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We’ve Seen This Trigger Before
After a summer of politics marked by esoteric phrases like co-ops and insurance exchanges, the newest kernel of ubiquitous arcana is the term trigger mechanism. This proposal, which is gaining momentum after President Obama's speech to Congress, would have any national health legislation include provisions allowing a government-run "public option" only if certain parameters are met in the future. "It's an obscure policy tool that isn't even written," reported the news service TalkingPointsMemo.com. "But somehow, a ‘trigger-mechanism' is the talk of Washington right now. How did that happen?"
Such shock is widespread. Pundits, reporters and activists are stunned that an abstruse scheme to halt reform has become a focal point of the health care debate. Yet, considering recent history, the only surprise is that Washington waited so long to again force this legislative cyanide down America's throat.
Recall that over the last decade, a maverick group of progressive and conservative lawmakers pushed bills to let Americans purchase cheaper, FDA-approved prescription drugs from other industrialized nations. It was (and is) a common-sense idea-other countries allow importation, and the practice helps lower health costs by permitting consumers to buy medicines at the lowest world market price, not just at an artificially inflated domestic premium.
As with today's public option surveys, polls on importation showed strong national support for the concept. So rather than murder the drug legislation outright, congressional leaders joined the Clinton and Bush administrations in backing a "compromise": Importation bills were passed, but only those that gave the secretary of health and human services the power to trigger-or not trigger-final implementation. Specifically, the secretary would have to first certify that imported medicines were "safe" (drug companies promote the lie that Canadian medicine is mortally dangerous-prompting Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty, an importation proponent, to ask, "Where are the dead Canadians?").
This trigger provision, of course, was the lobbyists' poison pill-and it worked as they planned. Importation has never been implemented, as no HHS secretary has pulled the trigger. Hence, Americans are still barred from wholesale importation of lower-priced medicine-and pharmaceutical industry profiteering continues.
The moral of the story is that triggers are just another version of the old Blue Ribbon Commission trick. They are designed not as good public policy, but as devious political tactics to help dishonest lawmakers look as if they support popular measures-all while guaranteeing those measures never become reality.
On importation, triggers gave corporatist politicians a way to seem like they were remaining true to their pro-consumer platitudes and "free trade" dogma at the same time they were strengthening an extreme form of anti-consumer protectionism for pharmaceutical companies. On health reform, a trigger will let those same legislators look as if they support a public option that increases insurance competition, reduces costs and therefore delivers on promises to decrease the deficit. But if/when the bill's final language is inevitably designed to make pulling any trigger impossible, it will preclude a public option from ever existing.
If there is any mystery about the trigger subterfuge, it is how anyone can wonder where the idea came from or why it is suddenly so prominent. After all, the same lawmakers and lobbyists who used it to kill importation are currently working to destroy health reform. As just one example, Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, who is pushing for a trigger, was previously one of the key congresspeople who portrayed sham importation bills as real progress (he was also-not coincidentally-a huge recipient of health industry cash).
"The past is never dead," wrote William Faulkner. "It's not even past." As today's trigger proposal shows, that's particularly true when a "change" election preserves the same corrupt forces, cynical tactics and bedeviled details.
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26 Comments so far
Show Alllies lies and more lies from the government around the health care debate, what else is new
the emperor has no clothes
obama is trying to deliver to health care the huge cash cows he gave to wall street under the cover of being a lefty or commie which he most definitely is not
it does give him cover, under which he "does his thing" which is to advance the nwo and destroy the country through a death by a thousand cuts, many of which were inflicted, to be fair, before he got into power.
his guiding light is preserving corporate profits and that cannot be done in single payer. his secret deals behind closed doors with the industry tells us all we need to know about where he stands - his lyrical teleprompter reading notwithstanding
we are not going to get health care
we are not getting out of iraq
we are not getting out of afghanistan
the american empire, wheezing as it is through its final death throes, is determined to go down in a blaze of glory in the name of corporate profits at the costs of millions of innocent peasant lives.
look, we killed off the native population in stealing this country - do we need to keep going with these needless deaths
when is enough enough
with very few viable options at hand and the third army deployed inside the country and with the fema prisons ready to go our option are somewhat limited.
in fact, if anyone has any option please post them. i would like to know what they are
we are on the brink of martial law and most of us realize this
one more false flag event and we are done
so as the health care dream recedes into nothingness here we are on 9/11 - different year, victims of the most complex and evil psyop ever undertaken by any government in the history of the world.
confronted by the most divisive - i would argue - administration we have ever had, using the corporate media to misinform us into this left wing cover obama is using to implement the most right wing policies we have ever seen - and that is saying something.
so i wish everyone well - especially the 9/11 truthers - we are the last line of defense against fascism in this country and we are probably not enough but i wish you all well
we should give this health care reform up as a lost cause before it goes any further but let's keep telling the truth about 9/11
All is not lost, my friend.
Behind that elite curtain there is full blown, ass in tatters panic about the monumental shift in spending habits by average Americans. The super consuming american was a PR project 50 years and billions of dollars in the making. It's the keystone of corporate power. And in just 2 years, all the PR bullshit is being discarded by Americans. This is big. There is terror among the elite. The entire system is grinding to a halt because of our frugality. They can't put us in jail for that and they know it. As for another false flag event, I don't see that happening because the public is very, very cynical of government right now. All the hype in the media about a recovery is designed to make us feel the rich pigs have won. It's a lie. Just keep doing what you are doing. It's not over.
AGG: thanks for the kind words and hopeful ones
mine are determined but not as hopeful
you raise a good point about american frugality - i think it is based on the fact that many of us are broke - but your point is well taken
i just worry that the panic state will encourage these maniacs to try something desperate like another false flag event
either way - we live on - we fight on
be well
lebeau,
And thank you, sir.
As to the frugality thing, remember that they want to frame it as a punishment because we aren't as "good as them". That's a PR lie. The basis of that lie is the premise that we are hooked on spending like it's the only way to a happy life. Oh yeah, they've been pushing the envy of the rich and famous from day one. We have been thoroughly brain washed. I still catch myself dreaming of a brand new lexus or a private helicopter. When that happens, I grab myself and remind myself how much downstream pollution and war comes from all that manufactured metal and glass. In short, it is vital for us to embrace frugality, not as a temporary fix, but as a lifestyle that frees us of a graspy, greedy mindset and constantly wars against the corporations without lifting a finger. They hate that. I love it. You see some shiny new toy and you realize you don't need it and by not buying it you are hurting the bad guys. The point is that we need to self-market frugality in our minds as an action, not a lack of action. Otherwise we'll be miserable in frugality and keep envying the assholes. Then they've got us again.
Frugality is Freedom (it doesn't hurt your savings, either)
The ruling class is in a complete flail because of the economy. This is not just U.S.-bound - it's worldwide. There are many more uprisings and pockets of inflammation rising up against the ruling classes elsewhere in the world. You need to be reading some websites that post international workers' news. It's going on all over the place. Yes, it's small, but it's happening. In France, a bunch of factory workers tied up their boss because they didn't get back pay or were going to get sacked. In Ukraine, workers took over a factory after their pay was docked for weeks. Somewhere in Indonesia, a bunch of women factory workers took over the factory after it was abandoned with no notice to the employees. (This was a fabric machining shop that places like the Gap and Eddie Bauer used.) The local community brought them supplies and generators so they could get the factory up and running. They are now running it themselves.
Yes, it's one factory here, one factory there. But each of these incidents can add up to many such incidents. It inspires others to try the same. That is how a consciousness can be raised. That is one way.
Material conditions are not yet ripe in the U.S. for workers' mass action. There isn't enough bottom-up activism to keep such organizations flourishing right now. If the teabagger/town hall crowds are any indication, the most vocal component out there right now is the petty bourgeois - that is not good for a working class movement that benefits the workers. Ultimately that will lead to fascism. The petty bourgeois will side with the ruling class AGAINST workers, and historically that has very serious ramifications.
If I were you, I'd start re-reading the history of the Black Panthers. I think if we can get many groups around the country doing the kind of community organizing and raising of revolutionary consciousness that the Panthers did for the black communities then we'd be onto something. If we saw the community outreach the Panthers did - not a religious church-organized outreach, but community outreach - the Panthers started clinics, organized to get food to poor children, set up free legal clinics - it is this kind of ground-swell activism - on a large scale, that will cause people to stay organized and start becoming vocal about their needs getting met.
As it stands, the knifing we are getting on health care may well be the start of some local activists beginning to offer health care services to the poor on a larger scale. I'm not sure what it would look like, or if or when it would be done, but the seed is there because people everywhere are well aware that Obama is selling us down the river on health care.
"Behind that elite curtain there is full blown, ass in tatters panic about the monumental shift in spending habits by average Americans. The super consuming american was a PR project 50 years and billions of dollars in the making. It's the keystone of corporate power. And in just 2 years, all the PR bullshit is being discarded by Americans. This is big. There is terror among the elite." -- AAG
I believe there is some truth to what you wrote. Each month, when the reports for consumer spending, and the unemployment numbers are released, the banksters, et.al., scratch their heads and can't quite seem to figure it out -- spending is down, and unemployment numbers are higher.
Just this week, two articles in the NY Times caught my attention -- one about real estate, and the other about fashion.
About the real estate deal -- from the NY Times on September 10, 2009: Finalized three years ago as the biggest real estate deal ever -- $5.4 billion -- Jerry I. and Rob Speyer, partnered with BlackRock Realty to buy 110 apartment building at Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village in Manhattan, NY. Now, the partners are teetering on the brink of defaulting on $4.4 billion in loans. Recently, the properties were re-evaluted at $2.1 billion -- less than half the original worth. In other words, their loans are more than the properties are worth. Does that sound familiar? So, everything is not so rosy in NYC, despite the rising (manipulated) stock market.
About the fashion industry -- from the NY Times on September 11, 2009: The high-priced designers are whining that nobody is buying their clothes. "Department stores cut their orders for fall goods by 30%." On Tuesday, September 8, Neiman Marcus reported a loss of $668 million for the year. Saks, too, reported a 16% drop in sales. As part of his spring line, Oscar de la Renta is planning to offer a $1500 dress -- usually his dresses run at $4,000 and $5,000.
You've probably read my posts about the commercial real estate market in NYC. I have never seen so many empty spaces -- small, large and entire blocks empty of businesses. Every day, more commercial spaces are for rent.
The other day, I read that investors are, behind-the-scenes, very nervous!
Today, Mike Whitney wrote a very interesting piece -- How To Fight Deflation -- about the economy for Counterpuch. It's worth reading!
I thought "Free Trade" was religion in D.C.?
Opening up markets, importing, exporting, searching the world for the cheapest labor...you told us these are the activities of the economically pious, correct?
Now when the average citizen simply wants to purchase drugs from our neighbor up north the doors to the church are slammed shut and guards are posted.
Why can't we citizens also engage in "Free Trade"?
Why can't we explore other markets?
Why can't we join your religion?
Why does your God reject us?
If you were wondering how Obama managed to name Emanuel, his secretaries and other appointments in record speed, here is the answer: It is much faster to bring out Clinton and Bush retreads than name people that would deliver "change".
A Las A Lac!
Reality dawns and surely the Emperor is w/o clothes.
So now where to?
Pull the covers off shine the bright light on all health related. Doctor mortality records, suits, ins policies.
Interstate choice of policies - pick your desired coverages
from whomever wherever.
Kick the tires, test drive, it's your money, you decide as you would pantyhose
2013 is too soon? What a joke.
As reasonable healthcare continues to be a privilige reserved for fewer and fewer Americans, more and more by their millions will join the desperate masses who, having less and less to lose, will begin to be capable of thinking the unthinkable and doing what they never would have otherwise consented to in times past.
That is both the good and bad news as developments in this debate continue. All those soldiers who came back from the middle east have not forgetten their training or how to obtain and use weaponry and its ammunition.
Poet
And you can add the 700,000 members of the police departments across the USA getting their health care plans trashed while their pay is frozen. They know where the rich live. They know that two can play at the "selective enforcement" game. The police patrols are constantly monitored by the needy citizens. All the police have to do is look the other way for a while. Hey rich pigs, altruism is the only thing that's going to keep your asses from being plundered. Throw away those books on winning by intimidation and getting rich through greed. They might be good for your pocketbook but you will find they are bad for your health and longevity.
The only trigger I want is ror eliminating dems and repugs in the ballot box.Tony
Mitt Romney in 2012!
-30-
Of course. Perception management at its' most blatent putrescence.
Thank you, Mr. Sirota for highlighting Rahm Emmanuel's heavy, war loving, corporation coddling hand in all this corruption.
This modus operandi began when Reagan named a corporate goon to the EPA and has continued ever since. They leave all those pretty laws and regulations in the books and then fail to enforce them. Mens Rea used to be grounds for conspiracy charges in a court of law. Now it's political par for the course.
How anyone who is not a right winger can remain in the same party as Rahm Emmanuel and the Blue Dogs is beyond me. (Or even Steny Hoyer).
Americans MUST form a party similar to the NDP-Canada party or they will continue to decline into poverty and homelessness due to lower incomes and lack of enough jobs. And the health situation of many, many Americans will continue to deteriorate due to a combination of lack of health care, and in some cases due to the wrong health care due to overly financial incentives in the current health system.
BOTH mainstream US parties are right-wing parties. Repeat that to yourself at least twice a day so you don't forget it. If you are not a right winger and yet you give money or time to the Democratic Party in the US, you are actually working against your own interests. This is worse than being totally apolitical and reserving all of your time and money for things other than politics.
All existing non-right wing parties in the US should be unified. Even the NDP-Canada party, as relatively successful as it is, suffers from lack of unity with the Greens in Canada. For example, the NDP would be in charge in British Columbia right now were it not for the Greens siphoning off a substantial number of what would otherwise be NDP votes. The NDP and the Greens in both countries, assuming they can't unify into one party, should at least promise that they will join forces to form governments whenever that is possible.
Existing American politicians who are not right wingers have no business being in the Democratic Party. At the very least, they are living in the past. For two brief periods of time, from about 1935 until about 1950, and then from about 1961 to 1975, the Democrats were apparently a non-right wing party. From 1975-1980, the Democrats under Carter straddled the line between right and left. But that is all history, and as of 2009 it has become obvious that that history is not going to repeat itself for at least several decades. The Democrats have been a right wing party for just about 30 years now!
The problem with waiting around until the Democrats become non-right wing again assuming they ever do, which is a dubious assumption, is that the US is literally disintegrating due in part to the total absence of the non right-wing viewpoint. Waiting around is simply a luxury that can no longer be afforded.
Dennis Kucinich, Bernie Sanders, and so on and so forth must stop waiting and start doing, by forming a new party. They can and should use NDP-Canada as a prototype. Bernie Sanders is a nice guy, but ultimately, being "a man without a party" is kind of lame, at least until parties are completely history.
In the USA, progressives face a dual challenge. First, they have to get a viable non-right wing party established in the first place. And second, they have to unify non-progressives into that newly formulated party.
A new party, as opposed to going forward with one of the current, obscure non right-wing parties, is needed due to the current atomization caused by the existence of numerous parties that are completely disunified, due to the staleness and long histories of futility of the current, obscure parties, and due to negative caricatures that have been cemented in consciousness over many years.
Terminology demonized by propaganda has to be avoided with the new party. Specifically for example, the new US party should avoid self-defeating terminology such as use of the word "socialist".
The Green party is stigmatized in both the US and Canada as a one issue party that is not generally qualified to govern. US Greens should agree to fold themselves into NDP-US, which will in turn espouse very strong pro-environment policies.
Americans, if they were smart, could simply formulate a NDP-US Party, which would be a fresh start for non-right wing interests in the country. Although NDP-Canada might not officially or formally help in the establishment of NDP-USA, it certainly would not stand in the way when individual members of and supporters of NDP-Canada assisted in the formation of NDP-USA.
Eventually, there would be a synergistic feedback loop going both ways between the NDP-Canada Party and the NDP-USA party. Each party would be strengthened by the other one.
-------------
Kucinich, Sanders, and all other progressives, need to unify into a party like this: http://www.ndp.ca/ now controlling two provinces, Manitoba and Nova Scotia, controlling large regional metro areas including Toronto and Vancouver, and controlling 36 of 308 Commons seats. The influence of NDP on actual laws in Canada is greater than you would think just judging from number of election victories
Priors and links to all my CD favorite articles: http://www.unity-progress.blogspot.com
"BOTH mainstream US parties are right-wing parties.
Repeat that to yourself at least twice a day so you don't forget it."
Well said.
They are the two wings of the corporate party. They represent 10% of the people and 70% of the money in the USA. They rule with an iron hand and a lying mouth.
No reform or law will have any meaning or improve our lives while we have a corrupt government that will not enforce said reforms or laws.
"In the USA, progressives face a dual challenge. First, they have to get a viable non-right wing party established in the first place. And second, they have to unify non-progressives into that newly formulated party"
I prefer to work on reconnecting the people with their natural universalist values, then the institutions they build and policies they set will quickly evolve toward and stabilize at whatever works best. When we ignore the question of the people's values then we're effectively taking the people out of the ring and putting them in the stands as passive spectators. As such they are incapacitated. You see today USans can't embrace the Green Party though it represents their values - USans are DETACHED from their values today!
First instill the values, which drive building the local community, which drives building the wider society. So when you ask someone why they want a national policy they answer that it preserves their local community, which preserves what they value. So they have solid reasons, they have a stake in something that they are defending. There has to be solid reasons, there has to be something to defend, preserve. USans USED to have something to defend, fifty years ago. Today, USans have nothing. Their values, their communities, and their institutions up to the national level are lost assets, displaced by material opiates.
USans need to give up the material opiates and again embrace some decent values, local community, and national policies that preserve those.
I am suspecting that the fix was in some time ago and the supposed discussions around a public option is political theater. There were secret meetings with the various major health care players a while back, and as far as I can tell the current proposals couldn't be more pro insurance than if that same industry wrote them themselves. (Did they?)
I don't know if I am being realistic or cynical in that thought, or if there is even a difference between those two frames of reference now a days.
I'm just really getting tired of being screwed by this corporately run government.
America CAN afford health care if we STOP FUNDING WARS!
We need single payer, not a co-op, not insurance subsidies, not triggers!
I can't believe how low our country has gotten! The news media has the mistaken reasoning that repeating ignorant remarks and fear constituets "news". I am sick of this drama, why doesn't someone in leadership and or someone in the news media stand up and stop this crazy?
Is there anyway the 1951 Feiner vs Supreme court could be used to stop the sanction of violence on our elected officials?
a section of the ruling:
. .. It includes not only violent acts and words likely to produce violence in others. No one would have the hardihood to suggest that the principle of freedom of speech sanctions incitement to riot, or that religious liberty canote the privilege to exhort others to physical attack upon those belonging to another sect.
(how about all others?)
You are right. But I believe President Obama's desire is to CONTINUE more and more wars. This is why:
Read the book, "The Unsteady March". I'm sure it is behind a lot of what President Obama is doing in regards to war. You see, when all is said and done, President Obama would like to do something to help African Americans. I think he's going about it the wrong way but what I think doesn't count.
The conclusion of this well researched and scholarly book on the role of African Americans in the USA from the moment slaves were brought to the colonies to the present is that African Americans have progressed in their liberty, freedom and rights in the USA ONLY during periods of hot or cold war. In each war, from the revolutionary war when they were promised emancipation (only the British side honored this promise) to the cold war when Russia was using the treatment of blacks as a propaganda tool against the USA, whenever blacks were needed by the government, a campaign was put in place to convince them to help and that after they helped, they'd be treated as citizens. Most of that was bullshit but, with each war, a little was gained. With each period of peace, some of what was gained was lost by crap such as Jim Crow laws. So here we have a bright African American who is "needed" by the establishment to con the folks some more. He says sure but privately thinks that he's got to help the black part of his family too. So he won't let go of war because he firmly believes that the moment americans are not giving "rag-heads" the evil eye, they'll go back to the business of demonizing and marginalizing minorities in general and blacks in particular. It's as american as apple pie!
Don't argue until you've read the book.
THE UNSTEADY MARCH
The Rise and Decline of Racial Equality in America
by Philip A. Klinkner with Rogers M. Smith
published 1999
I find the use of "trigger" interesting. Triggers are found on guns. Guns kill. So who is going to get killed when the "trigger" goes off?
Maybe we will just shoot ourselves in the foot.
I don't suppose they would want to use, trip wire or booby trap. What is the name for those bombs that are found along side the road in Iraq?
So, what's new folks? The people in Congress will not represent the needs and desires of the American citizens in this instance any more than they do in other instances where they don't want a bill to activate but are too “chicken” to let it be known.
Of course, when do they ever REALLY represent the American public? They represent BIG BUSINESS because they're all on its payroll. They're all "on the take" and bribery is now the currency of the day!
Our government is nothing but a big charade!
The horrible irony of it all is, right here in the midst of pointless wars, a decimated economy, debt and insolvency piled even higher than the mutilated bodies in Iraq....the politicians still bow and kneel before the money power that has brought the nation to the cliff and will soon be free falling like Wiley coyote. The national security of the nation has been totally compromised by the money power empoverishing the productive parts of the nation (manufacturing-critical to national and economic security) and no one but a handful of politicians have the courage to say "no more power to the money power". None of the politicians who say "no more" have been given the levers of real power. The continued abuse of power, the money power, is a sure sign of no good things coming down the road no matter how well articulated feel-good words are said by the president. China has started executing corruption in their financial system and have actually taken the moral high ground over the US. China understands corruption in the financial system is as serious as a psychopath running amok among the people, US politicians haven't figured it out .... yet and likely won't till way past the point of no return which we've likely already passed.
The only logical conclusion is that the money power only wants a world war. An empoverished people (Americans) make delicious cannon fodder for the profit soup the money power has so cleverly engineered.
How to kill the trigger idea: tie it to the individual mandate; no PO, no mandate.
First of all, triggers, PO and mandate are three different things. Even if PO did balance a mandate, triggers could cripple any reform. But PO does not fix the harm done by mandates. A Public Option for the poor only, would place all high risk people in one pool and handle them to the government. I'm talking about the elderly (Medicare) and the poor and uninsured (Obama-Baucus PO). The healthy and wealthy will be forced to pay "insurance tax" to the insurance lobby. No risk spreading of any kind plus taxation without representation - all over again.