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If Obama Discards Public Option, What's Left of Reform?
When Barack Obama assumed the presidency, there was talk that former Democratic National Committee chair Howard Dean might be his Secretary of Health and Human Services.
That would have made Dean the administration's point-person in the fight for health-care reform.
It also would have increased the likelihood that reform would be real.
But Dean was rejected.
And, now, the prospect of real reform is fading fast.
Dean said last week at the "Netroots Nation" gathering in Pittsburgh that the only thing that made health-reform legislation proposed by House committees (and apparently backed by the administration) worth doing was the public option. In that legislation, the physician and former Vermont governor argued, "the last shred of reform is the public option."
Just days later, however, the administration appeared to be shredding that last shred of reform.
The Associated Press reports that, "President Barack Obama's administration signaled Sunday it is ready to abandon the idea of giving Americans the option of government-run insurance as part of a new health care system."
The woman who got the HHS job reform advocates had hoped would go to Dean certainly seemed Sunday to be jettisoning the idea of creating a government-organized alternative to private health insurance Sunday.
Appearing on CNN's "State of the Union" program, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius dismissed the public option as "not the essential element" of the administration's health care agenda.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said pretty much the same thing when he appeared Sunday on the CBS News program "Face the Nation."
"What the president has said is in order to inject choice and competition. . . people ought to be able to have some competition in that market," said Gibbs.
Pressed on whether the administration was abandoning the public option, Gibbs would only say that, "The president has thus far sided with the notion that that can best be done with a public option."
Startlingly, the clearest signal that the administration is preparing to jettison the public option came from Obama himself. Speaking at a town hall event in Colorado referred to the public plan as merely a "sliver" of his reform agenda and said: "The public option, whether we have it or we don't have it, is not the entirety of healthcare reform."
On this, Obama is right.
The public option has already been so dumbed-down and neutered that it is little more than a sliver.
The problem is that it may be the only sliver of real reform in his program.
Even with a robust public option, the president's initiative looks a lot like a bailout for the insurance industry --in stark contrast to the a single-payer reform that would replace industry profiteering with a not-for-profit system like Medicare.
Without a public option, there is no real reform.
Dean argued in Pittsburgh that: "The public option is (incremental reform)... But there is no incrementalism without the public option."
In fact, without the public option, the Obama approach -- and that of compromise-prone Democrats in Congress -- looks increasingly like a step in the wrong direction.
That's because the "reforms" currently under consideration threaten to undermine Medicare and Medicaid -- with radical cost-cutting schemes -- while steering hundreds of billions in federal dollars into the accounts of for-profit insurers and the pharmaceutical industry.
This is not "change we can believe in."
This is change that serious reformers will find "very difficult" to support, as Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Texas, said Sunday on CNN.
Johnson explained that progressives would have a tough time backing legislation that did not include a public option.
"The only way we can be sure that very low-income people and persons who work for companies that don't offer insurance have access to it, is through an option that would give the private insurance companies a little competition," explained Johnson, a former chair of the Congressional Black Caucus who once worked as the chief psychiatric nurse at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Dallas.
Johnson's right.
Without a robust public option, what the Obama administration and compromised Democrats in the House and Senate are talking about is not "health care reform."
It's "health care deform" that does not begin to address the crisis created by insurance-industry profiteering -- and that could well make the "cure" worse than the disease.
- Posted in
80 Comments so far
Show AllThe air is filled with mindless jibber-jabber.
Nothing will happen.
Follow the money.
Oh, man! I keep TRYING to follow the money. Someone keeps taking it!
Not much.
Let's see: If McCain palin had won, we'd be "bomb bomb bombing" Iran. Instead we are "bomb bomb bombing" Afghan/Pak. We're getting ready to "bomb bomb bomb" South America and those pesky leftist leaders down there.
On banksterism: McCain was against the bailout. Obama bailed out his bankster buddies. So we are WORSE OFF.
Health care "reform": McCain Palin would probably have done nothing. Obfraud will make it worse with mandatory insurance or giveaways to the insurance companies that will mean more money in their pockets, not less. So we are WORSE OFF.
Obfraud has lost the left, the right, the gays, probably the Latinos as of last week with his inane immigration comments, and with health care "reform," he'll lose the center and the indies.
Who's left? The willfully ignorant and the stupid.
The only ones who would have voted for McCain Palin anyway.
It's all a wash.
blair: don't under-estimate the power of the "willfully ignorant and stupid." They are the folks who voted for an empty suit with a pretty face and by God, they will keep him there. The "disillusioned" Obama supporters who inhabit the pages of CD comments are not your average "liberal" Americans (most of my friends) who will, at best, give you a dirty look if you breathe a word of criticism about their FAVORED ONE. Later this week Obama will be doing a "conference call" (pep talk) to a religious alliance in my town (Gainesville FL) and I predict the folks will in droves tune in just for the thrill of feeling that Obama is talking directly to us!
Jerry, you're right. Maybe these people who are showing up were so used to expecting less. I hope they know what they're really cheering for. I don't want to call it quits for Obama but his latest move to drop "public option" upsets me. I thought that he would eventually sign a health care reform package with at least a little bit of improvement but now it appears that even those hopes were terminated. I don't even know what Obama meant by hope or change anymore.
"The "disillusioned" Obama supporters who inhabit the pages of CD comments are not your average "liberal" Americans (most of my friends) who will, at best, give you a dirty look if you breathe a word of criticism about their FAVORED ONE."
You are absolutely correct! Most, if not all, of my friends quit replying to my e-mails -- about the many betrayals of Obama. Here on Common Dreams, I have found a solid community of people who can't, and won't, go along with the status quo. Most other so-called progressive websites, and their bloggers, still aren't ready to go 3rd party.
Kay Johnson; glad to hear you've found a 'solid community' here---not easy to find in the quicksands of this Land of Hope--never mind reality. Jerry
Why am I not surprised? First, keep single payer off the table. Next, make "public option" favorable to Big Insurance. After that, give Big Insurance more dictatorship. So now, a toothless bill to nowhere.
PS: Even my Uncle Stan who expected even a small reform to pass will be totally disappointed when he reads this article. :(
Jenny my sweetheart, don't forget to get back to the phones and dial your Congressman and demand single payer. I know your district has a hardcore Republican but you never know when even the worst conservatives can have a change of heart. Don't be upset. You still have a chance and the same goes for the rest of us.
We want a public option for health care reform in this country, preferably HR 676 or something comparable. We're held hostage, and I mean that pretty much literally, by big pharma and the insurance companies. Other nations can have socialized medicine. I cannot fathom the level of greed and class driven inhumanity that has made us this zombie beast of a country. I'll hold onto my hope - I see it in my family and friends. I see the spark of promise in my children's eyes. What act do you need to see? What further sacrifice from the poor and in the infirm? What does it take to get real reform in this nation?
You still have a chance to demand your member of Congress to vote yes to HR676. Read Ralph Nader's article from Saturday. He mentioned the number. This might be worth a shot. I'm giving my Congressman Cleaver an assertive ring.
If president Obama, who I voted for, caves on the "public option" part of the health care reform bill the American people will demand his resignation! I know I will.
American politicians, no matter how crooked, venal, perverted, lacking in conscience or ethics, do not resign under almost any circumstances. Obama isn't going anywhere. He has millions of dollars yet to make and squirrel away and he's as cunning as any yuppie can be. He still has three years and five months to laugh in our faces, screw us all over and then write a memoir declaring he never did any such thing.
mebadgett, I don't know what you're so riled-up about?
After all, universal public health care without the 'public opinion' is no different than anti-war without the 'anti'.
Alan MacDonald
Sanford, Maine
(a confident, four-time Nader voter, whose time is coming round at last --- for real revolution against this two-party 'Vichy' facade that has the balls to call itself democracy)
what obama is doing is classic:
BAIT AND SWITCH
BAIT with "reform" -
and then SWITCH BACK to business as usual...with EVEN MORE profits and control for and BY the corporate "health care" profiteers.
and then he calls it "competition".
but the CATCH WORD is:
"MARKET".
everything is FOR SALE - including one's soul.
that's the 'merikan way.
and obama LOVES it. "i believe in capitalism, i believe in the free market"
he said:
HE DIDN"T have to ADD "but...there has to be responsibility"....
implying he was going after corporate responsibility
which, in reality, he's NOT.
if he is ANYTHING - he is a TEASE. BIG TIME.
what a waste of a man.
A Tease? You're being way too kind. He's a first rate LIAR, CON and WHORE all wrapped up in an eternally smiling slick everyman package. He was never for the public option. He just pretends to be and halfheartedly talks about the need for health reform, while he is busy behind scene reforming health insurance, to their benefit. The whole thing stank from the beginning when obama shuned Howard Dean. This will be a fatal mistake. The dems are plunging a stake into their own hearts. And I don't think the majority of Americans are ready to embrace the rethugs again any time soon. It's third party time.
I stand corrected.
you have the more precise description!
If Obama Discards Public Option, then we tax the filthy rich
three times more to pay their drug lords for our health care.
Nichols writes: "It's "health care deform" that does not begin to address the crisis created by insurance-industry profiteering.."
Sure it does! It mandates everyone become a customer! What do people think the insurance companies were buying with their campaign contributions? Notice the lack of talk (censorship even, i've experienced it) of Mandatory Insurance? Want to gum up a talk show? Mention the forbidden words. It's fun!
Outlaw Lobbying! Yeah that'll happen! The Supes can say Money is Free Speech but they've made a few other notable mistakes as well...Can the people wait it out? We're going to find out.
And it seems Paul Krugman is busy betraying Progressives as well ... He's calling the "No Public Option" the "Swiss Plan" and endorsing it ...
This follows his endorsement of the reappointment of Bernanke. The same Bernanke that has given away trillions in tax payer dollars to the banksters after allowing them to get even bigger by gobbling up brokerages and other banks while allowing investment banks access to the public trough by giving them a free FDIC guarantee and tens of billions in tax payer guaranteed loans.
Krugman has joined the dark side ...
The betrayals are coming fast and furious ... The one thing I know for sure is ...
You can't be a Progressive and Pro-Obama too ...
I watched the Frontline "Sick around the world" special last night. It seems that the Swiss and Germans have kept private insurance but that it has become completely nonprofit (in Germany) and basic care is nonprofit in Switzerland with only supplemental upgrades allowed to generate profit.
German and Swiss insurance companies have been subjected to some of the same rules currently being discussed in the US (can't refuse people or drop them, people keep insurance when unemployed) but there has been no discussion of making the U.S. system entirely nonprofit. No other nation it would seem has kept the profit in and been successful. Co-ops probably need to be the whole system and not just a new option.
The Swiss and the Germans are much more selfless and civic minded than Americans. The Swiss, for one, all volunteer for their military at various intervals throughout their lives. Profit and me, me, me, is not their mantra.
Consider this about Swiss:
the player in tennis that is considered by many as the greatest ever...Roger Federer...and certainly the very best since 2003 and has a record of such dominance in the sport - he just won 15 Major titles (the equivalent of Tiger Woods if he won 15 majors in golf) - has been number one almost continuously for five years now and plays sublime tennis and is a multimillionaire...
STILL had to serve his stint. probably excused from difficult positions - but still had to do his "military service" months spread over the years, as a swiss citizen .
since the USA loves to make wars -- how many Rich USA Kids have gone to war their parents subsidize, scheme to make and profit from?
oh - wait - it's like Dick Cheney "i had other more important priorities".........apart from CHEERING on wars and profits.
that's the american way.
Krugman supports free market ideology, and always has.
I have pondered this issue most of the night.
I believe we progressives must stay with the Democratic Party and become too active to be ignored. Since the Dems are a collection of state parties we need to work for better health care reform on the state levels arguing against any federal interference on how the states may deal with companies who wish to do business in the state. Until the federal gov't acts to expand medicare to every citizen regardless of age, we should continue fighting for this very important human right.
In the meantime, we should seriously consider the co-op movement for healthcare. It may turn into something as good as my credit union.
-- we progressives must stay with the Democratic Party --
Thank you! Thank you! This thread was doom and gloom until you wrote this.
But now I can't stop laughing!
The answer awaits us, all we have to do is lay claim to it. As the previous article points out, its simple, Medicare for all who wish to buy in.
To secure this option, we must be our own champion; don't rely on Congress or the President.
Show support for MEDICARE FOR ALL thru a HANDS ACROSS AMERICA rally for SINGLE-PAYER on August 23, 2:00(cst) at/on your local mainstreet.
The New Preamble to the Constitution:
We the CORPORATIONS, in order to increase more perfect PROFITS, establish SICKNESS and DISHARMONY, provide for the COMMON STOCKHOLDERS, DEMOTE the general welfare and secure the blessings of SERVILITY to our SERFS and their posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the HEALTH INSURERS of the United States of America.
John,
Even a robust public option is just corporate welfare:
Top Ten Reasons the Public Plan is a Bait and Switch
1. It leaves in place the deficient employer based model. As the National Organization for Women noted in their single payer endorsement (July 7, 2009) of the only viable reform model, single payer, many Americans are tied to jobs they don’t like because of the antiquated employer based insurance model. For those switching from one job to another, those wanting to go on strike, those wanting to quit a job, etc. it prevents the ability to move freely as a laborer.
2. It leaves private insurance, a major contributor to administrative inefficiency and bloated bureaucracy, in charge of health care decisions.
3. It only results in about 10% of the savings that would accrue were single payer to be enacted. That’s assuming 50% of Americans can enroll---an optimistic figure (Jacob Hacker’s assumption that Congress has drastically scaled back to a tiny plan). Since hospitals and doctors will still have to deal with 1300 insurance companies little savings will result by adding a public option, reports Dr. Don McCanne of the Physicians for a National Health Plan, March 26, 2009, www.pnhp.org. 24% of hospital budgets go to billings (only 12% in Canada) and this wouldn’t change under any version of the public option. As Drs. Steffie Woolhander and David Himmelstein note, the bureaucratic savings of the public plan option “would be miniscule”. (The New York Times, Room For Debate, June 18, 2009).,,
4. It does not pay for itself, unlike single payer, requiring a huge tax increase. As the State Legislators for Single Payer Healthcare (including initiating sponsor WI State Sen. Mark Miller) note there is “no increase in total health care spending” with single payer. Instead of everybody in, nobody out, an inclusive approach based on solidarity, public option pits the wealthy against poor, taxing the rich to provide subsidies to help poor people buy overpriced, insufficient private health insurance. In the mainstream media this is being framed as the liberals taxing the rich for their liberal plan to force everyone into big government care, when In reality, the tax proposal would be used to shore up the private insurance system, giving them more customers and higher profits. In her June 24 Congressional testimony, Dr. Woolhander estimated that it will cost 200 billion annually to pay for health insurance costs for those who cannot afford it. That’s a much larger tax increase on the wealthy.
5. It becomes part of the same failed private model: co pays, deductibles, denials of some necessary procedures, services and medications. Coverage and benefits will be similar to the private plans due to inability to control costs. (see no. 3) “The ‘Public Plan Option’: Myths and Facts available at www.pnhp.org and see the excellent analysis, “Health Care Reform 2009: A Train Wreck in Slow Motion by Dr. John Geyman, July 21, 2009 available at www.pnhp.org/blog.
6. It leaves millions uninsured. Mandates have already failed in states where it has been tried, mostly recently in Massachusetts. And, the model for a health insurance exchange, the Federal Employee Health Benefit Program, leaves hundreds of thousands of federal workers uninsured, and does not control costs (Nicholas Skala, Congressional Progressive Caucus testimony, June 4, 2009).
7. It segregates patients into two groups: healthy patients who will be aggressively pursued by insurance companies and sicker/older patients who will end up in the public plan. The public plan will not make private insurers honest. Private insurers compete by denying (necessary) coverage. The public plan will either emulate this model, or quickly go under as it becomes overburdened by the sicker, older patients, reports Dr. Woolhander (June 24 House Subcommittee on House Energy and Commerce).
8. Projected savings claimed by Wisconsin Citizen Action (based on a Lewin group study of Hacker’s original PO proposal) are not based on historical trends with public option plans that have already failed in every state where they have been tried. (see Wisconsin Cost Savings under National Health Care Reform by Dr. Robert Kraig available at citizenactionwi.org) The HMO-Medicare history shows that public plans do not keep private insurers “honest”. “A quarter century of experience with public/private competition in the Medicare program demonstrates that the private plans will not allow a level playing field.” The Public Option Con, www.pnhp.org
9. Private insurers will still continue to deny claims and as a result, a major issue, bankruptcy due to health costs will remain unaddressed. In their June 2008 endorsement of single payer, the U.S. Conference of Mayors noted that “millions with insurance have coverage so inadequate that a major illness would lead to financial ruin.” www.usmayors.org/resolutions/76th_conference/chhs_03.asp
10. The public option will not allow for choice of provider unlike single payer since the public option will need to appeal to a provide network to obtain services for its subscribers. “Patients will still have a limited choice of provider restricted by networks” as a Physicians for a National Health Program fact sheet states.
“The ‘Public Plan Option’: Myths and Facts available at www.pnhp.org
All true about the "public option".
This is both bad news and good news actually.
On the one hand, the political implication of no public option is that we are a lot closer to full third world status than most would have believed.
On the other hand, true, pure, real progressives will be happy about the demise of the public option, because it hastens the day where the whole system collapses once and for all, and/or it increases the odds that single payer can come into existence one state at a time, with the states most resistant to descending into third world status first in line to enact it. (Vermont, Hawaii, and possibly Minnesota come to mind.)
weacguy, excellent research and analysis.
Obama is selling us down the river. Maybe he thinks he will be gone before anyone notices. There's good reason for him to assume that. The American public has to be the most politically uninformed and ignorant people on the planet. At least the Soviet public knew their press was lying to them.
When the people fear their government there is tyranny,
when the government fears the people there is liberty.
~ Thomas Jefferson
I have been holding off getting too disappointed in Obama but this time, I don't believe the townhall hecklers caused it. I am very disappointed in Obama's hasty decision to drop public option and allow the big insurance companies to decide people's fates. I voted for hope and change but I don't know what it means anymore. I wished I could vote for Ralph Nader but nobody will ever talk to me again if I vote 3rd party.
But despite my disappointment, I am going to get back to the phones and dial for Congressman Cleaver to support HR676 ! Ralph Nader was right about giving this one last go. The vote for HR676 in Congress is about to happen. Let's get back to the phones and give it one last shot each. The phone number is in Ralph Nader's article from Saturday.
That's a pretty weird thing to say, Stanley. So far, our ballots are private. Do your relatives follow you into the voting booth? It was decades before I found out my father always voted Socialist.
When the people fear their government there is tyranny,
when the government fears the people there is liberty.
~ Thomas Jefferson
My relatives aren't sneaky. I'm just so easily open to admitting who I voted for. My two daughters voted Obama but they're the centrist Democrat type. My niece who you've met, JenniferBedingfield, obviously votes Nader and Independents in general while her parents and two brothers generally vote Republican except for last year when they voted Obama. No matter what her parents and siblings voted for, she would often get teased and humiliated by her generally conservative family and they would blame her suffering on voting for Nader. I have a lot of respect for Ralph Nader but I have been used to voting Democrat and I'm just not sure I can match JB's courage in voting 3rd party. She was upset at first that even I chose Obama despite having some concerns about his change on positions but she has forgiven me and I promised her that I would sit down and take the time to learn what's really going on that I don't see on the tv or newspapers. Her unique thinking and viewing of politics that I could not find in other people who I would casually talk politics with was what brought me here. On some topics, I find the commentary useful but I'm not used to people talking so hard against Obama. I know he has been a disappointment in many ways but I just don't think getting too angry works well. I don't like to lie about who I voted and just fear that my friends, family, and others won't talk to me again. I'm not even sure that I can think like a 3rd party candidate so I'm afraid I won't be able to identify with him or her the way JB can. But it is still possible that I could vote 3rd party by 2012 the more I read through the reasons why Nader, Mckinney, and other 3rd parties are voted for by the few. It's as if they really believe in them. Like I admitted earlier, I have a lot to learn. Recently unemployed and no longer working 11-13 hours a day, there's more time to sit and learn although I'm desperate to find my next job to keep up with my monthly payments. Even if I do get back to employment, I hope I can still have time to read here and learn more. So far, I have been referred to quite a few interesting books and sites for additional learning. I look forward to seeing how I change by the time midterm elections roll on in.
For a niece, she's one hell of an intelligent sweetheart. There's a lot more to voting than going by what the media and the polls tell you. Most people on this forum know that and are just fed up that the public just won't get it. I'm glad to hear that you're willing to come over and learn. Welcome aboard.
The article mentions Howard Dean advocating for the public option [though he has not called for a single payer system to be implemented]. One person who has pushed vigorously for single payer by making a brilliant documentary {Sicko] about the broken down health care system is Michael Moore. Why have Americans not seen Moore on the airwaves or organizing rallies to spread the message of single payer and to combat the hysteria promoted by those on the far right who flood the Town hall meetings with their propaganda? One would think that one of the biggest advocates of single payer would be on the front lines urging Obama and Congress to enact a true Universal Health Care system in this country. Yet Moore has not been seen, to my knowledge, on television to carry his message to the American people.
Probably because he didn't think it would help. He knows that some people who would otherwise support real health care reform still begrudge him for his position on guns.
Possibly Michael Moore is just a film maker - having addressed one subject with a movie he moves on to the next project. His message is thus his next message.
You are correct, Howard Dean has never advocated for "single-payer" health care reform.
Unfortuantely, I didn't know that SICKO was showing on TMC, the Movie Channel, until yesterday. I tried to post the following dates and times on a few blog sites under health care articles. I found this information on Michael Moore's website.
SICKO is showing tonight on TCM at 10 PM.
On The Movie Channel
08/17/09 at 6:30 AM
08/17/09 at 10:00 PM
On TMC Xtra
08/18/09 at 5:15 PM
On TMC Xtra
08/21/09 at 2:30 PM
On TMC Xtra
08/21/09 at 4:00 AM
Oh look, another bailout for the corporate class. Color me surprised. Not.
yawn
?
I am in awe. Absolute awe as to how conservatives still call the shots in this country.
That's because of the Democrats' preferred method of "compromise".
If challenged to a duel by an unarmed Republican, the Democrat will first hand his dueling pistols to his opponent, then march off 10 steps, turn around and call, "Your move!"
Yes, this is a fiasco and cements the US as a nation outside of the mainstream and moving resolutely to full third world status. Obama definitely does not deserve reelection, and most likely will not get it, because either this will never be enacted, or will be proved to be a failure before the 2012 election.
It is proving to be the case that almost everything Obama says is a lie.
What Obama is now ready to sign is pretty much the opposite of what he has stated he wants. What it really is, when all false rhetoric is stripped away, is a massive, heavily regressive tax.
For anyone who does not know: a regressive tax is one where people with lower incomes pay a greater percentage of their income in tax than do people with higher incomes. A massively regressive tax is one where people with lower incomes not only pay a greater percentage, but they pay a greater actual tax, than do people with higher incomes.
What is being threatened is a massively regressive tax, pure and simple. Not only is it grossly unjust and doomed to failure (as hordes of people simply refuse to comply or are unable to comply) but, worse still actually, it is certain, to one degree or another, to dig the economy into an even bigger hole than it already is in. (And you thought the economy could not get worse, laugh out loud.)
Moreover, this whole thing is unprecedented; never before in world history has a government collected money for a specific private industry in what is supposed to be a free economy and society. Even talking about this, let alone enacting it, proves that the US is not a true free country and does not have a true free economy.
A tax (a mandate, if you insist) resembling this one would be anathema not only in the numerous countries that have faced the music and have gotten health costs and health injustice under control, but it would even be anathema in many of the backward countries that do not have decent health care systems.
The US is becoming backward even by the standards of the backward. I mean, if this goes through, from an economics and especially from an economics fairness perspective, now there will be obscure, poor countries with better health systems than the US.
But since Obama needs to cover up his lie that "he would not raise taxes on those earning less than $250,000, it can not be called a tax, so this tax is with rhetorically perverted to be a "mandate". Folks, "mandate" is simply another word for a tax, and/or it is a specialized tax.
Obama is proving to be a dangerous, narcissistic liar.
Here we go AGAIN.
A prominent so-called progressive (and this seems be be fairly common at The Nation), Mr. Nichols, can't or will not see the writing on the wall.
"IF" Obama discards public option? How could he discard something he NEVER really claimed as more than a novelty?
All the people who call themselves progressives who voted for this liar ( and it was clear to me and others that Obama - the "pragmatist"- was a liar well before the election of 2008) have no justification for their supposed indignation. Their votes were based upon desperation and delusion, which, given the pathetic state of our one party government, makes them merely typical and suspect.
Yes, they will argue that to be pragmatic is smarter than wasting your vote, but now we are on the receiving end of their willingness to OVERLOOK the reality that the differences between McCain and Obama are minimal and mainly that Obama can deceive better through flowery words. The problem is that the flowers grow out of the same pile of toxic BS.
When the editor of The Nation can find her way to admit and condemn the the way they have been participating in the fraud of this government and apologize to real progressives like Ralph Nader and Cynthia McKinney, then we might find "change we can believe in."
"IF" Obama discards public option? How could he discard something he NEVER really claimed as more than a novelty?
I agree! Obama has never REALLY advocated for the "public option," strong or not, and from the beginning, he failed to embrace "single-payer" health care reform. Now, he's pushing "health insurance reform," a mandatory bill that will force everyone to buy health insurance from the same health insurance companies that are at the heart of our current problems -- escalating prices, etc. And, if the bill passes, it won't take effect until 2013. And, that's supposed to help us -- how?
I also agree that The Nation's editors need to apologize to both Ralph Nader and Cynthia McKinney. In 2004, I actually went along with their arguments, and voted for Kerry, and held my nose as I pulled the lever here in NYC. I vowed never to do that again. In 2008, I voted for Ralph Nader, and in 2012, I will also vote 3rd party.
Prior to the election of 2008, when the Republicans controlled the presidency and congress, Democrats could be found 'caving' on every issue one can name including the so called "Nuclear option" when the Republicans threatened to change the rules of the senate to ban the fillibuster: i.e., a key to the seperation of powers that the Dems rarely used for fear of their more assertive Republican handlers.
So now the Dems control the presidency and both houses of congrass (and surpirse) they are still 'caving' in to the Republicans and big insurance on every issue.
The clarion call for the sheep? "Hold their feet to the fire!" "Change the Dems from within!" yadda... yadda ... yadda ...
I have volunteered for President Obama's campaign and have made over 2,000 phone calls over a 2 month period. I, like many progressives, doctors, nurses, etc., strongly believe a single payer system to be the easiest, most effective way to deal with the health care crisis.
With the understanding that we live in a world of compromise, progressive have settle on the compromised position of a public option in order to accommodate the interests of the much too powerful insurance industry and its representatives in Congress, the Republican party.
The elimination of the public option would be an unacceptable capitulation to the will of the minority (70% of Americans have consistently supported single payer over many years) and for this reason, it will not be something that I, and many other progressives would support.
The President, and the Democratic party should better pay attention to the following: any health care bill that shall pass without a strong public option will simply be seen by progressives like myself as a mandate to deliver more customers to private health insurance companies; and if that is what comes to pass you will have lost my support for the foreseeable future.
If the Democratic party capitulates to the pressures of big business and deny the people the choice of a strong public option, it will be the final nail in the coffin of the party as the representative of working people. I, for one, will actively begin working to build a truly progressive party to the left of the apparently centrist, corporate driven Democratic party.
"...an unacceptable capitulation to the will of the minority" You mean, like the bailouts, which were opposed by 80% of us?
I don't think you can build a third party without Instant Runoff voting. Need that first.