a public option, and a comparable percent of the public supports a public option. So it's the right way to go. It's simply a choice that will make the insurance companies more honest and help us, because of competition, bring prices down.”
More Democrats complained today that the Baucus bill imposes taxes that will hurt middle-class families. Why did Baucus and Conrad even insert such an obvious non-starter? The liberal Democrats are forced to block the Blue Dogs from taxing American families??
The Baucus plan is doomed. A key House Democrat called it “dead on arrival”. The GOP is publicly pressuring Snowe to reject the Baucus plan (or indeed any other plan). Howard Dean panned the Baucus bill. The Booman guys predict that Kerry, Wyden and Menendez will follow Rocky’s lead in opposing the Baucus bill, which would kill the bill in committee --and if Baucus changes course and moves left, he loses Conrad, Lincoln and Carper. Either way, dead bill.
And that leaves the public option. Bill O’Reilly, of all people, endorsed it, and Senator Cantwell (a Finance Committee member) says she won’t vote for a bill without it. Pelosi, who recently was hedging her bets on the public option, stiffened up today: "I fully support the public option. The public option will be in the bill that passes the House".
Sherrod Brown pounded the message home “We have an overwhelming majority of Democratic Senators, as we have an overwhelming majority of House members who support the public option, and more importantly, as you know Dr. Nancy, a recent survey showed that 70 percent of physicians in this country support a public option, and a comparable percent of the public supports a public option. So it's the right way to go. It's simply a choice that will make the insurance companies more honest and help us, because of competition, bring prices down.”
Wednesday, 16 September 2009
CBO exposes Baucus plan as worthless; Obama gains momentum
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/59067-cbo-estimate-baucus-plan-reduces-deficit-covers-29-million-by-2019
The CBO said immediately that the Baucus bill would leave 25 million uninsured even in 2019, ten years on, and his coops probably won’t establish a significant market share and will have very little effect on total enrolment. His state-level coops don’t let big businesses enroll, so the coop can’t grow and keep costs down, nor can they have the same negotiating leverage as the federal government so they can’t cust costs that way either; so no one will join the coops. Some House Blue Dogs like the plan but House liberals are already condemning it; in the Senate Burris, Feingold, Klobuchar, Franken, Bayh and Brown expressed dismay at the Baucus bill, and Nelson may vote against it if the Medicare Advantage cut isn’t removed. Conrad is trying to game the CBO system to help Baucus, but liberals have already busted him publicly.
The coming carnage on the Baucus bill shows the wisdom of Obama’s decision not to put forward his own detailed plan – it would have been a target for months, ripped apart. Obama’s unstated message on the Baucus bill is “if I’m going to own the bill, I’m not going to own a piece of crap like that.”
Obama will be helped and encouraged by three things:
1. He has the votes for the public option.
http://washingtonindependent.com/59440/senate-public-option-scoreboard
As the link shows, Obama already has 47 votes in the Senate for the public option. He only needs 3 more out of the 14 fence-sitters, and he’s got the 50 he needs to get through the budget reconciliation process. And as you look at the statements of the fence-sitters, the votes are there. Begich, Bayh, Tester, Pryor and Carper will vote for it. Some folks are making bold statements about public-option packages that were never going to be proposed: Lincoln insists she won’t vote for a public option that is solely government-funded, and McCaskill said she won’t vote for a public option that becomes a mandate. They’re talking tough while setting themselves up to vote for the real public option bill. Baucus and Conrad, proponents of the doomed Gang Of Six package, have said the public option can’t pass the Senate, which isn’t the same as rejecting the idea.
So that’s 56. Unless we’re dead wrong on more than 6 of them, Obama has the 50. And it is just as clear that it would be hard to get to 60, which is why we need the 50-vote threshold in the reconciliation process.
2. His popularity is rising. Obama’s job approval ratings are bouncing back all over the place: On Message has the approval/disapproval at 55/43, Anzalone-Liszt 56/41, ABC/Washington Post 54/43, USA Today/Gallup 54/43, CNN/ORC 58/40, Bloomberg (9/11-9/14) 56/37.
3. The GOP scare tactics are backfiring.
http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/health-care/poll-big-majorities-dismiss-leading-right-wing-health-care-attacks-as-scare-tactics/
According to a new Bloomberg poll, the American people finally woke up and realized that the GOP was using a strategy of dishonesty: that the crap they were spewing was not only dishonest, but a deliberate scare tactic. 63 percent said the claim that “death panels of government officials would decide how much medical care ailing individuals will receive” is a scare tactic. “Health care would be rationed” is a scare tactic: 53 percent. “Health care would become socialized medicine” is a scare tactic 52 percent. “Government money would be used to pay for abortions”: 61 percent. “Government money would pay for health care for illegal immigrants”: 58 percent.
4. And for dessert:
http://tpmlivewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/09/judge-puts-birther-orly-on-notice.php?ref=fpb
U.S. District Court Judge Clay Land whomped the leader of the birther movement, Orly Taitz, throwing out her latest frivolous lawsuit claiming Obama isn’t really president, threatening her with sanctions if she tries this crap again, and comparing her to Alice in Wonderland. Taitz then screeched to the media that the judge was a puppet of the Obama regime and should be tried for treason, and compared herself to Nelson Mandela.
The CBO said immediately that the Baucus bill would leave 25 million uninsured even in 2019, ten years on, and his coops probably won’t establish a significant market share and will have very little effect on total enrolment. His state-level coops don’t let big businesses enroll, so the coop can’t grow and keep costs down, nor can they have the same negotiating leverage as the federal government so they can’t cust costs that way either; so no one will join the coops. Some House Blue Dogs like the plan but House liberals are already condemning it; in the Senate Burris, Feingold, Klobuchar, Franken, Bayh and Brown expressed dismay at the Baucus bill, and Nelson may vote against it if the Medicare Advantage cut isn’t removed. Conrad is trying to game the CBO system to help Baucus, but liberals have already busted him publicly.
The coming carnage on the Baucus bill shows the wisdom of Obama’s decision not to put forward his own detailed plan – it would have been a target for months, ripped apart. Obama’s unstated message on the Baucus bill is “if I’m going to own the bill, I’m not going to own a piece of crap like that.”
Obama will be helped and encouraged by three things:
1. He has the votes for the public option.
http://washingtonindependent.com/59440/senate-public-option-scoreboard
As the link shows, Obama already has 47 votes in the Senate for the public option. He only needs 3 more out of the 14 fence-sitters, and he’s got the 50 he needs to get through the budget reconciliation process. And as you look at the statements of the fence-sitters, the votes are there. Begich, Bayh, Tester, Pryor and Carper will vote for it. Some folks are making bold statements about public-option packages that were never going to be proposed: Lincoln insists she won’t vote for a public option that is solely government-funded, and McCaskill said she won’t vote for a public option that becomes a mandate. They’re talking tough while setting themselves up to vote for the real public option bill. Baucus and Conrad, proponents of the doomed Gang Of Six package, have said the public option can’t pass the Senate, which isn’t the same as rejecting the idea.
So that’s 56. Unless we’re dead wrong on more than 6 of them, Obama has the 50. And it is just as clear that it would be hard to get to 60, which is why we need the 50-vote threshold in the reconciliation process.
2. His popularity is rising. Obama’s job approval ratings are bouncing back all over the place: On Message has the approval/disapproval at 55/43, Anzalone-Liszt 56/41, ABC/Washington Post 54/43, USA Today/Gallup 54/43, CNN/ORC 58/40, Bloomberg (9/11-9/14) 56/37.
3. The GOP scare tactics are backfiring.
http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/health-care/poll-big-majorities-dismiss-leading-right-wing-health-care-attacks-as-scare-tactics/
According to a new Bloomberg poll, the American people finally woke up and realized that the GOP was using a strategy of dishonesty: that the crap they were spewing was not only dishonest, but a deliberate scare tactic. 63 percent said the claim that “death panels of government officials would decide how much medical care ailing individuals will receive” is a scare tactic. “Health care would be rationed” is a scare tactic: 53 percent. “Health care would become socialized medicine” is a scare tactic 52 percent. “Government money would be used to pay for abortions”: 61 percent. “Government money would pay for health care for illegal immigrants”: 58 percent.
4. And for dessert:
http://tpmlivewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/09/judge-puts-birther-orly-on-notice.php?ref=fpb
U.S. District Court Judge Clay Land whomped the leader of the birther movement, Orly Taitz, throwing out her latest frivolous lawsuit claiming Obama isn’t really president, threatening her with sanctions if she tries this crap again, and comparing her to Alice in Wonderland. Taitz then screeched to the media that the judge was a puppet of the Obama regime and should be tried for treason, and compared herself to Nelson Mandela.
Rockefeller says other Democrats oppose Baucus bill
Baucus has submitted his version of the health reform bill, the “chairman’s mark”, to the rest of the committee. It is at least as bad as the rough draft we saw a week ago: coops, mostly at the state level, apparently would be launched with a measly $6 billion and could be crushed easily by the national-scale private insurers. Also, the plan allegedly bans private insurers from masquerading as coops, but apparently there is a plan afoot to re-label Blue Cross in North Dakota (Conrad’s home state) as a coop, so that Blue Cross can not only cement their control over that market and charge anyone whatever they want, but also qualify for federal subsidies while they rip off their customers. It’s open armed robbery. Furthermore the bill requires strict verification of immigration status, which means that all of us must prove citizenship to get the care. Overkill.
Now the full Finance Committee will negotiate and amend. And that’s when the bill will probably be killed. Keep in mind that Rockefeller is the chairman of the health subcommittee in the Finance committee, and Baucus has frozen him out of the process all summer. Now he will step in and kill this monstrosity, I think. He has publicly opposed it, and he says that 4 to 6 other Democrats feel the same way. It is in those committee deliberations that people like Wyden, Schumer and Kerry will hit the brakes on Baucus’ concessions. If Baucus and Conrad hold firm in blocking liberal amendments, they can do so with Republican help, but then the liberals will vote against the overall bill. And so it will die.
While the other Democrats are saying that Baucus gave away too much and must move the bill from the right back to the center, the Republicans want to move even further to the right – they want more concessions. McConnell is already screeching that the bill is too partisan, despite all the Democratic concessions. And the ink on Baucus’ bill was hardly dry before Grassley had leaked his list of further demands to the New York Times.
Grassley even demanded that the Democrats commit to a bipartisan bill all the way through the process – in effect demanding Republican veto power over the final bill. “On top of all that, there’s no guarantee that a Finance Committee bill, even if it becomes bipartisan, will stay that way after it leaves the committee. An overriding issue for some time has been the fact that members of the Democratic leadership haven’t made a commitment to back a broad bipartisan bill through the entire process.” In other words they are insisting that, not only will the Baucus bill contain no provisions that Grassley doesn’t like (such as public option), no later bill will contain them either – they are demanding that even the Democrats outside the committee commit in advance to caving in to Grassley’s demands. So no matter what Baucus gives the GOP, the Republicans are now effectively appointing themselves the majority party, as though the last two elections had never happened.
There’s your dealbreaker.
(Actually Enzi demanded the same thing in July: he expected the full Finance Committee, Reid, Pelosi and Obama to promise not to alter the Baucus monstrosity once the Gang Of Six finished it. Swear to God.)
So there is nothing Baucus can do, realistically, to win Republican votes – whatever he offers Snowe and the gang, it won’t be enough, and it will cost him even more Democratic votes. And the only way to secure a Democratic majority is to rip the bill apart and rebuild it so that it looks pretty much like the HELP bill – which we could have voted on weeks ago.
Baucus has had no luck at all in bridging the partisan gap all summer – he isn’t going to suddenly stumble on a bipartisan miracle in a week or so. The gap is just too wide. Baucus will meet the full committee Thursday morning; the committee members only have until Friday afternoon to propose amendments. Think of that – an outright crook like Grassley had all summer to issue one demand after another, but Rockefeller, the chairman of the health subcommittee, gets two days. And then next Tuesday the final markup of the bill begins – but again, how can Baucus mark up a bill that anyone will support? The tricky part is that Baucus may ask for more and more time to work with the Gang on the final markup – will Reid have the guts to tell him “you’ve got 10 days and then the train is leaving the station”? The reconciliation process is earmarked to begin 15 October – presumably you would want all such committee nonsense finished by then.
Other Democrats, reading the Baucus bill, are also getting feisty. Specter (facing a primary challenger for reelection) now says we should discuss single-payer; Bayh wants to talk about the anti-trust rules (currently the private insurers have a gigantic anti-trust exemption).
Some, like Kos, are already saying it’s reconciliation or bust. There are those who warn that Reid won’t fight for reconciliation because he has a tough reelection fight next year. I thinks that’s nonsense: if he presides over a train-wreck on health care, he really is doomed. He himself has said publicly that he will use reconciliation if he needs to. He isn’t necessarily the street fighter we want to lead this, but guys like Schumer and Dodd will have his back. And Emanuel will be there to knock heads too.
At Obama’s Tuesday appearance, he seemed to toughen up his language a bit. He again spoke out in favor of the public option, but this time he left out the “I’m open to alternatives” dodge. Perhaps it means nothing, but….As he said this week, he has no incentive to pass a bill that people hate, so it’s hard to see him signing a Baucus bill that forces middle-class families to pay $700 a month for lousy coverage and is especially damaging to a core Obama constituency, young voters.
Democrats need this fight, and they need to win it. The American people, and the Republican party need to know that after 40 years of Caspar Milquetoast Democrats, we have fighters in our corner. Because the Republicans will never stop with the attacks, the threats, the public insults, the lies, the smears, the character assassination. Keep in mind that all of this insanity occurred during an off-year: does anyone think the lunacy will taper off in 2010, when the wingnuts dream of repeating 1994, and then in 2012 when Obama runs again?
As I have said before, we will win nothing if we don’t fight.
According to latest polling, the American people think Obama should keep trying to win over Republicans even though the Republicans are not negotiating in good faith. So a key message for 2010 is “Here are all the things we offered, which they rejected; here are all the demands they made. They made compromise impossible”.
And ironically if the Republicans had negotiated in good faith, they could have gotten more of what they wanted: now it is quite possible that they will watch helplessly as the Democrats ignore them and pass a thoroughly Democratic bill.
Now the full Finance Committee will negotiate and amend. And that’s when the bill will probably be killed. Keep in mind that Rockefeller is the chairman of the health subcommittee in the Finance committee, and Baucus has frozen him out of the process all summer. Now he will step in and kill this monstrosity, I think. He has publicly opposed it, and he says that 4 to 6 other Democrats feel the same way. It is in those committee deliberations that people like Wyden, Schumer and Kerry will hit the brakes on Baucus’ concessions. If Baucus and Conrad hold firm in blocking liberal amendments, they can do so with Republican help, but then the liberals will vote against the overall bill. And so it will die.
While the other Democrats are saying that Baucus gave away too much and must move the bill from the right back to the center, the Republicans want to move even further to the right – they want more concessions. McConnell is already screeching that the bill is too partisan, despite all the Democratic concessions. And the ink on Baucus’ bill was hardly dry before Grassley had leaked his list of further demands to the New York Times.
Grassley even demanded that the Democrats commit to a bipartisan bill all the way through the process – in effect demanding Republican veto power over the final bill. “On top of all that, there’s no guarantee that a Finance Committee bill, even if it becomes bipartisan, will stay that way after it leaves the committee. An overriding issue for some time has been the fact that members of the Democratic leadership haven’t made a commitment to back a broad bipartisan bill through the entire process.” In other words they are insisting that, not only will the Baucus bill contain no provisions that Grassley doesn’t like (such as public option), no later bill will contain them either – they are demanding that even the Democrats outside the committee commit in advance to caving in to Grassley’s demands. So no matter what Baucus gives the GOP, the Republicans are now effectively appointing themselves the majority party, as though the last two elections had never happened.
There’s your dealbreaker.
(Actually Enzi demanded the same thing in July: he expected the full Finance Committee, Reid, Pelosi and Obama to promise not to alter the Baucus monstrosity once the Gang Of Six finished it. Swear to God.)
So there is nothing Baucus can do, realistically, to win Republican votes – whatever he offers Snowe and the gang, it won’t be enough, and it will cost him even more Democratic votes. And the only way to secure a Democratic majority is to rip the bill apart and rebuild it so that it looks pretty much like the HELP bill – which we could have voted on weeks ago.
Baucus has had no luck at all in bridging the partisan gap all summer – he isn’t going to suddenly stumble on a bipartisan miracle in a week or so. The gap is just too wide. Baucus will meet the full committee Thursday morning; the committee members only have until Friday afternoon to propose amendments. Think of that – an outright crook like Grassley had all summer to issue one demand after another, but Rockefeller, the chairman of the health subcommittee, gets two days. And then next Tuesday the final markup of the bill begins – but again, how can Baucus mark up a bill that anyone will support? The tricky part is that Baucus may ask for more and more time to work with the Gang on the final markup – will Reid have the guts to tell him “you’ve got 10 days and then the train is leaving the station”? The reconciliation process is earmarked to begin 15 October – presumably you would want all such committee nonsense finished by then.
Other Democrats, reading the Baucus bill, are also getting feisty. Specter (facing a primary challenger for reelection) now says we should discuss single-payer; Bayh wants to talk about the anti-trust rules (currently the private insurers have a gigantic anti-trust exemption).
Some, like Kos, are already saying it’s reconciliation or bust. There are those who warn that Reid won’t fight for reconciliation because he has a tough reelection fight next year. I thinks that’s nonsense: if he presides over a train-wreck on health care, he really is doomed. He himself has said publicly that he will use reconciliation if he needs to. He isn’t necessarily the street fighter we want to lead this, but guys like Schumer and Dodd will have his back. And Emanuel will be there to knock heads too.
At Obama’s Tuesday appearance, he seemed to toughen up his language a bit. He again spoke out in favor of the public option, but this time he left out the “I’m open to alternatives” dodge. Perhaps it means nothing, but….As he said this week, he has no incentive to pass a bill that people hate, so it’s hard to see him signing a Baucus bill that forces middle-class families to pay $700 a month for lousy coverage and is especially damaging to a core Obama constituency, young voters.
Democrats need this fight, and they need to win it. The American people, and the Republican party need to know that after 40 years of Caspar Milquetoast Democrats, we have fighters in our corner. Because the Republicans will never stop with the attacks, the threats, the public insults, the lies, the smears, the character assassination. Keep in mind that all of this insanity occurred during an off-year: does anyone think the lunacy will taper off in 2010, when the wingnuts dream of repeating 1994, and then in 2012 when Obama runs again?
As I have said before, we will win nothing if we don’t fight.
According to latest polling, the American people think Obama should keep trying to win over Republicans even though the Republicans are not negotiating in good faith. So a key message for 2010 is “Here are all the things we offered, which they rejected; here are all the demands they made. They made compromise impossible”.
And ironically if the Republicans had negotiated in good faith, they could have gotten more of what they wanted: now it is quite possible that they will watch helplessly as the Democrats ignore them and pass a thoroughly Democratic bill.
Tuesday, 15 September 2009
How to kill the Baucus bill
There is a measurable possibility that Baucus’ health reform bill is so bad that it won’t even get out of Baucus’ own committee.
The Finance Committee consists of 13 Democrats and 10 Republicans.
The Democrats consist of three people who want to go slow on reform (Baucus, Conrad, Lincoln), four guys who hate the current compromise bill (Rockefeller, Kerry, Wyden, Schumer), and six who could potentially be persuaded either way (Bingaman, Stabenow, Cantwell, Nelson-FL, Menendez, Carper).
The Republicans consist of the GOP half of the Gang Of Six – Grassley, Enzi and Snowe – plus Hatch, and six out-and-out fascists.
Baucus has used everything but candy and strippers to get any Republican to endorse his bill. He has made gigantic, appalling concessions on everything from the public option to abortion to the non-existent death panels. And he has gotten nowhere. McConnell says flat-out few if any Republicans will support for Baucus bill; the GOP half of the infamous Gang Of Six won’t support it. Even Snowe said she still has “concerns”. The whole point of making all those concessions was to win over the Republicans, and it was a colossal failure.
But that’s just the beginning of Baucus’ problems: he is now getting plowed by his own party. For starters, he angered a lot of Democrats by leaving them out of the “Gang Of Six” process. Rockefeller has already said he won’t vote for the Baucus bill. Even Wyden, an early proponent of the co-ops Baucus is trying to sell now, is angry about the bill and has concerns; so does Kerry.
And with a little finagling, somebody like Schumer could see to it that even more Democrats reject the bill, loaded as it is with giveaways to the insurers and the GOP. Conrad and the other deficit hawks could be persuaded to reject the Baucus bill on the argument that the HELP Committee bill, which contains the public option, actually saves $260 billion over the Baucus bill. Nelson could be wooed with some language reassuring the nervous Florida seniors. A clever Democrat like Schumer could arrange a little stampede and kill Baucuscare.
Baucus has already lost Rockefeller: if he loses any more Democrats, he must then win over Republicans, which he has tried without success to do, for months. And he has no bribes left: anything he offers to either side will antagonize the other side.
All of this shows vividly the folly of pursuing the siren song of bipartisanship: the gap between the two sides is too great. Even with no giveaways to the GOP, the Democrats were suspicious of the Baucus bill; even with a ton of giveaways, Baucus couldn’t get the GOP to buy in. The gap between Democrat and Republican was always unbridgeable: instead Baucus should have been working to bridge the gap between the two wings of his own party.
The Gang Of Six tried one more time Tuesday night to hammer out a compromise. No dice.
The effort to forge a compromise has in fact backfired, yielding a bill which has been ridiculed by Democrats, Republicans, the media, everyone. And now that Baucus has unveiled it, it becomes even more of a target, the way the public option was a target for months. Once the media takes a good look at the Baucus plan, support will slide even further.
Currently Reid is paying lip service to the Baucus plan, allegedly seeking passage of it by 28 September. But meanwhile he will be meeting with all the Senate Democrats behind closed doors on Thursday, the day after everyone has had a chance to dissect the Baucus package and realize how much they hate it. Even if the Baucus committee passes the Baucus package, Reid will take over and “merge” that bill with the HELP bill; during that process, all the Democrats who hate the Baucus bill will either rip it apart or discard it entirely. Meanwhile Reid will cancel the week-long October recess if he thinks the Republicans will use it to slow things down. Then, budget reconciliation: even the non-confrontational Reid said straight off --“If we can’t get the 60 votes we need, then we’ll have no alternative” to reconciliation. Reid won’t be stopped from passing a bill, and he is confident that even the Blue Dogs won’t support any effort toward a filibuster, if things go that way.
Meanwhile Pelosi is holding back to see what the Senate does. If the Senate does pass something with the public option in it, the House could simply grit their teeth and vote for the Senate bill as is, which means they don’t have to risk doing a conference report and going back to the Senate for another vote.
And well they should. The public option is the smart plan, it saves money, and it has the support of a majority in the House and the Senate and the American people and the nation’s doctors and even wingnut places like Arkansas. With the exception of the Baucus mess, there really is no alternative plan at all, let alone a plan that people can learn, understand and support in a matter of weeks. With a November-December deadline, there isn’t time to sell a new concept. So let’s just get it done: Obama has the 50 Senators he needs to pass the public option through reconciliation.
The only reason to hesitate, would be a desire by Democrats to avoid humiliating Baucus. But…what can I say? Baucus already humiliated himself with his summer-long effort to suck up to Chuck Grassley. So let’s move on, shall we?
Axelrod met with Congressional Democrats around the same time as Reid, preaching party unity, which is ObamaSpeak for “don’t screw this up, Blue Dogs, or your asses are gone in 2010”.
The Finance Committee consists of 13 Democrats and 10 Republicans.
The Democrats consist of three people who want to go slow on reform (Baucus, Conrad, Lincoln), four guys who hate the current compromise bill (Rockefeller, Kerry, Wyden, Schumer), and six who could potentially be persuaded either way (Bingaman, Stabenow, Cantwell, Nelson-FL, Menendez, Carper).
The Republicans consist of the GOP half of the Gang Of Six – Grassley, Enzi and Snowe – plus Hatch, and six out-and-out fascists.
Baucus has used everything but candy and strippers to get any Republican to endorse his bill. He has made gigantic, appalling concessions on everything from the public option to abortion to the non-existent death panels. And he has gotten nowhere. McConnell says flat-out few if any Republicans will support for Baucus bill; the GOP half of the infamous Gang Of Six won’t support it. Even Snowe said she still has “concerns”. The whole point of making all those concessions was to win over the Republicans, and it was a colossal failure.
But that’s just the beginning of Baucus’ problems: he is now getting plowed by his own party. For starters, he angered a lot of Democrats by leaving them out of the “Gang Of Six” process. Rockefeller has already said he won’t vote for the Baucus bill. Even Wyden, an early proponent of the co-ops Baucus is trying to sell now, is angry about the bill and has concerns; so does Kerry.
And with a little finagling, somebody like Schumer could see to it that even more Democrats reject the bill, loaded as it is with giveaways to the insurers and the GOP. Conrad and the other deficit hawks could be persuaded to reject the Baucus bill on the argument that the HELP Committee bill, which contains the public option, actually saves $260 billion over the Baucus bill. Nelson could be wooed with some language reassuring the nervous Florida seniors. A clever Democrat like Schumer could arrange a little stampede and kill Baucuscare.
Baucus has already lost Rockefeller: if he loses any more Democrats, he must then win over Republicans, which he has tried without success to do, for months. And he has no bribes left: anything he offers to either side will antagonize the other side.
All of this shows vividly the folly of pursuing the siren song of bipartisanship: the gap between the two sides is too great. Even with no giveaways to the GOP, the Democrats were suspicious of the Baucus bill; even with a ton of giveaways, Baucus couldn’t get the GOP to buy in. The gap between Democrat and Republican was always unbridgeable: instead Baucus should have been working to bridge the gap between the two wings of his own party.
The Gang Of Six tried one more time Tuesday night to hammer out a compromise. No dice.
The effort to forge a compromise has in fact backfired, yielding a bill which has been ridiculed by Democrats, Republicans, the media, everyone. And now that Baucus has unveiled it, it becomes even more of a target, the way the public option was a target for months. Once the media takes a good look at the Baucus plan, support will slide even further.
Currently Reid is paying lip service to the Baucus plan, allegedly seeking passage of it by 28 September. But meanwhile he will be meeting with all the Senate Democrats behind closed doors on Thursday, the day after everyone has had a chance to dissect the Baucus package and realize how much they hate it. Even if the Baucus committee passes the Baucus package, Reid will take over and “merge” that bill with the HELP bill; during that process, all the Democrats who hate the Baucus bill will either rip it apart or discard it entirely. Meanwhile Reid will cancel the week-long October recess if he thinks the Republicans will use it to slow things down. Then, budget reconciliation: even the non-confrontational Reid said straight off --“If we can’t get the 60 votes we need, then we’ll have no alternative” to reconciliation. Reid won’t be stopped from passing a bill, and he is confident that even the Blue Dogs won’t support any effort toward a filibuster, if things go that way.
Meanwhile Pelosi is holding back to see what the Senate does. If the Senate does pass something with the public option in it, the House could simply grit their teeth and vote for the Senate bill as is, which means they don’t have to risk doing a conference report and going back to the Senate for another vote.
And well they should. The public option is the smart plan, it saves money, and it has the support of a majority in the House and the Senate and the American people and the nation’s doctors and even wingnut places like Arkansas. With the exception of the Baucus mess, there really is no alternative plan at all, let alone a plan that people can learn, understand and support in a matter of weeks. With a November-December deadline, there isn’t time to sell a new concept. So let’s just get it done: Obama has the 50 Senators he needs to pass the public option through reconciliation.
The only reason to hesitate, would be a desire by Democrats to avoid humiliating Baucus. But…what can I say? Baucus already humiliated himself with his summer-long effort to suck up to Chuck Grassley. So let’s move on, shall we?
Axelrod met with Congressional Democrats around the same time as Reid, preaching party unity, which is ObamaSpeak for “don’t screw this up, Blue Dogs, or your asses are gone in 2010”.
Grassley and Enzi demand MORE concessions from Baucus
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/15/health/policy/15health.html?_r=1&ref=politics
Max, they're making fools of you.
Time to hand the Finance bill off to Schumer (the real leader in the Senate), so he can throw it in the trash and pass the HELP bill, which actually costs $200 billion less than the Finance bill.
Max, they're making fools of you.
Time to hand the Finance bill off to Schumer (the real leader in the Senate), so he can throw it in the trash and pass the HELP bill, which actually costs $200 billion less than the Finance bill.
Monday, 14 September 2009
Democratic campaign ad, 2010
Here is a campaign ad which the Democrats can run against any and every Republican candidate next year:
Where were you when Obama offered the GOP just about everything the Republicans said they wanted? When he gave them what they wanted on tort reform, abortion, immigrants, deficit spending, tax increases on middle class, “death panels”, forcing people to buy insurance even when costs come to 13 percent of annual income, banning cuts in Medicare benefits, coops governed by members rather than the government, coops not government sponsored, coops without guaranteed government subsidy beyond a certain date; small business tax credits; allowing private insurers to sell across state lines; McCain’s catastrophic health care plan; state-level coops which insurers would be able to crush easily…Where were you when your leaders rejected everything on the table? Where were you when your “leaders” said “no” to an independent insurance board, to single payer, to mandating employer participation, no to health care information technology, to comparative effectiveness research, to eliminating overpayments to insurers? When they said “no” to the public option, and then to the trigger option, and then to coops?
Why didn’t you step forward, speak up, and lead? Obama waited for ANY Republican to come forward and negotiate a health reform bill – where were you?
Where were you when your GOP “leaders” were spewing lies about birth certificates, about Sotomayor, about the stimulus, about torture? When your field generals were hollering that Obama will kill seniors, kill our troops, kill Republicans, promote suicide, let people go blind, invade your home and decide how to raise your kids, impose martial law? Why didn’t you have the guts to speak out against the lies?
Where were you when your “spontaneous” goon squads were sending armed thugs to Obama events, launching violent attacks, shouting down all real debate, committing acts of vandalism, painting swastikas on the doors of black Congressmen, making death threats, joking about killing Democrats, screeching insults during a Presidential address to Congress? Why didn’t you have the guts to speak out against these tactics?
Where were you when your GOP colleagues were bragging about blocking all reform, admitting that the compromise effort is a joke, promising to oppose any bill regardless of content, trying to rewrite Senate rules to block reform, offering poison-pill amendments? Why didn’t you denounce this pattern of obstruction?
Where were you when the people who hope to run for President – Perry, Palin, Huckabee, Pawlenty – evinced not only a hatred of their country but also a staggering ignorance of the Constitution, in insisting that health reform violates the Constitution (wrong – see Article 1 Section 8) and that states should nullify whatever Obama does, or even secede? Why didn’t you speak out?
You now condemn budget reconciliation – where were you when Bush used it?
You now condemn the Obama plan – why is that the only plan you ever put forward was either completely impractical, or a mirror of Obama’s exchange system?
You now condemn death panels – where were you when the original authors of the plan – Republicans – proposed the language you’re now criticizing?
You now condemn massive government spending – where were you when Bush launched one massive program after another, all of which were funded by…debts which our grandkids will be paying off?
You now condemn the public option – where were you when the American people said in poll after poll that they want it?
You say you’re a leader – so where were you, when it was time to lead? There was a gigantic national battle last year, and you ran away from the battlefield just when we needed leaders. And now you want to lead us in Congress?
Where were you when Obama offered the GOP just about everything the Republicans said they wanted? When he gave them what they wanted on tort reform, abortion, immigrants, deficit spending, tax increases on middle class, “death panels”, forcing people to buy insurance even when costs come to 13 percent of annual income, banning cuts in Medicare benefits, coops governed by members rather than the government, coops not government sponsored, coops without guaranteed government subsidy beyond a certain date; small business tax credits; allowing private insurers to sell across state lines; McCain’s catastrophic health care plan; state-level coops which insurers would be able to crush easily…Where were you when your leaders rejected everything on the table? Where were you when your “leaders” said “no” to an independent insurance board, to single payer, to mandating employer participation, no to health care information technology, to comparative effectiveness research, to eliminating overpayments to insurers? When they said “no” to the public option, and then to the trigger option, and then to coops?
Why didn’t you step forward, speak up, and lead? Obama waited for ANY Republican to come forward and negotiate a health reform bill – where were you?
Where were you when your GOP “leaders” were spewing lies about birth certificates, about Sotomayor, about the stimulus, about torture? When your field generals were hollering that Obama will kill seniors, kill our troops, kill Republicans, promote suicide, let people go blind, invade your home and decide how to raise your kids, impose martial law? Why didn’t you have the guts to speak out against the lies?
Where were you when your “spontaneous” goon squads were sending armed thugs to Obama events, launching violent attacks, shouting down all real debate, committing acts of vandalism, painting swastikas on the doors of black Congressmen, making death threats, joking about killing Democrats, screeching insults during a Presidential address to Congress? Why didn’t you have the guts to speak out against these tactics?
Where were you when your GOP colleagues were bragging about blocking all reform, admitting that the compromise effort is a joke, promising to oppose any bill regardless of content, trying to rewrite Senate rules to block reform, offering poison-pill amendments? Why didn’t you denounce this pattern of obstruction?
Where were you when the people who hope to run for President – Perry, Palin, Huckabee, Pawlenty – evinced not only a hatred of their country but also a staggering ignorance of the Constitution, in insisting that health reform violates the Constitution (wrong – see Article 1 Section 8) and that states should nullify whatever Obama does, or even secede? Why didn’t you speak out?
You now condemn budget reconciliation – where were you when Bush used it?
You now condemn the Obama plan – why is that the only plan you ever put forward was either completely impractical, or a mirror of Obama’s exchange system?
You now condemn death panels – where were you when the original authors of the plan – Republicans – proposed the language you’re now criticizing?
You now condemn massive government spending – where were you when Bush launched one massive program after another, all of which were funded by…debts which our grandkids will be paying off?
You now condemn the public option – where were you when the American people said in poll after poll that they want it?
You say you’re a leader – so where were you, when it was time to lead? There was a gigantic national battle last year, and you ran away from the battlefield just when we needed leaders. And now you want to lead us in Congress?
Baucus may unveil his bill tomorrow
We could still get the public option. Howard Dean correctly points out that we can get the public option through reconciliation – we have the votes. According to CNN, Obama’s approvals jumped 5 points after the big speech, and Obama still quite confident: he will appear on five different news shows Sunday…When was the last time any politician had the guts to face the whole gauntlet, the toughest interviewers in the business? (Obama meets the press more than just about any president in history -- brass balls, no fear) The Post poll shows that the wingnut-driven fear of health reform has peaked and that Obama is succeeding, somewhat, in shooting down the GOP lies (the Post poll suggests that support for the public option skyrockets if it is limited to those who can’t get private insurance, an option which Obama seems to be considering). So Obama could get the public option if he pushed hard for it.
Obama doesn’t want a weak, ineffective bill, and he does want the public option – that’s why he keeps harping on it, when it would be so much easier to give in and switch to the coop plan. But he is still keeping his options open – Axelrod at first stated that Obama isn’t willing to accept a plan that does not include a public option, but apparently he amended it to assert that it’s Axelrod, not Obama, who can’t accept it.
Obama may, in the end, accept the coops. Snowe, who originally advocated the trigger option, is now talking coop; likewise Collins rejects not only the public option but also any trigger that leads to a public option, which also suggests coops. Pelosi is bracing her troops for the possibility that the final plan won’t include a public option, to keep Obama’s options open, although progressives are still pushing to meet with Obama to push for the public option.
While all this is going on, Baucus may unveil his bill tomorrow. Unlike the other four bills which have passed through committee, Baucus’ plan involves coops, not the public option.
As I noted before, there are a number of things that need to be included in any coop plan:
http://hellodollyllama.blogspot.com/2009/09/coop-issues.html
And based on the rough draft of the Baucus plan which we’ve seen, there are a number of things that need to be fixed in it. Most of all, Baucus must ensure that the coop is always there and affordable for everybody: he needs national or regional coops, to ensure real competition and low cost, and stem the flow of windfall profits to the insurers; the federal safety net must be there permanently (Baucus says coops must be nonprofit AND self-sustaining after only a year); and Baucus can’t demand that people pay 13 percent of their income for health coverage. Also, Baucus needs more language on fixing Medicare fraud, and the state-level sweetheart deals for the private insurers must go.
Obama doesn’t want a weak, ineffective bill, and he does want the public option – that’s why he keeps harping on it, when it would be so much easier to give in and switch to the coop plan. But he is still keeping his options open – Axelrod at first stated that Obama isn’t willing to accept a plan that does not include a public option, but apparently he amended it to assert that it’s Axelrod, not Obama, who can’t accept it.
Obama may, in the end, accept the coops. Snowe, who originally advocated the trigger option, is now talking coop; likewise Collins rejects not only the public option but also any trigger that leads to a public option, which also suggests coops. Pelosi is bracing her troops for the possibility that the final plan won’t include a public option, to keep Obama’s options open, although progressives are still pushing to meet with Obama to push for the public option.
While all this is going on, Baucus may unveil his bill tomorrow. Unlike the other four bills which have passed through committee, Baucus’ plan involves coops, not the public option.
As I noted before, there are a number of things that need to be included in any coop plan:
http://hellodollyllama.blogspot.com/2009/09/coop-issues.html
And based on the rough draft of the Baucus plan which we’ve seen, there are a number of things that need to be fixed in it. Most of all, Baucus must ensure that the coop is always there and affordable for everybody: he needs national or regional coops, to ensure real competition and low cost, and stem the flow of windfall profits to the insurers; the federal safety net must be there permanently (Baucus says coops must be nonprofit AND self-sustaining after only a year); and Baucus can’t demand that people pay 13 percent of their income for health coverage. Also, Baucus needs more language on fixing Medicare fraud, and the state-level sweetheart deals for the private insurers must go.
Sunday, 13 September 2009
Wingnuts launch another campaign of lies about health reform
The wingnuts are starting a new internet campaign, spreading a whole new raft of lies about health reform, lies intended to scare stupid people. Here’s an abbreviated list of their bogus claims:
Obamacare will allow a government committee to decide which treatments you can have;
Allow a health choice commissioner to decide what your benefits are, and you have no say whatsoever;
Give free health care to illegals;
Force the establishment of a “linguistic infrastructure” for translations (i.e. to treat illegals);
Restrict enrolment of special needs patients;
Give many payoffs to ACORN;
Demand audits of all self-insured employers;
Ration health care;
Demand that everyone be issued with a national ID card;
Give government bureaucrats access to all citizens’ personal and financial records;
Give the federal government real-time access to all individual bank accounts for funds transfers;
Demand that taxpayers pay for all union retiree health plans;
Demand that taxpayers pay for all “community organizer” health plans;
Forcibly enroll Medicare-eligible patients in the public option;
Forcibly enroll employees in the public option;
Ban all suits against the government regarding “price-fixing” or a “government monopoly”;
Set doctor’s wages;
Force employers to pay for health care for both part-timers and their families;
Force employers to pay a penalty for not offering the public option;
Force taxpayers to pay for illegal aliens;
Rename health care taxes as something other than “taxes”;
Cut doctor services for Medicaid, especially for seniors and the poor;
Force all doctors to be paid the same;
Allow government to set the price for a doctor’s time;
Allow government to control productivity for private health firms;
Regulate power wheelchairs;
Ration care for cancer patients;
Punish doctors and hospitals when government decides a readmission was preventable;
Ban doctors from investing in health firms;
Ban hospital expansion without government approval and/or payoffs for ACORN;
Ration care based on outcome;
Increase bureaucracy;
Give instruction regarding living wills, locking in estate taxes ahead of time;
Guide patients into death;
Dictate how your life will end;
Dictate what care you get an end of life;
Enable government intrusion into your marriage;
Ration mental services.
All of which have been debunked already.
http://www.factcheck.org/2009/08/twenty-six-lies-about-hr-3200/
As any parent can tell you, when a child tells one lie to cover up bad behaviour, it can be hard to catch them. But when they tell a whole lot of different lies all at once….it’s time to get up and find out which lamp they broke. And now we’re up to dozens of lies by the conservatives, on health reform.
They’re wrong, and they know they’re wrong. And so does everybody in the United States, except the few denizens of Planet Wingnut.
Obamacare will allow a government committee to decide which treatments you can have;
Allow a health choice commissioner to decide what your benefits are, and you have no say whatsoever;
Give free health care to illegals;
Force the establishment of a “linguistic infrastructure” for translations (i.e. to treat illegals);
Restrict enrolment of special needs patients;
Give many payoffs to ACORN;
Demand audits of all self-insured employers;
Ration health care;
Demand that everyone be issued with a national ID card;
Give government bureaucrats access to all citizens’ personal and financial records;
Give the federal government real-time access to all individual bank accounts for funds transfers;
Demand that taxpayers pay for all union retiree health plans;
Demand that taxpayers pay for all “community organizer” health plans;
Forcibly enroll Medicare-eligible patients in the public option;
Forcibly enroll employees in the public option;
Ban all suits against the government regarding “price-fixing” or a “government monopoly”;
Set doctor’s wages;
Force employers to pay for health care for both part-timers and their families;
Force employers to pay a penalty for not offering the public option;
Force taxpayers to pay for illegal aliens;
Rename health care taxes as something other than “taxes”;
Cut doctor services for Medicaid, especially for seniors and the poor;
Force all doctors to be paid the same;
Allow government to set the price for a doctor’s time;
Allow government to control productivity for private health firms;
Regulate power wheelchairs;
Ration care for cancer patients;
Punish doctors and hospitals when government decides a readmission was preventable;
Ban doctors from investing in health firms;
Ban hospital expansion without government approval and/or payoffs for ACORN;
Ration care based on outcome;
Increase bureaucracy;
Give instruction regarding living wills, locking in estate taxes ahead of time;
Guide patients into death;
Dictate how your life will end;
Dictate what care you get an end of life;
Enable government intrusion into your marriage;
Ration mental services.
All of which have been debunked already.
http://www.factcheck.org/2009/08/twenty-six-lies-about-hr-3200/
As any parent can tell you, when a child tells one lie to cover up bad behaviour, it can be hard to catch them. But when they tell a whole lot of different lies all at once….it’s time to get up and find out which lamp they broke. And now we’re up to dozens of lies by the conservatives, on health reform.
They’re wrong, and they know they’re wrong. And so does everybody in the United States, except the few denizens of Planet Wingnut.
The hippies and the wingnuts
There are those who see the wingnut rallies like the one yesterday, and hearken back to the hippie rallies of 40 years ago – the antiwar protests etc. And actually there are more similarities than you think.
The hippies from the Sixties won their battles, saw the Vietnam War end, saw Nixon fall, saw the civil rights legislation enacted, saw southern towns elect black mayors, and they went on with their lives. They perked up again a decade later when Reagan came along, and threw a few no-nukes rallies out of habit, but they had grown up and had kids, so the revolutionary fire was starting to burn low. They got old.
Then the next wave of “hippies” came along – the wingnuts. They worshipped Reagan and Jesus in that order; their holy war was about abortion, guns and gays. Their record of performance wasn’t so hot: on their one big issue, abortion, they never came close to getting the Supreme Court to overturn Roe. They got DOMA but that will be overturned; they got the Second Amendment upheld but the Court also allows some controls on guns. And now the wingnuts are seeing the entire Reagan empire destroyed by a black president, so they’re marching out to fight – but now they’re a lot older. The age issue allows their wingnut leaders to try to frighten them with lies about Medicare, but there are drawbacks to an elderly army – they’re, um, going to age off the system. Like the sinning Israelites in the Sinai desert, they will be consumed after the forty years have passed.
And now the third wave of “hippies” has arisen: just as Vietnam created the original hippies and Reagan created the wingnuts, now the incredible lies, follies and abuses of the Bush gang created the Obama army, ready to march for health care and other issues.
Two lessons here. The wingnuts will age and die, and the Obama army will take over because they are much, much younger. So we’re going to win our battles: sheer demographics. What Obama needs to do is ensure that the wingnut army doesn’t add on a credible youth-auxiliary. A few groups of young crazy gun-nut militias aren’t a problem – their carryings-on will actually backfire – but Obama needs to avoid sliding all the way to the left. This, undoubtedly, is why Obama has parked in the center, rather than the left, during his first year.
The one obvious danger: you can always find young, stupid people.
Second, Obama doesn’t even have to give his army what they demand, to win: Reagan didn’t give the wingnuts the abortion ban or the balanced budgets or the smaller government he promised, but the wingnuts still name schools and highways after him. The Obama army is much more intelligent than the wingnuts, but Obama doesn’t have to give them everything, just enough. Start tapering down our commitment in Afghanistan, repeal DOMA or Don’t-Ask-Don’t-Tell, let Holder put some Bush-era crooks in jail, and remind his army that the banks who got the bailouts are paying back the money and are facing more scrutiny. The one area where he needs to be careful and think is climate change, cap-and-trade etc. The wingnuts are actually helping Obama in this regard, by showing how hard it is to make change happen in Washington.
The hippies from the Sixties won their battles, saw the Vietnam War end, saw Nixon fall, saw the civil rights legislation enacted, saw southern towns elect black mayors, and they went on with their lives. They perked up again a decade later when Reagan came along, and threw a few no-nukes rallies out of habit, but they had grown up and had kids, so the revolutionary fire was starting to burn low. They got old.
Then the next wave of “hippies” came along – the wingnuts. They worshipped Reagan and Jesus in that order; their holy war was about abortion, guns and gays. Their record of performance wasn’t so hot: on their one big issue, abortion, they never came close to getting the Supreme Court to overturn Roe. They got DOMA but that will be overturned; they got the Second Amendment upheld but the Court also allows some controls on guns. And now the wingnuts are seeing the entire Reagan empire destroyed by a black president, so they’re marching out to fight – but now they’re a lot older. The age issue allows their wingnut leaders to try to frighten them with lies about Medicare, but there are drawbacks to an elderly army – they’re, um, going to age off the system. Like the sinning Israelites in the Sinai desert, they will be consumed after the forty years have passed.
And now the third wave of “hippies” has arisen: just as Vietnam created the original hippies and Reagan created the wingnuts, now the incredible lies, follies and abuses of the Bush gang created the Obama army, ready to march for health care and other issues.
Two lessons here. The wingnuts will age and die, and the Obama army will take over because they are much, much younger. So we’re going to win our battles: sheer demographics. What Obama needs to do is ensure that the wingnut army doesn’t add on a credible youth-auxiliary. A few groups of young crazy gun-nut militias aren’t a problem – their carryings-on will actually backfire – but Obama needs to avoid sliding all the way to the left. This, undoubtedly, is why Obama has parked in the center, rather than the left, during his first year.
The one obvious danger: you can always find young, stupid people.
Second, Obama doesn’t even have to give his army what they demand, to win: Reagan didn’t give the wingnuts the abortion ban or the balanced budgets or the smaller government he promised, but the wingnuts still name schools and highways after him. The Obama army is much more intelligent than the wingnuts, but Obama doesn’t have to give them everything, just enough. Start tapering down our commitment in Afghanistan, repeal DOMA or Don’t-Ask-Don’t-Tell, let Holder put some Bush-era crooks in jail, and remind his army that the banks who got the bailouts are paying back the money and are facing more scrutiny. The one area where he needs to be careful and think is climate change, cap-and-trade etc. The wingnuts are actually helping Obama in this regard, by showing how hard it is to make change happen in Washington.
Pawlenty backs off nullification
http://blogs.abcnews.com/george/2009/09/pawlenty-backs-off-nullification.html
Pawlenty has backed away from his implication that Obamacare is unconstitutional and that the states have the power to nullify federal law.
Perhaps he has a young relative who finally got to the Andrew Jackson portion of U.S. history and taught Uncle Timmy a lesson or two.
Pawlenty has backed away from his implication that Obamacare is unconstitutional and that the states have the power to nullify federal law.
Perhaps he has a young relative who finally got to the Andrew Jackson portion of U.S. history and taught Uncle Timmy a lesson or two.
Saturday, 12 September 2009
wingnuts caught lying about size of 912 crowd
Matt Kibbe, president of FreedomWorks, the group that organized the event, said on stage at the rally that ABC News was reporting that 1 million to 1.5 million people were in attendance. At no time did ABC News, or its affiliates, report a number anywhere near as large. ABCNews.com reported an approximate figure of 60,000 to 70,000 protesters, attributed to the Washington, D.C., fire department. In its reports, ABC News Radio described the crowd as "tens of thousands."
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/protest-crowd-size-estimate-falsely-attributed-abc-news/story?id=8558055
They lie, they get caught, they lie, they get caught.....
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/protest-crowd-size-estimate-falsely-attributed-abc-news/story?id=8558055
They lie, they get caught, they lie, they get caught.....
The conservatives have no leaders
http://us.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/09/12/tea.party.express/index.html
The article attached leads us to some observations.
First, the obvious one -- the wingnuts really are nuts.
Second, the conservatives have no leader. Also pretty obvious -- the fact that the GOP seriously considers hoopleheads like Palin and Jindal as presidential timber, people who in the real world would have trouble handling a middle-management job, shows that they really did succeed in chasing everyone with a 3-digit IQ out of the Big Tent years ago.
Third, the guy in the article said they don't need a leader until after 2010. Suggesting that they don't expect to find one any time soon. And considering the current range of potential choices, I'm not surprised.
And that's the problem. Because political leaders don't just pop up out of nowhere.
Bush 43 was elected governor twice before he ran for President; almost all the presidents before him had been national names for years before getting the top job (the exceptions being Carter and Hoover -- eek!). Even Obama was a national name after his 2004 convention speech. Generally when an unknown is thrust into the national spotlight, we have a mess like Ferraro or Quayle or Palin.
So who do the Republicans run in 2012? Someone we know and despise like Romney or Palin? Or someone from even deeper in the unknown backwoods of swamp-head wingnuttery? Considering that the popularity of the GOP outside the South is in the single digits, how do they get any electoral votes outside the South?
Do these drooling idiots really believe that another Reagan is going to come riding into town like Shane and save us all from the scary Negro?
Don't you want to see the looks on their faces when they finally realize that their nightmare is really true and is really not going to go away when they wake up?
The article attached leads us to some observations.
First, the obvious one -- the wingnuts really are nuts.
Second, the conservatives have no leader. Also pretty obvious -- the fact that the GOP seriously considers hoopleheads like Palin and Jindal as presidential timber, people who in the real world would have trouble handling a middle-management job, shows that they really did succeed in chasing everyone with a 3-digit IQ out of the Big Tent years ago.
Third, the guy in the article said they don't need a leader until after 2010. Suggesting that they don't expect to find one any time soon. And considering the current range of potential choices, I'm not surprised.
And that's the problem. Because political leaders don't just pop up out of nowhere.
Bush 43 was elected governor twice before he ran for President; almost all the presidents before him had been national names for years before getting the top job (the exceptions being Carter and Hoover -- eek!). Even Obama was a national name after his 2004 convention speech. Generally when an unknown is thrust into the national spotlight, we have a mess like Ferraro or Quayle or Palin.
So who do the Republicans run in 2012? Someone we know and despise like Romney or Palin? Or someone from even deeper in the unknown backwoods of swamp-head wingnuttery? Considering that the popularity of the GOP outside the South is in the single digits, how do they get any electoral votes outside the South?
Do these drooling idiots really believe that another Reagan is going to come riding into town like Shane and save us all from the scary Negro?
Don't you want to see the looks on their faces when they finally realize that their nightmare is really true and is really not going to go away when they wake up?
OMG Obama’s a socialist!
Lots of “Obama = socialist” signs at the teeeeeny little teabagger hootenanny today.
So…this new potential government effort by Obama is socialism, right? All government equals socialism, correct?
Let’s follow the “logic” of the wingnuts to its logical conclusion.
The soldiers who beat Hitler and Saddam? Patton, Bradley? Socialists, living off the government payroll.
The sailors who beat Tojo? Bull Halsey, Spruance? Socialists sucking at the federal teat.
The 50,000 soldiers who died to defeat socialism in Vietnam? Socialists.
The FBI guys who caught the 1993 WTC bombers and the Oklahoma bomber? Socialists feeding from the public trough.
The guys who build our highways so we don’t starve? More socialists.
Our police and firefighters who gave their lives on 911? Socialists.
Our teachers? Socialists.
The astronauts who walked on the moon? Neil Armstrong? Socialists.
The Coast Guard guys who save lives every day? Socialists.
The Medicare and VA people who keep us alive and well? Socialists.
The Amtrak guys who brought all those wingnut protesters to DC? Socialists.
The regulators who protect our kids from being killed by unsafe products and air and water? Socialists.
The CIA guys who hunt terrorists? Socialists.
The SEC guys who prevent white-collar crooks from stealing our money? Socialists.
The meteorologists and FEMA guys who save thousands of lives during hurricanes? Socialists.
The SBA people who make it possible for small businessmen to survive? Socialists.
The FHA folks who help put roofs over our heads? Socialists.
Not all government is socialism, and not all government is evil. And every sane person above the age of 10 knows that.
So…this new potential government effort by Obama is socialism, right? All government equals socialism, correct?
Let’s follow the “logic” of the wingnuts to its logical conclusion.
The soldiers who beat Hitler and Saddam? Patton, Bradley? Socialists, living off the government payroll.
The sailors who beat Tojo? Bull Halsey, Spruance? Socialists sucking at the federal teat.
The 50,000 soldiers who died to defeat socialism in Vietnam? Socialists.
The FBI guys who caught the 1993 WTC bombers and the Oklahoma bomber? Socialists feeding from the public trough.
The guys who build our highways so we don’t starve? More socialists.
Our police and firefighters who gave their lives on 911? Socialists.
Our teachers? Socialists.
The astronauts who walked on the moon? Neil Armstrong? Socialists.
The Coast Guard guys who save lives every day? Socialists.
The Medicare and VA people who keep us alive and well? Socialists.
The Amtrak guys who brought all those wingnut protesters to DC? Socialists.
The regulators who protect our kids from being killed by unsafe products and air and water? Socialists.
The CIA guys who hunt terrorists? Socialists.
The SEC guys who prevent white-collar crooks from stealing our money? Socialists.
The meteorologists and FEMA guys who save thousands of lives during hurricanes? Socialists.
The SBA people who make it possible for small businessmen to survive? Socialists.
The FHA folks who help put roofs over our heads? Socialists.
Not all government is socialism, and not all government is evil. And every sane person above the age of 10 knows that.
Return of Obama the Fighter
Obama began and ended his appearance today with the mantra “FIRED UP”, and in the middle he shot down the GOP lies, and shot down the GOP liars. He reminded people of the real fear – that anyone can lose their insurance – and the real enemy -- the crooks who run the insurance industry, and their paid whores in the GOP.
Game on.
And once Obama gets into the ring to fight, no one can stop him.
Also, ever since he returned from vacation, his appearances begin with “Hail to the Chief”. Yes, I really am the President, you white trash wingnut fuckwits.
Game on.
And once Obama gets into the ring to fight, no one can stop him.
Also, ever since he returned from vacation, his appearances begin with “Hail to the Chief”. Yes, I really am the President, you white trash wingnut fuckwits.
So when will the media start doing their jobs?
July: Obama spends an hour discussing the details of health care, and shooting down the GOP lies. What does the media cover for days and days? Gates and the cop.
September: Obama spends an hour discussing the details of health care, and shooting down the GOP lies. What does the media cover for days and days? Joe “You lie!” Wilson.
The media is our best tool, arguably our only tool, for separating the truth from the lies on major policy issues. And they are just not doing the job.
September: Obama spends an hour discussing the details of health care, and shooting down the GOP lies. What does the media cover for days and days? Joe “You lie!” Wilson.
The media is our best tool, arguably our only tool, for separating the truth from the lies on major policy issues. And they are just not doing the job.
State governments trying to stop non-existent Obama programs
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_health_care_pushback
A bunch of Republican governors and state legislators are trying to pass state legislation to stop Obama from doing a bunch of stuff he was never going to do anyway –imposing single-payer care, forcing people to choose the public plan, none of which was ever in view.
First of all, fighting to stop imaginary dangers is patently insane. This is what happens when wingnuts, and the wildly irresponsible politicians who spur them on, begin believing their own lies.
Secondly, the states do not have the power to do any such thing anyhow. Congress has full power and authority to do whatever they see fit, in order to secure the general welfare of the United States, in accordance with Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution. And that applies regardless of how the wingnuts mis-interpret Amendment 10. That is how Congress built Social Security, Medicare and the VA.
States can’t unilaterally nullify federal law. Andy Jackson settled that issue during the nullification crisis, and the message was also hammered home in a little thing called the Civil War.
And third, by the same token, the states can’t secede either. We kinda settled that one too. Funny how some of our most promising Republican presidential candidates have been espousing and condoning sentiments aimed at seceding from the country they want to be president of – Pawlenty, Perry, Palin, Huckabee…?
And it’s even funnier how the people who are screeching mostly loudly about the Constitution are the Jimbobs who haven’t freakin’ read it.
A bunch of Republican governors and state legislators are trying to pass state legislation to stop Obama from doing a bunch of stuff he was never going to do anyway –imposing single-payer care, forcing people to choose the public plan, none of which was ever in view.
First of all, fighting to stop imaginary dangers is patently insane. This is what happens when wingnuts, and the wildly irresponsible politicians who spur them on, begin believing their own lies.
Secondly, the states do not have the power to do any such thing anyhow. Congress has full power and authority to do whatever they see fit, in order to secure the general welfare of the United States, in accordance with Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution. And that applies regardless of how the wingnuts mis-interpret Amendment 10. That is how Congress built Social Security, Medicare and the VA.
States can’t unilaterally nullify federal law. Andy Jackson settled that issue during the nullification crisis, and the message was also hammered home in a little thing called the Civil War.
And third, by the same token, the states can’t secede either. We kinda settled that one too. Funny how some of our most promising Republican presidential candidates have been espousing and condoning sentiments aimed at seceding from the country they want to be president of – Pawlenty, Perry, Palin, Huckabee…?
And it’s even funnier how the people who are screeching mostly loudly about the Constitution are the Jimbobs who haven’t freakin’ read it.
Obama planning to run in 2012...?
I know it's not a shock, but....
Here is what he just said to CBS --
"I intend to be president for a while and once this bill passes, I own it. And if people look and say, You know what? This hasn't reduced my costs. My premiums are still going up 25 percent, insurance companies are still jerking me around. I'm the one who's going to be held responsible. So I have every incentive to get this right."
Since most of the health care proposals out there call for gradually phasing in a lot of the coverage and the programs, a lot of it will still be on the drawing board in 2012, or just getting started and organized. But not in the succeeding four years -- Obama's second term.
Here is what he just said to CBS --
"I intend to be president for a while and once this bill passes, I own it. And if people look and say, You know what? This hasn't reduced my costs. My premiums are still going up 25 percent, insurance companies are still jerking me around. I'm the one who's going to be held responsible. So I have every incentive to get this right."
Since most of the health care proposals out there call for gradually phasing in a lot of the coverage and the programs, a lot of it will still be on the drawing board in 2012, or just getting started and organized. But not in the succeeding four years -- Obama's second term.
Friday, 11 September 2009
Is Obama faking us all out?
Firedoglake finally said aloud what I’ve been thinking for weeks, that Obama may be exhibiting a condition known as Munchausen by proxy, wherein an individual deliberately puts someone (or something) in jeopardy, and then jumps in at the last minute to “save” them heroically. Specifically, Obama has allowed his enemies (and the media) to create the notion that the public option is a death’s door, and in desperate need of last-minute rescue by Obama himself. Meanwhile, however, Obama has the 50 Senators he needs to pass the public option under budget reconciliation, and he’s had them all along, and public support for it has remained within the 60-80 percent range even during all the wingnut death-panel attacks.
Look at the facts:
--putting the budget reconciliation instruction into the budget bill verrrrry quietly in the spring with the October start date, so that even the Republicans didn’t notice;
--pretending that Obama really wanted the health bill in August so that the Republicans would have a fake target to shoot at, while simultaneously allowing Baucus to drag his feet for two months;
--allowing the Republicans to wear themselves out with their attacks during the vacation season when real non-Washington people weren’t paying attention;
--allowing the media to report that the public option was in dire peril even though Obama has the necessary support for passage;
--praising the public option without making a commitment to it, so as to avoid giving the GOP a clear target, while also praising the other options and the people advocating them;
--stepping in to make the big speech only when we were a month away from the reconciliation date, so as to begin building up momentum;
--Schumer quietly letting the media know how reconciliation would work;
--Obama’s secret meeting with the Senate Blue Dog Democrats, after which the Senators went to the media to claim that the meeting was really about program costs, rather than about the public option or reconciliation.
Also there seems to be a lot of what could call smokescreen activity – the kinds of things that could distract the screaming wingnuts for weeks while Obama works quietly behind the scenes to nail down the public option. Next week a House Democrat may introduce a bill to kill the Defense Of Marriage Act, which will drive the gay-hating wingnuts crazy. Meanwhile the global-warming-is-a-hoax wingnuts will be distracted by Tom Harkin’s hearings on cap-and-trade; Harkin, coincidentally, is a public-option fan. If they really wanted to distract and confuse the wingnuts, they would hold hearings on gun control, or on amnesty for illegals, or on banning NASCAR or chewing tobacky – or would that be too obvious?
I'm probably wrong about all this, but wouldn't it be cool if it were true?
Look at the facts:
--putting the budget reconciliation instruction into the budget bill verrrrry quietly in the spring with the October start date, so that even the Republicans didn’t notice;
--pretending that Obama really wanted the health bill in August so that the Republicans would have a fake target to shoot at, while simultaneously allowing Baucus to drag his feet for two months;
--allowing the Republicans to wear themselves out with their attacks during the vacation season when real non-Washington people weren’t paying attention;
--allowing the media to report that the public option was in dire peril even though Obama has the necessary support for passage;
--praising the public option without making a commitment to it, so as to avoid giving the GOP a clear target, while also praising the other options and the people advocating them;
--stepping in to make the big speech only when we were a month away from the reconciliation date, so as to begin building up momentum;
--Schumer quietly letting the media know how reconciliation would work;
--Obama’s secret meeting with the Senate Blue Dog Democrats, after which the Senators went to the media to claim that the meeting was really about program costs, rather than about the public option or reconciliation.
Also there seems to be a lot of what could call smokescreen activity – the kinds of things that could distract the screaming wingnuts for weeks while Obama works quietly behind the scenes to nail down the public option. Next week a House Democrat may introduce a bill to kill the Defense Of Marriage Act, which will drive the gay-hating wingnuts crazy. Meanwhile the global-warming-is-a-hoax wingnuts will be distracted by Tom Harkin’s hearings on cap-and-trade; Harkin, coincidentally, is a public-option fan. If they really wanted to distract and confuse the wingnuts, they would hold hearings on gun control, or on amnesty for illegals, or on banning NASCAR or chewing tobacky – or would that be too obvious?
I'm probably wrong about all this, but wouldn't it be cool if it were true?
CBS: 68 percent want the public option
According to CBS:
60 percent support Obama’s health plan.
68 percent support the public option.
73 percent support increasing regulations on the insurance companies.
65 percent think Obama is trying to work with the Republicans.
So if 68 percent want the public option, explain to me how Obama is going to chuck that aside for a coop plan or a trigger plan that no one understands?
60 percent support Obama’s health plan.
68 percent support the public option.
73 percent support increasing regulations on the insurance companies.
65 percent think Obama is trying to work with the Republicans.
So if 68 percent want the public option, explain to me how Obama is going to chuck that aside for a coop plan or a trigger plan that no one understands?
Coop issues
So if we get a coop instead of a public option, what do we need in it?
GUARANTEED ACCESS: Any coop plan must immediately provide access to quality, affordable care that can never be taken away, even if you switch or lose jobs, start small business, early retirees, the uninsured, everybody.
COST: costs must be kept down, and with growth rates within shouting distance of inflation. And the buy-in must be significantly less than 13 percent of annual income.
COMPETITION: Having individual mandates without competition is a gigantic giveaway to the same insurers who are ripping us off – no dice. Also, regional coops must be able to bargain collectively or services, and states must allow interstate policy sales.
ACCOUNTABILITY: We must account for all the ways the insurers will game the system: we must have accountability to consumers, provide a “basic services” platform including prescription drugs, prevent price spikes, prevent adverse selection, prevent lifetime caps and gigantic deductibles, prevent insurers from denying you or dropping you…and in 2011 we will probably need a new law to address all the new ways insurers will try to cheat the system.
NATIONAL COVERAGE: Having state coops will be impractical, since the insurers, with effective monopolies in 38 states, will be able to crush small coops. Also, the insurers have sweetheart deals with local powerbrokers which would need to be changed – a huge issue. Also, idiots like Pawlenty want to play the bogus Tenth Amendment card, which must be dealt with.
ADMINISTRATION: To placate the conservatives, the plan would not be government-sponsored; it will be given its policy by the HHS, governed by members paid from coop’s own funds, financially guaranteed by the government in perpetuity (a must), and administered by private firms.
So it must always be there, it must always be affordable, it must always provide a minimum level of services.
Obama’s speech got Democrats to talk to each other, and won over independents and seniors; his meeting with the Blue Dogs reassured a lot of them on cost issues. Momentum is in his favor.
But there is still some confusion. Liberals think Obama backed the public option, the ever-changing Hoyer now expects some sort of public option (at least in the House), some Blue Dogs look for the public option to be “circumscribed” in favor of regional coops, Baucus thinks Obama backed the Baucus plan, and Republicans are either flipflopping or rejecting all compromise including coops. Schumer pointed out that the Baucus plan should be moved back to the left since Republicans won’t vote for it anyway. Some think the speech left room for a Conrad-like nonprofit coop along with a Snowe-like trigger for a public option if the private sector doesn’t enroll enough new people. Rangel wants to hold off on House action until the ever-sluggish Senate acts – possibly a dangerous recipe for delay, or possibly a way to get the two chambers synched up better.
So Obama still needs to herd the cats.
The one thing almost everyone agrees on, is writing off the Republicans. One GOP official said flat-out: “The image of a bunch of white guys booing an African-American president is about as bad as it gets.”
GUARANTEED ACCESS: Any coop plan must immediately provide access to quality, affordable care that can never be taken away, even if you switch or lose jobs, start small business, early retirees, the uninsured, everybody.
COST: costs must be kept down, and with growth rates within shouting distance of inflation. And the buy-in must be significantly less than 13 percent of annual income.
COMPETITION: Having individual mandates without competition is a gigantic giveaway to the same insurers who are ripping us off – no dice. Also, regional coops must be able to bargain collectively or services, and states must allow interstate policy sales.
ACCOUNTABILITY: We must account for all the ways the insurers will game the system: we must have accountability to consumers, provide a “basic services” platform including prescription drugs, prevent price spikes, prevent adverse selection, prevent lifetime caps and gigantic deductibles, prevent insurers from denying you or dropping you…and in 2011 we will probably need a new law to address all the new ways insurers will try to cheat the system.
NATIONAL COVERAGE: Having state coops will be impractical, since the insurers, with effective monopolies in 38 states, will be able to crush small coops. Also, the insurers have sweetheart deals with local powerbrokers which would need to be changed – a huge issue. Also, idiots like Pawlenty want to play the bogus Tenth Amendment card, which must be dealt with.
ADMINISTRATION: To placate the conservatives, the plan would not be government-sponsored; it will be given its policy by the HHS, governed by members paid from coop’s own funds, financially guaranteed by the government in perpetuity (a must), and administered by private firms.
So it must always be there, it must always be affordable, it must always provide a minimum level of services.
Obama’s speech got Democrats to talk to each other, and won over independents and seniors; his meeting with the Blue Dogs reassured a lot of them on cost issues. Momentum is in his favor.
But there is still some confusion. Liberals think Obama backed the public option, the ever-changing Hoyer now expects some sort of public option (at least in the House), some Blue Dogs look for the public option to be “circumscribed” in favor of regional coops, Baucus thinks Obama backed the Baucus plan, and Republicans are either flipflopping or rejecting all compromise including coops. Schumer pointed out that the Baucus plan should be moved back to the left since Republicans won’t vote for it anyway. Some think the speech left room for a Conrad-like nonprofit coop along with a Snowe-like trigger for a public option if the private sector doesn’t enroll enough new people. Rangel wants to hold off on House action until the ever-sluggish Senate acts – possibly a dangerous recipe for delay, or possibly a way to get the two chambers synched up better.
So Obama still needs to herd the cats.
The one thing almost everyone agrees on, is writing off the Republicans. One GOP official said flat-out: “The image of a bunch of white guys booing an African-American president is about as bad as it gets.”
Save the public option in conference?
From MSNBC -- Lobbyists for labor and liberal groups monitoring the issue acknowledge privately that the public option is probably a nonstarter in the Senate, and their best hope for reviving the idea is to pass legislation without it and then fight hard for it in House-Senate negotiations to produce a final product before Congress sends Obama a health bill.
Perhaps that's the fallback position if the reconciliation route doesn't get it done.
Perhaps that's the fallback position if the reconciliation route doesn't get it done.
OMG! Obama has a jones for your sister!
A brilliant satire of the media's pathetic failure to separate truth from lies, logic from silliness, relevance from trivia, in the health care debate.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/9/10/779797/-Probable-beltway-evolution-of-Wilsons-You-Lie
Ezra Klein
Joe Wilson’s “you lie” comment might be a great boon to the Democrats in their bid to pass health care.
EVOLVES TO
Michael Scherer (Time.com)
Joes Wilson broke decorum when he screamed “you lie” which may come back to hurt Republicans. Obama stared back at him and you could seem him twitch.
EVOLVES TO
Rush Limbaugh
And ladies and gentlemen Mr. Obama was calling Mr. Wilson a liar so he had to respond. Did you see the way that Obama twitched? Ladies and gentlemen that’s the type of twitch you see from the type of man Obama is (unsaid: Black) when he’s ready for a barroom fight or to push you aside and ravage your sister. We’ve all seen that twitch before and we’ve all known what it means.
EVOLVES TO
Drudge
Breaking Headline: Obama twitch is seen as a challenge not only to Wilson but anybody who disagrees with him. Obama wants a barroom fight – and watch your sister.
EVOLVES TO
Politico
“The Twitch” – major backlash on Obama’s response to Joe Wilson’s comment – while Wilson is nothing more than a back bencher, Obama raised his stature by using body language to make what feels like to a lot of people a direct threat, to Wilson, the Republicans and their sisters.
EVOLVES TO
Fox News
We are spending all day discussing “The Twitch,” which is getting people really riled up in the real America (show signs of teabaggers carrying signs saying “Don’t Twitch on Me!”) We have noted body language psychologist Dr. Kraz Y. Town to talk about it.
Town: Yes, I want to show you these pictures of Hitler speaking at Nuremberg. You see the same type of twitch.
EVOLVES TO
Sarah Palin (Twitter)
Don’t “Twitch on Me” buddy. I’ve seen that Twitch before and I know to get out of the room fast or I’m going to wind up with a black eye or pregnant
EVOLVES TO
George Will
The first thing a president must have is decorum. You would never see Ronald Reagan twitch like that, make that type of unabashed challenge to a lowly backbencher. Mr. Obama has done himself and his country a disservice.
EVOLVES TO
David Broder
While I understand that the comment was inappropriate all eyes were on Obama and not Joe Wilson. Obama broke comity and destroyed bipartisanship with that twitch. This is our town Mr. Obama and we don’t appreciate you twitching in it.
EVOLVES TO
Chris Mathews
Mathews: Hi, this is Chris Mathews on Hardball. We’re going to be talking about “The Twitch” with a Democratic consultant. Didn’t Obama make a real mistake with that Twitch?
Democratic Consultant: Well, I’ll admit it wasn’t Obama’s best moment, but he was doing it in response to a comment.
Mathews: Come on Joe Wilson is a nothing, a nobody, and hey, we all know what that twitch means. I’m a lunch bucket kind of guy, I’ve been in bars, I have a sister.
Democratic Consultant: Well we need to admit Obama made a mistake with the Twitch and try and move on and pass health care.
EVOLVES TO
Michael Scherer
Obama’s Twitch is causing him enormous trouble. It’s hard to believe this type of blowback. How did the White House lose control of an issue that should have played in their favor?
EVOLVES TO
Ezra Klein
As idiotic as the twitch is, it looks like it is going to doom the public option
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/9/10/779797/-Probable-beltway-evolution-of-Wilsons-You-Lie
Ezra Klein
Joe Wilson’s “you lie” comment might be a great boon to the Democrats in their bid to pass health care.
EVOLVES TO
Michael Scherer (Time.com)
Joes Wilson broke decorum when he screamed “you lie” which may come back to hurt Republicans. Obama stared back at him and you could seem him twitch.
EVOLVES TO
Rush Limbaugh
And ladies and gentlemen Mr. Obama was calling Mr. Wilson a liar so he had to respond. Did you see the way that Obama twitched? Ladies and gentlemen that’s the type of twitch you see from the type of man Obama is (unsaid: Black) when he’s ready for a barroom fight or to push you aside and ravage your sister. We’ve all seen that twitch before and we’ve all known what it means.
EVOLVES TO
Drudge
Breaking Headline: Obama twitch is seen as a challenge not only to Wilson but anybody who disagrees with him. Obama wants a barroom fight – and watch your sister.
EVOLVES TO
Politico
“The Twitch” – major backlash on Obama’s response to Joe Wilson’s comment – while Wilson is nothing more than a back bencher, Obama raised his stature by using body language to make what feels like to a lot of people a direct threat, to Wilson, the Republicans and their sisters.
EVOLVES TO
Fox News
We are spending all day discussing “The Twitch,” which is getting people really riled up in the real America (show signs of teabaggers carrying signs saying “Don’t Twitch on Me!”) We have noted body language psychologist Dr. Kraz Y. Town to talk about it.
Town: Yes, I want to show you these pictures of Hitler speaking at Nuremberg. You see the same type of twitch.
EVOLVES TO
Sarah Palin (Twitter)
Don’t “Twitch on Me” buddy. I’ve seen that Twitch before and I know to get out of the room fast or I’m going to wind up with a black eye or pregnant
EVOLVES TO
George Will
The first thing a president must have is decorum. You would never see Ronald Reagan twitch like that, make that type of unabashed challenge to a lowly backbencher. Mr. Obama has done himself and his country a disservice.
EVOLVES TO
David Broder
While I understand that the comment was inappropriate all eyes were on Obama and not Joe Wilson. Obama broke comity and destroyed bipartisanship with that twitch. This is our town Mr. Obama and we don’t appreciate you twitching in it.
EVOLVES TO
Chris Mathews
Mathews: Hi, this is Chris Mathews on Hardball. We’re going to be talking about “The Twitch” with a Democratic consultant. Didn’t Obama make a real mistake with that Twitch?
Democratic Consultant: Well, I’ll admit it wasn’t Obama’s best moment, but he was doing it in response to a comment.
Mathews: Come on Joe Wilson is a nothing, a nobody, and hey, we all know what that twitch means. I’m a lunch bucket kind of guy, I’ve been in bars, I have a sister.
Democratic Consultant: Well we need to admit Obama made a mistake with the Twitch and try and move on and pass health care.
EVOLVES TO
Michael Scherer
Obama’s Twitch is causing him enormous trouble. It’s hard to believe this type of blowback. How did the White House lose control of an issue that should have played in their favor?
EVOLVES TO
Ezra Klein
As idiotic as the twitch is, it looks like it is going to doom the public option
Thursday, 10 September 2009
Obama’s path to the public option
The liberals have the bit between their teeth: they are demanding a meeting with Obama, and Weiner says the House won’t pass a bill without the public option. But the real action is in the Senate. Obama summoned the Senate Blue Dogs to the White House for a talking-to today. Carper says that in the meeting, they told Obama that they wouldn’t vote for a bill that wasn’t cost-effective and revenue-neutral. Mark Begich came out of the meeting at the White House and said Obama put a lot of effort into allaying concerns regarding costs, apparently with success. Begich, like Wyden, is concerned about issues other than the public option itself, and doesn’t want the bill to live or die on the public-option issue (Wyden, Mr. Coop, has concerns about Obama’s plan, but they don’t appear to relate to the public option itself). I’m thinking Begich will vote for the public option if need be, and he’s probably not the only one. But I have a feeling that the meeting also sounded a bit like what Obama’s buddy Dick Durbin said in July – there’s a price you pay for being a member in good standing in the Democratic caucus. In other words, cloture, reconciliation, and the public option. Obama should make the threats: every Democrat must stand up, at the very least, for the concept of majority rule, just as the Republicans did when they ran the store.
New HELP Committee Chairman Tom Harkin said his Blue Dog colleagues don’t all like the public option but they won’t vote against it; he himself doesn’t insist on the option but he says we’ll get one. Reid likewise says he’s okay with coops – apparently Obama put out the word not to foreclose options yet, so as to avoid scaring off people like Snowe, but I don’t know how long they can do that. Other public-option proponents pushed their case today – coops are impractical because private insurers have sweetheart deals with local providers which would have to be broken up by statute, and that it is impractical also to have individual mandates without the public option, because then the insurers will own us all lock, stock and barrel; unless a coop is national or regional, with health coverage guaranteed permanently – a half-step away from the public option -- there will be resistance from the House.
Speaking of Blue Dogs: the AFL-CIO, which helped Lieberman win a historic victory as an independent, is now publicly pressuring him to pull his head out of his ass and help Obama on the public option.
A key word to watch for: McCaskill suggested that the public option be “handcuffed” so that it can’t expand and swallow up all the private insurers – something that was never going to happen anyway, but give them the language if it will nail down more Blue Dogs.
And let’s all remember how much Obama has compromised already: the infamous “death panel” provisions that had nothing to do with death panels, the tort reform, the four-year timeline Obama announced, and another fact that Obama reminded us of: the public option IS the compromise, a huge retreat from the single-payer plan we really need.
The House may finish up a bill by the end of September. After the Finance Committee finally approves a bill (after more GOP footdragging), Reid will grab it, reconcile it with the HELP bill, and try to get it to the Senate floor by early October (cue more footdragging). Reid is okay with reconciliation, he thinks the Democrats will hang together on filibusters, and he expects a bill by Thanksgiving. “The Hill” thinks that Obama’s exhaustive effort to reach out to the GOP even now, is just a set-up for the reconciliation option later, on the grounds that Obama got as far as he could on the bipartisan track.
Obama has a clear political path here: stay in full campaign mode until the bill is passed, attack the insurers and increase the entirely justified public fear of them, and bash the liars and ruin their credibility so no one listens to them in November. Then plow them into the ground with the reconciliation option, just as they did to us with Bush’s asinine tax cuts for the rich.
Because, taking that path, Obama has 100 percent chance of passing the public option.
New HELP Committee Chairman Tom Harkin said his Blue Dog colleagues don’t all like the public option but they won’t vote against it; he himself doesn’t insist on the option but he says we’ll get one. Reid likewise says he’s okay with coops – apparently Obama put out the word not to foreclose options yet, so as to avoid scaring off people like Snowe, but I don’t know how long they can do that. Other public-option proponents pushed their case today – coops are impractical because private insurers have sweetheart deals with local providers which would have to be broken up by statute, and that it is impractical also to have individual mandates without the public option, because then the insurers will own us all lock, stock and barrel; unless a coop is national or regional, with health coverage guaranteed permanently – a half-step away from the public option -- there will be resistance from the House.
Speaking of Blue Dogs: the AFL-CIO, which helped Lieberman win a historic victory as an independent, is now publicly pressuring him to pull his head out of his ass and help Obama on the public option.
A key word to watch for: McCaskill suggested that the public option be “handcuffed” so that it can’t expand and swallow up all the private insurers – something that was never going to happen anyway, but give them the language if it will nail down more Blue Dogs.
And let’s all remember how much Obama has compromised already: the infamous “death panel” provisions that had nothing to do with death panels, the tort reform, the four-year timeline Obama announced, and another fact that Obama reminded us of: the public option IS the compromise, a huge retreat from the single-payer plan we really need.
The House may finish up a bill by the end of September. After the Finance Committee finally approves a bill (after more GOP footdragging), Reid will grab it, reconcile it with the HELP bill, and try to get it to the Senate floor by early October (cue more footdragging). Reid is okay with reconciliation, he thinks the Democrats will hang together on filibusters, and he expects a bill by Thanksgiving. “The Hill” thinks that Obama’s exhaustive effort to reach out to the GOP even now, is just a set-up for the reconciliation option later, on the grounds that Obama got as far as he could on the bipartisan track.
Obama has a clear political path here: stay in full campaign mode until the bill is passed, attack the insurers and increase the entirely justified public fear of them, and bash the liars and ruin their credibility so no one listens to them in November. Then plow them into the ground with the reconciliation option, just as they did to us with Bush’s asinine tax cuts for the rich.
Because, taking that path, Obama has 100 percent chance of passing the public option.
Scare tactics in the House chamber?
Things are just going from bad to worse for the GOP today. Their talking point du jour – that it’s Obama who was partisan last night – fell flat. So did Steele’s claim that Obama’s plan is a socialist power grab. Another talking point from last night, those documents that the Republicans were waving, actually referred to the plan the GOP had proposed in the spring, which involved…the exact same exchanges Obama was talking about in his speech, which begged the question of what the hell they were protesting about. By the same token, the guy who delivered the GOP rebuttal last night, insisting that Obama must scrap the whole plan and start from scratch, admitted today that the GOP agreed with 80 percent of his plan, which begs the question – so why start from scratch? If 80 percent is just fine, why did the party tell the whole country that the Obama plan is the greatest threat to democracy since the Soviets? And one of the other astoundingly rude Republican from last night, John Shimkus, who stomped out of the House chamber in the middle of the speech, wussed out today and sent his spokesman out to face the music – Shimkus stomped out because he didn’t like Obama’s “tone”.
And that’s before we get to Joe Wilson, this year’s analog for discredited confrontational bully Joe the Plumber, the friend of teabaggers and insurers and the Confederate flag. Wilson is on the run, possibly because the House may censure him after all; he was an unexplained no-show at a friendly teabagger rally today. His two biggest fans right now: Mark Sanford, because all of South Carolina is staring at Wilson now, and Obama, because Obama’s million-man army is now as energized as they were a year ago today, thanks to Wilson.
And the Dow, arbiter of the sentiments of capitalist, corporate America, didn’t recoil in horror at Obama’s speech. The Dow jumped up 80 points today. So it ain’t the coming of the Communist Internationale, notwithstanding all the screeching from the increasingly desperate GOP. Even Wall Street isn’t listening to the GOP. Wow!
But go back to this Shimkus/Wilson thing, which raises a question: if you look back at the tape, it wasn’t just Wilson acting like a teabagger, it was the whole GOP caucus, booing, shouting, waving signs. Was this whole effort deliberate? The teabaggers have been going to the town halls to intimidate and frighten congressmen – were the Republicans trying to follow the same gameplan, to intimidate and frighten a black President in the House chamber in front of the whole country?
I mean, think through the implications of that.
And that’s before we get to Joe Wilson, this year’s analog for discredited confrontational bully Joe the Plumber, the friend of teabaggers and insurers and the Confederate flag. Wilson is on the run, possibly because the House may censure him after all; he was an unexplained no-show at a friendly teabagger rally today. His two biggest fans right now: Mark Sanford, because all of South Carolina is staring at Wilson now, and Obama, because Obama’s million-man army is now as energized as they were a year ago today, thanks to Wilson.
And the Dow, arbiter of the sentiments of capitalist, corporate America, didn’t recoil in horror at Obama’s speech. The Dow jumped up 80 points today. So it ain’t the coming of the Communist Internationale, notwithstanding all the screeching from the increasingly desperate GOP. Even Wall Street isn’t listening to the GOP. Wow!
But go back to this Shimkus/Wilson thing, which raises a question: if you look back at the tape, it wasn’t just Wilson acting like a teabagger, it was the whole GOP caucus, booing, shouting, waving signs. Was this whole effort deliberate? The teabaggers have been going to the town halls to intimidate and frighten congressmen – were the Republicans trying to follow the same gameplan, to intimidate and frighten a black President in the House chamber in front of the whole country?
I mean, think through the implications of that.
Obama on the attack, Republicans in retreat
The speech
Polls and reactions to the speech showed that, as a number of observers commented, it was a “game changer” and a “home run”. Obama found his voice, gave his best speech since the big one in 2004, defended the role of government and liberal ideas, conveyed the moral imperative of the issue, and increased the odds on passing real reform. He received dozens of standing ovations, and a focus group loved the speech and increased their support for his plan by 20 points. By offering a centrist, bipartisan vision including Republican ideas like tort reform, individual mandates, and a trigger requiring spending cuts if deficits are threatened, Obama showed that he was the grownup reaching out to the other side, while the Republicans were indulging in shrill lies and tantrums. He tried to split the conservatives who claim they want to work with him, from the wingnuts who want to kill any reform.
The Republican boors
The last time Obama did a major health-reform event, it was swallowed up by the Gates-police controversy. This time the media’s obsession with trivia worked hugely in Obama’s favor: the next day the story was all Wilson, Wilson, Wilson. The Democrats had been struggling to find a way to show what a bunch of dishonest thugs the Republicans were, and the Republicans proved their point for them, with Wilson’s outburst, and with the other Republicans booing during the speech, shouting, laughing, waving signs, Eric Cantor ignoring Obama in favor of his Blackberry, and generally acting like frat-house buffoons. The contrast was striking: Obama the Grownup versus The Boneheads – and how did these yokels get elected in the first place? A Carolina Democrat said Wilson made the state look even worse than Mark Sanford had; Barney Frank said that the GOP outbursts betrayed their desperation; a focus group was appalled by the GOP heckling and the lies; one blogger bragged that Wilson’s antics persuaded his conservative father to join the Democrats. Pelosi wisely shot down a Democratic effort to sanction Wilson – let the people and the media crucify him instead.
And by the way, Wilson was dead wrong in the first place.
The Republicans are reeling. As it was, they had reached the point of diminishing returns with their lie/smear/attack strategy, and they were essentially out of rhetorical weapons of attack. But Wilson made things even worse: now, instead of spending the next 3-4 news cycles spewing lies and attacks at Obama, they will be forced to defend Wilson and the rest of the Wednesday-night buffoons. Most Republicans realize it was a bad night: the conservative Politico site admitted that Wilson’s boorishness could be a turning point for the Democrats, and even Bob Dole, the chief architect of the effort to kill Hillarycare in 1994, said that after a while people will start wondering – what are Republicans for? Some Republicans, of course, are clueless: Michael Steele insisted that it was Obama who brought the partisanship to the event, some Republican operatives were actually trying to exploit the Wilson’s “standing up to Obama” to raise money, and Eric Cantor, cornered by a reporter who wanted to know what compromises the GOP would put on the table, evaded the question and insisted that the public option must be killed. Meanwhile it was learned that Capitol Police arrested an armed wingnut who was trying to get onto the Capitol grounds during the speech, which only makes the wingnuts look even scarier.
The Fighter
Obama also showed that he’s a fighter who will call a liar a liar. EJ Dionne said that Obama stopped channeling Adlai Stevenson and came out like Truman. One by one he called them out on their lies: we won’t take away your favorite doctor, or blow up the deficit, or take away your Medicare. Four GOP Senators (Snowe, Collins, Bennett (Utah) and Gregg) actually applauded when Obama shot down the death-panel nonsense – wow! Sometime soon, expect the White House to rebut the lies spewed by Dr. Boustany in the GOP response to the speech.
Uniting the Democrats
Barbara Boxer met Obama after the speech, kissed him on the cheek and told him he hit it out of the park; Obama replied, loudly, “now let’s get it done”, with a look of determination on his face. He is in no mood for nonsense from the wingnuts – or from the Blue Dogs or liberals in his own party. The morning after the speech, Obama summoned 17 Senate Democrats to the White House woodshed for a talking-to. Most of the “invitees” have resisted the more polite appeals from Obama: Pryor, Lincoln, Warner, Shaheen, Landrieu, Bayh, McCaskill, Carper, Specter, Begich, Udall, Bennet, both Nelsons, Hagan, Kohl and Lieberman. Lincoln, incidentally, just nabbed a new chairmanship: did she have to make any commitments to Obama to get it?
Some of these Blue Dogs are already sounding more conciliatory: Nelson sounded more like a supporter of Obama’s plan than he had before the speech; Conrad liked the speech and said failure is not an option; McCaskill floated the idea of a “handcuffed” public option, to prevent it from turning into a full-blown “government plan”, whatever that means.
Meanwhile Nate Silver has new analysis showing that in most of those Blue Dog districts, the public option actually has plurality support. Also in Louisiana, Arkansas, New Mexico, Montana, Colorado, Iowa….And who are the Senators from those states?? All of which suggests that Obama should be able to nail these guys down.
Obama has also been signaling to the liberal wing of the party that maybe it’s time for them to stop giving him public ultimatums: Maxine Waters, leader of the liberals, said the liberals can’t just ignore the president, who’s showing his toughness; some people will back down. However, notice that it is the Blue Dogs, not the liberals, who are getting spanked today.
What’s next?
Obama will hold a health reform rally Saturday in Minneapolis; in his hand he will have a copy of the latest census report which shows that the number of uninsured is now 46.3 million. Obama’s popularity spike won’t last forever, which may be why Biden said he expects a bill by Thanksgiving, driven by an LBJ-like effort by Obama to get it passed; Plouffe, echoing Obama, said it must happen this year, or else the cause of reform could be delayed for years. So expect heavy volumes of footdragging activity by McConnell and the Republicans.
Obama, at the very least, insists that everyone must have access to affordable care; Axelrod believes the final bill will have some sort of public option, possibly with a trigger, and Joe Klein thinks Obama will get a bill this year, pretty close to what he proposed. The New York Times suggested that it’s too soon to abandon the public option, and it should only be traded away for significant vote support, and with a trigger. The White House told liberals that the climate for the public option might be better later in the process, rather than earlier.
Then again, Schumer is talking publicly about simply shoving the public option through the reconciliation process, and that may be what Obama is talking to those 17 Senators about.
Polls and reactions to the speech showed that, as a number of observers commented, it was a “game changer” and a “home run”. Obama found his voice, gave his best speech since the big one in 2004, defended the role of government and liberal ideas, conveyed the moral imperative of the issue, and increased the odds on passing real reform. He received dozens of standing ovations, and a focus group loved the speech and increased their support for his plan by 20 points. By offering a centrist, bipartisan vision including Republican ideas like tort reform, individual mandates, and a trigger requiring spending cuts if deficits are threatened, Obama showed that he was the grownup reaching out to the other side, while the Republicans were indulging in shrill lies and tantrums. He tried to split the conservatives who claim they want to work with him, from the wingnuts who want to kill any reform.
The Republican boors
The last time Obama did a major health-reform event, it was swallowed up by the Gates-police controversy. This time the media’s obsession with trivia worked hugely in Obama’s favor: the next day the story was all Wilson, Wilson, Wilson. The Democrats had been struggling to find a way to show what a bunch of dishonest thugs the Republicans were, and the Republicans proved their point for them, with Wilson’s outburst, and with the other Republicans booing during the speech, shouting, laughing, waving signs, Eric Cantor ignoring Obama in favor of his Blackberry, and generally acting like frat-house buffoons. The contrast was striking: Obama the Grownup versus The Boneheads – and how did these yokels get elected in the first place? A Carolina Democrat said Wilson made the state look even worse than Mark Sanford had; Barney Frank said that the GOP outbursts betrayed their desperation; a focus group was appalled by the GOP heckling and the lies; one blogger bragged that Wilson’s antics persuaded his conservative father to join the Democrats. Pelosi wisely shot down a Democratic effort to sanction Wilson – let the people and the media crucify him instead.
And by the way, Wilson was dead wrong in the first place.
The Republicans are reeling. As it was, they had reached the point of diminishing returns with their lie/smear/attack strategy, and they were essentially out of rhetorical weapons of attack. But Wilson made things even worse: now, instead of spending the next 3-4 news cycles spewing lies and attacks at Obama, they will be forced to defend Wilson and the rest of the Wednesday-night buffoons. Most Republicans realize it was a bad night: the conservative Politico site admitted that Wilson’s boorishness could be a turning point for the Democrats, and even Bob Dole, the chief architect of the effort to kill Hillarycare in 1994, said that after a while people will start wondering – what are Republicans for? Some Republicans, of course, are clueless: Michael Steele insisted that it was Obama who brought the partisanship to the event, some Republican operatives were actually trying to exploit the Wilson’s “standing up to Obama” to raise money, and Eric Cantor, cornered by a reporter who wanted to know what compromises the GOP would put on the table, evaded the question and insisted that the public option must be killed. Meanwhile it was learned that Capitol Police arrested an armed wingnut who was trying to get onto the Capitol grounds during the speech, which only makes the wingnuts look even scarier.
The Fighter
Obama also showed that he’s a fighter who will call a liar a liar. EJ Dionne said that Obama stopped channeling Adlai Stevenson and came out like Truman. One by one he called them out on their lies: we won’t take away your favorite doctor, or blow up the deficit, or take away your Medicare. Four GOP Senators (Snowe, Collins, Bennett (Utah) and Gregg) actually applauded when Obama shot down the death-panel nonsense – wow! Sometime soon, expect the White House to rebut the lies spewed by Dr. Boustany in the GOP response to the speech.
Uniting the Democrats
Barbara Boxer met Obama after the speech, kissed him on the cheek and told him he hit it out of the park; Obama replied, loudly, “now let’s get it done”, with a look of determination on his face. He is in no mood for nonsense from the wingnuts – or from the Blue Dogs or liberals in his own party. The morning after the speech, Obama summoned 17 Senate Democrats to the White House woodshed for a talking-to. Most of the “invitees” have resisted the more polite appeals from Obama: Pryor, Lincoln, Warner, Shaheen, Landrieu, Bayh, McCaskill, Carper, Specter, Begich, Udall, Bennet, both Nelsons, Hagan, Kohl and Lieberman. Lincoln, incidentally, just nabbed a new chairmanship: did she have to make any commitments to Obama to get it?
Some of these Blue Dogs are already sounding more conciliatory: Nelson sounded more like a supporter of Obama’s plan than he had before the speech; Conrad liked the speech and said failure is not an option; McCaskill floated the idea of a “handcuffed” public option, to prevent it from turning into a full-blown “government plan”, whatever that means.
Meanwhile Nate Silver has new analysis showing that in most of those Blue Dog districts, the public option actually has plurality support. Also in Louisiana, Arkansas, New Mexico, Montana, Colorado, Iowa….And who are the Senators from those states?? All of which suggests that Obama should be able to nail these guys down.
Obama has also been signaling to the liberal wing of the party that maybe it’s time for them to stop giving him public ultimatums: Maxine Waters, leader of the liberals, said the liberals can’t just ignore the president, who’s showing his toughness; some people will back down. However, notice that it is the Blue Dogs, not the liberals, who are getting spanked today.
What’s next?
Obama will hold a health reform rally Saturday in Minneapolis; in his hand he will have a copy of the latest census report which shows that the number of uninsured is now 46.3 million. Obama’s popularity spike won’t last forever, which may be why Biden said he expects a bill by Thanksgiving, driven by an LBJ-like effort by Obama to get it passed; Plouffe, echoing Obama, said it must happen this year, or else the cause of reform could be delayed for years. So expect heavy volumes of footdragging activity by McConnell and the Republicans.
Obama, at the very least, insists that everyone must have access to affordable care; Axelrod believes the final bill will have some sort of public option, possibly with a trigger, and Joe Klein thinks Obama will get a bill this year, pretty close to what he proposed. The New York Times suggested that it’s too soon to abandon the public option, and it should only be traded away for significant vote support, and with a trigger. The White House told liberals that the climate for the public option might be better later in the process, rather than earlier.
Then again, Schumer is talking publicly about simply shoving the public option through the reconciliation process, and that may be what Obama is talking to those 17 Senators about.
Wednesday, 9 September 2009
Obama takes Blue Dogs to the woodshed
Tomorrow moderate Senate Democrats will report to Obama in the White House, where Obama will slap them around LBJ-style.
Finally.
Finally.
Support for Obama's plan jumps 14 percent
(CNN via TPM)
**UPDATE**
http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/09/09/top13.pdf
Reactions to speech -- 77 percent positive, 21 negative
Moving in the right direction? -- 70 to 27
Obama's plan -- 67 to 29
will Congress pass most of it? -- 75 to 24
**UPDATE**
http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/09/09/top13.pdf
Reactions to speech -- 77 percent positive, 21 negative
Moving in the right direction? -- 70 to 27
Obama's plan -- 67 to 29
will Congress pass most of it? -- 75 to 24
How Obama won the night
CNN reports that the all-important independents loved the speech. Obama sold it. By extension he sold the centrists – in other words, the folks in the middle who will decide all this.
How?
Obama portrayed the far left’s quest for single-payer, and the far-right’s quest for eliminating employer-based coverage, as the extremes, and then portrayed the public option as the centrist choice which is the least disruptive and the least scary.
He offered bribes to the centrist deficit-hawks like Conrad and the supporters of the trigger option, by pushing back the insurance exchanges and the public option for four years. He also placated centrists by stating that the public option must be self-sufficient and would only be available to the folks with no insurance.
More gravy for centrists: the requirement to buy insurance, the ban on cutting Medicare coverage, the HHS test plan for tort reform which can begin immediately, the promise to listen to all ideas, the openness to discussing coops and triggers, the appropriation of McCain’s catastrophic health care plan.
Also, the centrists will have the entertaining spectacle of the Obama team finally coming out to slap around the GOP liars, and making fools of them. First victim: that idiot Boustany. He makes Jindal look like Demosthenes.
Meanwhile, the progressives who were threatening to desert Obama in 2012 were mollified – they said he knocked it out of the park.
How?
Obama portrayed the far left’s quest for single-payer, and the far-right’s quest for eliminating employer-based coverage, as the extremes, and then portrayed the public option as the centrist choice which is the least disruptive and the least scary.
He offered bribes to the centrist deficit-hawks like Conrad and the supporters of the trigger option, by pushing back the insurance exchanges and the public option for four years. He also placated centrists by stating that the public option must be self-sufficient and would only be available to the folks with no insurance.
More gravy for centrists: the requirement to buy insurance, the ban on cutting Medicare coverage, the HHS test plan for tort reform which can begin immediately, the promise to listen to all ideas, the openness to discussing coops and triggers, the appropriation of McCain’s catastrophic health care plan.
Also, the centrists will have the entertaining spectacle of the Obama team finally coming out to slap around the GOP liars, and making fools of them. First victim: that idiot Boustany. He makes Jindal look like Demosthenes.
Meanwhile, the progressives who were threatening to desert Obama in 2012 were mollified – they said he knocked it out of the park.
why we are closer to passing the public option
Olympia Snowe, who was supposed to provide the 60th Senate vote in exchange for a trigger leading to a public option, now objects so vehemently to the public option that she wants all mention of it stricken from Obama’s speech – and without the public option as the ultimate goal, her trigger option is meaningless. Meanwhile a White House source has indicated that they are moving beyond the Baucus plan. So neither of the alternatives to the public option – Snowe’s trigger and Baucus’ coops – are going to get support either from the White House (which originally had been receptive to them), or the House of Representatives, or from Senate Republicans.
So that takes us back to the public option, which Obama already wanted anyway. The House may well pass a bill with the public option regardless of what happens next, and then dare the Senate to mess with it. In the Senate, Schumer is still planning to use the reconciliation tool: he insists on a strong national public option that is good to go on Day One. Obama still should have 50 votes for the public option too.
So that takes us back to the public option, which Obama already wanted anyway. The House may well pass a bill with the public option regardless of what happens next, and then dare the Senate to mess with it. In the Senate, Schumer is still planning to use the reconciliation tool: he insists on a strong national public option that is good to go on Day One. Obama still should have 50 votes for the public option too.
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