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~
