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This is going to be a short post. I want to warn the public option advocates to beware of empty victories. If the Democrats had been serious about public insurance they would have at least entertained the idea of expanding the behemoth government administered health care program that is Medicare.
As I see it, the ground has shifted under the feet of PO advocates. What started out as reform with government involvement via a large public insurance program opened to all takers, has morphed into reform via a small federal regulatory role. The public option has been a useful distraction for Democrats who do not want the feds to intervene in health care via program. The 800 pound gorilla in the room no one talks about, including PO advocates, is Medicare. By keeping public option advocates distracted on passing a "public option", the Democrats have managed to completely change the primary method and underlying rallying call among their base for reform.
Obama said in his recent speech:
“To my progressive friends, I would remind you that for decades the driving force behind reform has been to end insurance company abuses and make coverage affordable to those without it,”
But that is not true. Nearly all public option advocates see a public insurance program open to all takers as a compromise on single payer. Polls consistently show that the vast majority of democrats support Medicare for All. The driving force behind reform for Democrats has long been government administered universal health care. By avoiding any discussion of single payer, or improved and enhanced Medicare for All, the Democrats have managed to completely alter the course of reform.
I think the hobbled public option will pass. Public option advocates will claim victory, but as they see the program unfold as a new and small safety net program within the larger reform package, with mandated private insurance, and a stronger, more entrenched medical industrial industry, I think that victory will feel hollow.
I would argue here is how the public option kabuki is being played:
1)Start out with reform as big government program for all takers, but leave the 800 pound gorilla(Improved and Enhanced Medicare for All) off the table.
2)Slowly morph big government program reform to small regulatory government role reform, while shrinking role of the public option.
3)Act as though you have dropped the public option so everyone clings desperately to it and forgets about the 800 pound gorilla.
4)Pass small regulatory role for feds with the hobbled PO so liberals will think they won.
45 Comments
A good article on how player we are being:
http://www.delawareonline.com/…..are+reform
Mass, well said. Hacker’s public option to cover 129 million Americans was “hacked” to only 10 million Americans. That is called reluctant compromise among our Blue Dogs, and probably far too many Americans still for the Repubs.
Your article I will share with some single payer advocates. We are still working. Thanks for your post and the painful but detailed link. God or the devil are in the details. And those probably not angelic details and/or loopholes were not spelled out in Obama’s speech. But the Mass. plan he and Congress may be intending to borrow from to keep the progressives “happy” has failures that foreshadow serious turmoil and injustice for all.
I couldn’t help myself, your link was so rich I just meant to quote one or two paragraphs but I got carried away. :)
[snip]
and I particularly appreciate the next two paragraphs:
It’s sick. My worst fear is that POS of a PO will pass and all the PO advocates will cheer and cheer until they realize what a hollow victory it was, and we are all stuck with Romney Care for at least another decade.
Well I sure have fought a might battle to inform people, here and at dKos. Mostly, people can’t seem to dig in and learn about the existing Reform Bills. Maybe all that BPA has destroyed their ability to think for themselves.
The present reform legislation will not help, but hinder those on the lower scale of the so called Middle Class. Forget the poor. They won’t get health care unless they qualify for Medicaid, and too many of these lack the skills to tackle the bureaucracy to do so. It’s not easy to get FED assistance anymore. It’s a bureaucratic nightmare.
I’m sick. Really. Maybe ignorance is bliss.
That’s your worst fear?
I think you can calm down. There’s not going to be one. And nobody seriously thinks that there is.
They need some way to cover the lepers, Jane.
Masslib and Libby, Great brief statement of the problem. As you know I’ve been warning Democrats for weeks and weeks now to vote against HR 3200 or similar inadequate PO bills and also asking them to try their best to passed HR 676, and to refuse to vote for anything but HR 676.
Having said that I also need to say that the prospect of getting stuck with a POS PO bill for a decade or more isn’t the worst of it. Because of this POS bill we’ll probably also get a decade of Republican rule, from which we’d be very lucky to emerge as something other than a plutocracy absent any further prospect of real democracy. The American experiment will be dead.
All the low interest citizens. Lets, I keep thinking of the 60s slogan, if you are not a part of the solution you are part of the problem. And what if the part of the problem people don’t even open their eyes that there is a problem. Status quo must go.
Right ON! That is exactly what I thought when he said that. Disgusting.
Obama was talking to Blue Dogs and conservatives. He knew they wouldn’t be asking for single payer.
I would add in what the government is giving away as it reduces the public role in healthcare: individual mandates, power to use Medicare to negotiate drug prices, and of course no mechanism for cost containment in sight.
As a single payer advocate, I too have wondered where PO supporters are at now. Their program seems to be fading away like morning mist and I don’t see any recognition of this or significant change in strategy.
I think they are so invested they refuse to see the forest through the trees.
Yeah, I have just about decided to oppose this farce. At the end of it, most people will still not be able to afford to get sick, or receive preventive care. We will still have to deal with blizzards of paperwork. Tax credits. Subsidies, etc., etc. Most significantly, the power of the Health Insurance cartel will grow exponentially. You suddenly realize that this country just isn’t going to get there.
You have to have a tax liability to get a tax credit, don’t you?
So how will the poor benefit from a tax credit?
I must be missing something!
Well, yeah! We’re all missing something! Presumably the tax credit part would apply to the “working poor” or the lower middle class or the “middle” middle class – anybody who earns a living but simply does not make enough to pay these sky-high premiums and deductibles. So I guess you save all your medical receipts and then deduct them from your wage total come tax time. And/or apply for your subsidies thru some frustrating and cumbersome bureacracy. Just the things you want to do between bouts of chemo, or recovering from surgery or debilitating dizzy spells or whatever. Compare that with the simplicity of single-payer. signed – Used to Live in Canada and am Wondering Why the Heck I Ever Left.
This will be a paperwork nightmare for working americans. Also, most americans already fall beneath the bottom line for even paying taxes so “tax credits” mean absolutely nothing to a huge percentage of people.
If you don’t have the income, why the hell would a tax credit matter?
Hi GDC707, Just wondering why you did? Not trying to be snarky in asking this question, but just have a sincere desire to hear why people do leave Canada for the US. From where I sit it seems like the traffic ought to be all in the other direction.
Low income people don’t have a tax credit. Words count.
They didn’t say REBATE, that are saying tax credit.
For instance, in the Bills, only smaller employers with a tax liability will qualify for the 50% credit.
It’s bollacks, as the British would say.
Isn’t it a source of pure rage that even though the basics of this disaster have been apparent since the House labored mightily and came forth with the tri-committee HR 3200, with its emasculated PO, the major progressive lobbying organizations have insisted on continuing to push the PO in general terms, while failing either to talk about “the 800 pound gorilla,” or to point out that HR 3200 is a really pitiful PO that isn’t acceptable to them?
The fact that these organizations have reacted this way, suggests that we not only may have to defeat Obama, but also may have to build a set of new progressive organizations that haven’t been penetrated by blind pragmatism.
I just cross posted this link on another thread.
Terrific Truthout piece,just up.
Btw, this is a terrific thread. Recommended.
t r u t h o u t | In the Real World, Health is a Human RightSep 12, 2009 … In the Real World, Health is a Human Right. Saturday 12 September 2009. by: Mort Rosenblum | GlobalPost. photo. Pharmacy in Cuba. …
http://www.truthout.org/091209G – 43 minutes ago – Similar
a summation of the systemic purpose of the Democratic Party, a catchbasin for reformist energy, where it is held and evaporated.
If public option in the bill is a farce, then Obama will lose his base and his numbers will tank. Needless to say, none of his future initiatives will be supported by his base as well.
I believe that the Progressive Caucus know precisely what’s going on; they’ve tried to get into the WH to let them know that they’re not going to tolerate it and to “redraw their line in the sand” only to be ignored and not granted an appointment.
President Obama is making a very serious mistake right here in believing that if he dilutes the public option, things will be just fine. They will not be and the tanking of the economy along with sick people in the streets will destroy him.
3/4 of americans still support the vibrant, strong public option. If Obama ignores this, he will suffer the consequences.
Rahm Emanuel has become the “devil on Obama’s shoulder” trying to gin up support for the corporate fascists whom Rahm’s been propping up for years.
I predict that Obama’s political capital will rise or fall on a public option: If it’s nothing more than a charade, his base will flee and will not support him in 2012. If it’s a strong PO which has the potential to actually “work”, then he will become one of the most popular presidents in our history.
THE CHOICE IS ALL HIS.
Why do the House progressives need an appointment? Why can’t they just let Pelosi know that they’ll vote against any health reform bill except HR 676, or perhaps a clean bill that extends Medicare to everyone? Once Pelosi gets that message I’ll bet the Administration asks them for an appointment.
Well, with people like Barney Frank calling pushing HR676 “suicide” even though he’s a “big supporter”, I think we know why. The problem is, aside from Rep Weiner, many in the CPC don’t realize they are the mainstream. For whatever reason, probably living in the DC bubble, they actually don’t know Americans would appreciate better health care, cheaper.
After all, Obama is the one who conceived of the public option in the first place and educated us about it’s worth during the campaign.
If it were up to 3/4 of americans, they’d demand ‘MEDICARE FOR ALL’.
No strong Public Option = No further interest in this administration
Someone above nailed it: If you don’t have to pay tax due to an insufficient income, the tax credit becomes meaningless.
No, a credit receives a refund in the amount of the credit if no taxes are paid; a ‘credit’ is different from a deduction. Think of the tax credits passed for those who have bought a house or mobilehome this past year.
“I read that the tax credit is “refundable.” What does that mean?
The fact that the credit is refundable means that the home buyer credit can be claimed even if the taxpayer has little or no federal income tax liability to offset. Typically this involves the government sending the taxpayer a check for a portion or even all of the amount of the refundable tax credit.
For example, if a qualified home buyer expected, notwithstanding the tax credit, federal income tax liability of $5,000 and had tax withholding of $4,000 for the year, then without the tax credit the taxpayer would owe the IRS $1,000 on April 15th. Suppose now that the taxpayer qualified for the $8,000 home buyer tax credit. As a result, the taxpayer would receive a check for $7,000 ($8,000 minus the $1,000 owed).”
From here http://www.federalhousingtaxcr…../faq.php#4
“But that is not true.”—–absolutely correct but who is calling Obama out on his re-writing of history? (which he has been doing since he took the oath of office).
Perhaps we should term it the “Appeasement Option”?
Appease:pacify, conciliate; especially : to buy off (an aggressor) by concessions usually at the sacrifice of principles
–Online dictionary
I think many here have been calling him out and many others in the blogosphere as well. But our views will take time to get through the MSM screen, if they do at all.
What’s wrong with you, MassLib? Don’t you like frim fram sauce?
@22
Thank you ,thank you for linking this article.
Seems as though David Copperfied must have been brought in as “Czar of Illusion and Legerdemain”.
That’s SOME smoke and mirrors there, turning the Mammoth into a mouse.
Guess the smoke came from the flambe’ frim fram sauce,poured over the flim flam.
I signed up just to post the Truthout link, but I see gitcheegumee @ 21 has already done so. While I admire the effort and organization of FDL and other PO advocates, I’m baffled at what they think they are working for? Which bill has language that will provide a functioning public option, much less that “robust” PO they want? Obama said it himself, the PO needs to pay for itself and might cover 5% of those needing insurance, but govt will subsidize private health insurance. The house bills are weak, and will just get weaker. I would rather have nothing and fight another day than create this massive subsidy to insurance companies and PhRMA.
“Pledge to vote AGAINST….”
We’re working to kill a bad bill. I don’t know how many posts I have to write to that effect until people start to read them. We’ve never encouraged one member of Congress to vote “for” anything.
Jane, I understand that. But look at the meager PO in legislation. If you listen to members of the CPC I hear a lot of, “we’ve accepted the watered down PO, if we can’t even pass that, then…” They seem to pretty clearly be saying as long as the words “public option” are in the bill, they will vote for it.
Exactly.
Excerpt from the London Telegraph “national health Service gets a bad bill of health”
“No private-sector health concern would begin to think of running itself as the NHS does: it would be bankrupt within weeks. But then no private-sector health concern has as its mission in life the provision of jobs for Mr Brown’s client state.”
Be careful what you wish for
OMG, you have to be kidding me…
no laughing matter
When your PO or coop morphs into
England style single payer (even they are pursing private
pay), you will then be screaming at how the government
controlled health care is expensive and denying care.
We are only just beginning to see the problems with an
aging population and lack of funding for Medicare.
Let’s talk about what happened to the money in the Soc. Sec. trust fund
while we are at it.
Oh, I agree. Let’s talk about …
How Social Security “Reform” Was Used to Launder $1.8 TRILLION into Tax Cuts for the Wealthy
Click and watch the video
Just a general comment masslib. I love the great title – a take-off on Jane’s “the public option is the compromise.”
We know the Republicans would see us all just fend for ourselves. The Democrats are just fooling us with the P O, even if, it will still be an insurance program. We are so dumb that we believe the wars only cost us 7 or 8 hundred billion. It’s more like 4 trillion if You add it up. Between the Congress and the Fed they pumped 23 trillion into the banking crisis, but we are only worried about the 7 hun billion we saw. They could with our money provide us all free healthcare, but they tell us they can’t afford it and we beleve it. We have fallen like huge boulders, for all the bull fed to us by both parties, and loved it. Our forefathers set up a Country for the people to run, but we gave it to the Politicians.
“They could with our money provide us all free healthcare, but they tell us they can’t afford it and we beleve it. We have fallen like huge boulders, for all the bull fed to us by both parties, and loved it.”
It’s truly pathetic.
Profound lack of empathy in this country. No respect for the common good. And Obama could have encouraged that. What a waste of potential and soul.