So what’s with this guy? I’m serious!!

Treating workers as a disposable resource for a better tomorrow!

Digg is open! Thank you Jane, for all you do.

barbara is working very hard at staying, if not positive, then at least neutral as all of this unfolds. But I would trade Rahm Emanuel and an aide with knee problems for Howard Dean in a heartbeat. Oh, wait. They didn’t ask me.

We are talking about Rahm, here.

He’ll continue to vomit these little outrages as long as he has a tongue. The problem is that he’s got a peach of a job in this administration…

Because GM and Rahm are working hand-in-glove to use any bailout of GM as an excuse to union bust, and strip workers of pension, over $20 an hour, and health benefits.

That’s why.

acute food-in-mouth disease probably. This from the same person who announced to the rethugs that bipartisanship is what the admin will do only when it wants somethin’ from ‘em.

sent this to the white house:

This is a quote from Mr. Emanuel:
”The company relied on sales of “gas guzzlers,” never invested in alternative energy cars and instituted an outdated health care program that hurt the company’s business and employees, he said.
Outdated health care program??????????? That hurt the employees???? This is an anti-worker, anti-family comment. I do not understand this point of view coming from a white house that professes to support the average citizen.

Please correct me if I’m wrong. I could be going off with a bad memory or just plain stoopid me. Hasn’t GM always lobbyed against ‘universal health care’ all the while loading up GM’s debt with sometimes double/dipping types of health-care that goes beyond cost reality.

well, strictly speaking the comment is half right.. or right, up until the healthcare part. GM mgmt’s been worse than incompetent, right up to the present time… every bit as bad as the banks.

Rahm is descending to the level of Lieberman, IMO. My contempt for him is growing like a weed in Spring.

if rush is the face of the GOP, rahm is the face of the alternate GOP (aka democrats).

GM management neglected/put-off making payments to cover their contractual commitments to legacy costs of retirement and health care so as to inflate their bottom line and thus their bonuses.

They also avoided paying taxes for the same reason, they had to fess up last year and pay $39 Billion of those taxes and I’ll bet no one had to give back any bonus money?

It wasn’t an “outdated health care program”; it was an unfunded health care program.

Why is it that only individuals are required to deliver on their contractual obligations, while large corporations are allowed to ignore the portions of the contracts they find inconvenient?

I always thought that the auto companies and big steel etc. instituted paying for insurance for employees for two primary reasons 1) People that got hurt at their plant could sue 2) They would have to pay the bill for injuries anyway. A third reason was to attract better, more loyal workers.

OK, I am going to go out on a limb here and say that perhaps what Rahm was alluding to was the fact that weighing companies down with the responsibility of providing healthcare is part of the bigger economic problem and that universal healthcare not connected to employment is the way to go? How does that sound?

I like it. Now we just need to convince Rahm.

From the very start I was uncomfortable with the selection of Rahm as chief of staff. The liberal agenda is at serious risk with Rahm “wormtounge” Emanual controlling access to the president.

I don’t know why Rahm is reinforcing right-wing talking points

This is a rhetorical question, right? The Obama Administration is turning into a nightmare. Is Ellen Tauscher really so out of step with Rahm? Or with Obama for that matter?

State secrets, moving indefinite detention from Guantanamo to Bagram, immunity for the telecoms, endless bailouts for banks, chicken feed for homeowners and automakers representing real jobs, a weak stimulus, bashing entitlements, slowing withdrawal from Iraq and not making it complete even then, deficit reduction in a depression, healthcare for insurance companies, ordinary Americans?, not so much. The list goes on and on.

What we are seeing with stupid statements like those of Rahm is that this is not a bug. It’s a feature. Obama talks about change, a new way of doing things, but it is all just talk. What we have is another rightwing Administration, not as extreme as Bush’s, but not really moderate either.

There’s an “outdated health care program” alright, and it’s the insurance company-run private health care system in this country. Rahm doesn’t seem to want to admit that the reason foreign car companies have a competitive advantage is because other countries provide health care to all of their citizens.

Rahm Emanuel is an organ, not a muscle, but why say this, why now? What points is he using as he triangulates?

Employer provided health care insurance was the choice made by all successful American businesses since the Great Depression. GM is merely a leading example. It is a victim of its own success and its inability to remain competitive.

Health care was considered one non-cash benefit among the many that were offered to organized labor. Companies without unions followed the norm established by those that did. It is also a kind of deferred compensation favored by financial whizzes. Employers can grant it now, avoid higher direct labor costs, and pay for health care piecemeal and later. Like Wall Street and their housing and securitization bubble, many assumed the “pay later” would never come or be too expensive an obligation to meet. Life didn’t work out that way.

America made a different choice than the rest of the developed world. It chose variations on universal health care as a right for the individual and a social obligation of government. As such, it was not something that could responsibly be left to the tender mercies of an employer.

Now that American businesses are less competitive and under pressure, they want out of their bargain. They reaped the benefit, they no longer need it to attract scarce labor, they want out of the card game they set up, and they want the government to play their hand for them.

Rahm Emanuel is the president’s spokesman. He should STFU unless he is using such grandstanding to further a rational, reasonable national health care alternative to company-provided health insurance. Or he should quit his day job and walk across the aisle to the Republican benches. One more loon won’t be noticed.

this is not a bug. It’s a feature

I have to agree with that. Rahm is COS for chrissakes. He speaks for the administration.

I disagree… I think my one criticism of us progressives (myself included) is that we tend to see too much of ourselves in this administrative. Every time Obama does something good we cheer and say “oh, everything’s gonna be OK” and “he’s our hero.” Every time he or one of his people does something rethuggish, we say “this is turning into a nightmare.” The simple reality is, this is moderate-to-conservative administration that’s had to embrace a few progressive bells and whistles because of the economic crisis they inherited. We knew this going in, and we should recognize that it will continue to be the case. This was the best president we could have elected… that does not mean he agrees with us. Our task is to speak out about what we do believe in. Sayin’ that the sky is falling is neither news nor useful.

So essentially you’re saying, the problem with Rahm is his inartful and offensive way of saying things!

so ‘change we can believe in’ was smoke up our asses. i get it. make him win, ‘cos he’s not bush, he’s bush-lite.

Rahm

We can save tax dollars if we remove “an outdated health care program” as a Government benefit.

When will you start this effort?

acute food-in-mouth disease probably

I too have been developing an acute food in mouth disease. *g*

The company relied on sales of “gas guzzlers,” never invested in alternative energy cars and instituted an outdated health care program that hurt the company’s business and employees, he said.

So I’m assuming that none of this came up when Rahm was a senior adviser to President Clinton in the 1990s.

you can say what you want, but what he meant by “change” was quite diffrent than what American progressives wanted, and Obama never made a secret of that fact. I didn’t support the guy until the very end, and then only lukewarmly, so I have the luxury of hindsight. I still think he will make a good president, but he isn’t our president ideologically.

The liberal agenda is at serious risk with Rahm “wormtounge” Emanual controlling access to the president.

The thing is, I don’t believe even Rahm can “control access to the Prez!” I don’t think Obama can be put into a box as some other presidents could.

I don’t know why Rahm is reinforcing right-wing talking points when we’re trying to make the case that we need to provide health care to everyone

i’m pretty sure it’s because rahm et al are thinking about a subsidy to the insurance company. “health care” is the what they call it for us rubes.

I asked a White House spokesperson for clarification in case I misunderstood something, but since they wouldn’t respond on the record, and there is no reason to ask for anonymity when speaking officially on behalf of the administration, I’m not going to print it.

guess it’s not just david cay johnson?

while i agree with the general thrust of what you’re saying,

i disagree with this:
“Sayin’ that the sky is falling is neither news nor useful”

it is news and it is true. see 1-800-roubini.

feeding the banks and companies like GM and pandering to them doesn’t help.

How was providing health care to their employees “outdated?”

Health care allowed workers to live longer and healthier lives that effected the bottom line of GM. Those workers would have died earlier and been less a burden except for the pesky health plans. Dang Unions, it all their fault.

Congress never provided a plan so it was left to employers. And now employers are dropping that too to do what Rahm da bomb says – get current and make more moolah – stop with the benefits of work. Stick to exploitation of labor – dat’s what it’s for, ain’t it?

It will be interesting to see what happens when Rahm leaves his CoS gig and finds out that his old IL-05 seat will have failed to magically eject its occupant for him.

Dad gum federal government wasting our tax dollars to provide health insurance for all the congresscritters and federal employees. WTF are they thinking.

I think you’re right.

I asked a White House spokesperson for clarification in case I misunderstood something, but since they wouldn’t respond on the record, and there is no reason to ask for anonymity when speaking officially on behalf of the administration, I’m not going to print it.

Good for you, both in asking for official clarification and in refusing to give credence to anything said by someone who won’t go on the record.

“Here’s your official clarification, but don’t quote me on it” is a helluva way to run a White House press office.

I have to give him credit for his refusal to give up his blackberry. It is obvious that he is not willing to subside into the bubble and give up his connection to the real world. On the other hand, nobody in a position of great power is immune to the blandishmants of those clinging to power. Which describes Rahm to the tee.

I think my one criticism of us progressives (myself included) is that we tend to see too much of ourselves in this administrative.

That’s just it. I don’t see anything progressive in this Administration. I am not the one who ran on “Change we can believe in.” That was Obama. I am not reading any of myself into that statement. I’m just saying he lied, not just to me, but most of those who voted for him.

The simple reality is, this is moderate-to-conservative administration that’s had to embrace a few progressive bells and whistles because of the economic crisis they inherited.

An let us be real clear on that. A few progressive bells and whistles are not going to fix the economy or keep it out of depression. This disaster is not of our making. It belongs to Bush and increasingly Obama. The worst thing is for us to accept a veneer of progressivism not enough to help but enough to receive blame. If Obama wants to be a rightwing President, the rightwing should continue to bear responsibility for this mess.

”I don’t know why Rahm is reinforcing right-wing talking points …..” jh

”Reinforcing” is good. ”Parroting” was the word that came to my mind.

This guy makes me angry.

What Rahm actually said:

http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/FTN_030109.pdf

But here’s the other thing I think that people should see, in both GM as well as the others. They never invested in both alternative energy cars. They got dependent on big gas guzzlers. They didn’t do — they have a health care cost structure that’s outdated.

And as, sort of, an example, we talked earlier, Bob, about the fact that their health care system is affecting their business and their employers — and their employees, rather.

And it’s an example, in my view, of what the president’s saying for this country. The day of reckoning, of making sure that we had a policy on energy independence, a policy that ensures that our health care costs were under control and our ability to make sure that coverage was expanded to those who are uninsured, as one way to also bring costs under control — that is the challenge we face as a country.

He was actually making the case for universal healthcare and how it could have helped GM. But since its Rahm I guess we run with the first thing we hear. Sigh

Wormtongue is exactly right. Rahm’s role and his comments either express what Obama really wants, or he’s a GOP mole. Neither alternative is attractive. Both are dangerous for anyone not already among the financial elite.

There’s no Gandalf the White (or any other color), no ronin coming to save us from evil. There’s just us halflings, dwarves and elves who will need to fend for ourselves. I recommend Blue America and its peers; we need more and better progressive Democrats NOW.

Irony: SEIU is pouring money into campaign of Sara Feigenholtz to succeed Emanuel. Feigenholtz, per ChiTrib, is a major supporter of strong health care.

However, be remembering that SEIU dumped big bucks into getting Blago elected, not once but twice.

There are no unflawed players in the game.

Which brings me back to, why aren’t we constantly reminding those who are feeding on our dime that they are little more than government legacy costs in the making! And they are feeding on our dime!

Exactly right. If employer provided health care is old hat, Congress and the federal government and the armed forces should lead the way and drop all such programs this fiscal year. Taxpayers can no longer afford their throwing away money on an outdated benefit.

Something tells me the recruitment budget might need to be beefed up a tad. I also suspect Godot will catch the bus before Rahm and his GOP friends touch their federal pensions and health care.

That’s a great link about how transparency in the Obama WH does not mean what they think it means.

i used to think i wasn’t fooled by obama’s marketing and did not think he was progressive (hell, i didn’t even vote for him). but i am astounded, actually gobsmacked, by how much this administration is a continuation of the previous one. changes in perception management maybe, but in substance not so much.

if you saw that coming, i’m seriously impressed.

I’m with you on this. We have a knee-jerk reaction to certain players, and Rahm is definitely one of those. Often with good reason, btw. But he seems to affect us (me, too) in much the same way as KKKKarl Rove and others of his ilk. (Damn, where did I put my ilk?!)

Years ago, a very annoying woman who was a well-known activist introduced herself to me this way: “Hi. I’m CS. And you need to know about me that I have the capacity to piss people off by simply walking into a room.”

Yeah, pretty much.

Excellent, Jane — the anonymice must be stopped somewhere, might as well be right here!

former Democratic congressman
Former Democrat as well as former congressman.
It’s clear he is NOT working for the best interests of the American people.

I’m glad that someone agrees with me. Democrats come built in with the seeds of their own destruction. The blue dogs would be republicans if not for the fact the the GOP has purged any trace of moderation from their ranks.

An let us be real clear on that. A few progressive bells and whistles are not going to fix the economy or keep it out of depression. This disaster is not of our making. It belongs to Bush and increasingly Obama. The worst thing is for us to accept a veneer of progressivism not enough to help but enough to receive blame. If Obama wants to be a rightwing President, the rightwing should continue to bear responsibility for this mess.

my bold.

He was actually making the case for universal healthcare and how it could have helped GM.

really? this is rahm telling us the obama administration is now supporting hr676?

before i go celebrate, could you get that confirmed? thanks.

But since its Rahm I guess we run with the first thing we hear. Sigh

Indeed you have what Rahm said. But look at what he said. He starts by beating up automakers for gas guzzlers and healthcare and only after says, oh wait, it’s about the government not having an energy and healthcare policy. That’s a lot different from saying that the automakers made mistakes but the real culprit in all this was the government and politicians who failed to come up with meaningful energy and healthcare programs, something this Administration still hasn’t done, unless you count its welfare for insurance companies to be its healthcare plan.

Rahm is still bitching that GM, et al, didn’t get behind Hillarycare.

I didn’t, but I also just plain didn’t like the guy’s politics (I like him a lot as a person, I should say, not his politics). Now I’m prepared to be supportive of him and try to make myself heard, as I hope we all will. I was not supportive of him during the election, but now he’s my president, and I should say, not a bad one.

Frankly, he’s actually kinda a lot better than I expected him to be, when half the people here and at other liberal sites and fora, attacked me as a traitor and basic slime for daring to campaign against him during the primary. In any case, as president (if not as candidate) he deserves our support and “encouragement” and I cringe a bit when I hear liberals yell ‘betrayal’ at him now.

[GM] instituted an outdated health care program that hurt the company’s business and employees.

Valuable correction. My comments were overdone in light of the full quote. My excuse is twofold. Bloomberg seems to have put Rahm’s comments in a more accurate and hopeful context than Rahm himself did. Ditto CBS. The administration has failed to make that case itself and they are who count.

Rahm’s point about “an outdated health care program” is also harmfully and seemingly intentionally incorrect. He is probably publicly negotiating with GM over demands for more restructuring money.

As I said in #20 above, employer-provided health care was and still is the norm in the United States, unlike the rest of the developed world. GM’s plan was not outdated when instituted. It might still be competitive were it not for changes in US health care and delivery, and most especially, in the way the needs and profits of health insurers came to dominate over the needs of Americans for health care.

What is true is that the employer-provided health insurance model now miserably fails Americans. We must change it if we and our employers are to survive with our health and profits and a stable society intact.

Oh, people, can’t we all just get along? *g* Uffdah. Also, I remain curious why Conyers supported Obama’s presidency if Obama is anti HR676.

I think you may have a point, but at best its a hedge intended to be read either way. I think Obama is trying to give himself some flexibility here on healthcare: if he can promote his universal health plan successfully, then its the latter meaning you ascribe to it. If it isn’t, he’ll blame corporations for being overgenerous with their health benefits in the past.

Its in black and white in front of you but if you don’t want to believe your lying eyes.

The day of reckoning, of making sure that we had a policy on energy independence, a policy that ensures that our health care costs were under control and our ability to make sure that coverage was expanded to those who are uninsured, as one way to also bring costs under control — that is the challenge we face as a country.

He is talking about the costs not the program and how to bring those costs down by expanding healthcare to the uninsured. Hey you are more than willing to keep bashing him just as long as you acknowledge that he didn’t say what was reported by bloomberg that he said.

no presidential candidate with a chance to win supported hr676.

how many votes would it have affected?

how many dollars of campaign contributions?

well then please tell me what the plan to bring down costs is. because from everything i’ve seen, it’s some variation of the MA plan – and that one doesn’t work (both coverage wise and cost wise).

Which plan are you talking about? As far as I know President Obama hasn’t submitted a healthcare plan yet.

Well, see, there you go being smarter than I am again. Jeez! *g* Just wondering why Conyers homed in on Obama, healthcare seemingly Conyers’ signature issue. Because he believed Obama was mostly okay on other issues? Because he didn’t like Hillary? Because…?

I didn’t vote for Obama either. I didn’t support him until the primaries started and then largely because I could see he was going to be the nominee. I pulled my support for him in, I believe, July 2008 when he reneged on his pledge to filibuster the FISA Amendments Act and instead pushed for its passage. I never had any illusions about Obama being progressive but like selise the depth and breadth of his conservatism has surprised me. He may not be as bad as Bush but I look at his policies and see that they fail to clean up Bush’s disasters. On the economy, for example, it doesn’t matter if Obama is a little bit better than Bush. If he doesn’t do what is needed, the depression we are in will be long and severe.

Rahm deserves most if not all the criticism. As with the stimulus bill, his language speaks of tweeking the current system, not reforming it based on how badly the current insurance model works. We need a health care model, not one built around the expensive intermediary between those who provide services and those who need them. For the same reason, on a larger scale, we need fewer expensive and unregulated bank intermediaries between scarce tax dollars and the students who need student loans.

Apparently you didn’t get the memo. I guess I missed it, too. I think it came sometime after midnight on election night, but definitely before Obama was empowered to do anything but try to manage perception from outside the White House gate.

Which plan are you talking about? As far as I know President Obama hasn’t submitted a healthcare plan yet.

So what is Rahm talking about then? Why is he talking about this at all?

definitely not smarter! i just live in MA and have seen (from the periphery) the work the activists here have been doing on the issue of healthcare reform.

really don’t know anything about conyers’ motivations.

Obviously, the student loan program is an important, but smaller scale problem than reforming health care. The comparison is useful to address the need to reform a model that depends on expensive, private, but dysfunctional intermediaries between our dwindling tax resources and the programs that need them. Those programs are what help maintain a stable society in rapidly changing times. If costs have to be taken out of the system, I would reduce dependence on these intermediaries rather than cut the programs.

Which plan are you talking about? As far as I know President Obama hasn’t submitted a healthcare plan yet.

the one he campaigned on.

I believe it was in response to a Schieffers overall tone and his earlier question about the budget and how much spending is involved. If you watched the whole interview you would know that Scheiffer was being a major d*ck yesterday and sounded like he was reading off Republican talking points. He kept quoting Newt Gingrich and “other Republicans” to focus on the cost of the budget instead of what the budget actually does. Notice that I put the url up there so you could read the whole transcript. In point of fact Rahm did a pretty good job of advocating for healthcare as well as green energy as well as the budget overall. If you look around a lot of people are actually applauding his performance yesterday, prior performances nonwithstanding.

What is true is that the employer-provided health insurance model now miserably fails Americans. We must change it if we and our employers are to survive with our health and profits and a stable society intact.

Anyone asked themselves why this is? Because I have a theory. I believe that the old saw “whatever the traffic will bear” is the operative word on how high goods and services will be priced. And big business, that provides most of our health insurance, have deeper pockets than most of us lowly peons. Therefore, most of us do not have any hope of buying insurance or medical care, since we cannot hope to compete with employers, and smaller employers are in a position of having to compete with larger employers and so on, to the point where we are all at the breaking point!

We need a …[fill in the blank -s], not one built around the expensive intermediary between those who provide services and those who need them.

it’s as if policy is being designed to support the parasites(*) instead of the host. taken too far it’s also stupid policy from the standpoint of the parasites.

*** i really hate using this kind of language (ie parasites) because i consider it part of the rhetoric of elimination, but i can’t think of another workable analogy.

The government does not require any company to provide health care to any employee. That is the law. Companies only provide health care to employees in good faith.
Let GM, Ford and Chrysler go bankrupt. Then they can regroup renegotiate there uaw contracts and come back into business. That seem like the only way back. Then they might be able to design and build electric vehicles and be a viable vehicle to purchase and drive.

Rahm does say this prior to his comments quted above:

The health care system is a particular example where America’s economic competitiveness, its strength around the world is sapped because we have a health care system that doesn’t allow American workers and business to compete. And it is the key to our long-term putting our fiscal house in order.

p.3

http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/FTN_030109.pdf

I think this is the statement he should have stuck with. I agree that this changes the sense of the quote Jane cited. But it does not change the fact that both in terms of the healthcare reform Obama campaigned on and the more recent announcements concerning his current plans, Obama’s healthcare plans will not make America more competitive or universalize healthcare coverage.

Count me in on being an “eliminationist” on the Health Insurance co.s. They aren’t people or animals, so making them “hasta la vista” is good common sense.

Another GM bombshell;

GM routinely under-funded the trust funds devoted to retirees pensions and health care, and has now taken back what they did pay.

From The Truth About Cars;

“Sunday? Sunday! That’s the day The Detroit Free Press chose to tell the world that GM’s recent accounts contain a time bomb: the revelation that the company raided—sorry, “borrowed from”—its employee pension fund to buy out United Auto Workers employees and pay into their health care fund. Even though we’ve become used to gigantic numbers, the sums involved are staggering. “Details are emerging about how General Motors Corp.’s U.S. pension funds went from a $20-billion surplus at the end of 2007 to a $12.4-billion deficit 12 months later.” I make that a $32.4-billion swing. It’s also approximately $11.4 billion more than GM’s CFO estimated its pension deficit, as declared in The General’s December pre-bailout report.”

I should also point out that Rahm isn’t arguing that universal healthcare is a good in and of itself. Oddly, it doesn’t even occur to him to make this argument.

Honestly I make no pronouncements about President Obama’s healthcare platform that he campaigned on. I was just going by what was said yesterday. I have heard that they are going to let Congress change some of the things they campaigned on like mandates but that all remains to be seen. On whether it ends up being universal I will hold my analysis but yesterday he wasn’t saying what bloomberg tried to say he was saying.

Rahm’s federal healthcare coverage is harmful, unfair, and out-dated. He should renounce his supergreat healthcare and state that he will forego any healthcare coverage until ALL Americans have available to them healthcare equivalent to that provided to Congress members, Judicial, and Executive branch persons (such as Rahm).

Well, now we know why GM had to be hustled offstage immediately, instead of being part of a grand bargain.

Because if GM got mixed up in the health care debate, people might start imaging silly things like putting auto workers under Medicare would let us compete with Canada. And from there, it’s one step to dangerous nonsense like single payer. (Dangerous to insurance companies, that is…)

Companies used to provide health insurance as a non-cash, deferred benefit because their peers were doing it and it was deemed necessary to compete in the marketplace for high-quality employees, who could reasonably get such insurance nowhere else. Employees also assumed, and it was often true earlier, that insurance meant relatively free access to health care. No longer.

Companies did not provide it out of good faith”, except in a more limited sense that corporate cultures used to differentiate less about such things internally among the haves and have nots. That’s no longer true either. That’s a function of changing times and deregulation.

Other developed countries, most of whom were more directly affected by World War Two, treat health care like public health. It’s a right and a public duty, whose benefits would directly affect us all. The failure to provide them would adversely affect us all.

American employers get away with terminating health insurance plans because the government allows them to, allows them to outsource health costs to individuals who can least bear it.

Let’s get this straight. The company was supposed to invest in a reserve to cover health-care costs it negotiated with its employees in exchange for wage moderation. They didn’t put the money aside; instead, they claimed higher profits than they should have and the executives (and in much lesser measure the shareholders) pocketed the difference.

So explain to me, how is robbing people a burden on the robber?

Nope. They only refer to Medicare like ‘coverage’ but never have committed to a public option just like Medicare. So unless I hear differently from the WH, the only cost controls which occur in the private sector are HMO, yes managed care. If they choose to triangulate and offer up HMO type services as the new tier for the uninsured, reform will have to wait another 20 years.

Sghiteinfla writes:

I have heard that they are going to let Congress change some of the things they campaigned on like mandates

A little clarification seems in order:

1. Obama campaigned against mandates, not for them; those were the Harry & Louise-style ads he ran in Ohio,

2. In our system of government, we have three branches: The executive, legislative, and judicial. Obama is executive; Congress is legislative — it’s their responsbility to make the laws. Therefore, it is not up to Obama to “let” Congress “change” anything at all; although he can, of course, veto the bill. That’s separate from the policy issue of whether what either of ‘em does is any good, of course.

I have to respectfully disagree with you on this one, Jane. Rahm’s point was a larger one about the burdens of health care in this country, not just at GM. We are the only industrialized country that does not provide health care for all its citizens. This places an unfair burden not only on GM, but on all US corporations that compete globally.

This knee-jerk opposition to the Obama administration by my fellow democrats on this site is disheartening. We finally have a strong Democratic president in office. President Obama has paradigm-shifting visions for our country. And we’ve all been waiting a long time for this to finally happen. But Obama is also a realist who understands how difficult it is to successfully effect change. It is not going to happen immediately. Look how hard the other side is already kicking and screaming over proposed changes. And we’re only a month in.

For Fire Dog Lake to completely throw Rahm Emanuel under the bus for a quote that was clearly misinterpreted is hugely disappointing. Will Rodgers was right:

“I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat.”

Then for all of Rahm’s vaunted brilliance, he did a p*ss poor job of conveying that. Because the phrasing he used blames GM for having provided the healthcare, not the structure of how we deliver healthcare in the US being the cause of GM’s problems.

And what we do is hold Obama and Rahm accountable. You know, what we complained about the Republicans not doing to Bush.

I want Obama to do well. But I will help Jane and anyone else call him out when he’s talking BS or bowing to the corporatists. Just because he claimes to be a Dem, doesn’t mean he gets a free ride on issues of importance.

There’s something going on with RM and Health care that’s starting to be more than a little disturbing.

I have no proof but I suspect the little punk had much to do with keeping Hoard Dean away from the HHS position. Now we see these kind of remarks from a guy who has unlimited access to the Pres.

What is his agenda anyway? My guess is he wants to use govt money to pay insurance health care premiums. No reform there – just money down the hole in the form of massive subsidies to the insurance cos.

This needs some diggery . . .

We finally have a strong Democratic president in office. President Obama has paradigm-shifting visions for our country. And we’ve all been waiting a long time for this to finally happen. But Obama is also a realist who understands how difficult it is to successfully effect change.

Rahm was making the healthcare quote within the larger context of restoring American competitiveness. I do not disagree with this argument but believe real universal healthcare (which I do not believe Obama is advocating) is primarily a good because its helps Americans and not just the corporations they work for.

As to your quote above. Obama ran on change. He did not run on “Change is good but . . .” Obama ran promising a paradigm shift but instead has given us more of the same. This isn’t realism except in the most cynical sense. It is pure and simple dishonesty.

Rahm’s point was a larger one about the burdens of health care in this country, not just at GM. We are the only industrialized country that does not provide health care for all its citizens.

when and if rahm or obama come out in favor of providing health care for all (hr676 is ready and waiting), i will be among the cheering crowds. but that hasn’t happened yet, and indeed since obama campaigned on not-universal insurance based health care reform, i have no idea how you are reading that into rahm’s statement now.

I think you misunderstand the terms of the debate here. Please Mr.TavernGuy prove us wrong. We’d be happy for you to show us how healthcare has not been used as a tool for corporations to control employees through its deferred compensation and employee to job lock-in features. Please show us how GM did not steal from promised pension and health care funds promised to workers. Please show us how when push came to shove, Democrats finally stood up and did the right thing, saying, “Enough of restricting care to ensure profits to insurers! Enough of excluding ’sick’ people from getting health insurance! Enough of billing people out of their homes for a visit to the ER!”

But you can’t argue those points, because you are only worried about the impact of the cost of health insurance on the well being of corporations. Where is your concern for lives lost by those whose well-being depended upon your moral strength and humanity? Where is your indignation that I have just called you a corporate whore?

Actually the history of GM and health care is worse than what Rahm points out (not that I am a fan of his).

Back in the 1950’s when Walter Reuther headed the UAW, he tried to get GM/Ford/Chrysler and the rest of the smaller automakers (yes there were some!) to join the union in lobbying the Federal Government for universal health care or something similar.

The automakers refused – believing that if the gov’t provided health care it would be bad for their business.

Well, now it is and they are blaming everyone but themselves for that fact.

Rahm is right.

The automakers STILL don’t like the idea of universal health care – for what possible reason I cannot fathom. They have passed the health care costs for generations over to the union at this point – and basically haven’t given them any of the money they promised to fund this – the union is being forced by the ‘bailout’ to take GM’s worthless stock instead.

What a stinking pile of crap.

I think we need the automakers. But I also think that the history of this mess needs to be out there too.

Sorry I’m so late to the thread.

No Jane, GM hurt their business by kowtowing to the eco-fascists that have them by the balls by not producing this.

And please spare me the “saving the world” drivel. I don’t want to hear it.

GM has to be [edited to remove violent reference] instead of being at the mercy of the Greenpeace alarmists. Screw this, I’m lusting after a made-in-Nippon Nissan 370Z. No point in supporting GM if they don’t build what I want to buy.

It may seem obvious to many now, but health insurance and health care used to be synonymous. That hasn’t been true for over a decade as demands for insurer profitability with their obligation to provide the contracted for benefit. (A conflict exacerbated by rising costs.)

Today, that conflict is going full bore. Insurers profit by denying coverage, while companies that still offer plans want to tout their benefits – and remind their employees of its costs – while minimizing them in practice. That’s why the issue of health care reform can’t realistically be undertaken only by talking about health care costs.

The discussion must also critically analyze where each dollar paid for health insurance now goes. (Only the very wealthy pay health costs directly in cash, without benefit of insurance.) Public policy makers will have then laid the foundation for justifying why changes to that pie chart are essential if improved health care is to be delivered by those who need – which is American communities as well as American families.

Thanks for the history. I had no idea.

I watched the whole interview and did not get the impression that he was taking the auto industry to task for providing health care to their workers, or for their past history of being against universal coverage. I thought it was just a continuation of his comments earlier in the show that a more efficient and cost effective health care system would help businesses that provide health care to their employees keep their costs down too. Clearly they are trying to counter the “it’s too expensive (so let’s not do anything)” crowd, whom Schieffer’s questions referred to. The CBS transcript reads that way, too.

SCHIEFFER: ….let’s talk about this budget, because it was a whopper …. Republicans say it’s going to increase the size of government by one-third …. It produces a deficit of $1.75 trillion…. the largest since World War II, probably larger than the last five combined. …. (video of Newt saying “biggest govt. effort to remake America since Great Society”)

EMANUEL: …. There’s a challenge now to the Republicans. Because the president is very clear. We can subsidize the HMO industry on 114 cents on the dollar rather than pay 100 cents on the dollar for health care. Will the Republican budget continue down the path of subsidizing the health care industry and the insurance industry in particular, while in fact coverage and premiums — lack of coverage for the uninsured continues to go up? The fact is that premiums go up for the rest of America, and also America’s life expectancy goes down. ….

……

SCHIEFFER: …General Motors is now losing $100 millions a day. They have already spent, we are told, two-thirds of what they have already received from the government. And we’re hearing they want some more. …another $16 billion. Is the president going to dothat? Because the question I have is, how long does this go on?

EMANUEL: …. they [GM] have a health care cost structure that’s outdated. And as, sort of, an example, we talked earlier, Bob, about the fact that their health care system is affecting their business and their employers — and their employees, rather. And it’s an example, in my view, of what the president’s saying for this country. The day of reckoning, of making sure that we had a policy on energy independence, a policy that ensures that our health care costs were under control and our ability to make sure that coverage was expanded to those who are uninsured, as one way to also bring costs under control — that is the challenge we face as a country.