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I’ve heard little drips and drabs here and there. Supposedly somebody on Daily Kos is trying to gin up a march, but it wasn’t immediately visible, and then there is a group of Mad as Hell Doctors from Portland caravanning down in support of HR 676. Ed Schultz has talked about one. But I don’t (yet) see anything definite on a big march.
I know there’s a lot of good work going on here and the fundraising done here for the Progressive Dems and the "whipping" being done is excellent and it’s a very pleasant surprise to me that we are still alive and kicking. I was happy to contribute to this effort. But shouldn’t we also be considering a march?
I read a lot of posts legitimately griping about the role played in this whole mess by Barack Obama, but when it gets down to what to do about it, which it often doesn’t, it seems limited to media criticism and sometimes vague talk about Dean in 2012 or something.
2012????? Are are choices really limited to waiting for the next election? Gee, the Right certainly didn’t take that path and where has it gotten them? Pretty damned far if you ask me.
Yes, Obama has been a big disappointment, but why are we not thinking of what we can do here and now? He has as much as said "make me do it" and maybe we should take him up on it. If getting bodies into Town Hall meetings has scared crap out of some Congress-critters what effect might a million protestors for our side in Washington have? Could it possibly change the dynamic?
Clearly those who thought Barack Obama would be a progressive Messiah who’d instinctively "had our back" were naively wrong. But do we think this mess is what he really wants? Does that really even matter? Might he at least be malleable from heavier pressure from his left? Maybe that’s the truest distinction between the Democratic and Republican parties? I’d like to think that might be true. I don’t know if it is, but we’ll never know until we make the effort. Endless griping on the internet is ultimately useless. Time to try putting bodies in the Street again.
19 Comments
Robert Reich suggested that last week and I am all for it. Even if we chose a day, and had major marches in all the big cities, I’d be there.
I’d be there too. But let us not go through all the effort of a mobilization and a March for what is morally right only to support the inadequate bill that we see in HR 3200, or for some vague and general principle that Congress can pervert with some sell-out bill that won’t solve the problems of health insurance reform. Instead, we really need to March for what’s right and what we believe in; i.e. Medicare for All as represented in HR 676; not for some policy wonk’s compromise with the health insurance companies like the public option, and certainly not for HR 3200.
If after the March and the greatest amount of pressure we can muster, Congress still must compromise with the interests to get a bill through, then let them pass a Jacob Hacker-type PO (much stronger than HR 3200) as a last-ditch compromise. But make it clear during the March that if they betray us with HR 3200 or a bill that is even weaker than that, then they will pay a heavy price in 2010.
My thinking has evolved some in the past week. A week ago I was much more in agreement with you than I am now.
What changed was the sudden signs of a backbone on the part of the Congressional pro-public option Dems? Can it be that it’s actually, at this point in time, MORE important to plant a marker in the ground establishing a greater role for the government in health care than fighting exclusively for the best possible bill?
I am reminded of this in our recent past – the take-no-prisoners attitude for many of years the Tobacco Industry which fought tooth and nail to pay even a nickel of damages claims. Once that wall was finally breached, things went pretty rapidly downhill for the industry. Might a similar “public option” beachhead have value beyond what it will actually do now for the people?
It is the evidence of ACTIVITY that is moving me here. I never thought the Congressional Dems would stand up to Obama as they have, and I was pleasantly surprised by the success of Jane Hamsher’s efforts to which I have now contributed.
Maybe activity is more important than the relative content of the bills at this point in time? The right has lumped us all together. But we still can’t unite with each other?
Could having a massive March on Washington, or a series of coordinated local marches in favor of Health Care Reform, open to supporters of both HR3200 and HR676 have the most value at this point? And if this division were the only thing preventing such a mobilization (I know it isn’t the only thing) would that not be a terrible thing? Maybe we have to work together at this point. Hang together or hang separately.
I’d march.
If I thought 1 million would join me.
Otherwise, the media and government would ignore the march.
Sorry, not 1 million. 5 million.
I agree that the March should be open to all those in favor of reform including those supporting the PO. But I think that we need to leave it to Congress to come up with final compromises. For us to pre-compromise health care issues as we have done so far is silly and has cost us a great deal in this fight. It’s because Move-on, and HCAN, and DFA, have insisted on supporting the PO that the weak PO bill HR 3200 came out of the House committees. If the progressives had been uncompromising in advocating HR 676 and had advertised for this, and whipped Congress about this, I believe that we would have gotten a Jacob Hacker-type of PO out of the House committees that we could settle for with a clear conscience, rather than the crippled PO in HR 3200.
However, regardless of that, if we now March for what essentially is HR 3200, I think that many Medicare for All people will simply stay home because they think that that bill is a travesty. So, if we want to have the most inclusive position for a March, I think it would actually be a March for HR 676, or Medicare for All.
One more thing. You say:
I think the answer to your question is a flat no. It’s not about “planting a marker,” in this area. It’s about passing a bill that will be popular and will be viewed as a success. CBO has said that HR 3200 will not lower health insurance costs. Also, its version of the PO will not take effect until 2013. But it will cost at least $100 billion per year, a good deal of which will have to be paid for by increased taxes. When 2010 come around, what effect of this bill will be visible to people? When 2012 comes around what effect of it will be visible to people?
In both cases, people will still be waiting for relief. Meanwhile the insurance companies will still be raising insurance prices. In three years, before the PO takes effect, those prices will be 25% higher than they are today.
Then there are the Mandates. Small business owners will be livid about the mandates, and people who don’t want insurance will also be livid about them because until the PO is available they’ll have to buy crappy private insurance.
No, I think HR 3200 is a bill that will just reduce faith in the Government’s ability to solve this problem. It will therefore make people anti-progressive. It won’t make business any more popular, but it will just create the feeling of hopelessness and political alienation in which progressives suffer and conservatives and what’s in it for me people, thrive.
Here’s a Facebook group with just over 1,000 memebrs that is shooitng for something on September 13: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=118144661546
But it needs a lot more members. Also, check out this Seminal post I did earlier today on building momentum on Facebook: http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/7447
We are a Country of whippy dips, that doesn’t know whats good for us. We can’t get our butts off the couch, to do anything about anything. We should be marching on Washington to remove the stupid people we elected to be there. Hoping marching will make idiots in to genesis, is rediculous. The Congress has not fixed one problem this Country has. Yet fools think they can influence them to do something right. We hoped Obama would be a Leader, but He farms out everything to the Congress, to the same retards that have made a mess of everything including Healthcare. The present system and all the bad in it, is because the Congress has let all that bad happen. Face it Congress is the problem, not thye answer.
If we march, we should do so for HR 676; nothing less.
I read that the teabaggers are planning a tea party in DC on 9/13 and everyone else is being urged to march on their state capitals b/c the screaming loonies will be out of town (in DC).
Someone needs to coordinate things on our side. The fascist reichwingers have totally hijacked healthcare reform.
Gee, I wonder how that happened? (sarcasm: ON)
I am ready to march, but have an opinion about who should march. Race has nothing to do with it. It appears that the country is run by a group of people above the president and congress. This was destiny and what we are seeing is the financial, medical, and spiritual breakdown of the United States of America. “We the People” can take it back. “We the People” can march. We do need someone to organize this and it’s not a woman from a suburb. What we need are the MEN of America to stand up and take this country back. We women will support you 100%. This will likely result in a revolution as many will think it’s about race. What this is first about, in my opinion, is a non natural born citizen being elected president and complete dishonor to the CONSTITUTION, then the government bailing out poorly run companies in order to own more of America (in my opinion), and then his healthcare reform that will leave millions of elderly without coverage (in my opinion), then it’s about the fact that we should be demanding impeachment and deportation (in my opinion of course). MEN OF AMERICA, GET OFF YOUR REAR AND ORGANIZE A MARCH.
Signed, a concerned, full blooded American woman!
A march you say? I have for months been considering simply standing, all by myself,if necessary, with a lone sign outside one of the pertinent buildings in Washington. I haven’t decided where. And just waiting quietly for the rest of the country to join me. A march you say? It will need to be big. Organized, probably by all the major players and voices in the debate. A march you say? It worked in the ’60’s. A march you say? Give me the date and time. I will be there. In the words of Martin Luther King,”In the end we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”
I hear everything you say, and agree completely with what you say as to what we SHOULD HAVE done.
But that is now water under the bridge. The question is what we should be doing NOW. I refuse to blame either side in this debate. I would just say that our inability to come together around this rift is a major problem and it needs to get solved. It is fairly apparent, sadly, that it won’t be resolved now.
I have a question about how this site works. When I started this diary there was a space for a “summary” described thusly:
I wrote such a summary and yet it appears nowhere on the site that I can see. What’s up with this.
OK, you may be right, but what’s your take, then, on why the Private Insurance Industry is so strongly opposed to the Public Option? If it’s quite as awful as you say, wouldn’t the smart move for them be to quietly go along with it and get praise for how public-spirited they are, secure in the knowledge that it will be a disaster and they’ll be home free once the public experiences it?
Why do you think they are behaving as the Tobacco Industry did, in my example?
Their march is 9/12.
Hey AOSO, How come you weren’t worried about wholesale violations of the Constitution when Bush, Cheney, and the Republicans were riding high? Could it be that your knowledge of the constitution and constitutional law is as faulty as your knowledge about Obama’s birth.
Give me a break, if the President had not been born here, you can bet your behind that Karl Rove and his minions would long since have uncovered proof of that and challenged Obama’s right to run for the presidency long before he got elected.
sTiVo, the way to resolve rifts is to let people March for Medicare for All. Why? Simply because that will strengthen a movement to the left on health care reform. Both Medicare for All and the possibility of a successful PO will be strengthened in that way. But a March for the PO alone, will only pull so far toward the left. The best it will produce is HR 3200, and, I think, that’s not where we want to end up.
sTiVo, they got the Administration to get Democrats to back off Medicare for All without a fight. So they probably figure they can do even better if they fight as hard as they can against any PO. If they’re successful in getting rid of even the weak PO in HR 3200, they’ll get the revenue for 10,000,000 presently uninsured that CBO forecast would take the public option in 2013. An extra 10,000,000 customers for the industry is nothing to sneeze at even when you’re expecting 180,000,000 customers after the giveaway that is currently shaping up. 10,000,000 customers is worth fighting for. Also, if you’re private sector plutocrat, you don’t want to take any chances with the PO at all. After all Obama might win in 2012, and some future Secretary of HHS might decide to greatly expand eligibility for the PO in 2015. Why chance that if you can spend another mere 150 Million on promotional activities and prevent the PO from even getting a foothold?
Right TPAZ; but don’t expect the March to result in HR 676. On the other hand, if we can live with a real strong PO, we might increase the chances of getting that if we March for HR 676.