the pretext which Democrats used to compromise continuously and water down the bill
that's the bill they want -- this was the plan all along.
Yes, because the democratic party is all acting in unison, planning on fooling the public into thinking they're working towards health care reform, all the while working on behalf of industry. They're... what? well-coordinated evil geniuses?
I suppose the evidence of this is... health care reform that gives access to millions is on the brink of passage? passing reform that regulates the industry and restricts profits was secretly what the industry wanted?
I'm not following the logic. Maybe we can eventually make language a complete impediment to understanding. -Hobbes
no, it's not a conspiracy theory so much as wondering why nobody in the WH even tried to go for the best solution. The one that gave Americans actual healthcare instead of an insurance that might or might not buy them any healthcare whatsoever. Why was that not tried ? That's where the questions come. Why did they move past gold standard healthcare (single payer) or even silver (public option) without even trying them out. What is coming may or may not be good, but it's not in the foothills of what was needed, let alone wanted. This, the only solution even tried, is the very least of all possible bills. keep to the Fen Causeway
I don't know why there seems to be this assumption that the rest of us are too stupid to have thought of and through these arguments for ourselves.
But even setting all that aside: Let's assume the hypothetical that everybody ran on a single-player plan. Now let me explain the problem.
This "They should've gone to the table with single-payer" thing sounds great, until you realize: This entire effort was dependent on a handful of senators who didn't give a rat's ass if it passed or not. There was always this behavior as though the House was the equal to the Senate on this bill. It wasn't.
There were always enough people committed to the issue in the House. There weren't in the Senate. Because if the House said, "We won't agree to what you're proposing," the Senate would've said, "Okay, piss off then."
But people on the blogs seemed to think they could just put their fingers in their ears and pretend this wasn't so. "The House has to have leverage!" The House never had any fucking leverage, because the Senate didn't give a shit if it passed.
As for the silver option, given that up until...yesterday, I think...there was still an effort underway to push a public option, despite it being proclaimed dead about 700,000 times, why do you assume nobody in the White House pushed for it?
It isn't even that I disagree with the view. I share it, actually. But why is it simply assumed to be true? Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. - George Carlin
Edwards Gets It Right
"Health Markets", coops, exchanges... MOAR CHOICES baked in the goshdarn senate cupcake, baby....
Like Mr. Schwarzenegger, Mr. Edwards sets out to cover the uninsured with a combination of regulation and financial aid. Right now, many people are uninsured because, as the Edwards press release puts it, insurance companies "game the system to cover only healthy people." So the Edwards plan, like Schwarzenegger's, imposes "community rating" on insurers, basically requiring them to sell insurance to everyone at the same price.
BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHA uniform pricing? BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Finally, some people try to save money by going without coverage, so if they get sick they end up in emergency rooms at public expense. Like other plans, the Edwards plan would "require all American residents to get insurance," and would require that all employers either provide insurance to their workers or pay a percentage of their payrolls into a government fund used to buy insurance. But Mr. Edwards goes two steps further. People who don't get insurance from their employers wouldn't have to deal individually with insurance companies: they'd purchase insurance through "Health Markets": government-run bodies negotiating with insurance companies on the public's behalf. People would, in effect, be buying insurance from the government, with only the business of paying medical bills - not the function of granting insurance in the first place - outsourced to private insurers. ahahahahahahahaaaa Read MORE....
But Mr. Edwards goes two steps further.
People who don't get insurance from their employers wouldn't have to deal individually with insurance companies: they'd purchase insurance through "Health Markets": government-run bodies negotiating with insurance companies on the public's behalf. People would, in effect, be buying insurance from the government, with only the business of paying medical bills - not the function of granting insurance in the first place - outsourced to private insurers.
ahahahahahahahaaaa Read MORE....
... which brings me back to my realpolitisch deconstruction of "Change we can believe in" upthread. The fact is that what we're experiencing right now is a top-down disaster. -Paul Krugman
Your assessment of the bill as being 'the least of all possible' bills is based on what I believe is a flawed interpretation of 'possible.'
I don't see any realistic way single payer could be accomplished right now. The public option was supported by the WH, but didn't make it through congress which, as we all know, is full of not only wingnut R's but also D's in name only. Seems to me there's a disconnect with people who can acknowledge there's sellout D's but somehow then think they're not a problem for progressive D's when it comes to passing legislation. Obama's election didn't magically make congress cooperative with his agenda. Contrary to popular belief, congress still makes the laws in this country. Maybe we can eventually make language a complete impediment to understanding. -Hobbes
Its brilliant that lots more people will be covered, but I think a lot of people are sitting and thinking that this example of "Change we can believe in" is yet an another example of what appears to be a paucity of imagination on the part of the administration.
As for as a conspiracy, I don't see that this is any more likely as a conspiracy than any other 9/11 or vaccine lunacy Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.
As for as a conspiracy, I don't see that this is any more likely as a conspiracy than any other 9/11 or vaccine lunacy
Really? Is the proposition "When the WH and the Democratic leadership said that they favor a public option they lied." really so far fetched? Wait this is important. Someone is wrong on the Internet.
you'd have to believe that Obama somehow wants to help the insurance industry
If he was always a consensus guy he might be concerned to include the insurance industry in the consensus. So his "compromises" with Big Pharma and the Medical Insurance Industry were driven by principle, however repugnant that may seem, rather than being a conspiracy. It is just that we should have examined rather more closely the nature of the pig in the poke during the primaries. As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."
That still doesn't make sense -- do you think the industry wants to have itself regulated and its profits restricted and that Obama is looking out for their interests over the people's? Maybe we can eventually make language a complete impediment to understanding. -Hobbes
Perhaps it's escaped your notice, but he has been confronting them -- they're currently fighting this bill and have been since the start. Funny way to go about avoiding confrontation...
I don't know for sure. But if he is strongly consensus driven and he accepts the medical insurance industry as a legitimate player he may well have sought to balance their interests with those of the public.
Or... perhaps he simply recognizes they're currently pretty much the only player right now, and is seeking to balance the interests of the 300 or so million people they're currently covering with those of the 50 million or so they're not. "Consensus" doesn't have to be the motive here.
And, yes, I remember the 'sharp' conversation -- it was in the context of a criticism. It doesn't make them 'friends.' Maybe we can eventually make language a complete impediment to understanding. -Hobbes
Perhaps it's escaped your notice, but he has been confronting them
That still doesn't make sense -- do you think the industry wants to have itself regulated and its profits restricted and that Obama is looking out for their interests over the people's?
well this is where the kabuki element comes in to play.
they are sorta faking the fight against hcr, because actuarily speaking they know too that the present system is economically inefficient, and will fail eventually, but it's in their interest that it fail slowly, so they can continue their fiduciary duty (barf) to maximise short term shareholder profit.
they have the money, they have the lobbyists, so they'll use them as powerfully as they can to keep their monopoly profits rolling in, but inside they know it's a holding action, because america cannot go on in this wasteful, uncompassionate modus operandi.
meanwhile they will continue to have the power, the same power they used to have the most important elements of hcr gutted before negotiations even started, namely the ability to bargain down drug prices, and the single payer and public options.
i think obama's attitude has been a little lukewarm because if this doesn't pass, he can be seen not to have put too many eggs in that basket, and because if there had been stronger populist pressure for single payer or p.o. he would have been well placed to ride that wave all the way into the history books.
if... and notwithstanding the considerable pressure, it has not been enough for him to see congress/lobbyists fazed, and there are not enough kucinich's or sanders to really push very serious change, not to mention the dino's, blue dogs and a million bucks a day of lobbyists against any change at all, even with the writing on the wall.
obama is nothing if not canny. i suspect he's going for a 30% change on many fronts, finance regs, climate change legislation, EPA, guantanamo, torture, troops wound down, to name but a few, while having to keep the status quo mollified with the slowness of the changes, which though ultimately inevitable, can still be much delayed through obstructionism and pig headed greed, milking the last drops from the cow.
people want him to really put his ass on the line for any and all of these super important issues, and risk his political capital an an all-or-nothing assault, a media drama, but he's trying to plug a lot of holes with his fingers, counting on that as being better, wiser and more longterm than trying to deal with any one issue balls to the wall, and possibly flaming out and losing his one-in-a-century opportunity to be the truly great reformist his campaign rhetoric encouraged so many to believe and emotionally invest in.
like any pol, he wants to land on his feet whichever way the wind blows. unlike many, he may just be intellectually perceptive and politically nimble to have a chance of pulling it off, but he'll fall way short if he can't unite enough public opinion behind him.
he has some, but his awesome initial momentum has been dealt several severe body blows, much of his most vociferous base is bitterly disappointed at his inability to be more of a statesman reformist, and yet he shrugs us off because he knows that we have failed to enlighten the average fox news low info voter that they are being gulled twice over, first by the insurance companies, and secondly by palinesque propaganda.
so many nuts, so few hammers. ~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
You'd have to think that the industry could live with the contents of the bill and was either sufficient scared of public pressure or of the opinion that it could find a way to twist the bill into being a net plus.
Is a lot different from what you said earlier:
A conspiracy that just demands that nothing is done needs very few people. Write the public option in the bill and let it die peacefully
And neither one leads to this:
And Obama would have to value the industry's party contributions over a better bill.
It's the assigning of motive to Obama, that he's working for insurance and against people, that's the part I'm questioning. I don't see any evidence in his actions which would indicate this.
If he wanted to maintain the status quo, there were much easier ways. He could pass an unfunded piece of shit bill like the Medicare D one -- a corporate giveaway with bipartisan support -- or he could insist on a 'perfect' bill, say a very liberal single payer one that would be impossible to implement, and let congress take the fallout when they stomped it to death. Maybe we can eventually make language a complete impediment to understanding. -Hobbes
This: You'd have to think that the industry could live with the contents of the bill and was either sufficient scared of public pressure or of the opinion that it could find a way to twist the bill into being a net plus. Is a lot different from what you said earlier: A conspiracy that just demands that nothing is done needs very few people. Write the public option in the bill and let it die peacefully
The claim was that the WH was against the public option and the bill as it is now is basically what they want. I don't see a contradiction. Wait this is important. Someone is wrong on the Internet.
He could pass an unfunded piece of shit bill like the Medicare D one -- a corporate giveaway with bipartisan support -- or he could insist on a 'perfect' bill, say a very liberal single payer one that would be impossible to implement, and let congress take the fallout when they stomped it to death.
i personally think the latter would have been much more heroic and great leader-y, and ultimately more revealing of the actual shark tank health care situation.
but he doesn't want to risk too much capital in one issue, methinks.
there are others as important, imo, the most compelling to completely change, no revolutionise the corporate ag/food inc. ripoff, as unless this is done there will have to be so much more ill-health care.
the further up the causal river the clean up, the more efficient the change.
if you have a dead pig rotting upstream, you're going to have to do a lot more water filtering down the line.
i'm surprised, as he's so smart, that he doesn't seem to get this.
it's the fastest way to better, more self-aware society, imo, and starting where it should, the betterment of each individuals relationship with their own -and their habitat's- health.
right now all the argument is about what kind of filters are going to be used, and the dead pig rots away.
go to the source, obama! why spill milk with hand and mop with the other? ~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
