Tweet
The New York Times tells us:
The president, who endorsed the Senate and House bills, said he would be deeply involved in trying to help the two chambers work out their differences. But it is unclear how specific he will be — if, for example, he will push for one type of tax over another or try to concoct a compromise on insurance coverage for abortion.
That lack of specificity isn’t very transparent, Mr. President. Or maybe the NYT didn’t read the same PBS interview I did. Jim Lehrer pointedly asked if he had a list of killer provisions, ones that have to be taken out, or provisions that need to be added. Look at his answer:
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Obviously, I’ve got some very smart people who are here working day to day on these issues. I am, though, consulting very closely with health-care economists, for example, to make sure that – for example, the provisions that will change how doctors, hospitals, other providers provide care so that it’s more patient-centered and it’s not focused on how many tests can we do, but rather what’s going to produce the best-quality outcomes; how can we reduce, for example, medical errors in hospitals, which cost us hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of lives every single year, and we know what will prevent them. Simple checklists of things that hospitals can do.
Blah, blah, blah. Here’s the money quote:
PRESIDENT OBAMA: I think – I think, right now, that the Senate and the House bills – if you look at their overlap, the 95 percent that they agree on – if that bill was presented to me -
MR. LEHRER: You’d sign it?
PRESIDENT OBAMA: – I would sign it.
Translation: Obama isn’t going to lift a finger to make this mish-mash better. He’s going to ignore that anger from the progressives who elected him. It’s just “frustration”; they’re a bunch of two-year olds, stomping their feet because the grown-ups won’t give them another cookie.
But – and oftentimes what happens is, people who are frustrated because they haven’t gotten what they want then suddenly say, “Well, he’s compromising.” Well, no, I – I’ve been very consistent throughout this process in terms of what I think is achievable and what would be – be good for American families.
For the President, “achievable” is the important issue; whatever that is will be good enough for American families. It’s easy, too: make deals with powerful corporations and Presto, Achievability!
Big Pharma wants more money for name brand drugs and years of patent protection for biologic cancer treatments? Fine. WellPoint and UnitedHealth need millions of forced customers who only can pay if taxpayers put up huge subsidies? Great. Taxes on middle class people instead of the rich? Sure. Achievability, that’s what I voted for.
Mr. President, you told us health care reform would be transparent. Let me ask you a question. Who are you consulting with about this final push? Are you talking to your corporate buddies or the people who busted their butts to get you elected? Pfizer or the SEIU? Cigna’s lobbyists or Darcy Burner? Joe Lieberman or Raul Grijalva? A candid and transparent answer please.
Never mind. The wagons are circling around this hodge-podge on the grounds that “politics is the art of the possible”. What infuriates me is that we will never know what would have been possible if the President had thrown his weight behind real reform instead of triangulating for achievability.
“Traditional Chicken Soup” pic courtesy The Gifted Photographer
96 Comments
Support this site!
Subscribe to the newsletter
Advertise on Firedoglake
Send
us your tips
Make us your homepage
About Firedoglake
Predictable outcome: House lies down, passes Senate version. Band-aid period passes, insurance costs rocket skyward, mandates become law, government subsidy fund goes broke in the meantime, public pays 2.5% penalty, everything else the same.
How can we disrupt this flow of events?
thats because president obama is a dick. thats my highly nuanced political analysis. politics are much simpler place if you boil it right down to the essential facts. NO ONE but a big throbbing dink ,
would have hiredwould ever speak to rahm emmanuel . I hope that Obamas dickipedia entry is being written.it was the outcome they had planned. and all the “kabuki” in the house ws just that. this bill was a forgone conclusion and it depresses me now to realize, that our best hope was to join right in with the tea baggers to kill it. that would have shocked the hell out of them and thrown a monkey wrench into their evil globalist “free market” conspiracy plans.
We’ll be needing some cots-make it more COMFORTABLE when the dems lay down.
Kill The Bill Baby Kill The Bill….
This bill with it’s mandates and welfare for the health care Corporations is bad on oh so many levels.
No competition at all for insurance companies
forced transfer of the wealth of the middle class/poor to the corporations
No new taxes for the Rich
taxes on union negotiated health care plans
reducing states regulation of Health Care companies
No new taxes for the Rich
elderly being charged 300% more than the young
no preexisting conditions but the HC insurance can just raise the premiums to the sky making it unaffordable..
on and on and on
did I say No new taxes for the Rich
What a dogshit president.
I’m sorry, but he’s making Bush look good.
Orahmacare is a disaster that I hope is wrapped around the necks of every asshole who votes for it.
There’s more money in not taking a stand. Some group will cut back their contributions if they know what you believe in. If you do nothing and take credit for the result then everyone has reason to believe you are on their side.
Politics of the mythical middle.
that’s a lot of months of FDL hyper ventilating about a ‘fait accompli”?
Let’s hope we’re still capable of learning about quacking and waddling and what it all means.
I am ready to hand Obama the defeat. Let him live with the defeat, and try to lie his way out of the defeat.
And Nelson and Landrieu can explain to their constituents why their blackmail is not coming to their states.
I am angry at all the posturing and pontificating. I am angry about the Americans that were thrown under the bus for “political reality”.
If “political reality” is 100 fat cats feathering their own nest, to Hell with everybody else, let them take the defeat to the polls.
What’s up with Pelosi recently? Does she have any balls that our President seems to lack?
Dr. Rick Lippin
Southampton,Pa
http://medicalcrises.blogspot.com
The blood bath in 2010 and 2012 will make 93 look like a day at Disneyland.
The key to good chicken soup is tepid cooking. Just sayin’.
Pelosi will cave like a cheap tent. We’ll be stuck with the shitty Senate bill.
Sucks.
There are people on the right who believe this legislation is designed to take down, not preserve in perpetuity, Big Insurance in America.
Just try to follow this pretzel logic.
why masaccio and not giotto, masaccio?
Is “tepid” cooking what’s occuring in that pot in the photo? *g* Chicken soup for the soul?
And I think you mean “PBS interview” not NPR interview.
/edit
[modnote: thank you.]
The anger at Obama over HCR is breaking out at Dkos, I’ve noticed.
A diary like this would get lots of comments and rec’s over there, notwithstanding a few stupid HR’s.
This is what is going to keep happening, people, until we get Campaign Finance Reform. You can act exactly like the foot-stomping two-year-olds the White House thinks you are, or you can address the REAL problem, which is not that Obama isn’t the man of your dreams, but that even the man of your dreams could not produce anything else from a TOTALLY BOUGHT AND PAID FOR CONGRESS.
The progressive caucus in the house missed it’s opportunity while passing the house version of the health care bill , now as then they are the best and only possible heroes in crafting legislation .
Kill the bill in the house ! Public option or nothing !Better yet kill the Bill and start over with single payer !
Business as usual MUST end ! Show some spine or I fear the democrats are toast in November !
yup long and just simmering with the cover just cracked open….
the whole house smells inviting…
Gee,is it any wonder how come the GOP has decided to run on a platform to repeal HCR? I predict the Rahmbo blue dogs are going to go down hard over the next 3 election cycles and Obama is gone in a closer than expected vote ONLY because he is going to go the route of immigration reform with citizenship in an effort to build the Hispanic voting block.
Once you step down the road of corruption and you find yourself lying to cover up your embarrassment, the stupidity snowballs. Once Dumbo began to lies to the people with regard to the public option, the die wast cast. Campaign financing will be interesting for the ’12 election. If I am wrong I will have no difficulty admitting it. When do you think we will hear Rahmbo and Dumbo plead out?
Not to go OT (well, a little), but I am not a dkos regular and I really don’t understand how it works over there. A couple of days ago there was a lot of talk about the (I think it was) TU system. Now I see that comments are HR (hide rated), but I’m not sure what the opposite is, and when I click on one or the other I see a list of those who did that, but no way to do it myself. Perhaps one has to be an insider to do that? It is all very baffling to me, since I’m used to FDL and other blogs without such a system.
Would someone take a minute to explain?
See? That’s it, isn’t? People want micro-wave to taste as good as Gramma’s all-day stuff.
Got to keep your eyes on the prize. And, breathe, stay smart and be a little bit patient. Thinking of the Big Picture.
Masaccio is generally regarded as the first great painter of the Renaissance. I really love his work at the Brancacci Chapel in Florence. I thought the little avatar was by Masaccio, but it turns out to be by his contemporary Masolino. I don’t care, I like the ambivalence in the look.
Riiiiight, because a 15 trillion dollar wellfare program for insurance companies will surely take them down.
You’d have to be more stupid than a bag of hammers to even try and come up with something so patently absurd.
Why not Fuck, Yeah?
Newsflash: Orahma is just as bought and paid for as Congress.
Pretzel logic indeed. No one should have to read that kind of crap.
The key to good chicken soup is, first and foremost, chicken.
I put chicken in the soup I make.
What are you asking? Or saying?
Yes we can has become “fuck you, I ain’t gonna”.
Obama can take little rahm and go back to Chicago in 2012 and send Geithner and Summers back to wall street.
Maybe the reason i stomp my feet, kick and scream like a 2 year-old is because my health insurance costs 12,000 fucking dollars a year and this piece of shit bill does nothing to change that.
Once again we see 2 party system is like 2 sleazy whores pulling each others hair as they fight for the chance to service the same rich clients. The GOP vs. Democrat narrative is phony bs – the real divide pits all of us against the DC/Wall Street royalty. The foot soldier holdouts of both parties are mindless sock puppets mouthing tired hackneyed nonsense fed to them by the elite’s media blowhards.
Demi, I’ve been eating like a pig the last week or so, and the past 4 days especially — great stuff, man — and feel like I’ve gained 30 lbs. Time to hit the gym, ya think? All those carbs and starchy stuff have me feelin’real tired, though.
You know what else is “achievable”?
Throwing his ass out of office.
Just sayin’.
Fruit, lottsa water and maybe some lean meat protein. And, get it down to the gym. Or at least walk, walk, walk.
You’ll be fine.
Know what I hate in chcken soup??> carrots.
Chickens, live frogs, the republic … slowly turning up the heat has worked wonders, eh?
I really need to substitute some water for all the milk I’ve ben drinking — Chritmas cookies are better dunked.
I believe most of DKOS is against the current HCR. that site has been infected by a bunch of Rahm Rump riders specifically sent there to counter opposition from the left. It’s always the same group going from diary to diary. they rec the anti FDL comments and recommend the anti FDL diaries. They try to hijack any diary that actually tries to discuss health care reform. I believe this an organized campaign with somebody pulling the strings.
There’s a conspiracy lurking under nearly every denninger post.
You don’t dunk with beer? ((adversitement fraud))
I’ve never been clear on just why Obama couldn’t have made the same type of disparaging comments about Nelson, Landrieu, Lincoln, Lieberman etc about “not getting their way” as he is now making about progressives.
Why do you suppose that is?
When the talking heads ask if a few progressives want to be the ones to “bring down healthcare and the Obama administration”….. Why didn’t they ask that same question of Nelson, Landrieu, Lincold, Lieberman etc????
Thanks for ‘splainin! Quality vs primacy, given a choice I’d go for Masaccio myself, as well.
Because it’s not in their best interests.
Their underlying theme is to destroy the democratic agenda. Funny thing is I can’t really tell the difference between the democratic agenda and the republick agenda. We always end up with the same conservative hijacked piece of crap legislation.
why so angry?
I’m so fucking sick of him.I kept holding out hope that this health caree bill would be OK in te end. Fully expectingit would omv;ve compromises and not be what I want and really quite a ways from it. Thatr’s why, to me, all these lectures are so infuriating. Don’t treat me like an ignoramus, you condescending fucks. I knew damn well this was sausage making. I’m not stupid. My proble, isn’t that I didn’t get what i want. It’s that this bill totally blows. It’s not reform anfd as Jon Walker pointed out will make things worse. That’s why I’m pissed.
Don’t/can’t drink.
The metaphor of chicken soup is appropriate. It is a good safe and inexpensive remedy.
Neither of the bills does much to control high tech-high cost medicine which is the ultimate issue that we all must confront.
Politicians though will be the last to use the inevitable “R” (rationing) word. Because right now it is poltical suicide to even imply that ANY treatments would/should be reduced or denied.(even though some actually do direct harm)
The big elephant in the room which we are beginning to dance around remains the death and dying issue.
We need a serious sober national dialogue on this issue to begin to grow up and to fix US health care.
Dr. Rick Lippin
Southampton,Pa
Why didn’t they ask that same question of Nelson, Landrieu, Lincold, Lieberman etc????
Their paychecks depend on them not asking.
Three words for my post holiday recovery: South Beach Diet.
No anger. Just wondered what you meant.
it’s holy crap, and that, makes all the fucking difference!
aaahh!
cimabue, donatello, giotto, all came crashing in when I first saw masaccio at FDL. that’s all.
Well, I’ve not had time to follow HCR in the detail that so many here have, so I don’t feel that I can offer reasonable assessments on the bill itself.
It’s the process that has been a real revelation for me, particularly making me focus on the Filibuster Rule, which is a horror — and the longer that thing stays in place, the more destabilized the Federal government will become, IMVHO.
The more that I have started looking at population shifts in the 19th and 20th centuries, which were the first real time in all of human history that we’ve been able to build ‘megacities’ (or ‘Metros’), the more that filibuster rule is exposed as a horrific fraud that guarantees oligarchy.
The oligarchy rests, as K-k-k-karl Rove knew all too well, on small state Senators, who have monstrously disproportionate political influence due to the:
1. One state = two votes in the Senate rule, and is then extremely disproportionately extended by,
2. The senate filibuster rule.
If you total all the Senators who can vote against a filibuster, it comes to something like 25% of the population in my preliminary test ‘guesstimates’.
Given the political rules under which the national legislatures operate — but particularly the Senate — it appears that people have forgotten how to do things right. They’ve had to settle for fifth-worst outcomes for so many years that I don’t think they can even envision doing something outside the corporatist, privatization-muddled mindset of D.C.
We need new rules for corporate governance desperately.
They will not come from a US Senate hampered by the filibuster, but if the health care disaster served no other purpose this mess has revealed two things:
1. The Senate’s rules are hampered by the social, economic, and political context of about 1841 (pre Civil War, pre WWI, pre WWII, pre Vietnam, and pre-Iraq).
2. The GOP is a dying entity; and the spectre of Chuck Grassley’s “death panel” bleating is all you really need to see to understand that fact. It’s historical moment is over.
Good ( maybe even great ) comments. What interests me, and what several have touched on, is the outcome of the elections in 2010 1nd 2012. Seems that politics as usual may be over. Will anyone actually believe Obama ? But republicans ? Who do we have left ? One scenario I see is wins by fairly radical left and right candidates both with a populist appeal – sane on the left and crazy on the right. Could this be the beginning of a new political restructuring ? I”ve used more ?s in a few sentences than I have in my last 20 posts….? Chaos or chaorder – where’s Jung when we need him ?
And until we change the rules of corporate governance, we always will.
Originally, corporations were viewed as democratic b/c shareholders were supposed to be able to vote. Ask the board or upper management of Goldman Sachs how much they fear their shareholders these days…?
Ditto ExxonValdez, Wal-Mart, or any other multinational.
What we’re getting in health care is the “too big to fail” concept applied to PHRMA and healthCos.
The corporations run the government in order to enable corporate convenience.
That’s the environment in which Obama must act.
It’s not simply his fault; what we’re seeing is systemic failure.
I saw the “interview” and noted with disgust that all the “reforms” will be dumped on the care providers. No wonder that I’ve been changing channels when the pResident comes on as I’d been doing for the past 8 years to delay hearing the latest atrocity.
karen
Kabuki Macbeth — imaginary change vs. the real deal
Because real policy debate that results in reordering this nation’s priorities and rearranges who pays, who bears risk, who receives benefits, and who guarantees these relationships is the last thing the MSM wants to push in their coverage of this society. Congress, the administration, K Street & the corporate kleptocracy all play their roles in this tragi-farce.
Dr. Rick’s point on our society’s demographics & economics converging to a breakpoint for long term care and end of life care is deliberately absent from this discussion for good reason. It can’t be solved with rhetoric.
drricklippin, perhaps you saw the article on end of life issues in the NYT today: link.
The costs and benefits of high-tech medicine are unclear to me. From the outset of this debate, I argued that cost control was the most important issue. I argue that the big savings come from getting rid of middlemen like health insurance companies, which can’t show any added value over government.
Behind that is the use of best practices. For example, in the discussion of biologic drugs, there isn’t any evidence that the drugs are of significant value in saving lives. Instead, they may provide a few months of life, and there is no discussion of the quality of life in those extra months.
There isn’t any good way to deal with this, because it lends itself to demagogues screaming rationing, while their only interest is making money.
In the NYT article, we see how people resolve end of life issues among themselves and with professional input. It is a lot more nuanced than anything we will hear from politicians.
Apologies!
In my haste, I wrote exactly opposite of what I meant.
The Senate was supposed to avoid popular mob and reduce reckless changes to the law. The majority was not supposed to be tyrannized by the minority.
Yet if you look at the US Census data about population and demographic shifts, we’ve become increasingly thrall to a smaller and smaller tyranny through the 20th century — in large part because of that Senate filibuster rule.
To say that it takes 60 Senators to stop a filibuster is actually superficial, because it makes it seem like a 60-40 split.
In actual fact, when you start running the population numbers, it comes to something closer to 25% of the population stopping policies for the other (often more affluent, better educated, more economically productive) 75%.
That’s policy suicide.
It’s governing suicide.
I can’t imagine any nation, anywhere, that can withstand those kinds of disparities over time – particularly given the complexity of issues like health care.
Time to focus on the filibuster, because it’s the Chicken Soup Dysfunctional Special for federal government.
Ditto.
You’re worried about the same things that worry me: crazies who are playing out their worst angers on the public scene, who think that just because Sarah Palin (or whoever) is ‘just like me’ that somehow makes her qualified to run a huge bureaucracy.
People who are just having a lot of trouble grappling with the social, economic, cultural, and technical shifts of our era. Scary. (To really get your hair on fire, read Max Blumenthal’s “Republican Gomorrah,” or Jeff Scarlet’s “The Family”.)
“In my haste, I wrote exactly opposite of what I meant.”
That’s what Obama does on purpose every time he ‘popens’ his mouth.
I used to think that the filibuster was justified because it enabled the democrats to stop the worst of the republican policies. The problem is that the dems didn’t really use it for that purpose. The filibuster is a weapon only for the right wingers. If we won’t use it, we need to get rid of it. Now would be a good time.
Yeah, I spent some time at my parents’ Assisted Living center on the holiday and one of their friends is in extremis. So I overheard a group of them talking about the changes they’d seen in their friend, and how she’s ‘getting ready to leave’. The conversation was compassionate, respectful of the patient, wise, and had a sense that death is also part of life. Very, very nuanced and absolutely focused on how best to support the patient and her spouse.
Humbling, really, to listen in.
Thanks – I will read the NYT article. Politicians are scared to go anywhere near this
Rick Lippin
As usual, California leads the way in this suicide with 2/3 majority required for budget approval along with the current governator.
I hope when you all get tired of bitchin about this bill you’ll remember exactly who it was that bent you over from behind. The only way you can put a stop to this is by holding your nose and voting for the opposition. Sitting at home and hoping they get the message won’t work. If you don’t have an independent to vote for, then hold your nose and check the R. These corporate Democratic crooks laugh their ass off everyday at how gullible Democratic voters are. Personally, I’d rather vote for someone who told me he was a crook than for someone who lies to me and then breaks into my house at night when I’m sleeping and steals everything he can get his hands on.
Democrats for Nobama 2012!
Democrats use the filibuster now, to deflect blame for their own failures of leadership and ability. If they didn’t have the filibuster they’d have to come up with another reason that, despite a considerable majority in both houses and a Democratic President, they can’t get anything done for their constituents (rather than their corporate masters).
There is no way in this or any other Hell that the Democrats will move to abolish the filibuster, as it provides them with a Mainstream Media approved, bullet-proof, all purpose excuse to do whatever said masters want in the name of bipartisanship.
Thanks, masaccio, for feedback.
When you start to look at the population numbers, and you see that even if you combine Ben Nelson’s less than 1,000,000 voters with HoJo’s 3,500,000 Connecticut voters, and you start to total state populations until you can come up with something even close to the population of New York City’s 8,300,000…
Well, you start to see that actually we live in a nation of mega-cities.
Yet our political legislature is based on ‘states’, many of them with very low populations.
That makes the Senate the least representative body just for starters.
But when you place on the additional load of the filibuster, it doesn’t even make sense — you are handing a minority (any minority) the power to tyrannize.
I can’t for the life of me get clear as to how the Dems thought it was really going to help them, although until Nov 2006 it may have.
But even if they thought they needed the filibuster rule then, it is a huge advantage for smaller and smaller minorities as the population patterns have enlarged cities (with their extensive suburbs) throughout the 20th century.
This has dramatically accelerated since the 1950s.
We’re now, as the good Dr. here points out, in a place where we can’t even have the meaningful conversations that are desperately needed.
The more the rules skew power to a minority – not to push policies, but to sabotage progress of any kind – the lower we sink. And the more ammunition we give to the likes of Sarah Palin (who represents to me an opportunistic actor that would be ignored if things were running more smoothly).
Yeah, just take a look at Chuck Grassley’s “Death Panels” nonsense and it sure has not been well handled in the past.
Yet, people deal with it in their own lives.
Thanks all the same, but I won’t be voting for the party that failed to police Wall Street, failed to fund FBI agents to investigate the mortgage crisis, and failed to put Scooter Libby in jail.
Others may do as they please.
The GOP is ‘dead to me’.
I’m over it.
I think lots of people probably share my view.
You should support some of the people there who are running good diaries, then, like desmoinesdem…
I completely, wholeheartedly agree with every point in your comment.
And I would add this:
I have to pay taxes.
My kids will have to pay to bail out Wall Street criminals almost all of their lives, no matter how hard my kids work or how responsible they are personally.
Ditto every one of their friends.
This is inexcusable.
The rest of us have to act like grown ups.
So can the damn Senate.
One of my 2010 resolutions is to join in exposing that filibuster rule for the problem it is — a butt-covering excuse for not doing more, but also a tool of tyranny for intractable, vindictive, obstructionist minorities.
It is inexcusable to retain that rule after the way it screwed up health care.
Just think of it this way:
Wyoming’s population: 532,668
California’s population: 36,756,666
Wyoming’s representation in the Senate: 2
California’s representation in the Senate: 2
All
animalsvoters are equal, but someanimalsvoters are more equal than others.PRECISELY!!!!
And that needs to become a mantra on the lips of every voter in 2010, and I don’t care whether they are Dem, GOP, or any other party.
The center cannot hold, because the population patterns have become too concentrated in megacities.
And, I’m not out to screw farmers, ranchers, or hunters by any means!
I think they need much more respect, but part of that needs to come by recognizing and respecting that their lands are different from suburbs, and that the suburbs have a lot to gain by treating those agricultural interests with a lot more respect.
Right now, what we have is a formula for inaction and resentment.
Big. Problem.
Ahh, – fabulous fucking founding fathers.
Well, it’s not entirely their fault. At the time of the founding the population disparity was a lot less severe, though still of course unjust.
“Well, it’s not entirely their fault.”
I suppose that when you set up the Senate to protect the landed class from the rabble, then it’s indeed not a fault but a feature.
Well, yes, they did intend that. But at the same time there was no way they could know how severe the situation would become. It wasn’t feasible to sustain the kind of population density we have today using 18th century technology.
It was a bad idea that has gotten progressively worse over time. The Founders, on the other hand, have been dead for two centuries. By now I’d put most of the blame on subsequent generations for failing to correct the problem.
By now I’d put most of the blame on subsequent generations for failing to correct the problem.
Quite so, yet here Upton Sinclair comes to rescue our addled brains:
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.”
businessweek.com
Cover Story August 6, 2009, 5:00PM EST
The Health Insurers Have Already Won
How UnitedHealth and rival carriers, maneuvering behind the scenes in Washington, shaped health-care reform for their own benefit
By Chad Terhune and Keith Epstein
“….As the health reform fight shifts this month from a vacationing Washington to congressional districts and local airwaves around the country, much more of the battle than most people realize is already over. The likely victors are insurance giants such as UnitedHealth Group (UNH), Aetna (AET), and WellPoint (WLP). The carriers have succeeded in redefining the terms of the reform debate to such a degree that no matter what specifics emerge in the voluminous bill Congress may send to President Obama this fall, the insurance industry will emerge more profitable. Health reform could come with a $1 trillion price tag over the next decade, and it may complicate matters for some large employers. But insurance CEOs ought to be smiling…..Executives from UnitedHealth certainly showed no signs of worry on the mid-July day that Senate Democrats proposed to help pay for reform with a new tax on the insurance industry. Instead, UnitedHealth parked a shiny 18-wheeler outfitted with high-tech medical gear near the Capitol and invited members of Congress aboard. Inside the mobile diagnostic center, which enables doctors to examine distant patients via satellite television, Representative Jim Matheson didn’t disguise his wonderment. “Fascinating, fascinating,” said the Democrat from Utah. “Amazing.”"
“….The industry has already accomplished its main goal of at least curbing, and maybe blocking altogether, any new publicly administered insurance program that could grab market share from the corporations that dominate the business. UnitedHealth has distinguished itself by more deftly and aggressively feeding sophisticated pricing and actuarial data to information-starved congressional staff members. With its rivals, the carrier has also achieved a secondary aim of constraining the new benefits that will become available to tens of millions of people who are currently uninsured. That will make the new customers more lucrative to the industry….Matheson, whose Blue Dogs command 52 votes in the House, can’t offer enough praise for UnitedHealth, the largest company of its kind. “The tried and true message of their advocacy,” he says, “is making sure the information they provide is accurate and considered.”"
“….Despite such episodes, UnitedHealth is generally well received in legislative circles in Washington. In late May its in-house point man on reform, Simon Stevens, hand-delivered a report to key senators detailing ways to save an estimated $540 billion in federal spending over 10 years. A week later, on June 4, Stevens accompanied UnitedHealth’s chief executive, Stephen J. Hemsley, to a meeting with Senator Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), an influential moderate member of the Senate Finance Committee. Conrad has since led an effort to create nonprofit medical cooperatives that would operate much like utility co-ops as a substitute for a federally run plan. With less heft than a proposed national plan, the state medical cooperatives would pose a far weaker competitive threat to private insurers….Conrad says in an interview that the co-op idea evolved independently of any industry input. Skirmishing over the public plan could jeopardize efforts at reform, he warns. Co-ops, he argues, are “the only alternative that’s got much of a shot” to gain sufficient votes in the Senate.”
Read the entire article @:
http://www.businessweek.com/print/magazine/content/09_33/b4143034820260.htm
Btw, it’s been nearly three hours and that chicken soup above hasn’t made any progress. Damn filibusterers.
Achievable.
The definition of “Achievable” is what you are able to accomplish after demonstrating a willingness to take a loss, or risk a defeat.
– Achievable is the point at which your opponent blinks.
– Achievable is defined AFTER you have determined what you cannot obtain.
Once you establish what is truly impossible, then you know the genuine limits of how much is truly achievable as opposed to what is convenient or easy.
Anyone who concedes, capitulates, compromises and walks away before the fight begins, however, is incapable of learning what is achievable. Instead one only learns how much your opponents will achieve at your expense.
That, apparently, was the strategy all along. Find out how much the opponents of health care can achieve by Democratic capitulation then call it a victory.
The Democrats approach in general, and the administration’s approach in particular, has reinforced something that I learned many years ago. Republicans are afraid of virtually everything – EXCEPT Democrats, from whom they have nothing to fear when it comes to governing.
Democrats, on the other hand, are not frightened by the world around them. Rather, they are just terrified by Republicans and their own shadows.
cl
“David Brooks prefers single-payer to status quo”
The outrage from Obamapologists should Jane find some agreement with Bobo Brooks, will be ….. ??
And Krugman sounds like a total limp dicked sell out!
http://rawstory.com/2009/12/david-brooks-prefers-single-payer/
Yes, they had no idea how bad the situation would become.
Also yes, their descendents did not identify and fix the problem.
Which leads us to wizardleft @85, on the topic of how the healthCo’s won by simply reframing the issues, appearing to provide excellent information to Congress, dazzling with new technologies, and appearing professional, reasonable, and cooperative. Funny how so many missed their success in shifting the framing, eh?
S/he who defines the terms of a debate, wins it.
“But – and oftentimes what happens is, people who are frustrated because they haven’t gotten what they want then suddenly say, “Well, he’s compromising.” Well, no, I – I’ve been very consistent throughout this process in terms of what I think is achievable and what would be – be good for American families”.
Barack Obama
“It is hardly a moral act to encourage others patiently to accept injustice which he himself does not endure.”
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr
Oh, that last quote is a classic — it’s going on my sig line at Orange.
Voting Republican is too much to ask. I voted Republican once when I didn’t know better, and regret it to this day. I know the DNC, Senate Dems and House Dem campaign committees ain’t getting a fucking dime from me for this cycle and beyond. Neither are Boxer and Feinstein, my two senators. If I can find a good progressive to support anywhere in the country, I’ll contribute directly to that candidate. The days of me giving money to the party to run DINOs who will only vote for Pelosi and Reid, and screw us on everything else, are over.
Thank you—spread it far and wide–our elected officials stand for the ease of political convenience, compromise, and self interest instead of the more difficult but rewarding road of political and moral courage. Time to expose them for the frauds they are.
In my opinion, the fight over healthcare and Jane’s assault on Rahm are one and the same. Same lineup, same Obamacrats, same angry progressives. See http://www.docudharma.com/diary/18216/#271713, the Jane Hamsher Front — Strike the Empire Back!
In my opinion, we have to do more than defend Jane from the nonsense attacks. We need to carry the fight into the White House. Go after Bernanke. Go after Summers. Go after Geithner. They have had a pass while we have had visions of Obamocracy dancing in our heads.
The White House Carol is over. A massive fight is looming over jobs programs — WPA-style jobs vs. more tax breaks. Time to start that fight by going after Obama’s Wall Street handlers.
Why not just vote Green?
Somebody mentioned Currently, a 60-year-old likely would pay five or six times more for private medical insurance than someone in his twenties but it may not be true always check http://bit.ly/7bwEx2 for lower price coverages