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If Health Care Reform Falls, Progressives Need to Look In The Mirror
Supporters of Obama's health care reform are "keeping a stiff upper lip" reports The Hill as reaction to three tough days of oral argument and questioning on aspects of President Obama's Affordable Care Act (ACA).
President Barack Obama listens to a question during the Organizing for America National Health Care Forum at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington Thursday, Aug. 20, 2009 (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
The entire health reform effort seems to hang in balance, dangerously. It looks like a very real possibility that Americans who do and will need health care, and who do or will have health conditions -- i.e., pretty much everyone -- will again be excluded from coverage for pre-existing conditions and others priced out of coverage at alarming rates if the unusually conservative and ideological Supreme Court backs the GOP.
It didn't have to be this way. We had the power to make things different. In fact, we still have the power to make things different.
As poorly as the administration calculated, strategized, composed and communicated their reforms, they did what Administrations do. They brought industry to the table, they excluded single payer advocates, they vastly overestimated their ability to bring the other side on board, they vastly underestimated the extreme ideology that opposed reform and they botched the messaging of all of it.
Candidate Barack Obama campaigned on universal coverage. He told would-be supporters that, if he were "starting from scratch," single-payer would be ideal. Indeed, he even understood that the only true reform, that would sufficiently control costs and actually achieve universal coverage, was a single payer, government-sponsored health care system. The evidence is overwhelming that only such a system can achieve those goals.
President Barack Obama however, not only quickly abandoned any thought of a fight for a true universal system, he set his left flank where he wanted to end up: the public option. In addition to current private plans, geographical regions would have another choice, a "public option" which would have the power of the federal government behind it to negotiate down premiums. Absent a single payer system, there could be some real cost savings this way and, some thought, an opening to a future single payer system. Though perhaps this weak option is all one could expect from a centrist administration, it was not what progressives and the Democratic base either really wanted nor should have fought for.
But progressives did fight for the public option. With some notable exceptions, almost exclusively. Instead of being the rallying grassroots campaign and reasonable solution desired by all progressives, universal, single-ayer health care became the pariah of the organized progressives, scoffed at and scorned as unachievable.
It should have come with no surprise that starting where you want to end in a negotiation is a sure way to not get what you want. Progressives could have not only kept their integrity, but they could have provided a left flank as a foil for the administration. Centrist Dems and less-extreme Repubs could have seen a public option as a place to go. The administration should have allowed it, encouraged it, engaged it, used it. Progressives should have fought like hell for it.
No one can say that the outcome then would have been the public option, or wouldn't have. No one knows what the political climate could have been with a strong, organized fight from progressives for Medicare for all. But without a strategy that included such a fight, it could easily have been predicted that public option would not be the outcome.
If we had ended up with a single-payer system, then of course the "individual mandate problem" is non-existent. Even if we had ended up with a "public option," we would not have had this the question before the Supreme Court this spring. Justice Kennedy himself suggested so in his comments that the Individual Mandate problem could be avoided by a tax funded single payer national health service.
So, while progressives, Democrats, Americans who want affordable health care for all of us go forward wringing our hands and "keeping a stiff upper lip," blaming the misinformed conservative ideologues in Congress, in the Supreme Court, in Tea Party get-ups, perhaps we should take a long look in the mirror.
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193 Comments so far
Show AllObama's plan, in his brain, i.e., his intention proved by his actions, never contained a public option.
I worked as an advocate for health care reform. When I saw where it was going and insisted that we stand for real reform, single payer, I was told not to come back - point-blank and emphatically.
alani...same thing happened in Vermont. When I used the words "Single Payer" the progressive workers group told me that they could not use those words because they might offend someone.
The blind followers of the democratic party do not want to face up to the fact that their party is just as corrupt as the republican party and that is the reason they wanted the insurance industry in on the deal so they could enrich themselves through the kickbacks the industry was offering. The public interest was secondary to the corrupt democratic congress when it comes to their pathetic health care reform or their financial reform which let the too big to fail banks get even bigger. The progressive part of the democratic party is extremely small and has hardly any power at all.
Yep...Bernie Sanders has announced his support of Obama.
Right now they are together doing fund raisers for O in Burlington.
Vote NADER 2012
Sen Sanders is another "All talk, no action" supposedly independent Senator. I wonder why he always caucuses with the Dims?
"The progressive part of the democratic party is extremely small and has hardly any power at all."
____________________________________
Agreed, but whose fault is that? The Democratic Party, or progressives? The progressive movement in the U.S. hasn't even shown enough cohesion to convince more than 0.56% of citizens to vote for Nader (in 2008). If the progressives would lead, even the dysfunctional Democratic Party would eventually have to follow. (Alert: posting rants on Common Dreams doesn't, tragically, qualify as "leadership".)
All leftists know that trying to lead towards the left -- or even looking funny at conservatives -- will get you gunned down in the street.
So that's what it boils down to, eh? That we're more cowardly than our counterparts in Nicaragua, Tunisia, Zimbabwe, Honduras, and Egypt, who face far higher chances of getting "gunned down in the street" than we pussies in the U.S.?
"The REAL ENEMY is the political/corportate/ruling elite.
Wake up people.
Stop fighting each other on social issues.
We can debate them later."
Someone who gets it, hurray!
Many of us get it. Unfortunately, not enough.
To me, if we don't fix foreign policy and reinvigorate the rapidly disappearing Bill of Rights nothing from abortion rights, to workers' rights to gay/women/disabled rights will matter in the least. We'll be worried about getting food, not whether we have a right to it.
+ 1 Cassandra.
Many of the responses appear to be from indignant progressives. Let's see what happens in the upcoming elections. I predict Obama will win with the help of the cowed and frightened progressives.
Cowed and frightened, not, as they resist one of the largest Police States in history.Viva Occupy! All Power to All the People! The People March, the Earth Rejoices!
I admire your admiration and expectations of OWS. I sincerely hope this movement grows to great effect. We are approaching the cusp of immense national corruption that will require near extraterrestrial power to reverse.
My outlook is unchanged as I believe even most OWSers will support Obama and the other corrupt representatives in the elections.
I think you are wrong, millions of Occupy supporters will not for Oily Bomber, whether that's enough to change anything, who knows?
I think we will have to see what happens between now and November. If, as I believe will happen, we see massive demonstrations coupled with police brutality and a deteriorating economy, Obama may have problems.
As things look now, I agree that Obama would win.
Preaching to the choir..
http://borderlessnewsandviews.com/2012/02/5-annoying-things-that-liberals-do/
Dolan is a dolt. The bill is a Republican Bill; it in no way is a Progressive bill. With his efforts surrounding this legislation, Obama proved yet again his Republican credentials--In NO way is Obama a Progressive--He is Regressive and an Authoritarian. Dolan must be blind or something, and thus a mirror will certainly do her no good.
EXACTLY. Nothing to do with "progressives" or "conservatives"... It's all about the cash. Everyone involved in crafting that monstrosity was in it for the money.
+2
"President Barack Obama however, not only quickly abandoned any thought of a fight for a true universal system, he set his left flank where he wanted to end up: the public option."
_____________________________________
The previous comments have already effectively critiqued this article. But Dolan's discussion of the public option, beginning with the sentence quoted above, prompts me to repeat myself:
The sad and bitter truth is for Team Obama, the "public option" was never more than a rhetorical prop to string along the credulous and hopeful.
It was first hyped as a "realistic" alternative to single-payer, i.e. the justification for taking single-payer off the table.
The progressive-liberal commentariat in particular promptly embarked on an animated, enthusiastic discussion of the need to support a strong and rigorous public option-- it could truly be the nose under the camel's tent, or thin edge of the wedge, toward enlightened universal health care.
Then over the weeks and months, Team Obama and the Elected Misrepresentatives in Congress incorporated the public option into a classic bait-and-switch. It kept getting smaller and smaller, weaker and weaker, and more and more insubstantial.
And at every stage, hopium-addicted progressives bravely or desperately declared that although this wasn't QUITE the robust public option they had in mind, at least it was SOMETHING. And "something" is better than nothing.
But it was nothing after all. By the time all the shells were turned over, the public option pea was nowhere to be found.
Somehow, our well-meaning, sincere, dedicated, expert professional politicians had lost or discarded it. It simply wasn't "politically feasible".
If foxes could talk, they would say the same thing about fencing off the chicken coop.
"President Barack Obama however, not only quickly abandoned any thought of a fight for a true universal system, he set his left flank where he wanted to end up: the public option. "
Absolutely wrong Karen. President Consummate Con Man, had agreed in closed door meetings with both Big Pharma, and the Big Insurers, that he would not sign a bill for a public option. Then this Consummate Con Man, what's his name, sent his henchmen to the House and Senate to steer the debates there away from the ironically named "public option", which in actuality was just a public co-option.
Karen Dolan is just so disingenuous with spreading the blame to those who were focused on single payer, since this right wing administration, and the current right wing current power center of the Democratic Party, systematically crushed any opportunity for single payer to be part of the debate, with the public option already have been killed behind the scenes.
Also, Karen Dolan, seems to be making the ultimate, albeit, somewhat obtuse, apology for the Democratic Party, and in particular the Consummate Con Man Administration, by trying to cast the blame all the way to those like Donna Smith, and others who tried repeatedly to at least get single payer on the table, even in the form of a doily or even a lowly coaster.
Karen Dolan also ignores the fact that MSM, including NPR/FOX disallowed any strong voices advocating single payer. You had good old Bernie Sanders who did get to mention his single payer proposal on the floor of the Senate, but without any backing whatsoever from any other senator in the chamber. And when it came down to it, Bernie Sanders didn't actually fight for single payer, but instead supported the bill that didn't even contain a public option. Also, Bernie Sanders ALWAYS defers to the current right wing leadership of the Democratic party, ultimately, and proof of this, was Bernie Sanders agreement with Nancy Pelosi's having taken impeachment, "off the table".
So, yes, those of us advocating single payer should be on the streets. And we know how effective that is right? But part of why that will never happen, is that we feel very isolated. What to rally around? A media that won't allow any kind of advocacy of single payer, is the biggest obstacle of all. One that Karen Dolan seems unwilling to acknowledge.
"A media that won't allow any kind of advocacy of single payer, is the biggest obstacle of all. One that Karen Dolan seems unwilling to acknowledge."
Excellent retort. Dolan will never acknowledge her role as she's part of the obstacle. If her appearance matched her designs, she'd look like a hag stirring a cauldron.
Except the cauldron might contain a better prescription than Obamacare...
I rather doubt anything better can come from her as I just read the linked study she was co-author of--"Battered By the Storm"--which is clearly a tepid, liberal document. I bet the national debt she'd be speechless if informed Obama is gutting funding for Social Security and Medicare though his Orwellian Tax Holiday contrivance.
Oh, I see your point... I was refering to the traditional recipe:
Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the cauldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt, and toe of frog,
Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,
Adder’s fork, and blind-worm’s sting,
Lizard’s leg, and howlet’s wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.
What was it those three hags were trying to make? Ah, yes, I recall now; they were conjuring visions of Macbeth's future fall and replacement at the behest of Hecate.
Hecate was also honored at the Eleusinian Mysteries, rumoured to have involved a pretty effective potion...
"Karen Dolan is just so disingenuous with spreading the blame to those who were focused on single payer...."
She didn't say that. Read the damn essay before you start typing. She isn't blaming SP advocates, she's blaming so-called progressives, mostly Democrats, who abandoned SP for the public option and Obama-care.
This is what happened at the local meetings of the health care reform group that was originally supposed to be about SP. The Democrats took over, like they always do, and spent months talking about Democrat crap, public option, insurance exchange, etc. Now they're supposedly back to SP, but I've bailed out. Too many years of talk & no action.
Forget the MSM, we should have been out on the streets passing out flyers, selling SP. Or doing radio ads. Never happened. There have been a few public meetings on SP, but that only reaches people who go to the meetings.
Even now those who are supposedly running our state-wide SP campaign still find it necessary to follow everything the state legislature Democrats are doing on health care, which is crap. They're defining it as a management problem, when it's really a funding problem.
There is no substitute for taking a strong position and sticking to it, no matter what. And you have to talk to the public. No one is going to do it for us.
"Read the damn essay before you start typing."
I did read the essay before I started typing. I've articulated, in my post, the reasons why, I think that she spreads the blame too widely. She does in fact, use the word "we", that includes you, and me, and Donna Smith, and others who never gave up the fight for a single payer, in her closing line.
"…perhaps we should take a long look in the mirror." I didn't realize that she had made a clear distinction, eliminating blame for those who never gave up the fight for single payer.
I also qualify, my belief, that the actions taken by those advocating single payer, are completely sidelined by the role of the MSM, who in effect bans any discussion of single payer. I point out, that this author does not even address that.
One of the things I pointed out in my opinion, typed in this forum, AFTER I had read the "damn essay", was that president Obama, never intended on the public option being a possibility to begin with. This author is surely aware of that fact, as this is not news to a vast majority of people who frequent any news portal that features writers from the left side of the political spectrum.
Doesn't spreading the blame, fairly, require a realistic and accurate assessment of the intentions behind, say, President Obama, as being the major player in all of this?
"There is no substitute for taking a strong position and sticking to it, no matter what. And you have to talk to the public. No one is going to do it for us."
Who is "you"? Me? I didn't exactly log the number of phone calls to my Representatives and Senators, or to the local media, or to the letters to the editor, or to the ombudsmen at various news agencies that I made, trying to fight for single payer.
I know that it will take a lot more effort, but not keeping a laser focus, on the real culprits, is IN MY OPINION, counter productive. I didn't say, that I disagreed with everything she said, including her assessment that a lot of progressives dropped their advocacy of single payer, in hopes of getting a public option.
On a personal note, from now on, just pass up my post, if you can't refrain from responding like a complete asshole.
I've resorted to expletives, but only if the person I'm responding to, has already attacked someone on that level to begin with. Do you do that in public gatherings as well? Admonish someone with expletives, the moment you meet them?
To understand "how" our political system works, you must understand that the American health care industry spends about half a billion dollars a year on lobbyists. The task of these well paid lobbyists is to convince our Representatives and Senators to vote the way those who are paying the lobbyist want them to vote. Doing the math here, there are 535 Representatives and Senators. For each one of them, the health care industry has spent about ONE MILLION dollars in lobbying them to vote the way the health care industry wants them to vote. So what we got was what the health care industry wanted, not what we wanted. Which is exactly what we've got.
What we need is an opposition party again. If Romney gets in the Dems cannot argue that they need to support their president by agreeing to everything corporate and military complexe’s want. Let the Dems go back to being the obstructionist Party again which is the mantle now held by Repuds. No legislation is better than we have gotten under Obama, and which is entirely slanted toward corporate hegemony and control. Pray for grid lock -- or a Third Party run -- that can grab significant percentage of votes if only to send a message in the same manner that Ross Perot did when he took 18% of the vote, and handing the election to Clinton.
A few months ago David Michael Green wrote the best piece I’ve seen on CD arguing for a Republican Presidental victory:
.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/12/20
Let's be perfectly clear about what is probably going down here.
Obama and the Democrats had a historical chance to usher in an "IMPROVED" Medicare for All health care system with a simple 3 page bill that could have been read and understood by every American with a sixth grade education.
It obviously would have been Constitutional since the long existing Medicare system is Constitutional and is paid for with TAXES. No one is forced to buy a for-profit product with the threat of a penalty/fine if they do not.
Obama and Co. knew all this full well before and after the inauguration. Obama could have had a simple "fireside chat" with the American people with a few simple charts and explained why expanding Medicare for all would be the most logical way to go that would SAVE THE MOST MONEY and would deliver the best standard of care to ALL Americans.
He could have asked all those who voted for him and even those who did not to please write to their two Senators and one House member and better yet if they could please perhaps get groups of their neighborhoods/friends together and hand deliver those letters to their representatives offices that would make an even BIGGER impact on lobbying them to vote for a simple, 3 page bill!
But we did not see this. As a matter of fact, the Obama administration made sure that Obama's personal physician (a Single Payer advocate) was DIS-INVITED from the ABC health care program where Obama was going to make his "case" for the fact that the country desperately needed to make changes in the way health care is delivered. Doctors and nurses were thrown out of Baucus's committee meetings for trying to put "Single Payer" on the table. It wasn't even allowed in the ROOM!!!!
Obama personally killed "The Public Option", even though it was a joke. Had the "Public Option" he killed actually been something simple like, "Anyone who wants to go for Medicare instead of the private "for-profit" system", they will be able to at an affordable price", it might have been at least a "step" toward Medicare for All.
I was registered as a Democrat since 1968. I just registered as a Republican in California so I can vote for Ron Paul, the ONLY anti-war, pro-Constitution, pro-civil liberties candidate running. Right now I am more concerned as an American with the fact that our military are killing innocent women and children (the Bales massacre), launching "legal" drone strikes against American citizens with no due process, eroding our civil liberties on a daily basis, threatening journalists etc., than with any "health care" bill.
I hope the Supreme Court throws out Obamacare on it's ass.
And I hope Obama loses in November. Even if it means having a corporate whore like Romney in charge for four years. Obama deserves to be "fired" for all the continued torture, drone strikes, spying etc. I would rather let Romney have a shot at it and let him start in with the war surges, increased drone strikes, martial law (that Obama has personally set the stage for!!!), and see how many hypocritical Democrats start marching in the streets!
And isn't it interesting how some of the Supreme Court justices have had the gall to mention that a Single Payer/Medicare for All system would have been Constitutional?
Only problem with that was that the Democratic Party had to pay back their corporate pimps for getting them elected. Thus the dirty deals with AHIP and Big Pharma.
As to the mirror on the wall. There is only one person who needs to take a look in it and that is Barack Obama. As my Grandma used to say, "The fish stinks from the head."
Pfffttt!
Very clearly stated, Abby. Brava!
Sorry. I can't get married (although I am single).
Don't want to risk losing my Social Security (first check in two weeks! Woo-hoo!)
Wanna shack up??!
Ha!
"I was registered as a Democrat since 1968. I just registered as a Republican in California so I can vote for Ron Paul"
Excuse my ignorance but I'm going to ask a simple question. Why do you have to register as one particular party to vote? Is that just for the "primaries" or do you have to register with a party in order to cast a vote in the general election?
Each state in this country has its own rules for the primaries, and now in California, it is different for the differing levels of government. That means we now have open primaries for state offices, all candidates in one big pool and then the two top vote getters from that election go head to head in the general, be they both Ds or Rs or whatever... Then in the Presidential race you have to vote in the party in which you are registered. This only applies to California, don't off the top of my head know the score in the other 49 states...
Has anyone noticed that Ron Paul isn't getting very many votes? That he is far behind even Gingrich in his delegate count? That he isn't getting any media any more because of this pathetic showing? That all the "excitement" he generated among young readers of Ayn Rand novels has now evaporated?
So why is anyone talking about Ron Paul any more?
BTW, he regards single payer as a devilish plot to overthrow America. Instead, he wants people to go beg for health care money at their local church.
Yes a media blackout, overt corruption in seating delegates, and collaboration between much of the left, progressives and neo-cons in using the EXACT same talking points to destroy Paul has done wonders in destroying the only ELECTABLE anti war, anti bank corruption, and anti drug war candidate hasn't it?
Hurray for the status quo, surely things will get better now that our electable choices are Oily Bomber and gold plated Oven Mitt, woo hoo!
And yes I'll likely go and vote for Greens on election day as a FUCK YOU to the system, but I might as well have stayed home and masturbated for all the good it will do. But I will only vote for greens for President if the Greens nominate Jill Stein and not the idiotic Roseanne Barr who tweeted Zimmerman's actual home address which is an invitation to a lynch mob, shame on her for that!
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/roseanne-barr-zimmerman-tweets-893416
It is exactly your line of thinking Leezasky that has pushed me from the progressive camp towards the anti statist camp. It's the endless serial murder of overseas brown people by the U.S. Federal government stupid!
I went from Green to Independent, thinking that in Florida I would be able to vote for Ron Paul if I got drunk, but no. They fixed it so you have to register Republican to vote for Repugs. Same for Dems I guess.
In California the only way one can cast a vote for Ron Paul is to be registered in the Republican Party.
Many Ron Paul supporters who are not paying attention in California will not be able to vote for Paul if they have not taken the time to register as a Republican.
"And I hope Obama loses in November. Even if it means having a corporate whore like Romney in charge for four years. Obama deserves to be "fired" for all the continued torture, drone strikes, spying etc. I would rather let Romney have a shot at it and let him start in with the war surges, increased drone strikes, martial law (that Obama has personally set the stage for!!!), and see how many hypocritical Democrats start marching in the streets!"
I agree with everything you wrote. Obama lied to the whole country about his intentions. He's worse than Bush when it comes to our civil liberties. He should not be rewarded with our votes. Let's see what happens when Romney is elected. Then the hypocritical Democrats can join the more politically savvy activists and take to the streets. It worries me, though. They've become such sheep, they may just support Romney if the Democratic "Leadership" tells them to.
Still, it is the only way this country can get off this holding pattern: currently we're suspended and silent while Obama takes away all our rights, starts a war with Iran, etc. I say let's get on with it. Let Romney win and let the public react.
Nixon invented privatized health care. He had a friend who was starting a for-profit hospital chain. This is a Republican effort.
Most hospitals were community-based non-profit charities. Many were religious in nature. The American Red Cross had the cross of Jesus as its symbol. The health insurance company Blue Cross did the same. The religious hospitals often had names like "Mercy" and "St. Jude". These are the charitable hospitals that our government policies tend to squeeze out of business.
The Republicans had veto power in 2009, and so they had an enormous say in the health care bill. The Democrats are pretty bought themselves. What came out wasn't too far from a health industry-friendly bill, unfriendly to us.
Our health care system in 2008 was the world's laughingstock, vastly expensive, ruinous of the American economy, and killing people.
The Republican Party is probably the most "far right" political party of any major nation of the "West". It has moved increasingly further to the "right" from what it was back when Eisenhower was President. By the standards of that time the present Republican Party has become a national social darwinist movement representing no one but the rich. To have any chance of winning an election, it has to appeal to the "non-rich" who are willing to vote against their own economic interests in order to "protect" their pet "interests". This is where the NRA comes in. Where "Right to Life" comes in. Where Christian fundamentalists come in. Where racists come in. Where the "anti-gays" come in. These are the people who make up the foot soldiers of the Republican Party. They supply the needed "boots on the ground". The Party itself however is mainly financed by the corporations and the wealthy, thanks to "Citizens United" which removed all restrictions upon political donations.
Yes, and that should make it very easy for any serious opposition movement to beat them. Yet the Democrats cannot.
Could that have anything to do with the fact that the Democrats, too, are "mainly financed by the corporations and the wealthy," and that the Democrats, too, have their own version of deceiving people into supporting them?
The Democrats, in order to win, also "appeal to the 'non-rich' who are willing to vote against their own economic interests in order to 'protect' their pet 'interests."
that's what happens when every possible social issue is dealt with as the replacement for democracy
OBAMA 2012!
Nuff said.
A vote for Obama is a vote for Wall Street and One Percent rule. No thanks
Two words-- single payer!