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As reported earlier, House leaders have stripped the Kucinich amendment from the House health care reform bill. This amendment would help nullify legal challenges against efforts by individual states to enact their own single-payer systems.
To my surprise and disgust, Politico reports that Nancy Pelosi has also signaled her intention to renege on her promise to allow a symbolic floor vote (aka the Weiner amendment) for HR 676, Expanded and Improved Medicare for All.
According to Tim Carpenter of Progressive Democrats of America, one avenue of appeal remains regarding these efforts:
Democratic House leaders can insert what is called a “Manager’s Amendment” into legislation, even when it is closed to any other amendments. The managers are the majority and minority members who “manage” debate for the bill on each side.
Today, tomorrow, and beyond, we need to call these “managers” and insist that the Kucinich Amendment is restored into the healthcare bill….
The “gang” that holds our future in their hands includes:
* Speaker Nancy Pelosi: Washington, DC, office (202) 225-4965; San Francisco office (415) 556-4862
* Majority Leader Steny Hoyer: Washington, DC, office (202) 225-4131; Greenbelt office (301) 474-0119; Waldorf office (301) 843-1577
* Rep. Henry Waxman: Washington, DC, office (202) 225-3976; Los Angeles office (323) 651-1040
*Rep. Charles Rangel: Washington, DC, office (202) 225-4365; New York office (212) 663-3900
* Rep. George Miller: Washington, DC, office (202) 225-2095; Concord office (925) 602-1880; Richmond office (510) 262-6500; Vallejo office (707) 645-1888
It’s crucial for everyone in PDA to make these calls, to make them more than once, and to tell others to make these calls. Act NOW!
The ellipsis in the above quote covers the following line, with which I part company with PDA:
We also need to urge these leaders to exert pressure on Speaker Pelosi —- and exert it on her ourselves —- to follow through on her promise to put the Weiner Amendment to a vote.
People I respect greatly disagree with me on this point, but I think it’s tactically foolish to waste a final Hail Mary effort on a double request. The likelihood that leadership will bend on either of these requests is minuscule, but if they do bend at all, it will be to allow the purely symbolic HR 676 floor vote as a sop to single-payer supporters and take no action to restore the Kucinich amendment, telling progressives that one for two isn’t bad.
I will call leadership, but only to demand restoration of the Kucinich amendment. California, Pennsylvania, and other states with active movements to establish their own single-payer systems deserve that measure of help.
28 Comments
I’ll be calling all of them. Thanks for the info.
Read them Dennis Kucinich’s statement..or a variation thereof.
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“Providing health care to all Americans is the moral responsibility of our government, consistent with the Preamble in the Constitution. Yet we are being told that it is not possible to have the kind of single payer health system which every industrialized democracy in the world has.
“We compromised on single payer by backing a public option, and now we are being asked to compromise the public option with negotiated rates. In conference, we will likely be asked to compromise negotiated rates with a trigger. In each and every step of the health care debate, the insurance companies have won. If they get hundreds of billions of dollars in new taxpayer subsidies, they get to raise their premiums, and increase their co pays and deductibles, while the public is forced to pay for private insurance, then the insurance companies win big.
“If this is the best we can do, then it is time to ask ourselves whether the two-party system is truly capable of representing the American people or whether the system has been so compromised by special interests that we can’t even protect the health of our own people. This is a moment of truth for the Democratic Party. Will we stand for the people or the insurance companies?”
http://kucinich.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=151778
thanks ralphbon. i’ll call them all tomorrow am. maybe leave a message on voicemail tonight too.
one question:
would it make sense to call the republicans too — might they be interested, if only to embarrass pelosi? after all, the amendment did have bipartisan support.
Apologies in advance Ralphbon; posted a response to a different diary with the same textual content before I read yours(or yours popped up before I could post mine); anyway lets do it !!
It is the time to declare this system thoroughly corrupt. And, come on, the Rockefeller Republicans and the Third Way crowd took over the Democratic Party of working Americans a long time ago. Time to stop the la, la, la, everything is OK, and we are the party of the cool kids delusional thinking.
I am rereading Matt Taibbi’s 2005 book “Spanking the Donkey” which is about his being a reporter during the 2004 Democratic primaries and then going undercover as a Bush supporter. It’s very damning to the Democrats. But it is a sober objective look at what the Democrats have become. That was my first experience in Democratic party politics. I even was elected a delegate to Boston in 2004. What I saw there was mostly disgusting with a few rays of light like meeting Molly Ivins. But for the most part it was a bunch of money/power junkies, mostly male, cavorting with lobbyists. “Big Ag Salutes Tom Harkin”, “Oil and Gas Salutes Max Baucus”, the despicable Blue Dogs had the best party because they had the Neville brothers…that was just weird… I feel like I’ve been on a bad trip since then.
I’m with Kucinich. Time to blow this pop stand.
Dennis wants to blow the pop stand? You mean start a 3rd party? We have been sold down the river this time. I’ve said this earlier, if we can get help from the Unions and the Ultra Rich (identified in Nader’s book) maybe we can actually bring along the Greens and make this a party to be reckon with?
I want SB810 in California, if Kucinich’s Amendment helps then I’m all for it, making calls tomorrow.
Kill the bill.
There were 10 teabagging loonies holdings signs that said “Kill the Bill” today while Speaker Pelosi announced that the House bill will include a public health insurance option.
Maybe they meant that the bill should be killed in order to get a robust public health insurance option or something even better, but I doubt teabaggers are smart enough to know what they mean by whatever it is they’re shouting.
Yes those Republicans will be good for something for a change.
If states are to be allowed to opt out of the public option, should they not be allowed to opt in to single payer?
Thanks Ralph. I’m all for the Hail Mary, and also for blowing this pop stand. Let’s start The Real Democratic Party.
Yes we as Democrats are as stupid as the Republicans. In the last election people of all finacial groups gave their money and support to people like Obama, Clinton, Edwards, Biden, Dodd, but forgot or dismissed Kucinich because he was a little guy. Here’s a guy that for the people would have probably been the best President ever, but wasn’t even considered as a real contender.
We went for the flashy best speaker, with the biggest line of shit, and got Him.
Here’s Dennis in the Congress really trying to fight for us, and our guy is just political President who talks great, does all the wrong things, and leaves us at the mercy of the Congress. Hasn’t shown any real marks of a leader, and listens to all the wrong people. He may be a nice guy we all like, but that doesn’t make a good President. A leader and a fighter for the people is what was needed and wanted, and we didn’t get.
Know what I hate the most about this upcoming bill? It actually strengthens the stranglehold that the healthcartel and Big Pharma have on this country.
Today Howard Dean and Alan Grayson both drank the Kool-aid. Unreservedly endorsed Pelosi’s bill. That’s it. We’re done. It’s the best we can do. My God, no restraints on Big Pharma’s ability to skyrocket prices way beyond the ability of so many to pay . All that money going to the cartel, not just crippling healthcare. But also hampering our nation’s ability to compete economically with all the countries that DO have health insurance for all. OUR businesses will have to provide ever more expensive insurance to their employees while foreign competitors do not. China is in the process of implementing a Universal Healthinsurance Program. Of course! Nobody but nobody is as stupid as us.
Speak for yourself, I voted for Kucinich knowning Obama would win the Nomination.
The media effectively dismissed Kucinich, so he quit to refocus on staying in the House.
He would have still had the same problem Obama has, the Congress is like herding Cats, not Cattle.
I was wondering the same thing. At minimum, I’d guess that the several Republican state legislators in Pennsylvania who support single payer would be calling the Rethug managers. Not sure why PDA didn’t recommend calling them.
Bingo; I’ve been saying the same thing for several weeks. If states gain the right to opt for something weaker than the public option, they should also have the right to opt for something stronger.
But then where can Emily and I go for a strawberry phosphate?
This outcome is a good example of why FDL is worth reading. It was here that Jane Hamsher warned that it was a mistake to trade away power for the promise of a floor vote on HR 676, which would be symbolic–and ultimately pointless. Now it might not even happen? Lesson learned (I hope)
Thanks for the info. Who could be against state single payer? And yet they won’t even allow a discussion.
Indeed it is time to kill this bill. True, there are a lot of things to like in it but in the long run it will only drag things out so that the health care situation in this country continues to suck for much longer. Kill it. Call your rep and insist they vote no.
Right. And since, like it or not, this system is so hard-tuned to the two party system, “blowing this pop stand” (by which I assume means forming a 3rd party) has a literal, real-world translation: Delivering power back to the currently fractured, but still urgently active neos.
Teddy Roosevelt, bless his progressive heart, reached exactly the blow-the-pop-stand moment about 97 years ago when (ironically) he proposed things like universal health care, providing living wages rather than wage-slavery, and ensuring that those who derive greatest benefit profiting from the “common wealth” belonging to all US citizens (read that: The Rich) should pay back to all US citizens the highest taxes to provide such health care and living wages. Any of this sound familiar?
So, yes: He blew the pop stand, formed the Progressive Party — and lost the election to the party of the corporate fat cats. Delivered power back to the very people he railed against.
And here we are, just shy of one century later (actually, exactly one century later when current HCR laws pass into affect if we don’t blow it in the last stretch).
I’m not a fan of alternate-history fictions. However, I suggest a what-if: What if Teddy had gritted his teeth (I guess he did that a lot when he smiled, so it’s not a real stretch there) and stayed on-board with the Republican party which he led through two terms and had successfully won a third term?
Would we find ourselves, one century later, still arguing over the issues he raised — or would we have actually ended up with some of the very things he proposed wa-a-ay back then, leaving us only to haggle over fine points and refinements to such early won “rights” (as he framed them)? In short, did his purist zeal damn us to a century of arguing over things that, had he been able to swallow just a little of that zeal, could have been won from within the flawed system whose intertia we have struggled since the concept of parties came into being?
While an early founder suggested that the rise of parties themselves would deal a death blow to democracy, it is what it is and has remained a primarily two party system for most of our history. I personally believe we need to grit our teeth, double-down in 2010, and push more congressional seats into the hands of our disappointing Democratic leadership.
Then we need to lean, lean, lean and pressure, pressure, pressure them to bend to our collective will. But that also means seeking heightened grass roots organization and cohesion — which by itself also means learning when, where and how to compromise — before effective pressure can be exerted. Maybe, through greater grass roots organization, we could create an actual, viable competing party… if the numbers become great enouogh to serve more purpose than merely being election spoilers.
Or it means rolling up your sleeves and building a party that can challenge the duopoly.
It turns out that Bush II was the dot connecting a straight line between Clinton and Obama.
In order to make an omelet, you’ve got to break some eggs.
I’m glad You voted for Him. Were You the only one.
You if You thought he would be the best guy should have agreed with the point I made.
I beg to differ that he would ahve the same problems as Obama. Obama is the first President I remember that hasn’t told the Congress what He wanted and demanded He get it. They may not have got what they wanted but at least they tried.
Kucinich is a man, and more of a leader than Obama will ever be.
You’re referring to Jane’s posts about the events of July 30, when 60 CPC members signed a letter vowing to vote against any bill containing a PO that was not tied to Medicare rates. The CPC announced this stand while the E&C committee was still in markup on HR 3200.
President Obama had personally lobbied Jan Schakowsky and other progressives on the E&C committee to vote the bill out of committee with the weaker, negotiated-rates PO demanded by Blue Dogs. The progressives on the committee relented. They were not signatories to the CPC letter. (At the CPC press conference announcing the CPC letter, Lynn Woolsey said that it wasn’t appropriate for progressives on the E&C committee to sign, since they were still in the midst of markup. I’m not sure that makes a lot of sense, but there you are.)
Jane wrote a post implying that Schakowsky’s cave-in was at least partly a quid pro quo for the HR 676 floor vote. She actually offered no evidence of this, however. Maybe it’s true, but it’s also possible that Pelosi offered the floor vote just to speed things up in the E&C committee deliberations and deprive Anthony Weiner of yet another amendment on which to grandstand.
I’ve repeatedly said that nothing worth having was worth trading away just to get the HR 676 floor vote. However, I don’t believe Jane really made the case that Medicare+5% would have survived the E&C markup had Pelosi not offered the 676 floor vote. I think the committee progressives very likely would have rolled on negotiated rates, regardless.
Whether the 60 signatories to the CPC letter will ultimately roll as well, we don’t yet know. But I do agree with Jane that no CPC member should automatically be trusted based merely upon a written signature on an explicit pledge.
FYI, here’s a video of the CPC’s July 30 press conference. You’ll note that as the presser proceeds, the speakers are gradually surrounded by a flash mob of single-payer protesters, of which I was a part, coming fresh off a big rally at South Senate Park. We were supposed to be silent, although some of us (not me, I swear) chanted slogans. CSPAN did a skilled job at filtering that out.
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Email your representative and senators and demand a strong public health care insurance option at http://bit.ly/public_option
This effectively will demand that single payer serve as the public option.
Obama, Congress, lost to the matrix. So little honor.
Are they afraid a miracle will happen if Weiner’s HR676 comes to a vote?
Sanity and courage will prevail?
Well its not “robust” but let’s all pretend this isn’t a Trojan horse.