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Though Obviously Hypocritical, GOP Has Chance to Outflank Dems on Health Care Populism
Late last week, Firedoglake highlighted this stunning exchange between activist Mike Stark and retiring GOP Rep. John Shadegg over health care:
SHADEGG: Both the House and Senate bills contain mandates that compel, or would compel you and I as individual Americans to buy insurance from Americas private insurance industry. I think America's private insurance industry is the problem...STARK: So are you for a public option?
SHADDEG: Well, you could better defend a public option than you could defend compelling me to buy a product from the people that have created the problem. America's health insurance industry has wanted this bill and the individual mandate from the get go. That's their idea. Their idea is "look, our product is so lousy, that lots of people don't buy it. So we need the government to force people to buy our product. And stunningly, that's what the Congress appears to be going along with. Why would they do that?...The notion of forcing Americans to buy a product they don't want to buy from companies that aren't doing it right right now is goofy...Making the IRS the bill collector for Aetna and the rest of America's insurance companies...Blue Cross/Blue Shield and United...isn't the way to do it.
Let's first get the issue of Shadegg's integrity out of the way here - he's obviously a hypocrite. This is a lawmaker who could have voted for the public option that he suggests has value, and could have voted for much stronger overall health care reform bills in the past.
However, hypocrisy by a politician is hardly interesting in an age when President Obama has broken so many explicit promises it's hard to even count them anymore. What is far more notable is the substantive argument Shadegg is voicing - it's both accurate and politically telling.
Shadegg is absolutely correct that "America's private insurance industry is the problem." He is also correct that this legislation is exactly what that industry wants - not, as the Orwellian White House spokesholes insist, some great victory over that industry. And Shadegg is right that compelling people to buy an expensive (and faulty) product from a private corporation without giving people at least the choice of a public product is unprecedented and grotesque.
If the health care bill is not improved, this is exactly the kind of argument the Republicans will make in the 2010 and 2012 election. And I say that not just because one lone GOP congressman is making the argument, but because you are starting to hear a similar case being made by top Republican Party officials.
Case in point is the interview I did last week on my AM760 radio show with Colorado Republican Party Chairman Dick Wadhams. You can listen to it here - and specifically, listen to him rail on the insurance industry.
Again, it's obviously disingenuous coming from Republicans as the GOP has been shilling for the insurance industry for years. However, that doesn't mean it won't be powerful. It will be - and it will be precisely because the Democrats - in weakening the health legislation - have allowed Republicans to potentially outflank them (at least image-wise) as the populist party of the little guy.
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13 Comments so far
Show AllThey always tell it like it is when retiring.
But it ain't the Insurance cartels--they are just milking as much as they can get away with.
It is the Government who serves their interests at the expense of ours.
Quit spinning Sirota in your desperation to deflect all the blame off the Democrats even while providing appropriate outraged noises.
How long can the charade continue of switching from D to R to D and getting the same deal at every turn?
Just as the Dems let the Repugs shape the stimulus plan with zero Repugs voting in favor of it in the end, the Dems took the same approach with the corporate welfare program disguised as health care reform and created a fascist bill and now zero Repugs voted for it.
With this strategy, Repugs now have a boatload of ammo to fire back at the Dems in this year's elections.
The Dems are so clueless they are bringing Obama and Biden to their states to help them campaign.
Fool me once, shame on you,
Fool me twice, shame on me.
-"... in weakening the health legislation - have allowed Republicans to potentially outflank them (at least image-wise) as the populist party of the little guy."
And the Democrats self imposed "image" problem, that is what should concern Americans suffering from substandard medical care? Don't they have better things to worry about, like how they are going survive without being able to get healthcare. That problem is, thanks to the Dems and Repubs, only going to get worse.
If we make all the people receiving health care through the Medicaid program buy insurance, we can make a lot of money. The insurance companies make a bundle right off the top as Obama has said many times. The government can save a lot of money even if we pay for the insurance. Those poor people seeking medical treatment in our emergency rooms will stop, because they can not afford the co pays. Everybody wins but the poor people, Jesus was wrong “they will not always be with us”. They can just die, out of sight and out of mind. Healthcare can not cure the sick people in this land. I sure hope the people of Mass. cast their vote and kill bill. The house and senate is like Sodom and Gomorrah, can you find just ten good men? We can not count on anyone there to kill bill. Who cares if the blind outflank the blind?
Most are hypocrites, left or right as far as I can tell. Soon the good ones will have to stand and be counted.
"Again, it's obviously disingenuous coming from Republicans as the GOP has been shilling for the insurance industry for years"
And the Democrats haven't? And doing it right now? Gee David those nasty Republicans are indeed going to beat the crap out of your nice democratic boys, and justifiably so!
Proposing Health Crap, Cap and Tax, spending like a drunken sailor for your friends in the financial sector while doing zippy-do-dah about the economy or jobs is generally going to make the citizen unhappy. What a surprise!!
Sirota makes a good point. The Dems do not have a lock on populism. By promoting corporatist and militarist policies and ignoring the party's populist left wing , they provide rich fertilizer for rightwing populism.
Next the usual out-of-touch Dem schills will cry and moan about the evil teabaggers, and indulge in elitist criticism about how easily the American people are misled.
dreamjoehill, your first paragraph seems to be inconsistent with your second: In your first paragraph you confirm Sirota, paraphrasing his point as warning of "right-wing populism" (your expression). In your second paragraph you denounce "Dem schills [sic]" for potentially complaining about "evil teabaggers" in relation to Sirota's point. I am nobody's shill, but if the Teabaggers don't exemplify contemporary "right-wing populism," then nothing does. And if you don't know that "right-wing populism" is "evil," either immediately or potentially, then I suggest that you review the history of classic fascism, with especial attention to right-wing populists such as Hitler and Mussolini. Ergo, American "right-wing populism" = "evil teabaggers" and so your second paragraph glibly dismisses that of which you correctly warn in your first paragraph. In fact the Teabaggers exemplify the first phases of what historians of classic fascism call the "mass base of fascism"; where "mass base" denotes the petty bourgeoisie (middle or lower-middle classes). The mass base of fascism arises out of the confusion and discontent of this stratum in times of acute crisis in mature capitalism. These folks can be quite dangerous--recall that some Teabaggers brandished automatic weapons at their commotions--and the Teabaggers' hateful, ignorant outbursts indeed illustrate "how easily the American people are misled." And please note that in connection with the Teabaggers we have also witnessed early exemplars of what scholarship on classic fascism calls "the marriage of classes," namely, the political nexus of our real rulers (the capitalist/imperialist elite) with the "right-wing populism" engendered by the rot of the capitalist system: I refer to the multiple examples of stealth corporate backing for Teabagger events that focused especially on the recent "health-care reform" farce. Late capitalism in crisis breeds fascism like stench on a corpse; we will be hearing a lot more from the likes of the Teabaggers in the immediate future. We misperceive the political significance of their populism at our own peril.
Whether the American people are politically misled by scheming insiders (the likely scenario),
or mostly, just politically ignorant by consciously chosen decadence (less likely, because most people don't consciously choose to be ignorant and decadent), the net result is the same: Elites tend to rule and rule in their interests alone.
If you believe that democracy is the least horrid form of government, then there's nothing elitist in pointing out that it doesn't exist in the US, or in complaining about that fact, or in trying to change it, DREAMJOEHILL.
All of this is toward the good.
Let the Repubs play the populist card to take down the Dems a few pegs.
And let us take this opportunity to build a third major party for those who are just as disgusted with the Dems as everyone else, but are unwilling to go Repub for whatever reason.
We couldn't DREAM of a better scenario for a such a party breakthrough than the one 2010 is shaping up to be!
-matti.
matti: Please see my 7:33 pm post, below. You are seriously deluded if you think that the Teabaggers ("the populist card") are good news for anybody. Fascists are never good news, and the Teabaggers are fascists in embryo.
We know that Repcons are hypocrites and liars, but it took a Demlibs win to show that Demcons are too.
Let me again be clear. The insurance companies are not the problem, they are a symptom of the problem. The problem is out of control medical care costs, costs generated by people who see health care as the business of managing disease not curing it. That way they get a monthly fee, just like the telecommunications companies. You cannot get well by having your symptoms treated. Without determining the cause of your high blood pressure, DM, psoriasis,etc. you will be their cow to be milked forever.
Health insurance companies have a very bad business model and should rightly go out of business. But the cause of these costs is a wicked combination of gov't and, gasp, corporate entities and the AMA. The gov't's job is to protect the profits. Stop the FDA from protecting Big Pharma and the AMA and costs would plummet.
I know you almost no one believes me but it's the truth. Check "IV Vitamin C and viruses" "FDA bans pyridoxamine" Go to www.vitamind council.org
The right does go further than Shadegg. Outside a town Hall meeting in Kittanning PA I got into a shouting match with a teabagger. "If you don't trust the government do you trust private insurance companies?" "No, I don't trust them either--I want a private health care savings account." "How much do you think a triple bypass would cost?" His answer floored me, "It would be about $15,000 if I could negotiate directly with the doctor--without all that bureaucratic red tape." He then gave me a handout from Americans for Prosperity which hyped Health Care Savings accounts as the answer to Health Care. He handed it to me with a smug grin--sure that he had won the argument.
Well, I didn't ask him what he would do if his savings account wasn't big enough to pay for the operation but Ron Paul has an answer to that one to-- rely on charity. If that doesn't work then Scrooge has the ultimate Libertarian answer, "Then let them die and decrease the surplus population."
Hard to argue with the logic of that. Out flanked by the right again.