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Rahm Pushing Triggers Through Olympia Snowe - The Question: Why?
I thought it was weird when Olympia Snowe suddenly started pushing triggers. Rahm Emanuel has been lobbying for them since early in the year, and lately the White House has been trying to burnish the image of "triggers" by pressing liberal validators into service. And now, according to Marc Ambinder, lo and behold:
Senior White House officials, in conversations with reporters today, are floating the idea that President Obama is secretly negotiating with Sen. Olympia Snowe over a health care compromise that would phase in a government-funded health care alternative if private insurance companies fail to meet quality and cost benchmarks over a certain period of the time. The public discussion of the Snowe "compromise" is meant to test the reaction of House Democrats, who will pass a bill that includes an immediate public option added to a new health insurance exchange. The White House hopes that, having voted for a public option, House Dems would accept a "trigger" as part of a conference committee compromise rather than putting the kibosh on the entire health care reform project. In some ways, this strategy is old, and in some ways it's new. For months, White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel has been pushing the idea of a "trigger" internally, and he and Snowe regularly trade legislative and political intelligence.
That's great. Not satisfied with working through Blue Dogs any more, Rahm is now using Republicans to write his trillion dollar bailout of the health care industry. Is this a great country or what.
And what does the White House think of the 60 Democrats in the House who pledged to vote against any bill that does not have a public plan?
For a while now, Obama's aides have believed that the 50-odd progressives in the House who are demanding a public option will get their jollies if they can pass a bill out of the House, and that they will be too afraid to oppose a bill that makes it out of a subsequent conference committee -- a bill that President Obama would specifically endorse.
Nothing new here: give the base a little kabuki, pass a bill with a public plan out of the House, then get real in conference. Except it's looking like things may have accelerated. They may be afraid to let a public plan pass the House for fear it will get too entrenched, so it looks like they might try and kill it now.
And what about reconciliation?
The threat of passing a bill through reconciliation is "real," but it still isn't the "go" option because it is, as of yet, politically unsalable, at least in the opinion of White House aides. The politics of health care have been distorted, they believe, to the point where Obama needs to make the case that the regular (even a-historical) congressional procedure is being used by obstructionists to prevent the passage of the bill. This may be self-evident to some Democrats, but the American people aren't there yet, and until they're there, the White House will do whatever it can to build its 60 vote supermajority.
See, this is where I'm confused. Because if Olympia Snowe is writing the fucking bill, there are 59 Democrats in the Senate -- 60 after they replace Kennedy. The only reason you wouldn't have 60 votes is if the bill is such a piece of shit that DEMOCRATS won't vote for it.
Or, maybe Socialists.
- Posted in
62 Comments so far
Show AllWell, the dims have no real opposition, so they have to stir some up and thus not have to take responsibility for making "change we can believe in."
I LOVE the end of this article! I am all in favor of a new language for politics! It is time to take the gloves off of our language!
Progressives need to keep up the pressure and make it clear that they will not support Obama in any way shape or form, if Obama does not represent them. Progressives need to stop playing the lessor of two evil’s game. That is the game that keeps the republicans and democrats feeding at the public trough. Until we the people stop legitimizing a government that does not represent us, nothing will change. It may take a lifetime but at least it is change you can believe in.
Well said! We must start voting third party no matter what crazies run as Republicans. The Democrats count on our being scared back into the fold by the Palins and McCains and Bushes and Cheneys.
If we stop voting at all, we give up any power we have. But if we vote third party, we will either build a party that represents us, or we will demonstrate to the Democrats that without us, they will lose.
After more years than I like to say as a Democrat, I sincerely hope they will lose, starting with the mid-terms, because
enough of us are fed up and can finally see through the machinations of Republicrats like acting-President Rahm Emanuel.
These 'progressives' you speak of, are they saying that Mr. Obama supports them? Rahm, the former investment banker is he not, pretty much proved conclusively for us that he prefers to support the fellow bankers, and hence will ensure that his underling will follow er, follow the money.
It just keeps getting worse and worse...
Why don't we just institute a corporation-run dictatorship (like Fiji) and be done with this farce called representative democracy.
I thought we did. This circus is just for entertainment and distraction purposes only.
To the mere mortals among us who don't understand the byzantine manuevers of Emmanuel-like legislative "compromises," this trigger thing is a little hard (not impossible) to understand. To simplify the matter just a tad, I'll quote a passage from Ambinder's piece that Hamsher does not quote:
"When President Obama addresses a joint session of Congress next week, he will present an outline of a comprehensive health care bill -- one that will be universal in character. Privately, the White House is signaling that Obama is willing to sign a bill that is less than universal in its coverage ambitions, though the president will not say so publicly."
If even that's too opaque, I'll translate for you: "I'm pushing for a bill I know won't pass, but the mere proposal of it will make me look good even as I sign this less-than-universal bill."
Correct me if I'm wrong, Jerry D Rose, but isn't "triggers" shorthand for "you'll get universal coverage(what the Dems campaigned on) when Obama and the pharma/insurance firms themselves decide that they have failed to meet certain unknown conditions?
BAAHAAHAAA!!! Great summary! Exactly right.
Yes, and it'll be based on calculations like this: We were going to raise premiums 10%, but we decided to only raise them 8%. Therefore we've contributed 2%, which is now a positive, real number - they'll probably even write off on their taxes.
Pitchfork: thanks to you and others above for clarifying "triggers" for me and other mere mortals. I think we understand a little better now the nature of the "reform" scam that awaits us. Can't wait for immigration or educational or ethics reform. It will be a great ride through Wonderland, maybe make a new Disney theme park out of it all.
Yesterday I followed a link to a blog that said President Obama was taking the public option off the table. At that time I didn't know if it was true or just wishful thinking on their part. I am coming to the conclusion that it is true. Just watch when everything is all said and done it will be a Bill that is signed into Law that will not help the people who most need help in this nation. WE THE PEOPLE WOULD HAVE BEEN SUCKERED AGAIN.
I think it is time for Progressives to stop playing the lessesr of two evils game and start standing up and not allow ourselves to believe a LIE any longer. We need to accept and face the fact that WE THE PEOPLE HAVE BEEN LIED TO AGAIN. As long as we continue on the path of nowhere which is what we get with either of the two corporate parties, than WE THE PEOPLE WILL CONTINUE TO BE SCREWED.
We need real election campaign reform and until we take the money out of the equation, allow equal access to third parties to be allowed in the debates and have real debates and not these fake ones. We will continue to be SOLD DOWN THE RIVER by the so called people who are supposed to be representing us. They don't represent us and I don't think they even care about us. They lie and use us to get elected to political power and than when elected they tell WE THE PEOPLE TO GO TO HELL.
The sad thing is that most people want to believe the lie so much that they will not admit to themselves that they have been suckered. I hope that President Obama will change that and that progressives will have learned their lesson and will join a third party like the Green party and we work at bringing real change to this country. One can always hope.
The fix was in since the beginning.
There was ZERO chance that even a "pure" public option would pass.
Like an advertising agency, Rahm and Friends are merely trying to decide on the best propaganda to confuse, paralyze and neutralize us.
"There was ZERO chance that even a "pure" public option would pass."
I agree!
From the very beginning, single-payer was off the table, and a strong public option was never a serious part of the plan, either -- at least, as far as the Obama administration is concerned.
I remember hearing Obama tell an audience, and I was watching TV, that his health care plan would NOT cover everyone. So, what was the reform, really? In other words, those of us WITHOUT health care insurance, would remain in that same circumstance -- STILL, WITHOUT any viable health care. To me, the administration's plan always seemed vague and therefore, unrealized as real reform. It's no wonder that people are confused.
BTW, in NYC, on Saturday, September 12, 2009, there is a march for single-payer health care. People are meeting at 9:30 AM on 5th Avenue and 44th Streets.
I think people all over this country need to rally/march for SINGLE PAYER. Let's take healthcare reform into our own hands, congress and obama are not our represenatives.
A MASSIVE outcry for SINGLE PAYER cannot easily be ignored--congressmen know that no matter what, it is our votes that put them in office (and we can remove them).
Like an advertising agency, Rahm and Friends are merely trying to decide on the best propaganda to confuse, paralyze and neutralize us.
Absolutely right!
"I hope that President Obama will change that and that progressives will have learned their lesson and will join a third party like the Green party and we work at bringing real change to this country."
chrisy58,
First, I don't think Obama will change...unless he has to. Even then, there isn't much room for change in DC.
Second, 3rd parties have been tried. I know, I was there. There is less room for 3rd parties than there is for change in DC.
Third, look to yourself and your fellow insurgents for change. When everything else has been tried, and failed, we have to look to ourselves and each other. We have to do what's uncomfortable.
Oh hell, just make the damned thing so complex that nobody will know what they passed and take credit for it and leave interpretation to the fat bureaucrats, and make the health-care recipients spend half their miserable lives trying to read the fine print of their policies using non-presciption glasses while gnashing the cavities out of their rotten non-covered teeth.
-30-
OldManRiver: I'm undecided about whether exactly this is the "plan," but it is exactly what is going to happen. Mark your (and my) words.
Instead why don't we pass HR 676 - Medicare For All.
If in 10 years the majority of the public, by referendum, wants to dump it, it will trigger a reversal to today's system.
Triggers can work both ways.
Excellent idea. Pass HR 676. Put in a sunset clause, or trigger, or doomsday device, or whatever they need to call it, so we can unpass it if we don't like it.
Excellent idea. We also have solid proof in Canada and in Europe what happens when people get universal health care, live with it for several years, and then a regime comes in and tries to reverse it or drop it.
Of course, this is what terrifies the corporatists and their handlers. Look how nasty seniors get when they feel Medicare is threatened! A minority of them don't even realize it's single-payer and the government is the payer. All they know is they refuse to give it up.
Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if the pwoggie Dems that Hamster is talking about turn around and vote for this piece of shit.
Is this a great country or what.
Yeah, this is a great country. I wish I were in Norway.
Love it or leave it, dude.
bbr-001 September 3rd, 2009 5:46 pm.....Wow, DUDE...did you think that up all by yourself?
WRONG. FIX it, or destroy it and start again.
Dear Jane,
I love your style of writing, and your obvious intelligent approach is refreshing.
Only one question.
Your title' Rahm Pushing Triggers' etc.; is this meant to be a 'rhetorical' or 'literal' inquiry?
If a 'literal' the only answer is:
The obvious answer is of course obvious, Rahm is a deeply embedded member of the Plutocratic Oligarchy and a 'card carrying' one at that. He is doing what 'the lord sent him here to do'---i.e. the bidding of the "P.O.", and that is all. He may be driven by 'extra' motivations.
Being a devout Zionist (actually they are the co-inventors of the "P.O.", but that is another story for another time)he was born and raised and educated to be the "talking chimpanzee" 'on the leash' for the "P.O." and seems to be very happy as well as 'damn good at it'. Without members of either party just just like him the "P.O." would have stayed in Europe.
Then, if one is 'reflecting' they should use 'full reflection'. The election of Mr. Obama as president, is and will always remain an 'shinning example' (or it should anyway) to all 'intelligent, thoughtful, well informed, free thinking freedom loving 'progressive' americans (all twelve of them) that the Plutocratic Oligarchy is in full control as it has been from the beginning; and until the american people make the necessary changes to eliminate the "P.O."-----they will remain its slaves ---and nothing more.
If it was meant to be 'rhetorical'---ha ha ha ha ha ha------
that's a good one.
"If the USA were another nation, the USA would invade the USA to keep the world safe; and they would be justified."
Good Luck America, your really need it.
Any bill Obama presents will be a fraudulent giveaway to the health insurance lobby and so we have to fight it. We've got to fight to ensure that Obama loses big with his own party. The bigger this loss, the bigger will be the rebuke to this Puppet President and his backers. We now know who Obama is and what he is; there's no more need to wait. He spits on us and betrays us at every turn. LET'S BRING DOWN OBAMA IN FLAMES!
Agree!
I, too, agree. Ms Hamsher states quite clearly her belief that this is a bailout of the health care industry.
Do an end run on the health care industry. Push for the Access to Medical Treatment Act and HR3394, 3395, 3396 to stop FDA from banning low cost, effective treatments because they compete with pharmaceuticals. Then support Medical Savings Accounts for all and give them to Medicaid recipients.
It wouldn't surprise me in the least if Obama would pass a no public option bill using the "reconciliation" procedure thereby absolving any Republicans of any public anger at home come election time.
OBAMA! YES WE CON!
chrisy58
I was thinking that same thing just after the election that maybe when Obama's supporters see that he will bring no change at all just a different face and delivery that maybe a lot of Americans might finally wake up and realize how badly they were just lied to. AGAIN (grin).
He's actually starting to remind me of GWB in some ways. It's his defensive tone and the way a lot of the words he says are silent near the end. He's got the strut thing happening too.
Not much else to say really. I don't call or write my reps. I doubt they'll listen to me or anyone else here. I think the game is up friends. For them it's all or nothing. I don't believe they'll win though because the end of the path they are heading down has no winners and nothing to win. It's a dead end. Then they turn on themselves and kill each other off while some of us will still be here rebuilding our world.
Say it loud, WITH LOVE IN OUR HEARTS, TOWARDS EACH OTHER, ALL LIVING THINGS AND OUR MOTHER EARTH!
Walk in beauty
What are "words he says that are silent near the end?" The hell?
blair,
i was having trouble articulating that. sort of like how Bush would pronounce america with the "amer" being louder than the "ica"
sorry i don't have the proper words to describe this?
Peace
I don't know what the term is in public speaking to describe dropping the last syllable of a word.
It just sounds slovenly to me. Obama's really lazy. His speeches these days are pathetic whether he's dropping syllables or not. I think it's pretty clear from his actions he doesn't give a crap about anything now that he's the pretzel. Why should he care how he pronounces "Amerika?"
Now watch this drive!
thanks for helping, dropping syllables sounds about right
Peace
Obama stumbles, ummms, uhhs, through this statements just like Bush too! I think it is some kind of affliction - an inability to make logically coherent arguments - that is infecting most people in the US.
On my job, I review other engineers work submitted as part of government approval applications, and some of the completely illogical, disfunctional enginering analysis for high-hazard mine tailings dams, driven by cost and bottom-line considerations rather than science, is positively scary.
It seems to be a manifestation of the same underlying cause of the disfunctional stuff coming our of our congress and state capitols.
In a way, what is being threatened is just a new kind of bubble. This bubble will be more dictatorial, more fascist, and still more regressive than were previous bubbles. People who were smart enough to steer clear from previous bubbles will be liable by government decree to getting caught up in and losing out from this bubble.
But this bubble will have the same ultimate objective as other bubbles: to make the rich richer.
The scheme this time will be to have the government order the people who are not able to or who do not want to buy grossly overpriced private health insurance from huge corporations with obscene profits and obscene executive salaries to buy it. And so then the big corporations get to have many more receivable type assets on their balance sheets. They can then leverage these assets for more short term and phony riches.
Of course, these assets will eventually be toxic, since they are going to be based on a foundation of sand. The foundation will consist of, among other things, illegal coercion which will be countered by widespread disobediance, unaffordable borrowed money from China and other creditor nations (for any subsidies) and ever poorer "customers" who, even if they can technically afford the private insurance now, will sooner or later not be able to afford it.
Due to this ultimately undependable revenue stream on the one hand and due to what will be a sharp increase in the actual demand for expensive actual health care on the other hand, the health insurance companies will eventually have to receive direct (lump sum style) bailout money straight from the taxpayers, laugh out loud.
Americans can be downright funny when they try their hand at economics. Of course, its not really funny if you are living in America.
The scheme this time will be to have the government order the people who are not able to or who do not want to buy grossly overpriced private health insurance...
LOL That is one (of many)"order" that I will simply ignore.
It appears the progressives as represented here on CD can join hands with the right wingnut town hallers and say: "We don't like this legislation. Try again."
Consensus building at its...
Does anybody have any clue what this hamster person is saying with her last sentence?
"Or maybe socialists." What the hell does that mean?
Hell, I'm a socialist, and I don't know what it means.
This piece wasn't well written. She must be overworked raking in that cash for the 60 pwoggies who "promised" to vote for a public option. LOL.
Jane, I like your spirit, I feel renewed tonight.
Look at it this way. Obama promised "bipartisanship" and so we now get it disgusting as it gets.
Siouxrose, where are you? this conversation here needs your knowing. you know what i mean!
phew, it's becoming increasingly obvious how much we really need each other, this is another sign
a better world is comin up and I'm with it! ! ! Sioux Rose, you in lady?
Peace forever........................................................................and ever...............
JenniferBedingfield
I love you too girl! ! ! ! !
NEVER GIVE UP!!!!!!
Peace
Sioux Rose
RILEY: I had important plans last night. I try to share with this forum on a daily basis. First of the month for me = magazine column deadlines, and I was away for 10 days, so I returned to many errands and personal tasks. Even with multi-tasking, I sometimes miss some of the key threads. But I appreciate your asking for my input, and if a button gets pressed, I assure you I will respond with sincerity. (My mind is a little tired from recent demands on it! As soon as it revives, I'll be back in the saddle.)
"Rahm Pushing Triggers Through Olympia Snowe - The Question: Why?"
His being the greatest fund raiser may have something to do with it.
Does Olympia Snowe really believe that the private Insurance companies will take care that Americans will not lose everything trying to pay medical bills. And that the government can legislate greedy businesses to be compassionate.Americans have seen the health care industry become more and more callous. I agree with Cygnus-xl-is a Hole. Pass HR676 Medicare for all, with a trigger clause to reverse back to private insurance, if it is does not improve the health care system for all Americans. If the Republicans are so sure that Private is better then they should not be afraid to support this plan that has not been tried. Having a trigger plan for a policy that has been the system that has failed millions of Americans for many years is not good Leadership. We all know how hard it is to make change. We want change now. We reject a trigger plan in case the present, failed ,system continues to fail.