If an actual Socialist can support HCR, why can’t the purists?
By now, you are all aware that the division between purists and pragmatists among us liberals and Democrats has reached the calm shores of Delaware Liberal. Now, I speak only for myself here, but one of the reasons I feel so angry at the purists is all the good the bill does do, which the purists seem to be willfully ignorant of. Indeed, what does it tell you that an actual socialist, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), seems satisfied enough to at least pass the bill we have know, with the hope and goal of reforming it later with a public option or other alternatives? Bernie Sanders is so pure as a liberal that he actually is not a Democrat. He is honest to God Socialist! And he supports the bill.
Do you know why?
Probably because he cares about what is actually in the bill than what is not, and he has forgotten more about congressional procedure and political realities than the purists ever knew in the first place. He is the Senator that actually wants single payer, and he introduced an amendment to that end. When the Republicans filibustered the amendment, it was tabled. So what did Sen. Sanders do? Did he take his ball and go home? Did he join the Republican filibuster to kill the bill?
No. He is not throwing a tantrum or inventing a new reality in which killing the bill actually means we’ll totally get a better health care bill next year or next Congress, when Alan Grayson, Keith Olberman and Matt Taibbi are all elected to the Senate somehow. Because he is not delusional. He knows the stakes and the choice in front of us. He knows that we either pass the bill we have now, or we get nothing for a long time. And getting nothing for a long time, while costs rise, while it is still legal to deny coverage based on preexisting conditions, while it is still legal to drop your coverage if you do get sick, where it is still legal to impose lifetime caps or annual caps, and while getting sick means bankruptcy to too many…. well Senator Sanders the Socialist is actually smart enough to realize this is a no-brainer.
According to the New York Times, this is the substance of the Senate bill:
* Require that most Americans have health insurance.
* Add 15 million people to Medicaid.
* Subsidize private coverage for low and middle income people (at a cost of $871 billion over 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office), which will cover 31 million Americans who are not currently covered.
* Prevent insurers denying coverage because of a person’s medical condition.
* Prevent insurers discriminating on the basis of sex or health status.
* Prevent insurers rescinding care when someone becomes sick or disabled.
* Force insurers to include a summary of benefits that “does not exceed four pages in length and does not include print smaller than 12-point font.”
* Limit insurance company profits by forcing them to spend between 80 and 85 cents of every dollar they make on healthcare rather than salaries or marketing.
* Set up healthcare exchanges — a kind of marketplace for insurance shoppers which feature tax credits — that are the last remnants of a public option.
So when the purists say kill the bill, I have to assume that they are against all of these policies. Remember that this is politics, and when you vote against something you are against it. It is not a reasonable excuse to vote against something because you wanted a better bill. The way Washington works is that you vote for what you can get even if it is not all you want. Because if you don’t you run the risk of being portrayed as against that which you are for. And please don’t tell me that Washington should work differently, and that the Senate should be able to pass legislation with fewer than 60 votes. I agree, but there is absolutely nothing we can do right now to change that political situation, so please, let’s deal with the reality we have.
The Democrats will be attacking the GOP in 2010 for their failure to support any of those above measures that are actually in the bill. If I were a political consultant, I would also happily attack a progressive purist for the same reason if they oppose the bill. Why? Because if progressive purists do oppose the bill than I will know that they are not at all interested in governing, they are only interesting in pontificating.
It seems to me that progressives purists were brainwashed by President Bush and the congressional Republicans over the last eight years to believe that the way they operated was the way all previous Presidents and Congresses operated, and it is the way President Obama should operate. On numerous occasions I have been told that Obama could have gotten the public option if he really wanted to. That he could have twisted the arms of Lieberman, Landrieu, Lincoln, Bayh, and Nelson and forced them to vote for the public option after a good talking to. The one thing I will agree with the purists on is that Obama could have been more forceful in supporting the public option, but I understand the reason he did not. The legislative strategy that the Obama White House decided on from the beginning was to not have the Administration draft the bill, as the Clinton White House did in 1993 and 1994; rather they would set certain goals that HCR should achieve, and allow the various committees in the House and Senate draft the bill. The reason for this strategy are twofold: 1) it would involve the participation of the Congress in ownership of the bill, which would make it more likely to pass and would also limit the complaints from the 1994 fight over healthcare; and 2) would not corner the Obama White House into defending or owning a particular version of the bill, lest that version of the bill be defeated, which would have been seen as a defeat for the entire Administration akin to President Clinton’s defeat in 1994. If you keep the process floating and the bill not set in stone, it makes it harder to attack. Indeed, look at all the good provisions in the bill that never saw attack or criticisms from the GOP!
It was a sound legislative strategy and it also reviews the kind of President Barack Obama is. He is not like Bush, who was “The Decider.” Obama is not a dictator. As Andrew Sullivan has coined him, he is “The Presider.”
Obama clearly sees the presidency as a different institution than his immediate predecessor. This is a good thing, it seems to me. Bush had imbibed a monarchical sense of the office from his father and his godfather (Cheney). The monarch decided. If you were lucky, you’d get an explanation later, usually dolled up in propaganda. But the president had one accountability moment – the election of 2004 – and the rest of the time he saw the presidency as a form of power that should be used with total boldness and declarative clarity.
At times, Bush’s indifference to the system around him bordered on a kind of political autism. And so one of the oddest aspects of Bush’s presidency was his tendency to declare things as if merely saying them as president could make them so. The model was clear and dramatically intensified by wartime: the president pronounced; Congress anemically responded; the base rallied. At the start, it felt like magic, but as reality slipped through the fast-eroding firewall of reckless spending and military misadventure, Bush’s authority disappeared all the more quickly – because his so-certain predictions were so obviously wrong. The Decider had no response to this. He just had to keep deciding and asserting, to less and less effect, that he was right all along. Hence the excruciating final months. Within a democratic system, we had replicated all the comedy and tragedy of cocooned authoritarianism.
Now look at Obama. What the critics misread in his Inaugural was its classical structure. He was not running any more. He was presiding.
His job was not to rally vast crowds, but to set the scene for the broader constitutional tableau to come to life. Hence the obvious shock of some Republican Congressman at debating with a president who seemed interested in actual conversation, as opposed to pure politics. Last Tuesday, there were none of the bold declarative predictions of the Second Bush Inaugural – and none of the slightly creepy Decider idolatry. Yes, Obama set some very clear directional goals, but the key difference is what came next: a window of invitation. The invitation is to the other co-equal branches of government to play their part; and for the citizenry to play its. This is an understanding of the president as one node in a constitutional order – not a near-dictator outside and superior to other branches of government. It is a return to traditional constitutional order. And it is rooted in a traditional, small-c conservative understanding of the presidency.
If Bush was about the presidency as power, Obama is about the presidency as authority. It’s fascinating to watch this deep difference in understanding slowly but unmistakably realize itself in public actions. Somewhere the Founders are smiling. The system is correcting itself after one of the most unbalanced periods in American history. But it took the self-restraint of one man to do it.
It seems that purists who complain about Obama and his leadership on healthcare view the presidency still as Bush did. And hopefully it means that they do not know any better, rather than being a willful choice of wanting a Democratic dictator that would act like Bush, just with liberal policies rather than conservative ones. In fact, that has been the most ironic and frustrating thing about this who debate. These purist progressives want Obama to act like Bush, and then at the same time say Obama is Bush-lite or Bush-same. The irony escapes them as well as the reality of what Obama has done in office. Would Bush ever negotiate an international climate deal? Pass a jobs-focused economic stimulus? Reform the nation’s health care industry? Set withdrawal dates for both Iraq (2010) and Afghanistan (2011)? There are a myriad of other progressive actions taken by Obama that Bush would laugh at (and which Nemski will cover in a later post), but that truth is lost on progressive purists. Because they have all lost perspective.
Here is my suggestion for purists who are frustrated by or disappointed in Obama: get more progressives like Alan Grayson or Al Franken or Bernie Sanders elected to the House and Senate. That is really the only way the change you want will happen. Sure, you can tear down Obama if it makes you feel good, but all that will accomplish is the election of an idiot-conservative wingnut named Sarah Palin or Newt Gingrich. Think I overstate my case? Well, what happened in 2000, the last time you purists were all petulant?
We Elected Al Gore 🙂
Are you for everything in the bill? If not then you don’t get to say this: “So when the purists say kill the bill, I have to assume that they are against all of these policies.”
Enough with the “purist” crap. If you want to call people purists, what should I call you – a Vichy Democrat?
I don’t expect you to track all the anons but I am making a point to call out Obama on HCR without making it the occasion for a broad attack on the administration. HCR was one of the top two or three most important issues, and I was hoping for a clean win rather than a hold-your-nose victory. Because Obama has now set the terms for negotiations on all future issues. They will be decided in the Senate, catered to empowered conservadems.
In fact, Obama has been so focused on health care, we don’t have much else to judge him on. By this time in the Clinton administration, Clinton had enacted his economic plan and signed FMLA. And Clinton fought for his HCR up until two months before the mid-term.
LOL. Ok, if you want to look at it that way, then the purists voted for Nader enough to put the election within reach of stealing. Those 25,000 Nader purists would have been useful.
Well, what happened in 2000, the last time you purists were all petulant?
We defeated Joe Lieberman 🙂
This deserves repeating:
There are things to like about this bill.
However, if there’s one thing I desperately want the House to push into the final bill, it would be ending the anti-trust exemption. I would LOVE to see the GOP fight that one!
You can call me a pragmatist. The opposite of pragmatist is purist. If you find the purist term insulting, I suppose I can call you an idealist. But these are all proper terms.
And anon, if you think all Obama has done is healthcare, you are an outright idiot that should have his or her driving privileges taken away lest you hurt people. Try to read up on what has actually be done.
We defeated Joe Lieberman.
I will give you that one, but I was on your side in that one.
By the way, your connecting liberal HCR critics and Naderites is rather offensive. I don’t think they are mostly the same people. I know I’m not.
I love the fact that you guys are running to the middle and cutting off the base that reads you. Is your readership down at all?
Between you, Nemski and Cassandra and to a degree Pandora, your inability to criticize Obama is going to be a donkey punch to your egos when the Dems lose a majority and don’t have shit to show for having super majorities.
I love the fact that you guys are running to the middle and cutting off the base that reads you. Is your readership down at all?
If Hunter Thompson could read this blog he’d kill himself all over again.
Oy, Bernie Sanders and Howard Dean both say fix this thing in conference because the Senate version stinks. Everyone is wondering about the final bill. You know that is true, DD but you would rather set up a stupid black and white – us vs them picture. Who is really pragmatic when it comes to votes from the middle class in 2010 and 2012? huh??
Problem is what may come out of conference is likely to be the shittiest possible compromise without cost controls. Read Bob Herbert today since you are looking at the NYT (link at the homepage). The Senate’s tax formula will really start to hurt middle class families and result in a reduction of their health care. They’ll be insured but will they be getting the care they need? Look at MA. Mass residents are mandated to buy insurance but some 21% can’t afford to actually go get the CARE THEY NEED.
Here’s a take on the White House and reason to wonder if Obama will be fighting for the middle class and the DEMs chances for more better DEMs in 2010:
http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/21245
“After the Senate passed its version of the health reform bill, the White House was quick to announce that the President and his aides will be actively involved in helping to guide the process of reconciling the Senate and House bills.
…What the announcement left out is any statement about whose interests and what positions the White House would represent. While I realize that criticizing the White House in dealing with Congressional realities is something that, in civilized Villages at least, is just not done, I seem to recall instances in the past when Presidents actually took public positions on matters important to them by, uh, you know, telling us what they wanted Congress to do or not do on specific issues.”
if you think all Obama has done is healthcare
Some good stuff, but tinkering around the margins mostly.
Everyone has their own priorities. For some people, it’s the wars, or LGBT issues, or whatever. Those people are probably very disappointed.
My priority is restoring broad-based prosperity. The HCR compromise is a setback for an economic recovery since it doesn’t have cost controls.
OK, the stimulus was necessary, but not targeted enough. Spending any money is helpful, but we didn’t come out of it with enough jobs to show for it (so far). The stimulus should be clearly separated out into different programs for “relief” and “stimulus.”
The Wall Street bonus restrictions were the kind of hardball I loved to see. It caused the banks to rush to pay back TARP funds by the end of the year so they could give out bonuses. Unfortunately they paid for it with massive bond issues so we’ll see how that affects the markets and job creation.
The first step to fixing the economy should have been robust HCR. But we didn’t fix costs, and we didn’t even fix job lock on health care. So any economic plan starts without a kick from HCR.
The core of the economic plan should be a rebalancing of tax rates, following the promise to let the tax cuts on the rich expire but keep them for the middle class. The expiration is next year and I haven’t heard a peep about tax legislation to keep that promise.
I like the idea of shifting to pragmatics/idealist labels, rather than the ‘purist’ label which is sometimes used in a condescending manner.
I also like to constructive suggestion: “However, if there’s one thing I desperately want the House to push into the final bill, it would be ending the anti-trust exemption. I would LOVE to see the GOP fight that one!”
I don’t think that any self-described pragmatists would object to identifying a few items to urge Congress to fix in the reconciliation process.
this can help get more DLs on the same page, which should be an underlying goal of the site
It’s the “certainty of it all” that fuels extremism. But with that said, certainty coupled with realism allows progress towards a long-term goal.
Otherwise, stubbornness will get you nowhere.
I’d like to have single-payer for obvious reasons. Concerning the purists, their bonafides are already in question since they already compromised on that point.
I do understand the arguments of the idealists even if I don’t fully agree with them. I want to break corporate control of government as well but the reality is even the public option would not have done this. It’s only one small step forward.
I actually do think that this bill is a step towards changing the U.S. attitude on health insurance. It is making it a right of being American.
Let’s try to get the most we can out of the House-Senate conference. Killing the anti-trust exemption would be a very good start. Opening the exchanges to everyone would also be a good start. Increasing the subsidies so that the middle class doesn’t get hit would be on the wish list. I’d also like to see the regulations on insurance companies tightened.
One thing I’ve learned from all of this is that all of the other great social programs started small and were improved over time. I’m hoping we’ll see the same thing here.
Your point about making health care a “right” is an important one, UI. Once people start viewing health care as a right, rather than a luxury, improvements will be demanded – as is their right. Suddenly, everyone is in the mix, as are their voices.
None of the great social programs ever started by extorting money from citizens to directly enrich private corporations and pay multi-million dollar executive bonuses. And those profits represent 15 – 20% of healthcare dollars being skimmed off the top when they should be going to benefit the public.
And nobody – including your beloved President – is talking about fixing that. In fact, your beloved President isn’t talking about fixing any of this horrible Orwellian HCR bill.
I don’t think it was PRAGMATISM that got all those people to knock on doors, pick up phones or contribute 50 million dollars a month to a political campaign. PRAGMATISM didn’t seem to get DEMOCRATS out in Virginia or New Jersey this past November.
The candidates in Virginia and New Jersey were bad candidates. That’s why they lost. Deeds lost Virginia because he ran away from the Democratic positions.
I don’t think “hey guys I tried” will get people to knock on doors either. Only political junkies follow process. Most everyone else looks for results.
And Deeds ran away from those positions because they are not supported by the people of Virginia — nor are they supported by the people of most of the rest of the states, either.
but explain the dems winning previous gov, senate, and potus elections?
your glib statement makes no sense.
Pandora — the problem with the notion of health care being a right is that you fail to understand the very concept of rights. Rights are, in their essence, negative — something that the government may not deprive you of but which the government is not required to positively facilitate.
Examples:
* You have the right to freedom of the press. Government is not required to fund the operation of your newspaper or supply you with readers.
* You have the right to worship freely. Government is not required to build and maintain your house of worship and pay the salary of the clergy there.
Similarly, I would agree that there is a right to health care. That said, this right consists in government getting the heck out of our way and allowing us to get it with a minimum of government regulation (a situation long-since violated in this country). On the other hand, government is not required to act to supply you with health care — and indeed should not, because that effectively puts government between you and your physician and limits your freedom to seek medical care.
Oh, and for those of you bitching about the failure to get single payer health care — given that it is necessary for us all to eat in order to live, would you also support a single payer food system in which government supplies all Americans with their food, and determines what and how much we eat?
UI and Zen are both right. I lean more towards Zen on this one though. A bad candidate gets you to vote for the other guy. An awesome candidate gets you out to preach for him.
VC:
The best comparison I can make is to analogize 2006 and 2008 to 1974 and 1976. It wasn’t policy that drove those issues, but the reaction against a badly damaged president and his party. As we saw in 1978, 1980, and beyond, Americans still held to a more conservative ideology than that served up by the Democrats — hence the failure of truly liberal Democrats and the election of the moderate Clinton (he ran as a moderate in 1992, and was forced to govern in such a fashion after the 1994 election) as the only truly successful Democrat presidential candidate in the post-Watergate era.
“Only political junkies follow process. Most everyone else looks for results.”
I disagree. I think we dismiss the power of conviction too easily in our society. But that’s just my naive perspective.
Its not purists vs pragmatists. Its liberals vs progressives. If not for the progressives pushing for a better bill, you libs would have fallen for the first Max Baucus insurance giveway. If you think giving Big Pharma the opportunity to continue to rob the american people, preventing us from buying in volume from countries like Canada, your more deluded than I thought. If your on medicare your premiums have already gone up, your co-pays are higher. They kept the cadillac program while they will tax the union workers, not the 2% greediest filthy rich. Ben Nelson makes a dirty deal thats okay with libs. Tom Carper screws Delaware thats okay with libs. Instead of standing for something, most of you stood for nothing. You bought this ant farm and the results of the Senate bill if it passes will be proven a faulty insurance company giveway in 4 years. Obama will claim a victory, but the american people who see a fraudulent bill will know the writing is still on the single payer wall. Want to truly cut costs and reform the health care systems, we must get rid of the for profits. It will take the States to enact their own, if the Kucinch amendment makes it through the House/Senate compromise. Joe Lieberman isnt done yet, neither is Carper, Landrieu and Nelson, these dirty rats still have to vote on the House/Senate version and none of them will sign on if the bill gets the improvement it must have to be considered a health care bill for the people, and not another ponzi scheme for the insurance companies.
PLEASE SCROLL WAY DOWN TO READ THIS DISTURBING ANALYSIS By A CONSTITUTIONAL LAWYER ABOUT THE RECENT SENATE HEALTH CARE LEGISLATION??
Documenting your contradictions would be helpful if you believe any of the enclosed statements below are in error. Regardless of your political affiliation–keeping an open mind–really knowing the facts–the dissertation below from Michael Connelly is alarming. I’ve checked Snopes and could find nothing on this piece which was sent to the Coastal Network. Again your comments are welcome–pro or con.
Thank you,
JUDSON Bennett-Coastal Network
The Truth About the Health Care Bills – Michael Connelly, Ret. Constitutional Attorney
Well, I have done it! I have read the entire text of proposed House Bill 3200: The Affordable Health Care Choices Act of 2009. I studied it with particular emphasis from my area of expertise, constitutional law. I was frankly concerned that parts of the proposed law that were being discussed might be unconstitutional. What I found was far worse than what I had heard or expected.
To begin with, much of what has been said about the law and its implications is in fact true, despite what the Democrats and the media are saying. The law does provide for rationing of health care, particularly where senior citizens and other classes of citizens are involved, free health care for illegal immigrants, free abortion services, and probably forced participation in abortions by members of the medical profession.
The Bill will also eventually force private insurance companies out of business, and put everyone into a government run system. All decisions about personal health care will ultimately be made by federal bureaucrats, and most of them will not be health care professionals. Hospital admissions, payments to physicians, and allocations of necessary medical devices will be strictly controlled by the government.
However, as scary as all of that is, it just scratches the surface. In fact, I have concluded that this legislation really has no intention of providing affordable health care choices. Instead it is a convenient cover for the most massive transfer of power to the Executive Branch of government that has ever occurred, or even been contemplated If this law or a similar one is adopted, major portions of the Constitution of the United States will effectively have been destroyed.
The first thing to go will be the masterfully crafted balance of power between the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches of the U.S. Government. The Congress will be transferring to the Obama Administration authority in a number of different areas over the lives of the American people, and the businesses they own.
The irony is that the Congress doesn’t have any authority to legislate in most of those areas to begin with! I defy anyone to read the text of the U.S. Constitution and find any authority granted to the members of Congress to regulate health care.
This legislation also provides for access, by the appointees of the Obama administration, of all of your personal healthcare information (a direct violation of the specific provisions of the 4th Amendment to the Constitution), your personal financial information, and the information of your employer, physician, and hospital. The 4th is supposed to be a protection against unreasonable searches and seizures. You can also forget about the right to privacy. That will have been legislated into oblivion regardless of what the 3rd and 4th Amendments may provide.
If you decide not to have healthcare insurance, or if you have private insurance that is not deemed acceptable to the Health Choices Administrator appointed by Obama, there will be a tax imposed on you. It is called a tax instead of a fine because of the intent to avoid application of the due process clause of the 5th Amendment. However, that doesn’t work because since there is nothing in the law that allows you to contest or appeal the imposition of the tax, it is definitely depriving someone of property without the due process of law.
So, there are three of those pesky amendments that the far left hate so much, out the original ten in the Bill of Rights, that are effectively nullified by this law !! It doesn’t stop there though.
The 9th Amendment that provides: The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people;
The 10th Amendment states: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are preserved to the States respectively, or to the people. Under the provisions of this piece of Congressional handiwork neither the people nor the states are going to have any rights or powers at all in many areas that once were theirs to control.
I could write many more pages about this legislation, but I think you get the idea. This is not about health care; it is about seizing power and limiting rights. Article 6 of the Constitution requires the members of both houses of Congress to “be bound by oath or affirmation to support the Constitution.” If I was a member of Congress I would not be able to vote for this legislation or anything like it, without feeling I was violating that sacred oath or affirmation. If I voted for it anyway, I would hope the American people would hold me accountable.
For those who might doubt the nature of this threat, I suggest they consult the source, the US Constitution, and Bill of Rights. There you can see exactly what we are about to have taken from us.
Michael Connelly
Retired attorney,
Constitutional Law Instructor
Carrollton , Texas
AFTER HAVING READ THIS, PLEASE FORWARD….
If you don’t care about our constitution, or your rights under it, just do nothing.
WE MUST HOLD CONGRESS ACCOUNTABLE BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE.
Why this “Analysis” is Useless:
1. He claims to be reviewing HR3200 — which is fine, except that HR3200 is quite unlikely to be the final product, right?
2. For Jud to ask for “documentation of contradictions” is really rich — since the analysis presented provides no documentations of his claims. To wit: free health care for illegal immigrants, free abortion services, and probably forced participation in abortions by members of the medical profession. this has been widely debunked. But I will stipulate that this was a big part of the message during the Summer of Spittle. And this guy’s piece came out on 2 September 2009. Right at the end of it.
3. Continuing — he provides no proof, citations from the bill or even a rational mechanism for how this bill puts health insurance companies out of business. Frankly, this just shows that he isn’t even paying attention — this bill creates a vast new pool of customers for health insurance firms which isn’t what you would do to — you know — put them out of business.
4. The whole medical decisions being made by the government thing has also been widely debunked. And certainly this author has again provided no proof, no citations in the bill, no plausible scenarios under which this could happen.
5. He claims that there are three amendments that are “nullified” by this law, again without providing any citations or proof of this.
6. If Mr. Connelly cared about the balance of powers he should have been screaming from the mountaintops as BushCo implemented its Unitary Executive philosophy. But once again, he provides no citations from the bill, no references, just more claims that are not backed up.
Basically, Mr. Connelly has written a wingnut screed quite targeted at the wingnut species — who, for all of their bullshit about Read The Bill can be counted on not to do so themselves. Which is how people like Mr. Connolly can lie to them with complete immunity — you’ll never ask him for the kid of “documentation” or detailed exposition that you will ask for from us. And we will ask for detailed exposition because fear is not a default operating position for most of us.
Lastly — we pay attention to Fair Use rules here, meaning that you need to provide some evidence that the author has given you permission to reprint their work or just provide some excepts here with a link to the full text.