Category: Health Care

No, It Needs Saying

Mike Lux at Open Left writes:

Look, this should be obvious, but apparently it’s not: when some big piece of our economy is really messed up, but some major corporate interest is making lots and lots of money off the system, if that corporate interest doesn’t object to the “reform” being proposed, whatever legislation being proposed will not solve the actual problem. The 98-0 votes that folks like David Broder love and extol, the bipartisan bill signing ceremonies that thrill the hell out of everyone in DC – they don’t actually solve or resolve anything important.

If Democrats take the easy path, and get that big bipartisan love fest on the White House lawn, health care will still be messed up in all the ways it’s messed up now: health care costs (and the federal budget deficit) will still be spiraling up and up, the number of uninsured will keep going up as well, people who lose their jobs or have pre-existing conditions will still be priced out of the ability to get insurance. And instead of congratulating us for our great bipartisan compromise, voters will be pissed. President Obama and Congressional Democrats need to grit their teeth and stick to the business of comprehensive reform. It will make the insurance companies, and the Republicans, really mad. But failing to actually solve the problem AGAIN is a train wreck. Stick with it, folks, put your noses to the grindstone, and do what needs to be done.

It does need to be said. Now, it isn’t a surprise to anyone who is paying attention to the degree that, say, liberal bloggers are paying attention. But there is a clear inability for Democrats in Washington and insider organizations to see the forest from the trees here. At some point, this thing either needs to have teeth or it needs to be put on hold until the votes are there to pass something with teeth. In effect, what Lux is saying is a direct rebuttal to the Baucus strategy to get a bipartisan bill (supported in strong terms by President Obama). As Matt Yglesias notes, Baucus is uniquely responsible for deflating progressive passion for healthcare reform.

Lux’s point brings me back to something that I have often felt and said regarding Democratic politics in Washington. This is a situation where there are two possible explanations for the pursuit of a bipartisan resolution that makes everyone happy. The first, which seems to be what Lux is implying, is that some people in DC just haven’t noticed that this path won’t produce meaningful change and as a result, Democrats may well be punished for not getting the job done on healthcare reform. The second, which I think is the correct explanation, is that many Democrats simply do not believe that a failure to dramatically change the realities in healthcare insurance and delivery in America with new legislation would not be a legislative failure. They have a vested interest in the continued prosperity of the health insurance industry, the pharmaceutical industry, and the private hospital industry (among others). As such, they don’t seek to help everyone if it comes at the expense of their donor base.

Sadly, the outcome of healthcare reform legislation seems to be controlled to a greater degree by the empowered conservative Democratic minority in the Senate and House, under the guidance of Max Baucus, Mike Ross, and with peripheral messaging support from a President who mistakenly continues to embrace the goal of bipartisanship over efficacy in healthcare legislation.

MLN Interview with Senator Dodd

Senator Dodd speaks to the MyLeftNutmeg community about his current health issues, reforming healthcare, and the importance of having good coverage and regular checkups. The video was shot by Connecticut Man1, a disabled vetern who writes his own blog on CT politics, as well as regularly contributes on MLN. He talks with Dodd about the possibility of a single payer healthcare system. Dodd points out that he has to deal with the realities of the Senate and getting a public option through is going to be hard enough. He prioritizes getting reform done now over holding out for single payer. Dodd recognizes that this healthcare legislation isn’t going to be the end of the debate on healthcare reform. He closes with the promise that “more will happen in years to come.”

Pushing Back on Rightwing Lies

One of the problems we’ve face in the healthcare fight is the relative silence from the White House regarding what the positive output of Congress on reform legislation should be. While there can be a thorough discussion of the merits and flaws in this silence on positive legislation, there shouldn’t need to be any dispute that the administration would be best served by responding to smears of President Obama and the policies he is pushing (or not pushing).

The video above is an example of good work by the White House to rebut smears that the rightwing has used to create a sense of fear in their rabid base. Linda Douglass, who leads WH communications on healthcare, responds to the false accusations that President Obama is seeking to abolish private health insurance and is pushing for legislation that would prevent individuals from choosing their own doctors. Obviously both are false and Douglass does a good job of going point by point to defend Obama. What is even more effective is the video features cuts of President Obama himself stating clearly what he thinks reform should and should not do. Not surprisingly, the rightwing doesn’t have much legs to stand on when they are left dealing with facts and not fantasies.

Calling Out Blue Dogs

Paul Krugman offers one of the best analyses of how the Blue Dogs operate and how incoherent their objections to healthcare reform are.  It’s rare that politicians policy statements, especially conservative ones, are evaluated next to each other. The words “fiscal responsibility” are adeptly wielded by Blue Dogs and, generally speaking, the press allows them cover behind them. But Krugman doesn’t.

Well, they talk a lot about fiscal responsibility, which basically boils down to worrying about the cost of those subsidies. And it’s tempting to stop right there, and cry foul. After all, where were those concerns about fiscal responsibility back in 2001, when most conservative Democrats voted enthusiastically for that year’s big Bush tax cut — a tax cut that added $1.35 trillion to the deficit?

But it’s actually much worse than that — because even as they complain about the plan’s cost, the Blue Dogs are making demands that would greatly increase that cost.

There’s much more beyond that, but you get the idea. It’s a truth-telling session. Hopefully many officials in the administration, Senate leadership, and the House read Krugman’s piece and see the need to pressure Blue Dogs to stay with the party line.

More importantly, hopefully other journalists see Krugman’s column and begin to question Blue Dogs who cry fiscal responsibility while pushing for policy measures that will make healthcare reform legislation substantially more expensive. Right now the debate is being dominated by people who aren’t making any sense. And yet they’re holding the House Energy and Commerce Committee hostage, while the Finance Committee in the Senate continues to stall. Together, incoherent conservative Democratic legislator are stopping reform and killing momementum for change.

It’s not as if these legislators aren’t hearing from their constituents that they should support meaningful reform, including a public option. MoveOn, Healthcare for Amerian Now, SEIU, and Organizing for America, among others, have been driving hundreds of thousands of legislative contacts in support of reform. But as Krugman points out, these Blue Dogs are more loyal to their corporate donors and caucus self-interest than their constituents.

Another sure way for the Blue Dogs to lose their influence in this process is if the Progressive Caucus came together to make themselves a comparable obstacle to any legislation that isn’t suitably aggressive in driving reform. Given a counterweight, the Blue Dogs would no longer control the narrative nor the legislative process. This requires a stronger push from progressives to define their lines in the sand…and for a simultaneous effort to let leadership know that they have to make a choice between defending Blue Dogs while getting no meaningful change and defending progressives while achieving landmark reform. The choice shouldn’t be hard, but you never know with today’s Democrats.

Hell

John Aravosis of AmericaBLOG reveals how hell isn’t other people, just dealing with your private health insurance company.

Someone remind me how the greatest concern people on the right have now is that a government official might come between a patient and their doctor, but none of these people seem to give a rats ass when an insurance company does it (for profit as part of their business model).

Presidential Certitude

Via Brian Beutler of Talking Points Memo, I really like the stand President Obama made this weekend on including the public option in healthcare reform legislation.

[A]ny plan I sign must include an insurance exchange: a one-stop shopping marketplace where you can compare the benefits, cost and track records of a variety of plans – including a public option to increase competition and keep insurance companies honest – and choose what’s best for your family.

This is key. It goes without saying that  the GOP efforts (under partnership with conservative Democrats in the House and Senate) to weaken reform includes not only stripping out the public option, but preventing key measures that would ensure affordability, and thus feasability of reform, from being included in the legislation must also be stopped. The public option is a huge piece of it and the one that has certainly received the most attention in public discourse, but it’s presence in the bill is not both necessary and sufficient for the bill to be successful.

Nonetheless, it’s good to see President Obama taking a firm stand at a time where anti-reformers seem to be gaining momentum to block progress as we near fruition.

CW FAIL: Healthcare Reform

Sometimes the extent to which Beltway reporters and the Republicans spinning them don’t get it is mind-boggling. This is from Robert Pear and David Herszenhorn of the New York Times, on the party line vote on healthcare reform legislation that passed out of the HELP Committee yesterday:

But the partisan split signified potential trouble ahead. Republicans on the panel, who voted unanimously against the measure, described the idea of a new public insurance option as a deal-breaker. They said they still hoped that a consensus bill would emerge from the Senate Finance Committee.

While massive energy has been exerted  — some of it by the White House — to create the idea that in order for a healthcare reform bill to pass and be successful, it has to have bipartisan support, this just isn’t true.

In fact, reform that includes a public health insurance option, near universal coverage, strong affordability and employer responsibility measures could pass out of both the House and the Senate without a single Republican vote. Democrats in the Senate don’t even need a single Republican to get past cloture: they have a 60 vote caucus.

As long as Majority Leader Reid and the White House are willing to treat the cloture vote on the final healthcare reform bill as what matters and enact total caucus discipline to get the bill an up or down vote, it won’t matter that Republicans don’t support it. On final passage the need for Republicans is even smaller – we just need 50 votes for it to pass (with Vice President Biden there to cast the deciding vote).

The only consensus that matters at this point is what Senators Reid, Dodd, and Baucus find as they work to finish the Finance bill and merge it with the HELP bill. The Republicans are effectively done in this process, which is clearly something that anyone who wants meaningful change through strong legislation can celebrate.

Dodd & Healthcare Reform

Health Care for American Now is running an ad thanking Senator Chris Dodd for his work on the HELP Committee to put forward legislation that includes a public health insurance option.

HCAN will have even more to thank for, as the HELP Committee has just passed  their version of the bill out of committee. Jonathan Cohn reports that in the end, Dodd chose putting out a good bill over a bipartisan one:

There will be a lot of commentary about the Committee’s failure to attract any Republican support; Christopher Dodd, who has been serving as chairman in Kennedy’s absence, expressed repeatedly his “regret” that bipartisan support proved elusive. But he also stated that he was content with the choice that he, and his fellow Democrats, made. “The important issue is a good bill,” Dodd said in a press conference after the vote. “I will not sacrifice a good bill for [the sake of bipartisanship.]”

Dodd went on to note that a weak bill, even one with bipartisan support, might be difficult to sustain, both during the congressional debate and afterwards. In other words, a weak bill would do less for the American people–and they would be less satisfied with it.

Are you listening, Max Baucus?

If the Senate ends up passing a final version of healthcare legislation that combines the HELP and Finance bills and includes a strong public health insurance option, it will be directly because of Chris Dodd’s leadership. His work kept this key component in the legislation and thus has kept it a reality moving forward. Kudos, Senator Dodd – you’ve more than earned the thanks of HCAN and many, many other Americans

Dodd Pissing Off Lobbyists

Via tparty, the Dodd campaign has put out a web video highlighting recent press where he has been anonymously attacked by lobbyists for healthcare industries and financial industries for not listening to their corporations’ concerns.

Here’s a link to the Roll Call article where health insurance lobbyists whine about Dodd not listening to them.

Here’s a link to an earlier story in Politico where financial sector lobbyists say the same thing.

And here’s a story from Mother Jones which explicitly lays out how Dodd is ignoring lobbyists for the industry most in play in his work on Banking and HELP committees.

I don’t think all of this makes Dodd a populist – a term I’m guessing he’d reject. I think this is Dodd just being the capital D Democrat that he is. He’s showing a strong recognition that he has the power to use his office to help working Americans in Connecticut and nationwide by passing legislation that really cements his legacy as one of the Senate’s true liberal lions. In this situation and in these tough economic times, Dodd is demonstrating that he will put the peoples’ interests ahead of corporations and lobbyists. I can hardly imagine a better way for Dodd to be conducting his business than the way he’s doing it now. Frankly, if lobbyists for Wall Street and health insurance companies are pissed off by his actions, you know Dodd is doing something right.