| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| Aaron Carroll | ||||
| ||||
Late note: I just had to add this video. Colbert is in rare form. Thanks to Davidson at Corrente.
As we all know from reading Daily Kos, anyone who dislikes Barack Obama must be a racist. Bruce Dixon, one of those terrible bigots over at Black Agenda Report, has taken a look at Obama's health care plan, and he does not like what he sees.
Based largely upon the failed model in place in Massachusetts since 2006, the Obama plan will require employers to provide coverage or pay a special tax. Everybody not covered by an employer will be required to purchase insurance under penalty of law, in much the same manner as you're currently required to buy car insurance.
As in Massachusetts, the health insurance plans people are forced to buy will cost a lot and won't cover much. In a July 20 National Journal article Dr. David Himmelstein says,And what of the so-called "public" option?“Nearly every day that he is in the clinic, Himmelstein says, he sees a patient who has problems paying for care "despite this reform.' Some of them had free care before the 2006 law took effect but are now expected to handle co-payments. If you're not poor enough to get a subsidy, say you're making $30,000 a year, you're required to buy a policy that costs about $5,000 a year for the premium and has a $2,000 deductible before it pays for anything. For substantial numbers of people, it's effectively not coverage,' Himmelstein said. The policy he described is about the cheapest Massachusetts plan available, according to the Physicians for a National Health Program report, which Himmelstein co-wrote.”
According to the Congressional Budget Office, the Senate version of the Democrats' pending health care legislation leaves 33 million uninsured and omits the public option altogether. The House version includes a “public option” estimated to cover only 10-12 million people, a number far too small for it to create price pressure on private insurance companies, while leaving 16 or 17 million uninsured. Instead of setting prices for health care, it will be forced to pay whatever the private insurers already pay, and perhaps more.As lambert at Corrente notes, the public option was sold to progressives as a program designed to enroll 130 million people. That turned out to be a lie. Liberals should consider that fib a deal-killer.
As private insurers use their marketing muscle to recruit younger, healthier people who'll pay for but not use their benefits, the public option will be a dumping ground for the customers they don't want... the middle-aged, the poor, those with pre-existing conditions. And of course the Obama plan's “public option' will be managed by contractors from the private insurance industry.
On teevee just now, Obama said that his plan will reduce health care costs and thus help to bring down the deficit. I see nothing in this plan that will reduce costs. The only way to make a severe impact in costs is to cut out the vampiric insurance industry. America pays twice as much as the French per capita for health care, for worse service. Dixon's conclusion:
It's hard to see what would be lost if this health care bill went down in flames, and we started over again next year.Here's where I disagree with Dixon. I can see what is lost: Political capital and political momentum.
Next year is an election year for Congress. Obama's poll numbers are falling and the Republican propaganda machine, now run by the maddest of their mad dogs, is having an effect on the populace. Never forget that, even after the Dubya disaster, a far larger percentage of the American population describes itself as "conservative" than "liberal."
The peculiarities of American politics dictate that genuine health care reform will occur only if the following conditions are met:
1. It is the first year of a new Democratic presidency.
2. Democrats control Congress.
3. Conservatism has temporarily lost appeal due to misgovernance.
Obama had all three conditions working in his favor. The perfect political storm. And he blew it.
8 comments:
In 2000 it was oil money stopping Gore from taking office - because of alternative energies.
This time around, it was pharma money bet against Hillary - and for a puppet - to stop meaningful healthcare reform from happening.
They knew it too that this was the time for it to happen.
They did blow it. Sad to see that the Democrats are just as corrupt and incompetent as the Republicans.
However one thing that I just don't get is why blame the Republicans for this debacle?
There is an extremely popular Democrat in the White House, there is a democratic house and senate. How is the mess the Republican's fault?
As a newly minted, or recently minted Independant I see problems with both parties but only one is the majority party now. What am I missing? (Not being a smartass, I sincerely want to know.)
Colbert in fine form.
This was written long before people had teevee, or even moving pictures, so one must interpolate a bit...
"The most unfailing herald, companion, and follower of the awakening of a great people to work a beneficial change in opinion or institution, is poetry. At such periods there is an accumulation of the power of communicating and receiving intense and impassioned conceptions respecting man and nature. The person in whom this power resides, may often, as far as regards many portions of their nature, have little apparent correspondence with that spirit of good of which they are the ministers. But even whilst they deny and abjure, they are yet compelled to serve, that power which is seated on the throne of their own soul. It is impossible to read the compositions of the most celebrated writers of the present day without being startled with the electric life which burns within their words. They measure the circumference and sound the depths of human nature with a comprehensive and all-penetrating spirit, and they are themselves perhaps the most sincerely astonished at its manifestations; for it is less their spirit than the spirit of the age. Poets are the hierophants of an unapprehended inspiration; the mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the present; the words which express what they understand not; the trumpets which sing to battle, ... Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world." (Shelley)
Obama blew it?
Or is he achieving his desired end?
Mandatory coverage at what ever price the insurance companies decide to charge.
Well, frankly, who knows at this point? Because it is a three way bank shot that is still developing.
What do I mean?
Obama has taken the lesson from the Clintoncare debacle that he should not impose an administration's pre-planned proposal onto Congress and force them to pass an exact program that he's designed.
For two reasons: most importantly, the Congress as an independent and co-equal branch of government to the executive bridles and bristles when ordered to do things in top-down fashion, and Congress is not as committed to carrying water for something they were excluded from in its creation. Secondly, by not making this HIS plan at this time, he takes away the propaganda device used to great effect against the Clinton proposal-- the mere labeling of it as the 'Clinton plan' caused majority opposition, even as the plan itself if stripped of the association with Clinton enjoyed majority support for its provisions.
So, Obama will allow a different House and Senate bill to pass, meaning the real crafting of the bill will occur in the reconciliation committee.
The reconciliation committee is free in principle to change, drop, or add any provision regardless of what was in either bill.
Only when we see the product coming out of the reconciliation process can any accurate assessment be made. All analysis prior to this is speculative, and should be routinely prefaced by the disclaimer, 'should this or that programmatic feature make it out of reconciliation, then...'
XI
Congress co-equal?
With the likes of Harry Ried backing down and apologizing and Nancy Pelosi too scared to start impeachment proceedings?
Funny, how the republicans in congress marched in lock step with Bush even as his popularity ratings were tanking.
Sorry, not buying it, Obama and the congressional democrats have sold out.
MM:
It doesn't matter whether Congress actually functions as the co-equal (or even superior, being an Article 1 creation) branch or not, or what its recent history is in that regard.
Because it is historical fact that, back in the Clinton effort, one key problem was that Pat Moynihan, then-chair of the finance committee, didn't like the process, being dictated to, and was very unhelpful to the effort, to the point of obstruction.
Assuming Obama has studied the problems contributing to the Clinton national health care proposal's defeat (and I'm certain that is the case), then he learned NOT to put his name on a comprehensive plan to avoid having the plan shot at and mudded up from day 1. If HE, Obama, wasn't going to write up the plan for Congress, then of course it would have to be written up by Congress (and then fixed during the process last phase, reconciliation).
Is Harry Reid some kind of malevolent ego-maniac who will challenge Obama out of pride? No, that's not my claim, nor was the prior Senate Majority Leader a big problem in the Clinton failure.
But you are already seeing Chairman Baucus' committee bottle-necking this thing. Whether Baucus is acting out of pride or hubris, or simply remaining loyal to those that bought him previously (the insurance industry), it is the Baucuses, not the Pelosi or the Reid, who are not Democratic Party loyalists or loyalists to the president to carry his water.
XI
Secondly, by not making this HIS plan at this time
Well, first of all, one could argue that the fact that Obama is pushing its passage so hard, and working so hard to exclude people from the process (i.e. single-payer advocates and the American people) means he has "put his name on it."
However, in either case, it's certain that once the bill is completed and passed, he will - as you are tacitly admitting with your qualifying phrase - take credit for the hard work done by others (just as he did in the IL State Senate). (Of course, he will then be burdened with its already- almost-certain failure, but that's another issue.)
Assuming Obama has studied the problems contributing to the Clinton national health care proposal's defeat (and I'm certain that is the case)
I'm not sure why you are certain of this, as there is no historical evidence that Obama has studied this or any other issue.
Whether Baucus is acting out of pride or hubris, or simply remaining loyal to those that bought him previously (the insurance industry), it is the Baucuses, not the Pelosi or the Reid, who are not Democratic Party loyalists or loyalists to the president to carry his water.
I guess you "forgot" that Obama, Reid and Pelosi are also bought and paid for by the insurance industries.
Only when we see the product coming out of the reconciliation process can any accurate assessment be made. All analysis prior to this is speculative, and should be routinely prefaced by the disclaimer, 'should this or that programmatic feature make it out of reconciliation, then...'
Getting the outcome we the people desire is much more effective if one performs as much analysis, does as much criticism, makes as much noise as possible as early as possible. Since what you are really saying is that you don't want this, I am declaring you to have passed what I like to call the "Brazille Point": the point where one's defense of Obama prompts one to exhort others to refrain from performing their duty and responsibility as citizens of a representative democracy.
Sergei Rostov
Post a Comment