Thursday, September 17, 2009

DOA

Well, it's over: Max Baucus has announced that the health care bill will offer co-ops but no public option. Despite all of his capitulation to the Republicans, absolutely no Republicans will support his bill. And most liberals have come to hate the thing too.

I told you that Baucus would soon be one of the most detested politicians in America. In a recent post, I signaled that I might reconcile myself to this disappointing bill if the people in Congress I admire endorsed it. But they ain't buyin'.

Anthony Weiner
has declared the Baucus plan dead on arrival. He also has sagely noted that "Bipartisanship in health care is the political equivalent of a child looking for a unicorn.”

Russ Feingold -- who just a couple of weeks ago sent messages telling everyone to support the reform effort -- is pissed off:
“My goals for health care reform include a strong public option, long-term care reform and reform of the Medicare reimbursement system that has disadvantaged Wisconsin for far too long. I am disappointed that the Finance Committee bill, as written, comes up short on all three fronts. I hope my colleagues on the Finance Committee will change the bill to ensure it is not just health care reform in name only.”
Senator Jay Rockefeller has written the following about co-ops:
First, there has been no significant research into consumer co-ops as a model for the broad expansion of health insurance. Waht we do know, however, is that this model was tried in the early part of the 20th century and largely failed. As the USDA states in its response letter, "Government support for the cooperative approach to delivering universal health care was reduced during [World War II] and terminated afterward." This is a dying business model for health insurance. Moving forward with health insurance cooperatives would expose Americans who are hoping for a better health care system, to a health care model that has already been tried and largely failed in the vast majority of the country.
...all of the consumer health insurance cooperatives identified by the USDA and NCBA operate and function just like private health insurance companies. Therefore, it is unclear how expanding consumer health insurance cooperatives would actually achieve greater affordability for consumers or bring about greater competition in the private market. This further substantiates my point that health insurance co-ops are not a real alternative to private health insurance they are not a substitute for a strong public plan option, and we should not suggest to the American people that they would be.
The Congressional Budget Office agrees:
The proposed co-ops had very little effect on the estimates of total enrollment in the exchanges or federal costs because, as they are described in the specifications, they seem unlikely to establish a significant market presence in many areas of the country or to noticeably affect federal subsidy payments.
I could go on, but the point is made: Co-ops are a farce, a gimmick. And every decent person on Capitol Hill seems to be infuriated by the way this legislation turned out. Max Baucus and Barack Obama pissed away a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity -- and as a result, quite a few lifetimes will be abbreviated.

Here's the best line of the day -- from Gene Lyons, who (unlike Joe Conason) kept his head during 2008:
Democrats who cry racism risk looking like whiners fearful they're losing the argument. Not to mention illogical. If Obama's approval rating among white voters has dropped from 63 to 43 percent, as the Los Angeles Times recently documented, it's not because they suddenly heard about his African father.
Obama's drop in popularity among white people is not, in my view, due to racism. The true racists were never among that 63%. No, those sagging polls can be attributed to Obama's stances on domestic spying, the increasingly unpopular war in Afghanistan, the failure to fix Wall Street and -- especially -- the health care sell-out.

In 2008, many progs allowed themselves to be "racist-baited" into supporting Obama. But that smarmy tactic will no longer work.

How are the progs reacting to the Baucus/Barack sell-out? Well, this interview with Jane Hamsher is very revealing:



On one level, I think that this exchange is hilarious. These gullible, self-deluded lefties try very hard to blame Rahm Emanuel and anyone else who served in the Clinton administration. (When all else fails, blame Bill!)

"I've been calling Rahm Emanuel 'President Emanuel' for the past few days..."

Oh, for crying out loud. Stop scapegoating, stop blame-shifting, stop trying to save face, and stop living in a dream. For the better part of two years, I've been snapping my fingers and shouting "Wake up!" -- yet these hypno-programmed O-zombies refuse to exit the trance state.

It's not Rahm who's at fault -- it's Barack. He's a fake. A liar. Always has been.

Obama's NAFTA lie should have told the progs everything they needed to know. That sorry incident set the template for all that has followed. Anyone who saw Obama's imitation of Janus on that occasion would have predicted how he would screw up health care reform.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Failure was the plan.

Perry Logan said...

So much for the theory that progressives are smart. ;)

A quick Google check would have revealed that Sen. Obama voted for the Cheney energy bill--something no real Democrat would do.

glennmcgahee said...

Campaign finance reform? Who was it that decided not to take the public money after promising to do so and instead opted for ATT and corporate donations instead. It wasn't Rahm, it wasn't Clinton. It was Obama. Who said lobbyists would not have a seat at the table? Obama. They've been punk'd. They still can't admit it. ts just pitiful. Yea, I can't wait for the "changes" they expect Obama to make because he's being led around b the Clinton machine and doesn't know it. Why don't they admit that this is why we couldn't have Hillary. She would have fought for us, not the big money interests. They are pitiful. They know everything is upside down, they were used, they were gullible. But they can't admit they were also stupid.

MrMike said...

The delusion would be funny if it weren't so scary. Hampsher didn't get where she is by being stupid gullible. Imagine how much worse your every day O-bot is infected. How many O-bots will sit out 2010?
Thanks to Obama, Dems will lose more than the historical average number of seats to the opposition party.

Tony B. said...

I was lost on our president's health plan the moment the New England Journal of Medicine posted a comparison of his screed and Clinton's alternative. They were pretty adamant from the get go that Obama's co-ops wouldn't work. If people wanted a public option they should have voted for Hillary. I was opposed to her foreign policy suggestions but her domestic battle plan was pretty damn good.

I think it's wrong to assume that an elected representative will do anything too decisive on their own initiative. This has never been the case. FDR was pressured by activist outside of the beltway to make substantial reforms. It's true that he was more than receptive to these demands and he should be commended for it. But to expect a president to bestow privileges upon the populace like Augustus did with bread and circuses is un-American and wholly undemocratic. If people don't like things as they are they must get off of their collective asses and plop it in their reps' and senators' lobbies and refuse to leave until they get satisfaction. This is how democracy works. And this is the only way to counter a billion dollar industry with thousands of lawyers, lobbyists, pundits and canards.

Anonymous said...

I've belonged to Co-ops my whole life. Group Health in the Seattle area is great. If I were to feel sick right now, I could call and get in to see a Dr. If I get sick at midnight, I could go to the 24 hour urgent care. It all costs me $15 per visit no matter what. I had my tonsils out, $100. I had a CAT scan, $15. And so on. It's great...

DancingOpossum said...

"I was opposed to her foreign policy suggestions but her domestic battle plan was pretty damn good."

I think every major candidate was identical on foreign policy (i.e., all identically horrible) but yes, if you wanted serious and well-thought-out plans for domestic issues, Hillary was your man, er, woman. She's a hell of a lot smarter than harder working than Obama, too, all things that seemed really damn obvious to me and the other Hillary supporters during the primaries.

Everything -- every single damn thing -- in Obama's record predicted that we would be where we are, right now, that he would be exactly what we're seeing. But the Obots were too busy chanting their Obama hymns and foaming at the mouth and screaming "racist", I guess, to bother with Teh Google.

Anonymous said...

Perry -


An Obot on TM replied Obama did this because of the ethanol industry and the jobs it provided.

To which I replied, "Oh, so he voted to give taxpayer money to Big Ag, support a technology which consumes 4 times the energy it produces, and drive the price of corn up so as to cause more people to starve? How nice."

----------

Tony -


FDR was pressured by activist outside of the beltway to make substantial reforms. It's true that he was more than receptive to these demands and he should be commended for it. But to expect a president to bestow privileges upon the populace like Augustus did with bread and circuses is un-American and wholly undemocratic. If people don't like things as they are they must get off of their collective asses and plop it in their reps' and senators' lobbies and refuse to leave until they get satisfaction. This is how democracy works.


In keeping with this notion, FDR once said, "I'm not going to [just] do what you want me to do - you have to MAKE me do what you want me to do."


Sergei Rostov