I called Maloney's office. I asked about the Senate bill and the staffer just sort of went into a speech about the rep wanting a strong hc bill with a strong public option. I said, ok, so that means she'd vote against the senate bill? And the fellow jumped to disagree and explain that something is better than nothing. But the bottom line was that he didn't know her position. When I rang off I said that I looked forward to learning Maloney's position and he said he did too. (And then I said we were all dooomed and he said, I know!)
On a two and a bit year perspective, do you think you could get the staffer elected to Congress instead of Maloney?
2: She has her seat for life, if she wants it. (I mostly like her -- she hounds credit card companies.)
Apparently, the call works better if you use your real name or a name that sounds real. Heywood Jablome does not get results.
I'm sure Oudemia used her real name. She was't trying to escape from the Cyclops' cave.
Even when you use your real name, sometimes they give you a hard time.
When I put this up, I was thinking about Representatives, but of course we should also all be calling our Senators as well. If 51 Senators can convincingly agree to pass a reconciliation bill (I think it has to start in the House, but we can get a pledge at least) that fixes up the Senate bill, that should get the House moving.
6: Honestly, I think some staffers are just rude. I had the same problem.
5: Ha! Yes, I did. But *now* I will call my mother's rep and pretend to be her! (I do this all the time, with mom-given carte blanche.)
Is it wrong if I'd be satisfied with knowing I annoyed a staffer? Unctuous little bright-futured shits.
Does anyone know if there's a specific 'sidecar reconciliation' plan I can refer to? I just called Schumer and Gillibrand and asked if they were on board with passing a reconciliation bill that would get the House to pass the Senate bill, but I had to explain the concept to both staffers. If there's a plan out there anyone knows about, that'd help.
11: Yeah, I am unclear on this too. If I can get clear enough to be succinct, then I will call Schumer and Gillibrand (and Menendez and Lautenberg).
11, 12: I lost my ability to keep track of the different options a couple of weeks ago. Even when I tried to read-up on various plans, I was unable to figure out what was something with a plausible chance of passing and what was somebody trying to cover their ass or get on the TV by proposing something they knew wouldn't pass.
I will call my mother's rep and pretend to be her!
I can't see what sort of impact this'll have on the legislative process, but it'll certainly be unnerving.
"Hello, this is Rep. Maxine Waters."
"What? No, I am Rep. Maxine Waters! Who the hell are you?"
14: It's a real skill I have, especially since I will be pretending to be Frank Pallone. It's complicated.
12: What I said was "I understand there's a plan for 51 Senators to put forth a reconciliation bill fixing those parts of the Senate bill that are unacceptable to the House, in order to make it possible for the House to pass the Senate bill. Is Senator [Schumer/Gillabrand] working to make that happen?"
This may be untrue -- I don't know if there is any such existing plan -- but I figure if enough people call about it they may make one up.
I just spent awhile looking for the three articles I read yesterday on the reconciliation process and couldn't find them. Sorry.
Very difficult in the house, each item has to go through 5 committees and then to the floor. I think that is why Grijalva was talking about little stuff. You really need a "Hammer"
The Senate Reconciliation Rules are insane. Again, at least 5 committees must report each individual item to the floor. "Open rules" are mandatory, unanimous consent forbidden, every item can be stripped out by the parliamentarian, almost every word can be challenged by a Republican and need a vote. Unlimited opportunity to add unlimited amendments is mandatory.
The article said Republicans used to schedule reconciliations right before holidays because the only way the Senate could get to a final vote was to physically exhaust the opposition. Literally.
Reconciliation requires a level of technical skill, discipline and viciousness to the opposition maybe twenty times higher than anything we have seen yet from Democrats.
16:Reconciliation would definitely, both for political and technical reasons, have to start in the House. You will not be able to get a Senator to speak of it in specifics until it passes the House.
I called my Maine rep, Chellie Pingree (whose daughter I just found out is the speaker of the State House, wtf?) and expressed a desire for immediate action. The staffer was very nice, thanked me for calling, and took down my contact information rather eagerly.
My advice would be to keep it simple--don't worry about the reconciliation vehicle that takes a B+ bill and turns it into an A- (or D+ to C-, or whatever grade you want to give it: my goal isn't to invite another fight about how good or bad the Senate bill is, as long as we agree that it's better than nothing). What has to happen right now is that the House has to pass the Senate bill, and the people who need to hear about it are the House members and their staffs. The *only* alternative is absolutely nothing on healthcare for the next 20 years.
took down my contact information rather eagerly.
I've never had a staffer ask for contact information -- I give my name at the start of the call, but they don't seem to be keeping records. Should I be asking that they write my name down?
Presumably he just wanted to get me on the rep's mailing list...
Perhaps I have just been swamped by bad news and overcome with nihilism, but I no longer give a damn whether health care reform passes or not, nor in what form it does or doesn't. Yesterday's Supreme Court ruling was the signature on our democracy's execution order. Big industry will now own the government outright and will crush what is left of progressive politics.
Far as I can tell, unless Scalia or Kennedy dies before the GOP retakes the White House (which just got much more likely), the available options are emigration or anesthesia.
Maybe that belongs on the other thread.
Done. Dianne Watson's rep told me that, while she was mad about parts of the Senate bill, she was "furious" that people were talking about starting over or paring back when we are so close to getting things done. Right on, Diane Watson.
Oh, very nice. I'm not familiar with Rep. Watson, but on that basis she sounds like a good one.
Jason Altmire is possibly the only congressman whose stated reason for voting against the House bill earlier was that it had a "lack of cost controls", so I don't know what he's thinking of doing. He might be more willing to vote for the Senate bill than he was for the House bill.
I think LB should call Rangel once an hour. Maybe twice.
26 -- she is. Her district is basically the parts of black LA that didn't go to Maxine Waters, plus some white rich liberals who got peeled of from Henry Waxman.
The NY times story this morning was depressing.
23 wins the thread. Personally, I'm shutting down on national politics for a while and refocusing on local issues and local elections. If we can't improve America w/ huge majorities in Congress and a Democrat in the White House, progressives need new answers that don't depend on the national government and national political institutions. I'll be looking for answers down here in NC.
27: Rep. Altmire is pretty vulnerable come November. I'm guessing he is deep into risk avoidance, but I don't know if that might make him more or less liable to persuasion by calling. (He's not my guy. My guy hasn't faced a primary challenger or real opposition (i.e. not the Greens or Libertarians) in the general since before I got here.
plus some white rich liberals who got peeled of from Henry Waxman.
Wouldn't it be easier to get your stomach stapled and let them melt away?
... Emails (I am told) get ignored, ...
I ignored this advice and emailed my representative, Nita Lowey, via her web form. I did get the impression that emails are probably not weighed heavily although being in her district might help. When I emailed my NY state Senator and Assemblywoman over a local issue I did get sensible replies.
well, I'm pretty sure Keith Ellison and I are on the same page with HCR -- it might make more sense to call Franken & Klobuchar, blue-dog though they may be.
Apo: Eastern bankers have owned this country since before William Jennings Bryan. We just have to keep fighting them and not give up because of even a major setback.
OK, just spoke with Doyle's person. She said that she didn't know yet what the House would be voting on, so she couldn't say what he'd do. I told her that he should vote for whatever is available, and shouldn't "run away" because of the Brown election.
But, as Moby says, this guy is in no danger of losing his seat either way, so.
7 is correct. There's been a lot of hand-wringing about whether the House will "just pass the Senate bill," but if 51 Senators signaled that they would vote for a clean-up reconciliation bill, that would instantly change the House posture.
11 - no, but your 16 is a reasonable strategy and any senate staffer should know what you're asking.
20 - there's something to that, but, e.g., states like California and NY really dislike the Senate bill, and for good reason. It's not just a question of "it's not quite good enough for my standards"; more like "my constituents and my state government will see significant financial hardship from this bill."
21 - yes, if you live in their congressional district.
30 - that may make sense after November, but why pull the plug now?
All of which is to say, call your House member *and* your Senator.
35: Compared to other Reps. I've had, Doyle really doesn't seem to go out of his way to get his name in the news and he does not send much mail. I can't tell if he's using his safe seat to do the hard work behind the scenes or to do nothing.
I ignored this advice and emailed my representative, Nita Lowey, via her web form. I did get the impression that emails are probably not weighed heavily although being in her district might help. When I emailed my NY state Senator and Assemblywoman over a local issue I did get sensible replies.
Your New York state assemblywoman represents about 128,000 people, while Nita Lowey represents about 700,000 people, so that helps.
But both are basically districts too small for them to know their constituents, really.
39: Yeah. It's a closely held secret, but most states only have one Senator. The other is a spare. But if you're a traditionalist, you can call both.
The other is a spare. replicant
It's actually a fun party game trying to figure out which fifty Senators are human.
38: I've always had a good impression of him, but Nate Silver calculates him to be less reliably liberal than his district would suggest, and I was pretty disgusted that he voted for Stupak (which, to be clear, was his only bad vote per Silver).
42: Well, Specter obviously isn't. I'm glad that we won't have to revisit Hillary in this context.
So is calling multiple times a good idea? How about calling neighbouring reps with threats to work for primary opponents?
Just got off the phone with Pallone's office: He likes the House bill better -- specifically "cost control" and the public option, but is still discussing with likeminded colleagues what the best way forward now is. I did my, I mean my mom's, spiel on how we all like the House bill better, but since that really isn't an option at the moment, would he support the Senate bill in order to insure passage? Final answer: Maybe. More spiel from me on how doomed they are -- staffer agrees, takes "my" info (he says he'll call me back -- better warn my mom about that one), and wishes me a good weekend.
45: How good are you at doing voices?
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I'm stunned to discover that they've made an A-Team movie, using a lookalike cast.
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TPM attempts to start to do a House vote count.
1 vote to pass the Senate Bill.
48: Yep. Rampage Jackson got the Mr. T role.
I'm stunned elated to discover that they've made an A-Team movie, using a lookalike cast.
48, 51: As a friend of a friend said on Facebook, it would have been better if they cast Katee Sackhoff as "Face."
So is calling multiple times a good idea?
I'm actually curious about this -- like, is there any point to my re-noodging in a couple of days?
Not particularly good, but I could pretend I'm Polish.
53:I am beginning to think this is getting counter-productive. Eventually good progressive congresspersons will just tired of being told they are pieces of shit for fighting for a better healthcare reform and just go fishing. This wouldn't be spite or callousness but just exhaustion.
Pelosi and the leadership say they need a cooling off period, and it may be best to follow their lead. You will get nowhere at all until she says it is time.
52: Katee Sackhoff is busy on 24, providing another example of CTU's apparent inability to recruit competent personnel without dangerous personal lives.
55: There's a limit to the effectiveness, but I doubt that we're there yet. Every House Dem needs to hear this message loud and clear, and on more than just 1 or 2 days. This is, apparently, completely alien to their thinking (based on Frank's response, e.g.), so it's not as if a little bit of noise will sway them. It needs to be a top-of-lungs wakeup call. Then Pelosi will be in a position to move.
57
Or maybe you are just prolonging the agony. If reform is going down the quicker the better as far as the Democrats are concerned.
59: You may be right, James, but we know you're not really trying to help.
OK, the A Team trailer looks pretty bad. They changed the phase "soldiers of fortune" to "soldiers for hire", and BA isn't wearing any gold. Also, crappy CGI effects involving a parachuting tank of some sort.
62: Shit. I have hoping for crappy regular effects, not CGI. The kids today know nothing about unrealistic ways to make it look like some bad guy was disabled in a gun fight without actually showing a bullet hitting anybody.
61
You may be right, James, but we know you're not really trying to help.
I voted for Obama and have no particular interest in seeing his Presidency become a total disaster. Which is where we are headed given another 10 months of futile squabbling over health care reform leading to an electoral wipeout in November. I don't actually welcome the prospect of Sarah Palin as President.
64: No kidding. How hard it is to flip a car over and have the bad guys crawl out the window basically unscathed, dust themselves off, and shake their hands ruefully in the direction of whatever tank-like contraption the team put together in the last 15 minutes of the program? You don't need CGI for that.
Problem: $100K contribution to pol gets $1bil contract or other economic benefit.
Solution: Have government less involved in the economy, not more. I know this flies in the face of all y'alls progressive intstincts, esp in re UHC, but there is no way that 535 legislators can or should try to control a $15 trillion economy. Limited power was the Founders intent, warts and all.
66: If they fuck-up something with as much simple beauty as the A-Team, I'm going to boycott Hollywood and start watching those movies with all of the South Asian people spinning around while singing.
67: Great idea! Once we stop paving the streets, building schools, and maintaining a standing army there won't be any need for public money that can be handed out corruptly. I've got my cave all picked out, how about you?
Solution: Have government less involved in the economy, not more.
Zounds! You've struck to the very heart of the problem. What penetrating insight!
Limited power was the Founders intent
Tell me more about these Founders, TLL, for I have never heard of them. Were any of them Southern slaveholders, perchance, concerned that the federal government might some day play a role in regulating the plantation economy? Or were they gods among men, entirely insulated from the workaday interests of the earthly realm?
69: I'm moving into Lex Luthor's old place under the Lincoln Tunnel.
67 Or more directly involved. Corruption comes the interaction of government and private business. The first is regulation. The second is government contracting. Outsourcing stuff to the private sector means more corruption. To the extent practically possible we should have the government do stuff on its own, with its own employees. Revive government defense industries, replace all those Pentagon contractors with government agencies, create a single payer plan eliminating the health insurance industry and the private hospital one. To an extent this would also help on regulation - if you eliminated profit making entities from the health care industry you'd get less corruption.
Of course this is all a pipe dream. Anyone, left or right, who believes that either major government takeover along the lines outlined above, or a full deregulation of the kind you seem to be suggesting is on the cards is smoking the good stuff.
Also, the notion that '535 legislators' are seeking to run the economy is deeply misleading. The legislators with tens of thousands of staffers create basic rules, these are then implemented and refined by hundreds of thousands of government employees.
In any case, the founders anticipated a primarily rural economy of small family farmers and small family businesses. No corporations as we know them. Whatever may or may not have made sense in an eighteenth century pre-industrial rural state is irrelevant to the present day.
Re: Post title, whenever immigration reform comes up, I've always thought that a quote from the Marseillaise lyrics would be particularly appropriate as a title for the musings in the right blogosphere.
Anyone, left or right, who believes that either major government takeover along the lines outlined above, or a full deregulation of the kind you seem to be suggesting is on the cards is smoking the good stuff.
Hell, I *am* smoking the good stuff and I don't believe that.
All white men, mostly rich. Same cabal that usually runs things ( the rich and the want to be rich). But they did assemle some good ideas that had been floating around for a while into a decent package, and a mechanism for change as needed.
It takes a lot for the voters to shake off their complacency and vote out the incumbent, but it can happen regardless of the amount of campaign contributions. The smart money would have been on Coates, afterall.
LB, I am not even remotely suggesting no government at all, in fact there are some things government is the best at delivering. Health care may even be one of them.
LB, I am not even remotely suggesting no government at all, in fact there are some things government is the best at delivering.
At which point the government is handling enough money to be worth stealing. A small-government kick may be all very well, but it's goofy thinking that's going to solve the problem of government corruption.
Big industry will now own the government outright and will crush what is left of progressive politics.
C'mon, Apo, this is the time when things get interesting. One severe weakness with the judiciary branch, often noted by unitary executive types, is that it has no vehicle of enforcement. Now is the time to push your local government to go ahead and pass laws restricting corporate political ads.
Soon nobody will be watching regular TV anyway, on account of Hulu.
it's goofy thinking that's going to solve the problem of government corruption.
Stock up on tar and feathers?
Solution: Have government less involved in the economy, not more.
Even better solution: Love God and do as you will.
Eventually good progressive congresspersons will just tired of being told they are pieces of shit for fighting for a better healthcare reform and just go fishing.
Oh, ok. What do you think will happen if we don't actually call them pieces of shit?
81: Damn, I knew there was something off about my tactics.
81 Ponies, lots and lots of ponies.
83: Ponies are nice, but the Food Network never had any recipies.
Even better solution: Love God and do as you will.
NO. It's "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law".
Jackass.
google is your friend: recette poulain
81:Sigh. This ain't over. Don't let Obama and the Blue Dogs tell you it is.
Health Care Reform passed in October, after having been dead and buried, will utterly dominate the News Cycles.
Jane Hamsher "call your Congress and tell them to vote No"
Here is what I just told Lemieux:
Because real politics is also played at the river, with human lives as chips. Those who can't go all-in, lose. Obama and the Senate are all-in.
If Pelosi can't get 219 out of 249 to save lives and the Party, the Senate Bill is just a BAD BILL. A horrible bill, substantively and politically. It is those who played "Let's make a deal with Joe Lieberman" who have to take 100% of the responsibility for the failure of healthcare reform. If it fails.
Jane Hamsher
Jane Hamsher is still fighting. She has not yet surrendered to Rahm and Ben Nelson. I think she is right, that we are still at battle, that the Senate is stil playing "chicken." Pelosi has the leverage of the Senate Bill on her desk. I think Obama wants the Senate Bill, and only that, and Obama is the one who would rather sacrifice health care than sign a public option. He has three years [to election].
But we will see. As long as Nancy has not brought the Senate Bill to the floor, or sent conference over, we are still very much in play. I am sorry, but not surprised to see the moderates panic after Coakley, and Obama seemingly surrendering.
Do not underestimate the power of Nancy having that bill as a hostage. This is why Obama & the Senate want to move on, because Pelosi has the hammer on Health Care, and quite possibly on other legislation as well.
Patience. World changing legislation can take years, and look & feel horrible.
California is trying to send single-payer to Schwarzenegger. l
86: Thanks. Does anybody have a pony they don't need?
53: Depends on the office. As a general rule, though, a steady stream of calls over a several-day period will get noticed no matter how poor the office's tracking system, and on a hot issue like this, a couple of repeats are expected. One way to make the most of your calling time would be to call a local office today (when the House is not in session & members are back home), then the DC office on Tuesday.
#85. I've seen you in your robes, Aleister. You need to lay off the human flesh, porky.
I am also feeling inclined to hold my breath and hope in Pelosi.
Pelosi doesn't have the votes for the Senate Bill, but probably does have the votes for an amended Senate Bill.
Obama and the Senate do not want such a thing to come over from the House. They do not want that, so very very badly, that they are willing to let Health Care die.
I agree with you that there are plenty in the Senate who are happy to see HCR die. What is equally clear is that their are plenty of progressives who feel the same way, including yourself and apparently way too many in the Progressive Caucus. To use terminology that I assume is close to you, the Hamsher camp are objective Blue Dogs, the running dogs of the corporate Dems.
A specific reconciliation proposal for everybody to refer to when calling Reps.
93:A bill that got by Joe Lieberman and can't get 219 votes in the House is worse than nothing.
That should be pretty close to objective fact.
Things must be bad.... McManus's views are making good sense to me.
95: So what do you make of this, bob?
Feisty Obama: "I Won't Stop Fighting For You"
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2010/01/22/us/politics/politics-us-obama.html?_r=1
Even though you say such terrible things about him, Obama is still fighting for you, bob.
Are you there, helpy-chalky? Did you get to ask a question?
97: Bunch of fucking Quislings. Isn't it obvious to the meanest intellect?
Are you there, helpy-chalky? Did you get to ask a question?
Technically, "Don't tase me, bro?" is a question.
You're killing me, Bob. Well, not actually you, but Obama and some of the House dems, and the Republicans.
100: No it isn't. I mean, it could be phrased as a question: Are you going to taze me, bro?
Yes, Nancy should get the house to pass the bill. But she is right to hold out for a pound of flesh from the Senate. The Senate is one of the most anti-democratic institutions in the government, and its a good thing for the House of Representatives to stand up to them.
95: For someone who sides with the 41 worst Senators, your arguments are awfully reliant on guilt-by-association.
93 Absolutely. Progressives should insist that their Reps refuse to vote for any bill that Lieberman, Nelson, Bayh, Lincoln, Feinstein, Pryor, Baucus, Conrad, or Carper votes for. Or one that any member of the Blue Dog caucus supports. Aligning themselves with Jim DeMint is the way to get the change we need.
86:They aren't politicians. They aren't doing a whip count.
2) Sidecar reconciliation is a good idea, but will be totally dead if the Senate Bill is passed before the Amendments. And the House won't pass the Senate Bill until the Senate passes reconciliation.
(Yes, amendments can be passed before the main bill. What matters is that the President sign the main bill before he signs amendments. There are interesting complications, in that Pelosi can hold a passed bill on her desk until January. I don't know if I trust Obama not to veto a reconciliation with public option. He wants the Senate Bill.)
3) Doctors don't do "quality of life" or economics. Saving 50k lives is important, and could be done other ways, but the bill is much bigger and more complicated than that. Making life better for 200 million is also important, and I won't sacrifice them to a misguided conscience.
4) They are listening to the wrong people. Health Care does not die this week, and look carefully at those who say it will.
I don't know if I trust Obama not to veto a reconciliation with public option.
This is where bob proves he's not merely misguided, he's actively insane (or putting us on).
108: The possibility was a shock to me too, LB.
108:Yes. And I am not putting you on. This is the conclusion a lot of the left wing has come to, that Rahmbama doesn't want a public option.
He would probably claim deficit problems, or other items in the bill.
This doesn't matter. The main bill has to be signed before reconciliation, so we would have to take our chances.
If there are deficit problems, we should have a lottery (by birthday or something) as was done for for the draft. That way, HRC can be rolled-out gradually but fewer compromises on the level of coverage.
111 was me trying to put someone on, but I'm apparently not very good at it or I'm pining for past primaries. "HCR" not "HRC".
I'm willing to recognize that Obama doesn't really give a shit about the public option. But to say he is that actively opposed to it is a huge stretch.
Making life better for 200 million is also important, and I won't sacrifice them to a misguided conscience.
I can't figure out what you mean by this. Explain?
Bob is crazy, but not obviously more irrational than most of Congress or, apparently, our President. And, Bob would make a better replacement for Robert Osborne as host of Turner Classic Movies.
111, 112: You had me fooled, Moby. You just couldn't maintain your poker face.
Here's a wee bit of cheer: Boxer and Feingold against Bernanke confirmation.
113:Not quickly.
The bill pushes all of the costs of HCR on the middleclass, and almost nothing on the rich or on the healthcare industry or corporations. This will get worse as costs, which aren't controlled, increase.
This will have profound political effects, besides the damage done to tens of millions of families.
And it should not be necessary. The public option, drug negotiation and re-importation, strong national exchanges...all of which aren't in the Senate bill...would shift some of the costs of HCT to the industry.
Besides the millionaire tax in the House Bill.
The Brown victory seems to have pushed the Dems to the left on banking. First Obama comes out in favor of stronger regulation, and now people are coming out against reappointing Bernanke.
I thought the best argument against reappointing Bernanke was made by max: he is guaranteed to raise interest rates going into the 2012 election.
117,120:If a Democratic Congress is denying Obama an appointment he wants, it is more than likely an indication that Congress is very mad at, and repudiating or punishing, and distancing themselves from in anticipation of the midterms, Obama;rather than a disagreement on the merits of the appointee.
Lake, Coakley's pollster(? campaign manager?), told us this week that the Coakley campaign didn't do tracking polls because they couldn't afford them.
121.1: So. Anything short of murder that takes down a top financial official is fine with me.
Well I called my rep and encouraged him to get the Senate version approved. I may be an enemy of the people, but I think this would actually improve things, if only a bit.
Turgid Jacobins will be the first to the guillotine
I can't seem to find the quote, but I think Danton went to the guillotine only after implying that the big Jacobin himself, Robespierre, had turgidity issues.
I have no idea what a Jacobian might be, so I went with Jacobin.
I called my representative (Ted's son, actually) and was given the stock answer that "the Congressman was waiting to see what the leaders from both parties want to do." I sort of spluttered a little bit about "both parties," but I'm guessing that's in their response to assuage the anti-HCR callers? Weird.
Eventually good progressive congresspersons will just tired of being told they are pieces of shit for fighting for a better healthcare reform and just go fishing.
Maybe if your rep is Li Po:
Since yesterday had thrown me and bolt,
Today has hurt my heart even more.
The autumn wildgeese have a long wing for escort
As I face them from this villa, drinking my wine.
The bones of great writers are your brushes, in the school of heaven,
And I am Lesser Hsieh growing up by your side.
We both are exalted to distant thought,
Aspiring to the sky and the bright moon.
But since water still flows, though we cut it with our swords,
And sorrow return,though we drown them with wine,
Since the world can in no way answer our craving,
I will loosen my hair tomorrow and take to a fishing-boat.
I will not be calling Rep. Rehberg. I'm going to write a letter to my senior senator, though.
Jacobin/Jacobean/Jacobian
Jackal bins
130: I haven't thought of good ol' Li Po/Bo/Bai in far too long. I love the "and sorrows return, though we drown them with wine" line.
This is why I am a troll. Two comments from Lemuel Pitkin at LGM, Phd or something, well-respected commenter.
"What you cannot argue with any credibility is that failing to pass the Senate bill is going to yield something better from this Congress. That's just a fantasy." LP
"...but respect where you're coming from; McManus not so much."
Here is my response:
Let me try to make this clear. If the House passes the Senate immediately, or first, they lose any leverage on the Senate. Here is one plan. 1) Hold the Senate Bill 2) House passes a reconciliation bill, with progressive goodies 3) Senate passes the reconciliation bill 4) House passes Senate Bill 5) We have HCR better than Senate Bill
So "pass the Senate Bill", as in RIGHT NOW, is counter-productive. "Failing to pass the Senate Bill" RIGHT NOW, or FIRST, is the only productive way to go. It is not a fantasy. it is a plan. I am very sorry you & Lemieux are incapable of understanding this, and the feelings of disrespect are fully mutual.
Congress is Right Now working to build a reconciliation bill.
With enough pressure and phone calls, it is possible the House will just give up, and we will be stuck with the Senate Bill. So "pass the Senate Bill" is just plain wrong.
Thanks LB, and all who call.
Those of us in the colony that is DC thank you, as we have no reps or senators to call.
I do think LB's right - they do respond to anger from constituents, especially over the phone, and right now it's as concentrated as I can remember. Let them know.
As to the strategic considerations - I'd rather have the Senate bill plus a companion reconciliation bill, so I'd urge that, but I'd also take the Senate bill over nothing. The real point is to remind them what the stakes are - for real people and for them politically.
I guess that I can call Markey, but I don't expect to get an answer from him one way or the other.
And, I would be so happy if Rahm Emanuel could be dumped.
135: Lemuel is a net plus as a commenter, but he is frequently annoying.
I hope you're right about the House Democrats, and if they manage to pass a reconciliation bill that would be great. But I can just as easily see them deciding its better to do nothing, or to take some strategy "like passing things in smaller chunks and making the Republicans publicly vote no", which would be pretty useless.
I'm with you, Soph. I thought this over at Josh Marshall's site was striking.
139:Marcy Wheeler responded to and analyzed that story, explaining why the Senate Bill would not solve her problems.
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So seeing nothing but Twilight and the Directors Cut of Pineapple Express I go looking in the On Demand Listings an find the Dirk Bogarde 1958 Tale of Two Cities. It was very fine...Dickens.
But I seem to have changed because I just couldn't help myself, I couldn't stop thinking:"Unfair. Unfair!"
"Unfair to Madame DeFarge."
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I thought Neil T-E-W had such a cogent take on all of this that it was worth appending to this dead thread.
The question, bob, is what are our choices? Is a proposal that would've helped Ms. Wheeler on the table? Does anybody have a plan (beyond wishful thinking) that would put it on the table?
And as long as we're wishing for a pony, why not pass the Senate bill, or one like it, as part of a strategy to get our pony later on? Is there really a plausible case to be made that passing nothing is the shortest path to getting something better than the Senate proposal?
why not pass the Senate bill, or one like it, as part of a strategy to get our pony later on
You seem to be misunderstanding Bob's (and my) position. Passing the Senate bill now means you'll get the Senate bill, and there won't be any changes. But it doesn't matter because the Senate bill as written can't pass the House. Bringing the Senate bill to the floor now means it will fail and you won't even get the Senate bill.
Holding the bill means the leadership is still working to make changes. Let the process play out. This is not an emergency. Maybe the Senate bill is all that can get passed, but nobody knows yet. If so, we are well and truly fucked, because the Senate bill is designed to fail, and spectacularly. It undercuts itself at nearly every turn.
Bob's view that Obama is to the right wing of every Democrat in both houses of Congress may lead him astray in suggesting Congressional strategy.
No matter what anybody thinks of Obama, the relevant negotiations are between the House and the Senate.
For further evidence, I will link to Neil's post directly below the one linked in 142.
"Seen in light of what Conrad and Baucus are up to, House progressives' refusal to just pass the Senate bill without changes makes more sense. The path to getting more of what they want just opened up, and they're not going to be pushed into a suboptimal option when a better one is available. Best of all, it's a path that requires only 50 votes, so a lot more conceivably could be achieved there than could previously have been done through conference committee or ping-pong. This all depends on getting 50 Senators together, but given that we actually managed to get 60 to do something at one point, even Scott Brown shouldn't make it non-doable. And anyway I think we would've had to get 60 to pass a conference report or ping some pong. I don't know if they have to play up the crazy behavior quite so much -- Grijalva's process suggestions have been bizarre, and I don't know how to estimate the probability that they'll do things that result in doom. But reflecting on the reconciliation situation convinces me that they haven't totally lost their minds, and may in fact be doing the right thing."
Let the process play out. This is not an emergency. Maybe the Senate bill is all that can get passed, but nobody knows yet.
I don't object to Weiner, et al staking out a tough bargaining position. But in the end, I hope that Weiner is bluffing, and isn't willing to let the whole thing evaporate. (I attempted to convey this aspect of my thinking with the words "or one like it" in my comment above. Some kind of accommodation with the House might be possible, and should be sought.)
I think that bob regards the Senate bill as unacceptable under any circumstances, and I think that's your position, too, isn't it? You don't want Weiner to bluff about sinking health reform, you want him to mean it:
If so, we are well and truly fucked, because the Senate bill is designed to fail, and spectacularly. It undercuts itself at nearly every turn.
If it's the Senate bill or nothing, we're better off with nothing, right? That's where I disagree. We may not be at a point where that's the choice, but when we do arrive at that choice, I hope the good guys don't get confused about the ultimate goal of this, which is to improve the lot of Americans.
And Ned, I think where bob goes astray is that his analysis (like Ms. Wheeler's) insists on assessing fault for the current situation without mentioning the existence of the Republican Party. In fact, there's lots of blame to go around, and if Weiner, in the end, sides with the Republicans then he will be responsible for that choice.
The surreal part of this to me is the apparent belief in some liberal circles that the Republican Party has staked out a near-unanimous position (one dissenter in both Houses!) in favor of the True Liberal position on healthcare.
If it's the Senate bill or nothing, we're better off with nothing, right?
The math on that calculation is complicated. I'd analogize with the bank bailout. Congress was pressured to pass the Bush administration plan as it was because it was an emergency and there was no time to dither over details, and it turned out to be a disaster. Did it keep several big banks from failing? Yes (let's stipulate that is a good thing, even though I think it was not). Was it the only way to accomplish it? No. Was it even a remotely efficient way to accomplish it? No. And one of the biggest reasons that HCR is running into troubles nationally is that people are looking at the bank bailout bill as an example.
mentioning the existence of the Republican Party
Blaming the Republicans is understandable but irrelevant. They made a decision at the outset of the Obama administration that they were simply going to oppose everything this administration did. Sure, they're at fault as far as that goes, but that's the reality of the situation we're presented with. They simply aren't party *at all* to the negotiations going on. One of the biggest mistakes throughout this entire process was dealing with Grassley and Snowe as if they were honest partners looking for compromise. They aren't and they weren't ever going to be.
Saying that Weiner is siding with Republicans is absurd, because you've set up a situation where opposing an administration plan on anything ever for any reason is siding with the Republicans. Leave the cult of personality politics to the GOP. They're infinitely better at it.
Thanks for linking, football!
While the relevant negotiations are indeed between the House and the Senate, I hope Obama will step in and ratify the Senate bill plus changes in budget reconciliation framework that Pelosi and Reid are moving towards. Having an outside figure step in and say "Yes, guys, this is a fair deal" would solidify its legitimacy and make clear to media observers that the process was moving forward and it was no time for writing damning obituaries.
I think the Senate bill is far from an optimal outcome. But in comparison to the 15 year nightmare vision that haunts me at the end of the linked post, it's greatest success ever. And my feeling is that someone who thinks the Senate bill is worse than that probably should've given up on health care reform around mid-2007, if not long before.
I think that's your position, too, isn't it?
My official position is that I'm having trouble caring what the bill looks like or whether it passes. I see three overarching trends going on:
1. the government is increasingly used to shower private industries with government dollars
2. the recent SCOTUS decision that private industry can shower the government with as much election spending as it can afford
3. the ongoing neutering of antitrust rules
What I see as the likely outcome of those three trends makes the outcome of the HCR debate look more and more like deck chairs on the Titanic. I agree that not passing a bill is likely to be electorally catastrophic. The people making this argument most vigorously, on the other hand, seem curiously blase about the consequences of passing a bill that turns out to be a debacle.
150: Even if we are on the Titanic, I think it is important that everybody gets to sit, and that everybody gets as comfortable a chair as possible.
What if we're passing out lifejackets on the Titanic? What if the chair cushions are also a flotation device with a built in homing signal?
Hey, if it helps, and I know it isn't enough, Interior Secretary Salazar appears to be taking on the oil and gas industry on public lands.
After months of doing battle with the oil and gas industry, the typically cautious Salazar lost his cool in a media call Jan. 6, blasting companies for acting like they were "kings of the world" and treating the country's public lands as their own personal "candy store."
150: What I see as the likely outcome of those three trends makes the outcome of the HCR debate look more and more like deck chairs on the Titanic.
I can see those trends as scary and wildly important. But I can't see them as making it unimportant whether people can afford to get medical care. The Senate bill seems to make it easier for people to afford to get medical care -- doesn't fix much of anything else, but that's something.
1) I think the Senate HCR as written, is part of the middle-class cramdown. It's part of the decades-long Neo-liberal move to make middle-class luxuries cheaper and middle-class necessities (HC, housing, turtion etc) more expensive.
2) It is what you would expect a bill written by millionaires to look like. "Yes, we will end recission, but we sure aren't going to pay for it. You will pay for it yourselves."
3) The bill does indeed economically help the bottom two quintiles, is probably a wash (with good stuff) for the middle, but almost certainly lowers living standard for the fourth quintile.
4) The fourth quintile, say up to $100-150k, is politically and socially very important. To stress them further economically in a non-transparent way will likely make them less open to tax increases and gov't programs. They will see subsidies to the 2nd and 3rd quintiles and become resentful.
5) Is this a plan? I think so, divide & conquer, but it can just be an "accident" of a polity that wants services and relief and a political elite that refuses steeply progressive taxes on the top quintile.
6) To reduce consumption and aggregate demand among the consuming classes (1st-4th) is an economic disaster. The top investing quintile cannot sustain aggregate demand and will create a finance bubble economy. This is where we have been going since Reagan.
7) I really cannot support any policy that is not steeply progressive in funding. This is not a matter of justice or fairness, but IMO, to prevent depression, fascism, and war. Or oligarchic stagnation.
8) But I don't really know what to do. The investing class seems almost blind to the urgent need to redistribute, even aside from their self-interest. The 3rd and 4th just want some well-deserved relief, and their immediate self-interest trumps any class strategy.
9) From all accounts, the reconciliation will not be good enough, just enough to get it passed in the House. I am having trouble supporting a bill I think will be a disaster. We are living in a slow-motion catastrophe.
I think the Senate HCR as written, is part of the middle-class cramdown.
What the fuck does that even mean?
It's part of the decades-long Neo-liberal move to move your cheese.
As goes California, so go we all.
Yggles thinks we can institutionalize HC and other programs so they can't be reversed?
Study California.
Ok people, from now on you may only comment using Trilateral Commission-endorsed codewords.
Well, the Dems just lost Biden's old seat.
3) The bill does indeed economically help the bottom two quintiles, is probably a wash (with good stuff) for the middle, but almost certainly lowers living standard for the fourth quintile.
Here, I think you're wrong. I'm around the top edge of the fourth quintile, and I think this is a plus for me. What I get out of it is (1) being able to change jobs without worrying about continuity of health insurance; (2) I don't have to worry about family becoming uninsurable. I'm not exactly sure how I'm going to end up paying more as a result of this bill, but if I am, those two things are worth a fair amount to me.
Linking issues, or a new, advanced form of up-thread reference?
156:Elizabeth Warren, Youtube, 1/31/08, 58 minutes
The Coming Collapse of the Middle Class
The idea is to reduce the political power and will of the 3rd and 4th quintiles.
The rich learned their lessons from the last century.
What the fuck does that even mean?
Good question. Hm, I think bob is considering the 4th quintile ($100-$150k) to be an important part of the middle class, which will become resentful of the lower quintiles who will be receiving (gasp) government handouts, and so will become more resistant to tax increases and government programs ... such that the Senate HCR bill constitutes a divide and conquer strategy according to which those who most have an impact on the direction of the country (the middle class, defined as above) will trend conservative/anti-progressive.
I'm not exactly sure how I'm going to end up paying more as a result of this bill
IIRC, it will be 5-10% more of after tax income for someone at or above $63K. I think that understates it, I am not sure how the Medicare cuts will play out.
With little cost control in the near future.
The idea is to reduce the political power and will of the 3rd and 4th quintiles.
Oh.
164 is for families(4) Marcy Wheeler is the one crunching numbers.
160
Here, I think you're wrong. I'm around the top edge of the fourth quintile, and I think this is a plus for me. What I get out of it is (1) being able to change jobs without worrying about continuity of health insurance; ...
Perhaps I am confused but I thought there was nothing to worry about when changing jobs as long as both employers provide insurance.
... I'm not exactly sure how I'm going to end up paying more as a result of this bill, but if I am, those two things are worth a fair amount to me.
...
If the costs to your employer are increased they will mostly be passed on one way or another. The money for subsidies has to be coming from somewhere. Who do you think is paying it?
As I have said before I don't see how the proposals will benefit me in any way.
Perhaps I am confused but I thought there was nothing to worry about when changing jobs as long as both employers provide insurance.
You're confused, or at least failing to consider that time may elapse between one job and the next.
IIRC, it will be 5-10% more of after tax income for someone at or above $63K.
IyouRwhatC? More of after tax income compared to what baseline? Was that percentage a percentage of total income, or a percentage of current spending on health care? And what's the mechanism -- premiums will go up, just the excise tax, or what?
I'm not claiming you're wrong, but you're pulling numbers out of the air I've never seen, and I'm not clear enough on what the numbers mean to even begin to try and check them.
If the costs to your employer are increased they will mostly be passed on one way or another.
Did you not read the part about how those things "are worth a fair amount" to her? Of course the costs will be passed on. Costs are always passed on. Everything worth doing costs somebody something. Why does it even warrant mentioning? James B. Shearer, you are a very irritating internet persona.
Fuck, trying again. Well, the Dems just lost Biden's old seat.
160:LB, this is why I care about you. Well, I am just a ways below that bracket myself.
The bill is deficit neutral,
I really we believe we need at least 10% of GDP revenue increase in order for this country to survive. This will not all come from billionaires.
How can I ask someone making 75K, who just had a 10% increase in HC costs, to take on another 5-10% in new taxes/fees for infrastructure or a green economy?
Single-payer or Medicare-for-All is just cheaper. Cali is trying to go single-payer as a way out of bankruptcy.
We are so fucked.
Me: Let's go buy some ice cream.
JBS: Let's not. The cost of walking will be passed on to our legs. Ice cream is stupid, anyway.
171: Aw, man. There's got to be another popular Democrat in Delaware, doesn't there?
174: I don't think so. I think that's why people were hoping Beau Biden was running, even though it made the seat look hereditary.
bob, can you pass on the relevant link(s) to Marcy Wheeler's number-crunching? I read them at some point or another, recall that I wasn't entirely convinced, but wasn't sure enough of things to be able to articulate why. Possibly LB would be clearer-eyed in looking at them.
Here is one Marcy Wheeler cost analysis.
The comments say she is understating.
(The dogs are suffering. Bye)
168
You're confused, or at least failing to consider that time may elapse between one job and the next.
Which is covered by COBRA up to 18 months right?
170
Did you not read the part about how those things "are worth a fair amount" to her? Of course the costs will be passed on. Costs are always passed on. Everything worth doing costs somebody something. Why does it even warrant mentioning? James B. Shearer, you are a very irritating internet persona.
Did you not read the part where she doubted if her costs would go up at all? And what is a fair amount for the purported benefits? How much would LB pay per year for them if they were not provided as part of a general reform?
Ah, COBRA. I remember when I got laid off from my telecom job in 2001 and they sent me that COBRA letter. It was only about $1000 a month. My wife and I read that letter and had a good laugh.
Assuming you can afford paying the full cost of health insurance through COBRA, yeah. And assuming you're heading to a new job that offers insurance, an assumption which is becoming rarer. And assuming that you're even offered a new job if your unhealthy status is known to your new employer.
177: First, that seems to be talking about a family more in the third percentile than the fourth -- my offhand reaction above was mostly on the basis of "Hey, that's me! I can speak to that directly." Second, I'm not following her assumptions -- she's postulating premiums at the highest level possible without triggering the right to opt out, but also assuming that the policy involved won't cover any expenses beyond checkups without prohibitively expensive costsharing. That seems to be something that's significantly worse than most currently actually existing insurance, and I'm not getting the basis for it.
(I was kind of entertained by the digression in comments about what one could expect people to live with in terms of driving a shitty car. I'm fond of my car, but apparently it's well past intolerably ancient.)
It's part of the decades-long Neo-liberal move to make middle-class luxuries cheaper and middle-class necessities (HC, housing, turtion etc) more expensive.
Is this why Jane Hamsher and Grover Norquist are pals now?
Third percentile? You mean quartile?
184: I meant quintile. Although now that I'm thinking about bob's numbers, 150K for the bottom of the top quintile? That's got to be too high.
The fourth quintile, say up to $100-150k
I think you need to double-check your statistics here. $150k is well into the top quintile in income.
Yeah, wikipedia has the top quintile starting at 100K. That sounds much more likely.
if your unhealthy status is known to your new employer
This, when it comes down to it, remains the sticking point for me. I understand the apostropher's objections*, as well as bob's, but the fact remains -- to me -- that we need protections now for those with preexisting conditions (as well as protections against rescission and lifetime caps). Throw in health insurance exchanges, and there seems to be some control on premiums skyrocketing.
This is really not an intellectual exercise.
* What I don't completely follow in apo's view is this: the Senate bill is designed to fail, and spectacularly (143), along with a bill that turns out to be a debacle (150). How so? Designed to fail by what measure? I'm not being blind here: it fails as any sort of check on monopolization of health insurance provision by private corporations. I know. I guess you mean it fails in terms of cost controls.
This is exhausting, you know.
180
Ah, COBRA. I remember when I got laid off from my telecom job in 2001 and they sent me that COBRA letter. It was only about $1000 a month. My wife and I read that letter and had a good laugh.
And the reform preposals will make this better how? By mandating you buy coverage?
Providing subsidies for people who can't afford coverage.
As I have said before I don't see how the proposals will benefit me in any way.
I don't object to James's making himself the measure of policy utility, but it's interesting to me how this plays out for a conservative like him. Providing universal healthcare is costly with no benefit for him. Nuking (or threatening to nuke) France is a policy with no cost to him worth mentioning - as long as it protects Dick Cheney from foreign prosecution as a war criminal.
(It's probably unfair - and worse, uninteresting - to bring up James's stance on nuclear genocide, but I'm having a hard time letting that go.)
So any accusation that James lacks altruism is incorrect. At bottom, I really think the conservative rationale is all about authoritarianism. Anything that calls into question the authority of the United States in the world, and Dick Cheney within the United States and world, is ripe for opposition.
With healthcare, the reverse is at work. If we separate healthcare access from employment, that would be bad because it would weaken the leverage that capital has over labor.
190: But how do you define "can't afford"? Kaiser had an applet on their site that claimed the amount of subsidy for a person earning $32K is precisely bupkis.
192: Again, the devil is in the details. The poorest people with income too high for subsidies are the ones who will be worst off -- let me figure out exactly who they are.
192: Again, the devil is in the details. The poorest people with income too high for subsidies are the ones who will be worst off -- let me figure out exactly who they are.
This says subsidies stop at 4X the federal poverty level. Anyone know whether that's inaccurate?
As long as we're harassing Shearer, this at 167:
As I have said before I don't see how the proposals will benefit me in any way.
James. In order to consider this in a thoughtful manner, people must try to think beyond "What's in it for me?" The world cannot revolve around oneself and one's interests. Sometimes we need to help others, not ourselves, who require assistance. This makes for a healthier polity. You have to think longer-term.
If you don't see anything in the Senate or House HCR bills that benefits you, so what? As long as it doesn't burden you unduly (and I'd need you to define undue burden), you have a moral obligation to think beyond yourself.
191
It's probably unfair - and worse, uninteresting - to bring up James's stance on nuclear genocide, but I'm having a hard time letting that go.)
I don't recall mentioning nuclear weapons. Someone else threatened to nuke the US east coast.
So any accusation that James lacks altruism is incorrect. At bottom, I really think the conservative rationale is all about authoritarianism. Anything that calls into question the authority of the United States in the world, and Dick Cheney within the United States and world, is ripe for opposition.
This is ridiculous. I voted for Kerry and Obama primarily because I didn't care for Bush's glorious adventure in Iraq. I support large cuts in the defense budget.
that we need protections now for those with preexisting conditions
Me me me me me! And my partner (cancer). And my friend Theresa (cancer) and my friend Catie (cancer) and most of the people I know in my age bracket.
195
If you don't see anything in the Senate or House HCR bills that benefits you, so what? As long as it doesn't burden you unduly (and I'd need you to define undue burden), you have a moral obligation to think beyond yourself.
I don't think I have a moral obligation to pretend the bill benefits me (or people like me) just to argue with mcmanus.
And I am willing to sacrifice my personal interests in some respects. For example I would favor a carbon tax. But it infuriates me to be lied to about my personal costs and benefits.
191, 196: Yeah, wrong as you are about most things, you're erratically wrong rather than reliably movement-conservative wrong. Which is something.
Blaming the Republicans is understandable but irrelevant. They made a decision at the outset of the Obama administration that they were simply going to oppose everything this administration did. Sure, they're at fault as far as that goes, but that's the reality of the situation we're presented with.
Then why blame the Blue Dogs, or anyone? In an effort to absolve liberals of responsibility, Wheeler points the finger at Blue Dogs, but why them and not the Republicans?
But you are correct: Republican opposition is more-or-less irrelevant to this particular conversation. They aren't on our side at the outset. That's exactly why the most relevant people here are liberals who may favor the Republican position, and who should be expected to be more ... liberal. (I'm still hopeful that if/when push comes to shove, they'll cave.)
Saying that Weiner is siding with Republicans is absurd, because you've set up a situation where opposing an administration plan on anything ever for any reason is siding with the Republicans.
I think you mis-state the Republican position - and therefore mine. Republicans aren't mindlessly opposed to Obama - witness the Afghan surge, for example. They're just opposed to any kind of health reform worthy of the name "reform." McConnell, McCain et al ain't kidding when they say that Obama merely needs to adopt their positions to get their support - no steps toward universality, no community rating, etc., just tax breaks and tort reform.
And to be clear, I'm only talking about a very narrow case: situations where there's an unambiguous and essentially unanimous Republican position. A number of nutjobs on the right want Bernanke's nomination shit-canned. I'm with them on that - to the point of accepting much of their reasoning - and I'm not embarrassed about it. If Weiner (or you) side with the Republicans on this, you ought to be able to come up with some cogent explanation for why your position is the same as theirs.
Throw in health insurance exchanges, and there seems to be some control on premiums skyrocketing.
Maybe. If the exchange was nationwide. But it isn't. It's state-by-state. Which might have some chance of working (though I'm skeptical) if you knocked out the insurance industry's antitrust exemption. But it's maintained. This is what I mean by set up to fail. The problem is *exactly* cost control, and the Senate bill undercuts most of its own cost control measures, which were generally half-assed compromises to begin with.
198: But it infuriates me to be lied to about my personal costs and benefits.
I don't care, James. I just don't care about whether you feel you've been lied to. It's not about you.
Actually, Shearer, who's been lying to you? If you're not worried about being out on the individual insurance market with a pre-existing condition, you've got the money to pay for the insurance you've got, and there's no one you care about in worse shape, sure, this doesn't do a thing for you. You're fine now, and you'll still be fine if it passes. But I can't picture what people could have said that would imply you'd get much out of it.
201: I understand. Is this something that could be addressed through a budget reconciliation bill? I mean changing the state-by-state exchanges to a national one.
I hear you, though. My frustration on this is pretty high. No, I'm not happy. I still think the Senate bill (with sidecare reconciliation bill, to include what I don't know) is better than nothing at all. Seriously. We are not going to have another chance at this for some time. I wish you would take that more seriously.
This is ridiculous. I voted for Kerry and Obama primarily because I didn't care for Bush's glorious adventure in Iraq. I support large cuts in the defense budget.
I didn't know this, but I still stand by my theory, which runs something like this: modern conservative thinking is, at root, all about authoritarianism. The War-cons worship the generals; the God-cons worship You-Know-Who; and the Moneycons defer to Capital.
That coalition can fray when the Voices Of Authority conflict. GW Bush could represent all three in 2000, but nobody could manage that in 2008 - hence McCain, Romney and Huckabee.
Betcha a nickel that if Romney had won, you'd have voted for him.
As much as I, too, don't care about James's anger, I do think his frustration is likely emblematic of broader trends. And this broad-based outrage matters insofar as the sweeping distrust of federal authority is one reason that health care reform polls so badly. And for that I blame the Obama administration: for not having a clear and consistent public message about health care in both broad strokes and especially particulars. I know this fuzziness was by design, part of a strategy whereby Congress would take the lead on this reform inititative. But this strategy looks pretty catastrophic at the moment.
That said, I'm not sure a better strategy* was out there.
* Meaning: one that would have worked better.
why your position is the same as theirs
I've explained it. My position isn't the same as theirs. Ostensibly, they don't want health care reform because it's socialism. I want a full-on socialist health care system, but am fully aware that I ain't getting anything of the sort. Fine. Instead, I'd like the Democrats just not to construct a self-defeating Rube Goldberg machine.
If you got them drunk and got them to spill their heart of hearts, most of the GOP caucus is just fine with this plan. They know full well it isn't socialism. The Senate bill is essentially *what the GOP thinktankocracy proposed in 1994* in response to Clinton's plan. It is their plan. They also know it's going to be unpopular and will be a great campaign issue. So, they get to prop up Big Insurance, piss off the DFHs, and still get to run on it for the next many cycles. Win-win.
And for that I blame the Obama administration: for not having a clear and consistent public message about health care in both broad strokes and especially particulars.
Stunned bemusement in the face of the opposition party's opposition seems blameworthy also.
I assume Biden is not running because he no longer thinks he can win. But at least his dad will still be VP (maybe even past 2012!).
205 is a pretty catchy summary, politicalfootball. I'm gonna think about that some more.
They also know it's going to be unpopular and will be a great campaign issue.
You think? I don't see it affecting the mass of people who are covered by their employers now enough to be broadly unpopular.
I don't see it affecting the mass of people who are covered by their employers now enough to be broadly unpopular.
I think you underestimate the size of the coalition of Americans who worry that somehow somebody might get more than they deserve.
Actually, Shearer, who's been lying to you?
I have. I'm sorry, James. From now on it's nothing but the truth between us.
209: Yep, though I don't think being stunned is part of a grand strategy; I think it's inexplicable.
We are not going to have another chance at this for some time. I wish you would take that more seriously.
I do take it seriously. That's why I believe passing the Senate bill as it is would be a disaster. The Senate bill has so very little that can be built upon that it looks to me more like locking in the current system than improving it. More people will have insurance, but only because the government pays the insurance companies to take them. Meanwhile, costs keep spiraling upwards because the cost control measures have been undercut.
I don't see it affecting the mass of people who are covered by their employers now enough to be broadly unpopular.
Welfare and foreign aid don't affect most people, but Jesus do people take umbrage at them even existing. Also, I expect employer-provided coverage to continue shrinking, precisely because nobody is taking cost containment seriously.
208: But if the Senate bill doesn't pass (with our without House correction), then they don't need it to campaign on. Health care reform will be dead forever.
If the Dems lose the House, why will they ever bring up health care reform again? A pathological desire to relive past failures? If the Dems lose the House, the story will be that they went too far left, and the story of the Democratic party will become the DLC stomping on a hippy face... forever.
And the "lack of cost containment will doom employer health insurance" doesn't make any sense to me. If employers don't offer health insurance, than no one will have health insurance. What happens then? Doctors refuse to practice medicine because no one will pay their high prices? Prices will go up until they reach the maximum level people can afford, and then they will stop.
My position isn't the same as theirs.
I didn't mean that you support endless war and redistribution of wealth to the wealthy - or even that you agree with Republicans on the big picture of how healthcare ought to be handled in the U.S.
I'm only talking about the narrow issue of whether the Senate bill is better than nothing. You and the Republicans are of like mind on this. Seems odd that you can't acknowledge that.
It is their plan.
No. Their preference, and their plan, is to do nothing - this year and in 1994. Their 1994 plan was designed to provide something less onerous to them than Clinton's plan, in case it came to that. Winners have a fallback position, so when they do lose, they lose as little as possible.
Had the Republicans wanted to pass their plan in 1998, they could have done it, I betcha. Certainly in 2002 they could have done it. The Republican preference is to do nothing, and it is not just a weird coincidence that they unanimously support inaction today.
218: Well, right. Things that can't go on forever, won't. Apo might be right that the bits of the Senate bill intended as cost containment are useless and crippled. But the worst that can be is useless -- if it's right, the crash (however it happens) is coming one way or another.
216: Okay, and again, I understand. This in particular:
More people will have insurance, but only because the government pays the insurance companies to take them
It's godawful. I honestly don't know what to do. And we're just rehearsing the same things over again. I can't mange to partake of the blame game: I don't know who to blame for the killing of single payer from the get-go.
They have us over a barrel, apo. I'm willing to concede, and you are not.
I'm willing to concede, and you are not.
Neither of us gets to vote on it, so it doesn't really matter.
But why will there be a crash? Health care will get as expensive as it can get, and then it will stay there.
But the worst that can be is useless
No, the worst that can be is we severely drain an already depleted (several times over) Treasury and when the private insurance collapse gets here, well, too bad. We already spent X trillion dollars and that didn't work so now everybody's just on their own. Kinda like if we hadn't spent so much money on our Rube Goldberg wars, we'd have been in much better shape to smooth over the economic crash.
203
Actually, Shearer, who's been lying to you? If you're not worried about being out on the individual insurance market with a pre-existing condition, you've got the money to pay for the insurance you've got, and there's no one you care about in worse shape, sure, this doesn't do a thing for you. You're fine now, and you'll still be fine if it passes. But I can't picture what people could have said that would imply you'd get much out of it.
Perhaps "lying" was a poor choice of words. More like people trying to drag me out of the real world into their fantasy world.
The comment was not about health care reform in particular. But lots of health care reform supporters advance (in my view at least) nonsensical arguments. Such as it will save money. Or that large risk pools mean cheap insurance. Or that I (and everybody else) should be happy to pay arbitrarily large amounts to insure against rare events. Or that insurance companies are the main problem with US health care.
we severely drain an already depleted (several times over) Treasury
You're not buying the deficit-neutral rating? Why not?
But why will there be a crash?
I'm talking about the collapse of the employer-based insurance model. We're below 60% of the under-65 population getting insurance from their employer already.
Health care will become ER + Medicare for a while, which will help hide the real cost growth in government budgets and personal debts, then crash.
Housing didn't become as expensive as it got and then stay there, but that's probably a banned analogy and maybe a bad one.
I'm talking about the collapse of the employer-based insurance model.
At which point we've got the community rating/subsidized exchanges to fall back on. This isn't ideal, but it does seem to make the collapse of the employer-based insurance model not so bad (and! if employer based insurance goes away, so does a huge regressive subsidy to the insurance companies. Which will at least be replaced by more progressive subsidies.)
Such as it will save money.
So you would prefer a single-payer system to the one now being proposed.
205
Betcha a nickel that if Romney had won, you'd have voted for him.
I don't recall him campaigning against the war in Iraq so it seems doubtful. Are you claiming I am a Moneycon?
231: That or a Cylon. But something along those lines.
SOMEONE MUST HAVE BEEN TELLING LIES ABOUT JAMES S.
199
Yeah, wrong as you are about most things, you're erratically wrong rather than reliably movement-conservative wrong. Which is something.
Just out of curiosity do you disagree with movement-liberals about anything?
You're not buying the deficit-neutral rating?
That was bad word choice on my part. Maybe it will be deficit-neutral, maybe it won't. Economic forecasting is imprecise at best. Nonetheless, it's going to be expensive, just like our current system.
we've got the community rating/subsidized exchanges to fall back on
You're still paying insurance companies to insure people rather than just insuring people directly. Which is the same ass-backwards model we're using to "solve" the mortgage crisis. I'd like to keep arguing in circles, but I have to finish something up here before I go home.
227: So insurance companies are going to raise rates so that no employer can afford them? How does that work?
230
So you would prefer a single-payer system to the one now being proposed.
Why would single payer save money? And what do you mean by single payer anyway?
232
That or a Cylon. But something along those lines.
Moneycons support open borders. I don't.
The Senate bill has so very little that can be built upon that it looks to me more like locking in the current system than improving it. More people will have insurance, but only because the government pays the insurance companies to take them. Meanwhile, costs keep spiraling upwards because the cost control measures have been undercut.
This all seems right to me, but it overlooks Stein's Law. (And look at me: Not only am I endorsing a principle espoused by a Nixon Republican, but Ben Stein's daddy. See, I'm not the least bit embarrassed when I make common cause with Republicans.)
Herbert Stein's Law is "If something cannot go on forever, it will stop." Applied here, it tells us that because the costs associated with healthcare can't keep going up this way forever, they won't.
Rejecting the Senate bill also puts us on a path of unsustainable cost growth, after all. When the reckoning comes, I want universal healthcare to be an underlying assumption of the debate, and I want the U.S. government making the choices. In the current setup, it's employers and insurers who will be making those decisions - they won't even have to go to the trouble of buying Senators.
Plus, you know, fewer human beings become needlessly dead or disabled in the meantime.
I'm sorry that apo had to go, because I'd like to understand his argument.
236
So insurance companies are going to raise rates so that no employer can afford them? How does that work?
Better than not raising rates and going broke. Insurance companies are not the main cost driver, they are just passing on cost increases.
That gets back to my original question? Doctors are going to raise rates until no one can pay them, and then what? Golf club memberships don't pay for themselves.
Why would single payer save money? And what do you mean by single payer anyway?
Not your best work, James.
Cylon
Spine lights up for orgasm? Honestly, all that work on a cylon detector, are they really are straight and only interested in missionary or cowgirl?
In retrospect, maybe this was the humor missing from the dialogue.
This is like shooting fish in a barrel, except it's one fish, and it's a Highlander.
Why would single payer save money?
Because in a single payer system the intermediary between doctor and patient is a non-profit agency rather than a profit-maximizing agency. You save money when you only have to pay the doctor-hospital for health services rendered, without having to pay both the doctor-hospital for the health services and then also the insurance company for services (paperwork and etc) that could be done more cheaply by the government.
Can we just all agree that arguing with Shearer is a fruitless waste of time. It goes nowhere. I'd rather go somewhere. Not that we're getting there, either.
Yeah, I'm more interested in arguing with Apo, because he's generally right about stuff, he sounds awfully sure, and I'm not quite following him. Which leaves me tense and unsure of myself (and, as is often the case, glad that my being wrong has extraordinarily little consequence in the world.)
248: I don't know. James often articulates positions which are pretty consistent with the arguments certain friends and relatives of mine like to raise on this sort of issue. You'll likely never persuade him and vice versa. But you're preparing me for listening to these types of arguments in real life.
234: I've never heard the term movement-liberal, so I'm not sure exactly who it denotes. But in broad outlines, I'm a pretty reliable left-edge of the party Democrat, sure -- I can't think of any surprising points of disagreement with liberals/progressives, although I'm sure I could turn up some minor things if I tried hard, and equally sure we could have a really dull argument where you found some unattractive policy position and claimed it was liberal dogma, while I disagreed. Generally, I think the set of positions that characterize liberals are mostly pretty coherent, and mostly what I agree with.
Moneycons support open borders. I don't.
Hmm - a legitimate point, marred slightly by your over-simple adoption of the phrase "open borders." There's not much support for "open borders" among Moneycons.
But okay. I get your point and I do perceive that your stance on immigration is less, ahem, liberal than that of a lot of Moneycons. I account for this several ways.
Many people with your position (though perhaps not you) are offended by illegal immigration because it is illegal. This fits pretty straightforwardly into my authoritarian model.
My guess is that your opposition to illegal immigration is still a Moneycon objection - you're just interested in a different money-oriented authority . You're offended that these unworthy poor folks are imposing their will on the more well-to-do - like yourself.
Of course, you are also a Race-con - someone who assigns a racial hierarchy to intellect. You don't want the brown hordes to interfere with the rightful place of white folks running things.
But I'll admit that you may not fit into my framework on this particular issue. Do you?
he's generally right about stuff, he sounds awfully sure
If it would make you feel better, I could link to my very confident assertions that there is no way in hell America will elect a black president in 2008.
I'm heading home now, which means trading work-based craziness for kid-based craziness, so might not be able to re-engage until much later tonight.
Darcy Burner on Congress & Health Care.
Here are the constraints:* The Senate won't have 60 votes for diddly-squat. No Republican is going to vote for cloture on anything. Whatever the Senate is going to do needs to be done with 50 votes (plus Biden), which means budget reconciliation will have to be used.
* The House doesn't trust the Senate. House members believing the Senate will fix something later is about as likely as pigs flying. Over and over in the last year, the Senate has completely screwed the House. No faith remains. That means the Senate is going to have to go first.
* The House can't get 218 votes for the Senate bill. Every single House member is up for re-election in ten months. They've seen the polling, they've seen what happened in Massachusetts. They don't have political death wishes, and the profoundly flawed insurance giveaway that is the Senate bill isn't going to inspire them to take one for the team. The team they'd be asked to take one for is Aetna and United Healthcare and Joe Lieberman, friends - not their constituents. No way.
Health care will get as expensive as it can get, and then it will stay there.
It will get to the point where only senior management with access to company treasuries can afford employer - paid health insurance. Everyone else will either die or go to the emergency room and get crap treatment and end up broke. This is the system in such advanced capitalist countries as Haiti and Somalia. There's no reason that health care can't simply get so expensive that the great majority of Americans won't be able to afford it. That's certainly what's happenning to the 55-65 cohort now. Instead of 40,000 a year dying from medical neglect it will be 100,000 or 500,000, and those who are okay will continue to say "screw you, Jack, I've got mine."
Darcy Gibbons Burner in case you didn't know who she was.
Chris Bowers, based changes in Delaware and Indiana, now projects the Senate to be at best 53-47 after November.
will continue to say "screw you, Jack, I've got mine."
Sorry, that should be "I don't see how the proposals will benefit me in any way." They don't see efficiencies that seem obvious to me such as
- employers are not the most efficient channel for delivering health care, or even health insurance, and so waste money
- employer based health insurance impedes labor mobility, and thus decreases efficiency and overall wealth
- the health insurance market can't, theoretically, deliver good health insurance because the incentives are all wrong
To both 255 and 257: so what? So far, at least, Darcy Burner has proven herself good at one thing: raising money online and then losing elections. Which isn't to say that I don't love her; I do (and I send her money to signify that love). But I'm not sure I trust her to have the first clue about what's happening in Congressional cloakrooms or among the electorate. She has no experience with the former and doesn't seem so great at reading the latter. So I'm not sure why you'd trust her either. Same is true for Bowers, who's notorious for badly overreacting to what often turns out to be political noise. But let's say he's right: what's so terrible about a 53:47 majority?
259:It's really not an argument from authority as much as an argument written better than I might write, with more authority than I have.
It was also an alternative to the FDL crowd. Incidentally, Bowers will not even say "The Senate Bill cannot pass the House" There is a definite political war over framing and blame.
what's so terrible about a 53:47 majority?
I don't know where to start.
One of the 53 is Joe L of course. Another Bernie Sanders.
51-2-47?
Byrd is 92? Maybe Obama will grab Franken and a few more for Ambassadorships or something.
Bernie Sanders is a pretty reliable vote, bob. Lieberman will be gone in, what, two years, likely replaced by a Democrat (though who knows)? And Byrd's health, yes, is a worry, but not nearly as big a worry as the Democrats proving their ability to govern while in the majority. In short, I'm not sure how a narrower majority changes the game all that much. Losing the House, on the other hand...
In short, we need to do this now. Pace Apo, love him though I do.
Apo's argument -- and sorry to make him stand in for any number of others -- really seems to trade on the notion that we'll have an opportunity to pass something like a single-payer bill sometime in the near future. This seems extremely dubious.
This is all very seriously going around in circles. We all know this! Either you buy that we might be able to pass something decent and proper in the near future, or you don't. Shooting yourself in the face by reverting to the status quo doesn't strike me as any form of winning.
Why is the health insurance industry against the Senate bill if it's such a boon to them? It's an inroad to further change. That said, the warnings regarding the further ensconcement of private ins. companies are appreciated.
The other part of Apo's argument concerns expense; see 224: the worst that can be is we severely drain an already depleted (several times over) Treasury and when the private insurance collapse gets here, well, too bad.
I don't know what to say here. I haven't studied enough about the funding mechanisms of the bill.
I'm only talking about the narrow issue of whether the Senate bill is better than nothing. You and the Republicans are of like mind on this. Seems odd that you can't acknowledge that.
Objectively pro-Saddam!
Objectively pro-Saddam!
This is why analogies are banned. If you care to hear it, I can explain why my view on the invasion of Iraq is, in one important respect, identical to Saddam's. Likewise, I can explain why I agree with the nut-right's view on Bernanke's bid for re-election. More frivolously, I explained above why I'm in agreement with Ben Stein's Nixon-Republican daddy.
Apo declines to acknowledge that his view of a particular legislative strategem is the same as that of the unanimous Republican Party. And failing to acknowledge it, he can't explain it.
Does he think the Republicans are dupes who lack his superior strategic vision? Or that Republicans who are more hostile to the health reform secretly support the Senate package, but can't vote for it"? Or what?
Fact is, the "objectively pro-Saddam" people were correct - if irrelevant. Saddam was against being deposed and killed. A child could see why Saddam held that position, and it doesn't take much more sense than a child's to see why intelligent U.S. people held it. What I lack is an explanation for why people should support the Republicans on this specific, narrow issue. Can you help?
263:And many of the same people, or kind of people, are making suchlike arguments. Decents. Sensible liberals. Moderates and incrementalists.
They interest me much more than Palin.
Ahh, probably could go back to Gotha Programme or something. Nothing new.
264:It also might help explain my distaste for facts and "arguments." I think it pointless.
There are priors involved here I am deluding myself that I can change.
According to sources (Politico), Obama will call for a freeze on discretionary spending (except for defense) in the SOTU. Also, PayGo.
Yglesias works late.
Rollout on Monday. How interesting.
I'm attempting not to freak out because (a) I don't have details and (b) I suspect this initiative was deliberately leaked to progressive bloggers in an effort to get denounced by the left and I don't want to give them the satisfaction....MY
267: I have been drunk with rage for at least a decade.
266: If it happens, I shall publicly apologize to you in a blog post titled, "We are all Bob McManus now". Unless you don't want me to. Not because I'm averse to apologizing, but I really, really do hope the rumors aren't true.
If it happens, I shall publicly apologize to you
It made the front page of CNN. Doesn't mean it is going to happen, but it seems like more than a crazy rumor.
If it happens
Ari, do you mean if Obama calls for a spending freeze? or if Obama calls for a spending freeze and the freeze is then implemented? There can be little doubt he's going to propose a 3-year freeze on "non-security" spending.
the rumors
These being the spending freeze that every major news organization and blog is reporting? You think "senior administration officials" just made it up?
Obama will call for a freeze on discretionary spending (except for defense)
Let's try to avoid becoming drama queens about it, if nothing else.
A freeze on the 2013 budget would mean that health care's gone right? Because that's when the provisions in the non-passed bills were supposed to start? I guess it doesn't matter unless or until there's a proposal in place.
I continue to suspect the admin has already written off Congress and is planning for the 2012 campaign so is trying to keep Congress from dirtying the White House with their sordid politicking. On some level, they should be planning for 2012, given the realities of politics. But that can be taken too far.
Let's try to avoid becoming drama queens about it, if nothing else.
Seeing this on preview prompted me to delete what I was about to say.
||
Meanwhile, I attempted to contact my US insurance to cancel it, but none of their toll free numbers work in this country. So I contacted them in their web form and told them I wanted to cancel but can't call them.
They just replied to tell me that they've suspended my auto payments, but I have to cancel in writing. They will then cancel my plan on the 1st of the month after they receive my written request. I guess I have to find a fax machine, because if I mail the cancellation as I'd prefer to do, it won't get there until February. So I'd be charged for February - except they've taken away my ability to pay for it easily through the auto pay.
Then they say if I have any questions, I can feel free to call them - you know at the number I wrote to them to tell them that I can't call it from here.
|>
Heh. No, it was phrased in a rather heated way.
But from the NYTimes:
The payoff in budget savings would be small relative to the deficit: The estimated $250 billion in savings over 10 years would be less than 3 percent of the roughly $9 trillion in additional debt the government is expected to accumulate over that time.
Note that $250 billion in savings over 10 years could be accomplished by something like a 4% cut in the military budget. At which point our military budget would still be, oh, six or so times as large as the next largest.
Let's try to avoid becoming drama queens about it, if nothing else.
If Obama decides to engage in some kind of political theater about deficits - not an unusual tactic, after all - then that could potentially be okay with me. If he's in any sense serious about it, I'm gonna be a drama queen.
Apo declines to acknowledge that his view of a particular legislative strategem is the same as that of the unanimous Republican Party. And failing to acknowledge it, he can't explain it.
Dude, I'm trying to be polite. The reason I don't engage that argument is because it's stupid and pointless. You seem to believe you have latched onto some super-clever debating point, but you haven't. The Republican's unanimous stance on this has nothing to do with the bill's legislative content and everything to do with electoral politics. The Republicans don't even *have* any policy people in office any more. Their entire raison d'etre is getting elected and raising money, as embodied by current leading lights Sarah Palin and Michael Steele. I have issues with the legislation itself and what it does to the country. You're playing some weird game where everything about the health care bill rests on what Republicans think about it. I don't give a damn what they think about it. They are a party of assholes and morons. If you want to discuss the merits and faults of the bill, I'm game.
really seems to trade on the notion that we'll have an opportunity to pass something like a single-payer bill sometime in the near future.
No, it really doesn't. It trades on the notion that the employer-based system is falling apart, because *employers can't afford it*, and the response on offer is "okay, we'll just make everybody buy it then." But the structural problems that are pushing double-digit percentage hikes in premiums are still there, which means that the subsidies will keep having to get larger as insurance gets more expensive and fewer employers offer it. So what happens then?
Even the Swiss system has the rule that every company has to offer a basic plan that they can't make a profit on, which pretty much functions as a public option. There are a lot of different ways to deliver health care to the X million uninsured who want it (I have no idea what % of the uninsured are so by choice); the Senate bill takes perhaps the very least efficient way of all the ways that aren't Monty Python sketch ridiculous, because its main goal isn't universal coverage (which, again, it doesn't actually achieve). Its main goal is maintaining the viability and profitability of the insurance industry.
Late Update: Republican leadership staffers are emailing this story from The Hill suggesting the Obama pitch is "DOA." The piece quotes members of the budget committee dissing the plan when it was floated by the White House.
Well, that's a relief. Obama is just cutting the throat of his party, not the nation. But only because he has no power or influence or ability to lead anymore, after 12 months in office. Whew.
I still think we can party like it's 1937.
280: It trades on the notion that the employer-based system is falling apart, because *employers can't afford it*, and the response on offer is "okay, we'll just make everybody buy it then." But the structural problems that are pushing double-digit percentage hikes in premiums are still there, which means that the subsidies will keep having to get larger as insurance gets more expensive and fewer employers offer it. So what happens then?
Sorry to quote at length, since I don't have anything substantive to say. I'd started to write something earlier about this -- the disintegration of the employer-based system -- but felt I've been talking too much lately.
I agree with you on this, in any case. I don't know what happens then. I'm becoming alarmed. I don't know. It may all be moot.
I think 277 gives other people more than enough license to be drama queens.
Ari, do you mean if Obama calls for a spending freeze? or if Obama calls for a spending freeze and the freeze is then implemented?
Fair question. I think merely calling for it might just be nonsense, so I'd probably want to if it's implemented before assuming that Milton Friedman had created the perfect Manchurian candidate. That said, if he calls for it, I plan to puke my guts out. I miss the guy who said that we had better policies in the Democratic Party and that he welcomed fights over substantive issues.
There can be little doubt he's going to propose a 3-year freeze on "non-security" spending.
Maybe, but I'm still not convinced. Launching a trial balloon on the eve of a big speech is hardly unprecedented. Which is to say, I don't much care how many news organizations have the story.
Add the word "see" where appropriate above, please.
Ari, fair enough, it could be a trial balloon or something. So I shouldn't have said "little doubt."
The Republican's unanimous stance on this has nothing to do with the bill's legislative content and everything to do with electoral politics.
Well, okay, fair enough. You've refused to engage my argument, and now you explain why: It is self-evident that the Republicans aren't voting their view of the merits, but are merely playing politics. This is so self-evident, it's pretty much an insult to ask you to elaborate.
Fine. Color me stupid. But I still don't get it.
Politicalfootball, if the Republicans prevent the government from doing anything, the Democrats will be blamed, and then the Republicans will be voted back into office. The Republicans have the ability to prevent the government from doing anything, and are doing so. Is it self-evident yet?
So what happens then?
Walt offered a sarcastic - but serious-minded - response in 218. I offered a substantive, non-snarky response in 240.
But you clearly intended this as a rhetorical question - one unworthy of a response because the answer is so obvious.
If it's not beneath you - if the question itself isn't too demeaning and insulting - can you spell it out? What happens then?
287,288:It was a conference call with many bloggers, not an anonymous leak in a parking garage. Josh Marshall might be annoyed to be used in such a way, if it is walked back.
As far as whether it is "implemented", of course it won't be in the exact way the WH desires. But it does liberate Bayh and Conrad to demonstrate "fiscal discipline" to their constituents for the next three years. A free-for-all of stupid cruelty. They now have permission, the President's endorsement.
Obama's entire economic and fiscal strategy has been a net disaster. Clinton also cut some spending, but it was the tax increases and strong economy that created the surplus.
This will happen. The surprise in the SOTU may be a tax increase on the rich. But with a freeze and PayGo, that won't do us much good in a depression.
I want tax increases. But I want the revenue productively spent.
Snap. Of course.
292:It's about the fucking bond markets.
Bob, everyone's lauding you as a political visionary in the other thread. You shout put on a shirt without gravy stains and go take a bow.
Let's turn it this way then, pf. I think the House bill would be better than nothing. How many Republicans do you suppose agree with that statement?
290: That's true, but I don't see how that speaks to my question, which is: Do Republicans favor the Senate bill as a policy matter? Apo suggests that Republicans, as a policy matter, favor the Senate bill over inaction despite their unanimous vote, and despite their previous foregone opportunities to enact similar legislation.
This seems unlikely to me - at least, it seems to require some explanation - but apo thinks otherwise, and that's fine.
So instead, I'll try to figure out what you think. Are you really saying that the Republicans support the Senate bill on merit, and merely oppose it because of political considerations? I can think of some examples of where this might be true - Snowe, probably, and Senators like her - but if we're going to impute that view to Snowe, why should we support the more radical Republicans against her?
252
I've never heard the term movement-liberal, so I'm not sure exactly who it denotes. ...
I just made the term up as the liberal counterpart of a movement conservative. Which I take to be politically active and partisan.
... But in broad outlines, I'm a pretty reliable left-edge of the party Democrat, sure -- I can't think of any surprising points of disagreement with liberals/progressives, although I'm sure I could turn up some minor things if I tried hard, and equally sure we could have a really dull argument where you found some unattractive policy position and claimed it was liberal dogma, while I disagreed. Generally, I think the set of positions that characterize liberals are mostly pretty coherent, and mostly what I agree with.
How fortunate for you that there is a large political movement that agrees with you about everything. Alternatively perhaps you are not really thinking for yourself.
can you spell it out? What happens then?
I don't know what happens then. Then we've got an even more broken system than the one we've got and a nation full of people pissed off at having been made to pay into a corporatist boondoggle, who have had their worst suspicions about the government's ability to fix anything confirmed.
I said months ago that it wasn't possible to pass a worthwhile bill with 60 Senate votes.
247
Because in a single payer system the intermediary between doctor and patient is a non-profit agency rather than a profit-maximizing agency. You save money when you only have to pay the doctor-hospital for health services rendered, without having to pay both the doctor-hospital for the health services and then also the insurance company for services (paperwork and etc) that could be done more cheaply by the government.
So I could save money by canceling my insurance and paying for services rendered? Somehow it doesn't work like that.
Apo suggests that Republicans, as a policy matter, favor the Senate bill over inaction
I don't believe most Republicans have domestic policy beliefs other than cut taxes and protect the CEO class. Everything else is just getting the Bible-beaters to the polls. I suspect they don't find the Senate bill particularly more offensive than the current system, except in the very most generic "government is bad" terms. Can't prove it, but again, it's the freaking Heritage Foundation's plan.
243
That gets back to my original question? Doctors are going to raise rates until no one can pay them, and then what? Golf club memberships don't pay for themselves.
Doctors will raise rates until they reach the limits of affordability and then stop. Bringing the government in as the payer of last resort will delay this process and make the eventual crash more damaging.
Somehow it doesn't work like that.
Yes, it somehow works out that when you don't have a single-payer system in place, you cannot enjoy the benefits of a single-payer system. Funny old world.
Honestly James, you can do better than this.
253
But I'll admit that you may not fit into my framework on this particular issue. Do you?
I don't think I fit into your framework at all. There don't seem to be a lot of people with my exact combination of views. I differ with what you call Moneycons on other issues than immigration. For example I was in favor of mandating the expensing of stock option grants.
258
Sorry, that should be "I don't see how the proposals will benefit me in any way." They don't see efficiencies that seem obvious to me such as
- employers are not the most efficient channel for delivering health care, or even health insurance, and so waste money
- employer based health insurance impedes labor mobility, and thus decreases efficiency and overall wealth
- the health insurance market can't, theoretically, deliver good health insurance because the incentives are all wrong
And how are the current reform proposals going fix any of this?
Alternatively perhaps you are not really thinking for yourself.
No, she's thinking for me. I delegate this task to her because she's really much better at it than I am. This is part of what makes civilization possible: The Division Of Labor In Society.
And how are the current reform proposals going fix any of this?
With guaranteed issue and community rating we at least address the labor immobility problem. The exchanges might help those who are locked out of the employer-based system, and so might provide a path towards a different system, possibly reducing the inefficiencies inherent in making widget manufaturers responsible for health insurance.
307
With guaranteed issue and community rating we at least address the labor immobility problem. ...
How does this help? Such policies will be very expensive. You will still be much better off with employer coverage. And I don't really understand the labor immobility problem if you are going from one employer that offers insurance to another.
306
No, she's thinking for me. ...
So LB is head of the vast leftwing conspiracy? I suspected as much but it is nice to have confirmation.
Let's turn it this way then, pf. I think the House bill would be better than nothing. How many Republicans do you suppose agree with that statement?
None. Furthermore, the Republicans clearly would support the Senate bill over the House bill, if the choices came to that.
If I were to agree with the Republicans on this, and favor the Senate bill over the House bill, that seems to me like something that would require some explanation. You, on the other hand, support the Republican program of doing nothing over the Senate bill - and you object to being asked for an explanation. Fine.
you object to being asked for an explanation
I've explained at length the reasons why I think the Senate bill is unacceptable and the House bill (while unquestionably half-assed) is better than nothing. You keep coming back to what the Republicans say about the bill, and I have consistently replied that I don't care what the Republicans think about this legislation. Or any other piece of legislation. They don't have anything constructive to add.
For example I was in favor of mandating the expensing of stock option grants.
Well there you go. I'm stumped. Warren Buffett favored your position - but Buffett, too, is an outlier who isn't explained by my theory.
I guess I'll just have to work you and Mr. Buffett into my theory by saying that you are the exceptions that proves the rule.
They don't have anything constructive to add.
Well, that's pretty much my point.
313: So my solution is to ignore them altogether on questions of policy and yours is to take your cues from them (in reverse). That could lead to different decisions.
It's late now, which means I've probably missed the brief window where this thread was again alive, but here goes:
a) Under the status quo, there's no way the employer-based model is going anywhere. The marginal people that politicians routinely ignore may lose health insurance, but in our current system, there's no other way health insurance can work. Insurance can only work if you have a pool of people who can't just opt in whenever they get sick. Without insurance, large health care expenses become too big for anyone to afford. Heart surgeons need insurance companies to pay for their Maseratis, ergo, they cannot raise rates to the point where employers can no longer afford to offer insurance.
b) The Senate bill, as much as it sucks, begins the transition away from an employer-based model by creating bigger risk pools. It also makes it easier for marginal employers to continue to offer insurance.
c) If we were at a different point in the cycle, and the House killed the bill and told the Senate to come back with something better, then it would be okay. But at this point, what are House Democrats going to campaign on? "We couldn't save jobs or pass health care, but hey, at least we have a spending freeze."
d) And if they do lose in 2010, why would they ever revisit the issue? A system where the wealthier 50% of the country has employer-based health insurance can last forever, once the Democrats aren't willing to make an issue of it. And they won't be.
e) Even if the current bill sucks, if the Democrats maintain control of Congress, there's a chance to fix it later if various provisions prove unpopular. Alternatively, if health care reform dies, all we're going to get is expanded HSAs for the rich and tort reform.
Also, despite the fact that pf and I are apparently on the same side, I don't understand his argument.
I dunno, Walt. I've denied 314 multiple times, in detail with counter-examples. I'm clearly failing to communicate, but I don't know why.
So, back to the original post, does one call the White House to bitch about stuff, or does the Secret Service come arrest you if you do? Calling your representative seems normal, but I've never considered calling the White House before.
LB, I shouldn't think so. Even Blair had a "Bitch Here" button on his website and Obama is certainly no different worse.
OFE, I think that's still an open question. The US has again entered the days of freefall. Who can say where it will end?
If you have a strong opinion about what you want your congressional representatives to do about health care reform,
then maybe you'll be able to walk me through the maze of health care options being offered by my employer. The high-deductible plan seems like a better deal to me than the traditional co-pay plan, whether I consider a low-medical bill scenario or a high-medical bill scenario. It seems better either way, plus it's cheaper, which makes me think it's extremely likely I'm missing some fine print somewhere that's designed to screw me. Especially considering that, as far as I can tell, screwing people is the whole point of high-deductible health plans. So, I don't know what to do. I don't really expect our medical bills to be low.