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When Republicans Attack
The battle on health care reform turned considerably testier last week. Obama's public approval rating on the issue fell, polls showed Americans growing leery of changes in their health care, and Republicans and their corporate allies (or am I being redundant?) mobilized their followers to show up and disrupt public town hall meetings of a number of Congressional Democrats. In Maryland's 1st District, protestors went so far as to hang first-term Rep. Frank Kratovil in effigy.
What the hell is going on?
It's easy enough to point to those spreading outright lies on the issue (such as Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and most of the Republican leadership in Congress), or those nominally-public groups organizing the disruptions (like former Republican Congressman Dick Army's corporate-funded Freedom Works), as the source of the problem. But that's just stating the obvious - and skimming the surface.
Because after pondering the deer-in-the-headlights reaction of many of our "public leaders" at these meetings (I'm not confident they could lead the public out of a paper bag, if necessary), what struck me was: where are all the people who actually want our health care system changed? All the folks who are sick and tired of being screwed by insurance companies, of being denied coverage even when they have insurance, or of paying sky-high prices for drugs while pharmaceutical companies make out like bandits? Where are they?
I'm not even talking about organized liberal or progressive groups, although as many have noted it would surely be helpful if they attended the meetings as well. I'm just talking about the general public. I've been at public meetings before with unruly individuals, and I can assure you if the majority really want to hear the presentation, if they are truly engaged, they will find a way to shut up the disrupters themselves.
Therein, I believe, lies the problem: the vast majority of Americans who care about this issue are simply not engaged.
And can you blame them? How many people reading this column, for instance, could describe what's being debated in Congress in any greater depth than vague concepts such as "public option?" Who can name the basic operating principles behind any competing plans, or how insurance companies will be reigned in, or how drug costs will be controlled? Who has any real idea what the final deal will cost, or who will get the bill?
Hell, the Congressional Democrats I've seen interviewed recently can't even explain it. Yet we are being urged by them and President Obama to support "reform" - without having any real idea what that means. How excited can anyone get about that?
Worse still, for anyone trying to pay attention, you can't help getting the sinking feeling this particular "debate" is rigged and, not unlike the Wall St. bailout, when it's all said and done those who are causing the problem will remain firmly in charge.
Surely most Americans realize the elected officials making this momentous decision in Congress are simultaneously taking large sums of money from the insurance and drug companies. Do you need to be a health care specialist to understand that when the U.S. Senator who has the greatest power over any negotiated agreement, Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus (D-Montana), received more than $3.9 million in campaign contributions from the insurance and drug industries in the last six years, something is terribly, terribly wrong? (Figures courtesy of the Center for Responsive Politics.)
Now it seems that President Obama is in on the game too, as it was recently revealed by the New York Times that his White House has been having secret meetings, and possibly cutting some sort of deal, with former Democrat Congressman - turned- Republican-turned-corporate exec Billy Tauzin, the head honcho at Pharma. (The same guy who negotiated his multi-million dollar salary while he was in Congress crafting the Medicare prescription drug plan - which worked out quite well for the drug companies, thank you very much.)
Such meetings are a 180 degree reversal of Mr. Obama's campaign promises, which included not only going after the pharmaceutical industry (as opposed to cozying up to them), but also holding any health care negotiations "on C-Span" so people could see who was advocating for them and who was advocating for corporate profit.
Adding significant insult to injury, the Obama Administration has now resorted to the Bush-Cheney ruse of refusing to make public the White House visitor log - just like when his predecessors wouldn't tell us which oil company execs were "advising" their energy policy.
So politics, it appears, continues as usual. Can you blame people for losing hope - or at the very least interest?
The sad truth is that Democrats have mostly themselves to blame for this current morass. If they had been willing to regularly articulate and forcefully defend the huge success of Medicare for the past 40 years, they wouldn't have to be dealing with so many frightened - and frightfully uninformed - people right now, such as the gentleman at a recent town hall meeting who demanded his representative "keep your government hands off my Medicare!" (Medicare is, of course, the 100% government run health care program for the elderly.)
And if Democrats were willing to discuss, let alone advocate, the obvious and logical extension of Medicare, a single payer health care plan for all Americans, there would at least be a coherent, understandable progressive vision for health care that ordinary Americans (not the folks who listen to Glenn Beck, but the rest of us) could unite around at these town hall meetings. But despite its support by large majorities of the American people, President Obama and the Democratic Party leadership have ruled single-payer "off the table" from the get-go.
And if the Democrats had ever done anything real on campaign finance reform, they wouldn't be looking at leading members of their own party being just as bought off by the health industry as the average Republican.
But none of this has happened, so instead we have the spectacle of Obama and the Democrats in Congress - who control Congress, lest we forget - compromising right and left (but mostly right) on health care since the debate began. And they continue to seek "bi-partisan" agreement and "industry buy-in" even as the Republicans are telling them to shove it, and the health care industry mounts campaigns against reform.
And what's their response to this latest round of town hall bullying by the minority party? Incredibly enough, many Democrats appear to be backing away from the public option altogether - the only policy shard that makes any health care reform package even marginally worthwhile.
The late, great Senator Paul Wellstone (D- Minnesota) once said "If you don't fight hard enough for the things you believe in, at some point you have to realize you don't really believe in them."
Can you name anything - anything - in this health care battle that Democrats have been willing to fight for? Like really go to the mat for?
Given their unwillingness to fight for anything, is it not possible that they are actually more or less okay with the health care system the way it is, their protestations to the contrary notwithstanding? A deal which for them includes not only their own generous government-funded health care coverage, but millions in contributions from the very health insurance and drug corporations they will leave in charge. Talk about having your cake and eating it too.
Of course Wellstone's quote applies to the rest of us as well, and the only thing that might put some fight back in the Democrats is if we constantly harangue them. Some right-minded members of Congress have managed to force a vote on single payer in the House in September. Make it your mission this August to contact your Representative regularly and demand that they vote for single payer health care. Tell your Senators too. Go to their town hall meetings, and to their offices as well, now that they are on break.
And when you talk to them or their staff, don't worry about their political calculations, or them you're okay with a weak public option. Just demand single payer.
Believe me, they will figure out how to find a compromise all on their own.
Gordon Clark is the former national Executive Director of Peace Action, the nation's largest grassroots peace and disarmament organization. He has also served as Field Director for Public Citizen's Congress Watch, and ran for U.S. Congress in 2008 in Maryland's 8th District.
27 Comments so far
Show AllClark sez: "Can you name anything - anything - in this health care battle that Democrats have been willing to fight for? Like really go to the mat for?"
***
Yes:
Big Pharma and the wealth insurance corporations.
"Big Pharma and the wealth insurance corporations."
Yes, and most of all they are willing to fight for their own re-election, or high paying lobbyist job after losing said election.
So we see, they DO represent something after all.
yup,
its called greed..as in right here:
http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/good-doggie-blue-dogs-rewarded-substa
crooks got handsomely rewarded by big pharma, and insurance companys..
I think the FIX has been in from the start. I think the reason HR 3200 is so long (over 1,000 pages) and complicated is purposely to prevent us from being engaged. That way, Obama, the Blue Dogs, and other Dems can cut deals with Big Insurance & Big Pharma to protect the current corrupt system while claiming they "reformed" health care so as to keep the Dem majorities in 2010 and 2012. The RepubliKKKlans are, wittingly or unwittingly, aiding this cruel deception by their out of control, extremist attacks on Dems.
This morning on a Sunday talk show, Obama's HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius stated that the public option is "not the essential element" of the administration's health care reform
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/16/sebelius-public-health-ca_n_260511.html
We are not fooled.
The Democrats did all the attacking and trashing of single payer and public option for the people. The Republicans are only cashing in on the Democrats' weakness. The author ran for Congress, most likely a Democrat, last year and his partisan bias shows. I don't like the Republicans but I don't like the Democrats playing victim and blame either.
Sorry, Mr. Clark, but I think you've got it almost exactly backwards. It's not because they don't understand the details. Frustration is growing because many are beginning, perhaps slowly, to understand the underlying problem in greater depth.
With that deeper understanding comes growing realization that traditional democratic processes and public forums no longer work to assure popular representation in the U.S., if they ever really did. So-called "representatives" have become almost totally indifferent to the will of their human constituents except insofar as the actual paid sponsors may require some residual semblance of "manufactured consent."
What you're looking at are just some glimpses of the manufacturing process. Not pretty, but the "masters of the universe" still seem to think the pretense is necessary, or at least convenient. Apparently, the disillusioned are increasinly becoming reluctant to participate in a "bipartisan" (actually unipartisan) sham.
Whether any consequential undermining of legitimacy will actually have any real impact on the outome, or even be recognized as such in a country where active protests are dismissed as mere "focus groups", seems highly questionable.
"Obama's public approval rating on the issue fell"
In the great words of our privous Vice Preesident when asked about the polls droping in favour of supporting the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan,,,
"SO"
Presisdent Obama needs to use executive power to pass National Health care option as a National Security Issue.
Everything pushed by Bush/Chenny that way to the tune of a trillion dollars a year for the military insdustrial complex supporting corporate oil company greed was never questioned.
Try it for 7 years, from a national debt of 3 trillion , Bush pushed us to 10 trillion before he left office, off the books, where were the complaints about worries and national debt, and paying for his wars.
Pay back is a bitch!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And her name is American Civilized Health Care Option.
Lets say, a trillion dollars a year, sounds good.
There is probably one thought common to almost all congressional Democrats and all congressional Republicans: When it all finally goes down in the United States, I'll be dead. So who gives a shit?
In all honesty, I'd have to admit that it's an attitude I'm beginning, against my conscious will, to share, although a part of me is quite interested in witnessing the final dénouement.
What went unwritten is how progressive are quite unwilling to effectively counter the SA like tactics of the health insurance industry dupes. It is well past time to stand up to the bullying tactics of these douche bags; after all, they are not in the sort of physical shape their brown shirted spiritual predecessors were.
"Hell, the Congressional Democrats I've seen interviewed recently can't even explain it. Yet we are being urged by them and President Obama to support "reform" - without having any real idea what that means. How excited can anyone get about that?"
I think you've found the hot button for the anger and opposition to the current round of reform. People know that this is going to cost lots of money. They also know that ultimately, it will affect their lives in a substantial way. They also know that their elected representatives, rulers, demagogues, and scoundrels don't have a clue about the total scope of the bills, or the unintended consequences that might come about.
Americans still believe, however naively, that this nation still belongs, and in some way is governed by the citizens. Having this "black box" of a program pushed so quickly has simply raised the ire of lots of people, conservative, liberal, and don't usually give-a-damn.
It's true that the democrats have rolled over, time after time, and they should be replaced.
But at the same time, the corporate media in this country has once again showed their ability to sabotage any reforms, no matter how ethical, that might begin to shift resources away from the rich. Healthcare "reform" will go down in history as a classic example of manipulating public opinion. This time it was done by:
1) Framing the issue without a single-payer option such that the liberal option was cut off leaving a lopsided debate between a centrist (public option) and right-wing approach.
2) Refusing to cover the actual policy proposals (as opposed to politics and strategies) and to provide the public with a general context for interpreting the policies (in terms of the overall budget; in relation to other countries, etc.)
3) Refusing to correct the blatant, fear-mongering lies coming from the republicans (death panels, socialism, etc.).
With a media this bad, I don't see how it's possible to elect decent democrats. People need objective information to make good choices, and our media doesn't come close to providing it.
Congress exists within a chamber perfectly sealed off from the lives of most people in the US. Nothing from the outside gets in.
You can write, you can phone, and you can email until you have set the lines of communication ablaze, but nothing, absolutely nothing will really get through to them. The doors to their minds were shut years ago.
There may be 60 members of the House whose thinking is rational. Russ Feingold is just about the only senator whose thinking is rational. Perhaps there's one more?
Now—what are the odds that the US will make any progress through such an inert government? Add that to the amazing number of irons the US has in the various fires all over the world. And to that add what the lobbyists spend buying members of congress.
How can this government possibly do anything for the good of the people who continue to fund it? Paying taxes is a crime.
Tell them, when you call, that you support all the pay raises they've voted for themselves and that you'll continue to support more of the same. That they will understand. And they'll feel grateful for your call.
I gather the problem is the current structure of the insurance industry not actual healthcare.
Single (Gvt) payer would not be much different than the very few Ins Co now in the market.
The current State by State regulation discourages Ins Co's from being innovative or even wanting to offer health ins
Open the market up on a national basis, Choose coverage item by item like a food cafeteria line. Buy individual coverages from different Co's.
You can see that single payer/public option is politically dead. But meaningful reform of the Ins industry is not and would have the support of the public that the others ideas do not.
If you're talking of taking regulation away from the states and giving the Feds total control, then yes, we could have many more options, especially in some states. If you're saying keep state control, but open sales to all states, then you'll see utter disaster in the making as states with poor regulations see a huge migration of companies to their states, with unbelievable catastrophe unleashed. Line by line coverage from different companies is idiotic. What a nightmare as companies argue which is responsible for which complication and/or multiple health problems.
Open the market up on a national basis, Choose coverage item by item like a food cafeteria line. Buy individual coverages from different Co's.
That's the most absurd idea I've ever heard in my life.
I agree!
That kind of mentality is what got us in this mess to begin with.
Coverage Item by Item sounds like Car Insurance, House Insurance....well as a consumer, I am not a car and not a house...you can replace a car or a house but you cannot replace a human being!
US health care needs to be fixed soon. We are almost at the point (meaning within the next 5 years or so) when it will cost only a few hundred dollars to completely sequence the genome of any person. Then every ailment will in insurance parlance be a "pre-existing condition". Even infections will fall into this category since some will be more susceptible.
If denial for pre-existing conditions isn't excluded by law this go around then health care will logically cease to exist.
Finally if you have to put up with for profit health care why cannot it be regulated like a public utility where the return on capital is limited to what is reasonable?
GAME OVER!!! We never had a chance against an Industry that is flush with OUR cash and well organized. Obama and the Wimpocrats never even put up a decent charade, let alone a fight and that is going to hurt them next yr. What has Obama done for all of us since he was elected? He gave Wall st. trillions , Detroit Billions and now he's getting ready to hand us all over to the Health Mafia on a silver platter and he'll have the chutzpah to call it reform. Is this really CHANGE we can Believe In? NO it's a shit taco being served up as Fillet Mignon. I'm not buying any.
Game Over, it sounds like you weren't for this from the beginning. In fact raising concerns is one thing but to say something like that sounds like you are just trying to play into the fear-n-scare tactics of the Rightwing Pessimist's...and I wouldn't doubt it if you are one of them, just to be persuasive!
I'm intrigued by the suggestion that Obama could accomplish things by administrative fiat using the security powers put in place by the Bushies. Just how far could that go?
Suppose for example he were to simply proclaim that WHEREAS etc etc....Medicare eligibility now begins at birth and ends at death...etc. That might bring matters to a dramatic head; outrage in Congress, stirring up the apathetic, the works.
Claims processing could start immediately while the gears slowly grind away on the scads of legal actions that would arise, which could take years to settle. The sheer momentum of the fait accompli might be just what the situation warrants.
Just wondering...
I thought we here at CD support and defend the Constitution, and demand that our President do as well. Not that any of them actually really do it...
We need another Constitional Convention - the Republicans and their corporate masters have destroyed this one.
Can somebody please pass me the aspirin? I have a terrible hangover with a splitting headache and nausea. I can't believe I drank so much Obadka.
Pjd - you don't like free choice anything. Your completely vested in Gvt control which you envision as being you in charge.
Never going to happen! So sad to bad
Half of the Democrats ARE Republicans. I haven't been to a town-hall meeting yet (but I will be attending one soon), and I've refrained from doing any online discourse lately as well. The reason is that so many hired trolls are out to reduce the level of discourse to that of a playground riot, and they've succeeded. All we see are outright lies and personal attacks, and anyone with any dignity at all would rightfully avoid such a fray. The problem is that THIS is the only discourse we have, and if we don't take control of it we are fucked. We want our tax money to cease being spent bailing out banksters, funding wars, and funding a prison industrial police state. We want universal health care for all, and we want it from THAT piece of the pie. And WE WANT IT NOW.
My blood is boiling, and I'm always surprised at how much further I can be pushed without snapping. This government, and lets just include all of 'civilization' along with it, is a lie. There is no democratic process, and no justice. There is no system in place which seeks to defend my life, my rights, or my security. In fact, the system in place was created to ruin my life, step all over my rights, and see to it that I have no security at all, so that I will work cheap. There is not one good reason to ally myself with any government or ideology (economic or religious) any longer. We are betrayed, and it is likely naivete' on my part not to have recognized it when I was ten years old.
From this point onward I am an enemy of the state, as long as the state serves corporate masters rather than the people of this country. Fuck all of the bastards, and may they rot in hell. From this point on I reject all I've ever thought I knew concerning political ideologies, religious ideologies, or economic ideologies. I've done the math. Count the dead. Which is responsible for more death, destruction, and oppression; Civilization or hunter gatherer societies? Which has more blood on its hands? White Americans or Native Americans? Which is the greater cause of death to civilians? Militaries or Terrorists?
The answer is obvious. Civilization is a lie if by that you believe it has anything to do with civil/rational discourse, bargaining, or polity. Violence is the very heart of the system, and slavery is its life blood. Wage slaves are cheaper than owned property, and you can pay them in company scrip while telling them that they're free. I'll take care of my own freedom, thanks.
You go Kogwonton! See your picture in a USPS soon?