Maybe the current debacle is a lesson in what comes of loud promises: cf., GWB's "dead or alive" speech.
Boxers [he typed, in a self-conscious appeal to the manly arts so often referenced, inexplicably, in political discussions on the Internet] learn not to telegraph their moves.
I wonder what would have happened if Obama had never mentioned health care
He'd be doing a little better, but not much better. This is a 'media' debate, meaning a lot of smoking bullshit and artificial keening and not much in the way of actual content.
It seems like the type of shenanigans that the Bush administration could have pulled off, if they had been interested in good instead of evil.
Sadly, yes, they could've pulled it off, and it wouldn't do any good. There would be no structural provisions for providing it.
This being one of those posts where I realize how woefully underinformed I am within the first ten comments, of course.
It dawned on me, after Kevin Drum yelled at me, that nobody knows what the fuck the actual 'reform' is supposed to fucking look like. We have the hypothetical reform outlined in short form by R. Reich, and then we have the two three committee bills, all of which differ massively, we have the non-existent bill that the cornpone nazis freaks are campaigning against, and we have the theoretical bill that the WH was actually aiming for. In actual practice no one knows what the fuck is going on, including the legislative participants. So you're not underinformed since there's nothing to be uninformed about.
max
['And all this because the R's got mad at Hillary's committee.']
nobody knows what the fuck the actual 'reform' is supposed to fucking look like
We should just ask to copy Canada's homework then.
They could have called it NSPLB (No Sick Person Left Behind), and lied about how much it would have cost.
We should just ask to copy Canada's homework then.
But that would kick entirely too much ass. And nothing that simple has enough room for politicians to hang their hats on.
I've actually felt less depressed in the last day or so. With Teh Krazy on full display, I'm more confident there's a good chance the pendulum will swing back against it. Still, it's frustrating.
Stanley, you have much more faith in the American people than I do.
max, do you have a link to Drum yelling at you? I never read him regularly, and I read him even less now that he's at Mother Jones.
that nobody knows what the fuck the actual 'reform' is supposed to fucking look like.
Like Massachusetts, with better cost controls?
I'm more confident there's a good chance the pendulum will swing back against it.
Bowers is worried. A previous post looked at Specter's numbers. Digby also noticed the Rasmussen and Gallup polls.
The more "Death to Obama" signs, the better.
3:We should just ask to copy Canada's homework then.
I think the instructor suggested that, so no problem with the cheating sanctions.
7: max, do you have a link to Drum yelling at you?
It was in email, sorry.
8: Like Massachusetts, with better cost controls?
It's a nice thought, but I've never thought they had the votes. Not for actual cost control.
max
['They have the votes for doing something that doesn't do anything.']
This whole thing appears to be a show of strength on the part of the Republican leaders. "Even with no actual power, even without one fact in our favor, we can change the opinions of 20% of the country within a month, and you can't, Mister Liberal."
Therefore everything is hopeless.
Is this post about health care? Cause I just came across this story about Chris Bowers's new bride and her broken foot, and private insurance. There are multiple stories like this in comments every day, and stories from overseas to contrast. Guy in Ireland had a father with the brain problem Kennedy has. Total individual cost for terrific care:$300.
I was over at Open Left looking for something else, a post about "The Dog That Didn't Batk in the Night"
That dog being the mandates.
Knowing what we know about the birthers and death panelers, why is it that no one is complaining about the Fedrul Gubmint forcing every red blooded amurrican to give their hard earned money to the insurance companies? Why do we hear nothing? (And how the hell do they have such control over their wingnuts?)
So, I think the odds are at least 3-1 that Obama will sign something called "Healthcare Reform." The Republicans want the money from the mandates. They are now just trying to maximize the profits.
"The Dog that Didn't Batik in the Night" is a beloved Indonesian children's story.
||
Ted Kennedy didn't go to his sister's public wake today, and he's not going to the private funeral tomorrow. He must be in pretty awful shape now if he can't make it to a funeral.
|>
The absence of squawking about the mandate is curious...but then again, maybe not so much. It's been pretty clear for a while that there was a deal to be made with the insurers on this: guaranteed issue and community rating for an individual mandate (or its functional equivalent). That's two of the three legs of the health reform stool as per Uwe Reinhardt. The actual committee proposals finesse the mandate issue by making it a kinda sorta employer mandate and a kinda sorta individual mandate. But at the end of the day even the Republicans expect this part to pass, so they don't see the advantage in riling up the base against it. If they did, the liberals might even call their bluff and kill the mandate provisions, leaving the GOP's insurance industry clients up a creek.
14: It's a U-shaped thing. You can make it to funerals, then you can't, then you can at least once more.
Not to be an ass, but if Ted Kennedy is that bad off, isn't it about time he stepped down?
Stanley, you have much more faith in the American people than I do.
Yeah, it's completely possible I've simply resigned myself to the notion that I'm going to be disappointed with the final result anyway.
17
Not to be an ass, but if Ted Kennedy is that bad off, isn't it about time he stepped down?
I agree.
Not to be an ass, but if Ted Kennedy is that bad off, isn't it about time he stepped down?
The problem is that in 2004 the Massachusetts legislature stripped the governor (then Our Man Mitt) of the right to name a replacement. The seat must be filled by special election, so the state would go however long with only Kerry (and without a pro-reform vote). They're going to have to wheel him in to vote, not to be ghoulish.
21: At the risk of sounding callous, it's going to be who next? Deval Patrick? Tim Murray's the LG and a Dem, but I know very little about either.
And who's on the GOP sound.
I already feel callous. Alas.
22 - The sensible system would be to allow the governor to appoint a short-term replacement from the withdrawn Senator's party, to be followed by a special election the next November. I think there's even a state somewhere (Montana?) that does it that way. As it is, I don't think it's feasible for a special election to be held quicker than a few months after Teddy notionally stepped down, so you'd be screwed if he would have been the deciding vote in, say, late September.
24: Got it. As an aside, do you think Patrick would be the Dem guy when it's time for the next election (whenever that comes)? I don't know much about him, but he's one of those politicians on the outer fringes of my radar.
21
The problem is that in 2004 the Massachusetts legislature stripped the governor (then Our Man Mitt) of the right to name a replacement. The seat must be filled by special election, so the state would go however long with only Kerry (and without a pro-reform vote). They're going to have to wheel him in to vote, not to be ghoulish. .
Actually Kennedy could resign effective at some future date. This would start the clock for the special election and minimize the time the seat is vacant. If he waits to die in office the seat will be vacant for at least 145 days and effectively vacant for whatever additional time he is unable to discharge his duties. Here is the law.
... The day so appointed shall not be more than 160 nor less than 145 days after the date that a vacancy is created or a failure to choose occurs. Filing a letter of resignation creates a vacancy under this section, even if the resignation is not effective until some later time, but the date of the election to fill a vacancy under this section shall be after the resignation is effective.
11: This whole thing appears to be a show of strength on the part of the Republican leaders. "Even with no actual power, even without one fact in our favor, we can change the opinions of 20% of the country within a month, and you can't, Mister Liberal."
They don't have anything to lose, they like yelling and they have the example of Social Security in 2005 to fall back on. Remember, a bunch of them think privatizing Social Security would have have made the country better off (or at least less worse off) by reducing debt and increasing economic activity. (In fact, it would've been a paper injection for the stock market and would have made a few people richer and a everybody else worse off.) But given that, they can just yell a lot, and scare seniors. Bonus: they've got the ostensibly-cooperative-with-Obama health exec people on their side, which means from the health exec POV, it's a contest of offers, as in which one is worth more.
Bob: Knowing what we know about the birthers and death panelers, why is it that no one is complaining about the Fedrul Gubmint forcing every red blooded amurrican to give their hard earned money to the insurance companies? Why do we hear nothing? (And how the hell do they have such control over their wingnuts?)
Um, because no one is talking about the mandates? Only the D's should care about that, since the R's are opposed to any plan.
So, I think the odds are at least 3-1 that Obama will sign something called "Healthcare Reform." The Republicans want the money from the mandates. They are now just trying to maximize the profits.
I think a bill will cross his desk. No idea what will be in it.
BTW, thanks for linking openleft - I hadn't wandered over there in awhile so I hadn't noticed Ian! was blogging over there. Keen.
15: It's been pretty clear for a while that there was a deal to be made with the insurers on this: guaranteed issue and community rating for an individual mandate (or its functional equivalent).
Well, hell yes. The insurers get a bunch of mandated money that turns a premium into a profit center since they can jack the price sky high, and everyone would have to pay. Dig those monopoly profits.
If they did, the liberals might even call their bluff and kill the mandate provisions, leaving the GOP's insurance industry clients up a creek.
Too clever. They don't have to think this through, they just have to be opposed. They don't want the government to grow in any way; killing the mandate provisions would screw their pals, so they'll concentrate on opposing something else. They'll campaign on the costs of the mandate.
After all, if people (especially unemployed or self-employed people) get hit with a 10,000$/yr bill that they're required to pay by law, from now til hell freezes over, they're going to be seriously 'vote the fuckers out' pissed. That's why I figure the only way such a bill could be passed would be if the R's decide to switch at the end and allow cloture in order to have the issue to campaign on.
max
['Suicide: it's what's for breakfast.']
I've been having entirely too much fun with this comment.
At the moment, I'm outraged that it's getting late according to the socialized clock system. I'M A PATRIOT; HOW DARE YOU!
snarkout--why do you think the system you described in 24 wasn't implemented?
Patrick might have trouble getting reelected here. Charlie Baker could be a formidable opponent. The transportation stuff is a mess right now. I don't know that he's in a position to run for the Senate.
he sensible system would be to allow the governor to appoint a short-term replacement from the withdrawn Senator's party, to be followed by a special election the next November. I think there's even a state somewhere (Montana?) that does it that way.
Australia does this. (Because joh bjelke-petersen, (a racist son-of-a-bitch) didn't abide by the rules of the game.)
The next election is probably the next Senate election, but it might be when the seat itself would next be elected. Can't mind.
Conventional wisdom is that one of the sitting members of the US House will win Kennedy's seat in a special election. Several of them were gunning to run for Kerry's seat if he won the Presidency or the nomination in '08. That's one reason guys like Ed Markey and Barney Frank initially sat on their war chests, despite having safe seats, rather than help out the team in '06.
Also, Mass. is probably going to lose a seat in the House after the 2010 census, so whichever Congressman succeeds Kennedy will probably have his* seat redistricted away.
I like Markey a lot on the issues, but God, would I like to see Barney Frank in the Senate, if only for the pleasure of seeing Inhofe's head explode.
*I'm assuming the voters of the Commonwealth will not be so foolish as to elevate Nikki Tsongas yet further beyond her abilities.
Markey is good on the issues he cares about--although I think that more of the carbon permits should have been auctioned, but he may not have had that much control.
I'm somewhat annoyed with him on healthcare from a constituent services perspective. His office doesn't have an e-mail response about healthcare. You just get an e-mail that says "Thank you for contacting our office. Your views will be considered."
I think that Frank's probably smarter. If Kerry had won, a Kennedy, Frank team would have been great.
pp--do you have any thoughts on the Treasurer's race. I saw Steve Grossman the other day--not talking about his own race--but he spoke so many platitudes and cliches that I wanted to barf. The group I was with thought that he was great though.
I set up a wacky new site on the Senate Finance Committee health care negotiations. It involves superheroes and stuff.
34: That's adorable, Neil. It reminded me I hadn't looked at the war cost blog since forever, before the inauguration. I just went looking for it and saw that, ha, you haven't updated it since then.
Barney Frank in the Senate
I second this motion. Get it done, Bostoniangirl.
35
That's adorable, Neil. It reminded me I hadn't looked at the war cost blog since forever, before the inauguration. I just went looking for it and saw that, ha, you haven't updated it since then.
So the war isn't costing anything now that Obama is President? Amazing.
Yeah, given that the new administration is moving towards getting us out of Iraq, I felt there was less need for the site and I should move onto other stuff.
Hopefully Afghanistan won't turn into something similar, though I'm getting serious sticker shock on that one. I imagine that there's a sort of mission that could be worthwhile and do some good there. But I don't think it's the mission we're going to get, and that has me leaning in the get out direction.
I imagine that there's a sort of mission that could be worthwhile and do some good there.
At least there was, back in 2002. I don't know if it was one the US is actually competent to even then, but the job now is vastly more difficult.
Barney Frank isn't perfect, but he may be the best we have as a defense against High Finance. He scares the Masters of the Universe on a daily basis.
I would rather have BF as a Chair of the Committee than as the most junior Senator.
I love Barney Frank more than is reasonable.
I'm in favor of Frank for Senate iff A. he promises not to buy into any of the Greatest Deliberative Group of Assholes in the UNiverse shit, and B. he talks Franken into not doing it, either.
Maybe they could set up the Senate Committee for Calling Out Senators on their Bullshit.
28: My original proposal was "First Socialized Medicine, Next Socialized Delivery of Letters and Small Packets." He modified it for sign viability, and then threw it out altogether in favor of this.
40
Barney Frank isn't perfect, but he may be the best we have as a defense against High Finance. He scares the Masters of the Universe on a daily basis.
Frank was deeply implicated in the recent crisis. If he is our best defense we are in big trouble.
44: I assume you have something more than the Fannie Mae stuff. Right, James?
44: Was there ever any doubt that we're in big trouble?
46
I assume you have something more than the Fannie Mae stuff. Right, James?
You don't think the Fannie Mae (and Freddie Mac) stuff is sufficient? Frank may not have been the worst offender but he was hardly on the side of the angels.
If he is our best defense we are in big trouble.
We are indubitably in big trouble, it's more a question of "how big" and "how long".
You know, like t'other thread.
We are indubitably in big trouble from the pornification of society? Or bad heirloom tomatoes?
50: from the hairy tomatofication of porn.
Am I the only person who gets seriously, personally offended when the Republicans go after the Post Office? I fucking love the American postal system.
46: You don't think the Fannie Mae (and Freddie Mac) stuff is sufficient?
My concerns around Frank are general concerns that in his role as committee member (and chair) he is too familiar and comfortable with the standard players and the status quo. His relationship with the Fannies was part and parcel of that. But I have no huge concern from those particular relationships beyond that general institutional problem, and they hardly warrant anything close to, "Frank was deeply implicated in the recent crisis."
Well, yeah we are in very big trouble, terminal in fact, not that we are all gonna die but the financial system is going to crash & burn again and then again and be reborn like a phoenix from the ashes...whoa.
And Frank is woefully inadequate (there is a very good Congressperson whose name slips) and mildly corrupt in that he saved a district bank and somewhat captured but most of our representatives are even worse. And Frank has power and chutzpah.
As a Senator I suppose he might kick Schumer's and Baucus's butts but Senators rarely turn their back on each other so I think that sort of influence is marginal. The Senate would not get more progressive for Frank replacing Kennedy tho it quite likely would get a little more conservative if it isn't Frank but someone else. So it wouldn't be a tragedy if Frank moved down a notch.
I like the House. The Senate is only the place where good ideas die and hopes get crushed. At best they spin like dervishes in front of the cameras and progress slips past them. Even during the Bush administration the House is where the work got done.
I think there is this huge disconnect in banking. People like Frank know their local community bankers probably as personal friends and patrons who give loans that save ordinary folks in emergencies and help start small businesses and build independent lives.
Tabibi's octopussies are another story, but no one (even DeLong, Johnson, Krugman) quite understands the economic connections between the community banks and the International EVIL and we are not sure that ma-and-pa banks would survive if Int'l Evil failed.
"Captured" is a good description.
Am I the only person who gets seriously, personally offended when the Republicans go after the Post Office? I fucking love the American postal system.
How far things have fallen since Miracle on 34th Street, when the American postal system could trump any argument.
54
My concerns around Frank are general concerns that in his role as committee member (and chair) he is too familiar and comfortable with the standard players and the status quo. His relationship with the Fannies was part and parcel of that. But I have no huge concern from those particular relationships beyond that general institutional problem, and they hardly warrant anything close to, "Frank was deeply implicated in the recent crisis."
How about "complicit" instead of "deeply implicated"?
52: I fucking love the American postal system.
I like it a lot! I'm not offended by the R bloviating because I'm too busy being offended by Niall Furgeonson (spelling, because I don't give a shit) and the like.
55: not that we are all gonna die but the financial system is going to crash & burn again and then again and be reborn like a phoenix from the ashes...whoa.
In about a month or so. I'm kind of enjoying everyone declaring the recession over and Larry Summers blah blah blahing about how he saved the universe. Since I can't remember an August this decade when Larry was right about anything.
max
['So, fall should be FUN!']
If Int'l Evil had failed last fall, I don't think there's much doubt that a significant fraction of the community banks would have failed (absent some other government intervention). Small banks are highly dependent on short-term loans from big banks, and they probably have become even more dependent now that securitization has diminished.
max, do you think the recession isn't really ending? Not to give you performance anxiety or anything, but I can't think of a single thing you've been wrong on since the crisis began.
58: How about "complicit" instead of "deeply implicated"?
I think he certainly could have been a more effective watchdog. But I reject your use of "complicit", in part because I suspect it is linked to a Hannityesque narrative in which Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac play a much more central role in the crisis than was in fact the case. But feel free to correct me if I have misapprehended.
62
I think he certainly could have been a more effective watchdog. But I reject your use of "complicit", in part because I suspect it is linked to a Hannityesque narrative in which Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac play a much more central role in the crisis than was in fact the case. But feel free to correct me if I have misapprehended.
Frank was complicit in the housing bubble as I believe the second clip here makes clear.
In a very weak sense you could say that Frank was complicit in the housing bubble, I suppose, just as you could claim that Mrs. Jones down the street was complicit in taking out that seductive ARM to buy an overpriced house.
But I don't think the housing bubble, or the poor assessment of risk in securitizing and packaging various loans into CDOs, or the poor assessment of risk in teasing out the threads of the various CDSes, all of which together led to the crisis, have much to do with Frank. To me, it looks more like a perfect storm of individual profit-seeking being linked in a complex ways that few could properly discern, resulting in an inappropriate amount of systemic risk.
64
In a very weak sense you could say that Frank was complicit in the housing bubble, I suppose, just as you could claim that Mrs. Jones down the street was complicit in taking out that seductive ARM to buy an overpriced house.
If Mrs. Jones dismisses the possibility of a housing bubble that is one thing. If Alan Greenspan does that is something else. Frank wasn't Greenspan but he did influence policy and he was seriously out of touch with reality (or lying). The claim about leverage in the housing market was particularly bizarre.
I thought we had consensus that *everyone* in the House is under the direct control of the finance lobby, and they are *all* deeply complicit in the meltdown. That certainly has been a theme for the Salon bloggers (Leonard, Canason, etc.)
Frank can't scare the masters of the universe. At best he can make them mildly apprehensive.
63, 66: Sorry James, I'm not going to give you the satisfaction of agreeing to your characterization of Frank (and come on, the link in 63 is pretty weak sauce and does not show what it purports to show). As I said, I am not thrilled with how Frank handled himself with regard to the crisis, and yes he was in a position where he could have given early warnings, and yes he exhibits the standard politician's tendency to paint his actions in a better light after the fact, but I am not going to play the chump's game of permanently tarring any progressive who so much as brushes up against any of the governance disasters* that were trumpeted, demagogued and bitterly protected and fought for by "conservatives". Not gonna do it; that's the job of blowhard pundits and intellectually dishonest cable ideologues. You're better than that.
*See also, torture, illegal wiretapping and on and on.
67
... (and come on, the link in 63 is pretty weak sauce and does not show what it purports to show). ...
It doesn't show Frank, on the floor of the House, dismissing the possibility of a housing bubble with fallacious arguments? What do you think it shows?
I like McManus's word "captured". Frank might quarrel with the housing lobby about details but he had evidently bought into their whole "owning your own house is the American dream" mythology.
... permanently tarring any progressive ...
Nobody's perfect and I don't believe in pretending otherwise.
The clip in 63, where Frank said that we were not in a housing bubble, makes it look like Frank was living in a bubble of his own. But then again it is the bubble that everyone in Washington lives in.
The blogger there tries to spin the clip as evidence that democratic efforts to promote minority and low income home ownership caused the housing bubble. That's obviously not true. But it is clear that Frank was oblivious to the coming collapse.
68: Nobody's perfect and I don't believe in pretending otherwise.
Certainly not, nor is anyone saying that about Frank. But they way it generally works in wingnuttia is: "All men are mortal", "Mortals are weak and imperfect"-> "Governance is doomed and government* sucks".
*Other than defense spending.
68, 69: Yes, not a good moment for Frank (or a rob says, Washington in general). I hear he's gay, too.
if Obama had never mentioned health care, and yet got a committee to slip in a one-liner into a bill stating that health insurance available to government employees would be available to non-employees.
you know, I'm pretty sure someone would have noticed this.
61: max, do you think the recession isn't really ending?
Q: When is a 'jobless recovery' not? A: When it's not a recovery.
Not to give you performance anxiety or anything, but I can't think of a single thing you've been wrong on since the crisis began.
Oy. I missed the March 1 DOW call by two days. Of course, in the larger sense I was really wrong there, not because of the economics, but because I, once again, misunderestimated the lengths the usual suspects would/could go to save their asses/bonuses/system. So we've just gone through the largest pump 'n dump operation in the history of the world, and just about now, the big players are starting to cream their profits/cover their original losses. Which they should do, given that PEs are somewhere around 2001 bubble levels, thanks to falling earnings and the aforementioned pump 'n dump. So nothing going there.
Our nebbishy friends with the stats and the models are cutting the numbers to fit the models, not the other way around, so the GDP numbers are cook-ed. GrossX is still falling, even if NetX had become slightly more favorable, so real GDP is still falling pretty damn fast and there's not much to drive it up.
Meanwhile, the stimulus is mostly slow to show up except for tax cuts, because Summers timed it for next year, so as to help win the election. Only unemployment benefits are holding up spending and that's going to run out unless they do something. Manufacturing is floating but still taking on water. There's so no resurgence in effective demand for US exports, and there's no effective damn for imports. We got nothin' goin' there.
What I originally expected was that the GDP fall would flatten out at the end of Q3 and Q4 would be very muted (much more muted than our friends 'the models' predict), followed by another January job slaughter when the profits to save corporate asses failed to appear. Call it a slow fall to a big slide. I still expect that.
Meanwhile, our friends Summers and Geithner are even more slow-witted and crooked than I thought, so basically the banking complex has been mismanged and the banks are just as screwed as they were, possibly even worse. (Which even with no nationalization, should not have happened.) However, due to the fucking pump 'n dump, encouraged by the WH to move the animal spirits, stocks are too high, and the risk-taking plus the CRE failures means there is more bankruptcy fun just around the corner. So, unfortunately, we have another Event due in September/October. So much for muted falling GDP, welcome to more panic.
But the insiders will have gotten out of their dangerous positions in the markets thanks to the time-buying maneuvers! Only the suckers will remain! Or so they think.
Anyways, the question is, is the recession over. That breaks into three questions: is unemployment going to keep going up at a balls to the wall rate, will GDP start rising, and will NBER manage to cough up an excuse to declare the recession over? Yes, no, and probably so, they're trying really hard. I figure they'll manage to cook Q3 into preliminary positive numbers, followed by final revision along about December into zero or negative territory. That won't have much bearing on the real world: trade has collapsed, the job market has collapsed, state and local spending is falling, fed spending has barely ramped up, there are 20% fewer goods moving around, and yet, shockingly, GDP has only fallen 2.5% total.
max
['It's almost like we were living in the Soviet Union or something.']
Just in case you hadn't heard, the crazies have won. Get ready to kiss the public option goodbye.
What the hell is the reform if there's no public option?? Like really, what on earth would compose the bill, and how the hell would anything change?
How can a party with 40 seats in the Senate win anything? It seems scarcely possible. I'm going to assume the story is wrong until proven otherwise, and then when inevitably it turns out to be true, proceed to hate Obama.
74: Oh criminy. What good is government without a little socialism? I mean, for somebody besides the Major Corporations, the only legal persons who really matter anymore.
76: I'll be right there with you, Mr. Someguy.
That's Someguy, Inc., Entity. I'm going to take your implicit advice in 77 on how to matter.
How can a party with 40 seats in the Senate win anything?
By facing an opposing party whose central organizing principle is Stockholm Syndrome.
Perhaps this might point towards a strategy change, viewing Democracy as an abstract principle occasionally embodied rather than as cut-&-dried Majority Rule. You know, as in "The U.S.A. is a REPUBLIC!" Wherein we might have to force "socialized medicine" on Americans for their own good, kinda like my ancestors had to be forced to go to school to learn to read & write.
Snark is being very tolerant of my need to yell a lot in his direction and not take it as yelling at him. JESUS FUCKING CHRIST.
The Senate is a giant pile of shit.
Like really, what on earth would compose the bill, and how the hell would anything change?
Ezra Klein has been engaging in pre-emptive half-a-loafism, but it's pretty weak tea for anyone who wants real reform of America's amazingly messed up health care system. I mean, it's good as far as it goes -- community ratings and the limits on recission, where your insurance company finds an excuse to drop coverage on you once you get sick are good! -- but it's rearranging the deck chairs.
Now that we know that you're not sweet, there's no reason to hold back.
Huh. Somehow I gave up on the public option early. I wasn't happy about it, but I thought it was already lost, rather than still in doubt.
I might be happier if I understood what the hell a health care exchange was -- I have a vague belief that they're where all the insuring the uninsured at affordable/subsidized prices is supposed to happen, but I don't follow how, exactly.
Klein's as right about reform as he was about heirloom tomatoes. Fuck that noise. You can bet the final bill will be further diluted after the public option is out, and the lunatic fringe, the rest of the Republicans, and the insurance companies will rightly declare victory. Oh well, illusory hope was nice while it lasted.
One concrete suggestion: make something basic like Medicaid the default for all U.S. citizens and "legal residents," and let employers compete for workers with perks like "more personalized" care and coverage for elective stuff like liposuction and face lifts. (I'm not a Policy Details kinda guy though, for that I poke somebody like Max.)
The current brouhaha overemphasizes the wrong kind of public input. Perhaps we should put it as "Our Republic requires that its people receive health care for reasons of humanity and for combatting contagious diseases," and say "those who just don't approve of 'socialized medicine' can move somewhere else." In most States it's not legal for some "religious minorities" to deny their children treatment for cancer; this is just one further step. "La patrie est en danger!"
See, I say things like "we won't have any real change without social revolution" and everybody's like "no, no, you just have to make the right case to the voters, and they'll pressure their legislators to do the right thing." 'Cause it worked so well for the Iraq War, it's gotta work for health care.
Blue Dog Dem Mike Ross of Arkansas:
"I can tell you, I've laid down my set of principles, so I will not force government-run health care on anyone. If there ever is government-run health care, the first ones to sign up should be the president and every member of Congress, including myself. You should be able to keep the insurance you've got today, if you like it, and always choose your own doctor. No federal funding for illegal immigrants or for abortion, and no rationing of health care. I will never vote for a bill to kill old people, period.Do we even need these guys in the Party? Shitcan 'em. (via Benen)
Oh my god. What a fucking pigfucker. I hope his eyeballs fall out.
I'm kind of sad about Ezra, and I admit that Ari appears to have been right.
I will never vote for a bill to kill old people, period. That's an easy promise. It isn't in any of the bills and he knows it. All pander.
The end of Rick Perlstein's recent WaPo piece (links to which have been all over the place, so I assume you've seen it) deserves repeating:
Good thing our leaders weren't so cowardly in 1964, or we would never have passed a civil rights bill -- because of complaints over the provisions in it that would enslave whites.
90: Yeah minneapolitan, I hear you. Me, I spent 30+ years being a rather purist anarchist, which now seems based on a naive misoverestimation. If it's true that "the history of all countries testifies that workers left exclusively to their own strength can cultivate only a trade union consciousness," then the history of the U.S. since the beginning of the Regean Era (which I think we're still in) testifies that even "trade union consciousness" is a bit too *hard* for a great many Americans. It's not even enough to say "The Government owes you something for the taxes you pay; fewer bombs, more health care." No, we have to hear about evil librul Granny-killers.
I think the question is no longer "Do we need a vanguard party?" but what the vanguard party should be like. (In that I confess to being at least 30 years behind the times.) For one thing I'm proposing "entryism" into the Republican Party, which in its early years was far to the left of the slavery-loving Democrats and the decisively MOTR Lincoln, to return it to its true roots. If the ex-Schachtmanite neocons can turn the GOP from the party of Goldwater to the party of Halliburton then surely it should accomodate another round. The so-called Democratic Party is a dead horse I can't believe people are still bothering to flog; if we take "the two-party system" as a given, which we might as well at this point, that leaves us to teach the Elephant to wave a red rose in her trunk. For starters.
Frame this issue as patriotism: "The good of the U.S.A. requires universal health care. A healthier citizenry makes for a stronger country. You do want America to be strong, DON'T YOU?"
It took State power to free the slaves, often at gunpoint. My fellow Americans of that era, if left to their own devices, would have been happy to keep slavery; the only adjustment that was required of the Southrons was to keep slavery (and most blacks, enslaved or not) out of the "Free" states and territories. [Cf. among others "What Shall We Do With The Negro?" by Paul D. Escott.] I.e., if the slaveowners hadn't overplayed their hand and got greedy for more land to infest with slavery it might have taken another century for slavery to die on its own. With that analogy, perhaps we (whoever "we" is) should find a way to use State power and the existing system to begin to cram Democracy down the throats of the citizenry if that's what it takes; after all, to a purist anarchist even Brown v. Board of Education was an abuse of State power. And yes, I'm thinking that if the "legislative branch" can't get us even universal health care, which most civilized countries regard as a given, then maybe we should find a way to use the courts.
Anyway. I picture somebody being about to complain that I'm ranting at too much length for this blog-comment format, so I should probably shut up now and switch to another Firefox tab. That said, I thank everyone for their patience.
Right, so Ezra is pissing me off, actually, though if the public option goes down the tubes, it's obviously not his fault. Still, this line from the column linked in 85:
You [would] now have 13.5 million Americans in a public insurer with no substantive advantages over private insurance. That's not a gamechanger, it's a tweak.
is bizarro-land number-crunching (i.e. those 13.5 million are negligible, and this is based on CBO estimates), and repeats the line I heard from an insurance company trade group CEO this afternoon on CSPAN radio: that a public insurance plan would offer no advantages over private plans.
Ezra was one of the interviewers in that CSPAN show, which was ... CSPAN Newsmakers. The website doesn't list the interview. It was with one Karen Ignani, CEO of America's Health Insurance Plans, and I now find a link to the half-hour exchange toward the bottom of the front page after all. I believe Ezra and the other interviewer went on to discuss matters with the moderator after Ignani left, but I didn't hear that.
It was interesting. But really: I'd rather Ezra just say: there's no point in putting together something that won't pass, and we (unspecified) feel that nothing will pass without the health insurance industry being on board, and they are against both a public option as well as so-called co-ops, so we have to give this up.
You may think that ranting at too much length for this blog-comment format is a consequence-free action, but the thugs we just sent to collect the hefty fine you just incurred beg to differ.
Stick around, Entity. We crave the blood of outsiders. I mean, new blood is refreshing. I mean.
Kobe is sick of health care politics.
Christ, I don't know if I have the stomach to watch this go down in flames.
I'm kind of sad about Ezra, and I admit that Ari appears to have been right.
Same here. Although since this has coincided with my not really reading his blog anymore, I haven't been watching too closely.
Grassley, in the early stages of dementia, is straightforwardly admitting things that make no sense and are evil.
Shorter Grassley: I will not support things I support, unless they are changed to suit people I disagree with. Bipartisan.
I'm ranting at too much length for this blog-comment format,
New around here, apparently.