I’m not going to argue that today’s events in Congress are a positive development. It appears that someone dropped the ball in managing Joe Lieberman’s ego and we’re going to wind up with a very weak (almost pathetic, really) health care bill from the Senate. In fact, even though it looks like they might have Lieberman back on board, it’s not completely clear to me that they’ll be able to convince the House to sign off on the piece of shit reform that will be coming their way. But let’s assume that something passes, and that it has some pretty strong health insurance reform elements.
One positive that we can take out of this is that Lieberman just provided a bit of a rallying cry and rationale for electing more Democratic senators. If we can net three or four more Democratic senators in the 2010 midterms, we won’t have to suffer through the kinds of senatorial vetoes that stymied the reform effort in this Congress. Without the high profile case study in the problem of non-majoritarian rule that Lieberman’s obstruction represents, it would be hard to make the case for even bigger congressional majorities. We do have some decent candidates in Missouri, Ohio, and New Hampshire who would give us the procedural votes we currently lack. It’s hard to say just yet whether we can improve our lot much by winning the seats in Kentucky and North Carolina, but we have primary contenders that are promising. I don’t think replacing David Vitter with Charlie Melanchon would do much for us, but it wouldn’t hurt.
Netting Senate seats is certainly not assured, but we at least have a clear reason to hope it happens and to work towards that goal. Losing Senate seats would really cripple the Obama administration, and that should also be painfully clear tonight.
I had one other positive in mind to write about, but it must not have been very important or convincing because I’ve forgotten what it was. That happens when DC is in the process of crushing your hopes and aspirations. But, it’s true that we really were only two or three votes shy of passing a damn good health care bill.
Because Reid was unable to get Senate Democrats in line on a procedural vote, he has failed miserably as Majority Leader and must go. His loss next year will be the symbol to show the base of the Democratic Party will not suffer weak leaders. Reid must be seen as having paid dearly for his failure.
For just one example of why Reid must go, see Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) Slaps the Face of Democrats Who Want Real Health Care Reform (Dec 9, 2009).
Not to step all over Booman’s DNC-approved message, but Sen Blanche Lincoln (AR) also must lose to a primary challenger next year. If the Democratic Party leadership lets her run in the midterm, the leadership will be to blame for enabling her nonsense and the leadership will be to blame when she loses to a Republican challenger.
Arkansans deserve to see a Democrat who A) can win,and B) will act like a Democrat in office.
I agree that Reid should not be the leader of the party in the Senate. I’d still be modestly surprised if he lost next year, but that depends on what happens between now and then. As for Blanche Lincoln, I’d like to see her get a tough primary from a viable and more progressive alternative. However, rather than lose the seat, I’d like to see us win enough seats that she can’t play the role of kingmaker.
Reid is going to have a tough time next year and he’s not doing himself any favors by bending over for Lieberman, Landrieu, Nelson and Lincoln.
See CNN’s Reid’s public option push comes amid tough re-election bid (Nov 2):
And Lincoln is all but finished. See Marco at DailyKos AR-Sen: Primary bound? (Dec 3, 2009):
Not to step all over Booman’s DNC-approved message…
Stop it! Here at The Pond, we’re a tolerant bunch united behind a simple rule: Don’t Be A Prick. Sneering at and smearing your host is definitely prickish behavior. Make your arguments; I’m interested in reading them but, cut the crap or I’m going to start slapping you with troll ratings.
brian’s arguments consist completely of “Booman’s argument is weak”, the 6th grade version of “nah-nah-nenah-nah”, am-to, am-not. hoping the miserable wretch’s shadowy overlord soon takes him off the “annoy ponders” assignment.
Brian sounds very young and immature. He’ll either grow up fast, or deserves every troll rating he will get.
What parts of the bill will be strengthened, what will stay weak? We know the WH wants a bill, and while they are very flexible they would not take “any” bill, so what makes them certain that trimming the bill to its current form will still count as a win for them politically.
How important is it that they have other issues they want to get to (jobs, climate change)?
I don’t think the bill will be strengthened in truly meaningful ways in Conference. If I anticipate anything, it will help make mandated coverage more affordable. It’s critical that the administration gets this done and moves on to a jobs program. The stock market is strong and the banks are paying back their loans, but unemployment is dangerously high. They have to do something early next year to have any hope of having a positive impact before the midterms.
Is the House going to sign off on this crap sandwich?
I don’t know. It’s actually so crappy that moderates and even some Republicans will have a bit of a problem saying it’s too radical to support. Oh wait!! That was the second positive thing I had to say, but forgot.
In order for Republicans not to bash the bill, someone would have to hold them accountable for past stances, and even with the blatant bait-and-switch by Lieberman from 3 months ago (that was all over the web and MSNBC) he has yet to have his credibility questioned.
There needs to be more public pressure to make sure they don’t get away with grandstanding. The better news is that Pelosi runs a much tighter ship, and a weakened bill might actually get more Blue Dog support (which is what I gather you are saying). Enough brain, I’m going to bed.
most of the GOP won’t even acknowledge that the President is a US born citizen, why would they suddenly become rationale and support a compromise? It’s in their political best-interest to oppose oppose oppose a strawman.
Exactly. They’ll call it radical anyway because people who watch Faux news can’t discern fact from fiction.
I agree that we need to fight to get more Dems in both Houses next year, but we may be up against it with the Dems and Obama signing on to weak legislation like this. people are gonna get pissed that the change they voted for has been sold down the river.
Yes. But the silver lining is that Lieberman can kind of serve as a shorthand explanation/scapegoat for why we need to get out there and work.
between last august and liebermann et al have generated hours of great video footage.
proofreading? who needs that?
Whew. I thought for a minute that the Dems might have named a month after him.
career is heading, like Julius Caesar, Augustus and the deities Mars and Janus. what a self-inflated gasbag
Um, Lieberman is still a member of the Democratic Caucus. Getting any HCR through will apparently require letting him play god. I don’t remotely see how that leads to getting the base worked up to hire more Democrats. Most of the remaining contested seats will get corrupt Dems like Lincoln and Catholic Bishop toadies like Stupak.
The only way Leiberman becomes a rallying point is if he manages to abort HCR altogether. If some garbage passes, Dems have to put the best face on it, so how do they make Lieberman the villain instead of the Great Compromiser? It breaks my heart to say it, but I’ve about come round to thinking that for the long-term good, the best outcome now might be no healthcare bill at all. Then we might have a focus for revolutionary action.
I wanted to add a comment that I think many on the left don’t consider, and that’s the fact that the Republicans really are a big part of the problem. I hear some say, “No, the Republicans have made it clear they will vote virtually as a block against health care reform, so it’s not about them. It’s about how a supposedly filibuster proof majority of Dems can’t get its act together.”
The thing is, though, that the Republicans’ refusal to participate in this process is a big part of what gives Senators like Lieberman, Nelson, Lincoln and Landrieu the leverage that they have. If even a handful of Republicans were negotiating in good faith, the conservadems would be unable to act out the way they have.
Sorry, but Blue Dogs and “New” Democrats in the House and Senate are entirely the problem, and not only in regard to the fiasco that is the health care debate.
People like Melissa Bean (New Dem-IL08) have tried hard to screw us over on reform in the financial services industry.
Your argument amounts to saying that Democrats in power with a large majority in the House and a supermajority in the Senate are too weak to stand up to an unpopular minority. Pathetic.
Well, if they can’t show us that they can lead, then we don’t have to help them fail.
We’ll be far more judicious in selecting which candidates we’ll be endorsing and supporting with our time, energy and money.
that is WAY too simplistic.
there used to be reasonable republicans democrats could make deals with (kennedy was a master of that kind of thing, so was LBJ).
yes the conservadems and blue dogs are a problem, and perhaps THE problem currently, but republican obstriction has played a big role too, denying unanimous consent, delaying for the sake of delaying, and other tactics to run out the clock.
i’m not an expert on senate rules, but you seem to be leaving out the way the GOP is using stalling tactics.
it is too bad the democrats didn’t do the same on certain legislation in 2000-2008.
I gotta agree with Brendan on this.
Which is not to say I’m letting conservadems or that traitor Joe Lieberman off the hook. One gift I want to see under the tree is that smug grin wiped off Lieberman’s face as he comes to realize the cost of his betrayal (and please, dear God, let the cost be big; I’ll wait).
But, were it not for the intransigence of the Republicans, the conservadems simply wouldn’t have the leverage that they have now because the margin for error is virtually non-existent.
We oversold ourselves on the “veto-proof majority”. Now it’s hard to wake up and face the obvious fact that there’s no magic number, never has been. So we blame Obama, Reid, the party for not somehow changing the jerks who brought us up to that number into decent human beings. We live in a country where stupid, spoiled people get their way, in large part because we’re saddled with a whole gauntlet of law and rules designed from the beginning to thwart the will of the populace. Healthcare is just one victim of a system that is royalist and corrupt down to its very roots. By its refusal or inability to deal with the fundamentals, the so-called American Left has managed to reap what it failed to sow. No president or majority leader is going to change that.
“oversold ourselves”?
I don’t think “we” oversold “ourselves”.
I think the Senate Democrats oversold that. and then once they got to 60 (in theory), all of a sudden they started backing away.
i always knew 60 was a bullshit number, but the backtracking was the real tell.
i think it was bill maher who identified the democrats as a party that’s great if you own a bank or a corporation, and the republicans as a party good for a lunatic asylum.
missing is a party that represents the middle class. i think a lot of what we’re seeingm, not only in the senate but in the crazy teabag movement that doesn’t realize it’s being manipulated, reflects that missing piece.
it may be a bit early for this, but i think we’re in a crisis. neither party can govern.
Yup. But one party is a lunatic asylum.
i think you’re deliberately missing the point, which is that neither party supports the people of the country. one party supports companies, many of which don’t even employ americans. the other is just nuts.
neither works. it’s a crisis. either way, people will die.
Of course it’s a crisis. Which can’t be resolved as long as we operate under the current system, which has built-in barriers to changing it short of a Constitutional Convention or a revolution. How do you propose to bell the cat? We already know it’s rabid.
I did buy into the 60-vote meme, and I think most of the left did to some degree. Not that everything good was going to rain down, but that some major initiatives would at least get to a vote. That’s not as stupid a notion as you suggest, based on the kind of give and take we’d become accustomed to.
I don’t know what you mean by “backed away”. We have a majority that wants good HCR. They’re not going to get it because of a Republican commitment to destroying Obama’s presidency at all costs and a few corrupt Dems and a gollum who put their own privilege ahead of the general welfare. What choice does that leave for the Dems except either give up on the idea altogether or deal for what they can get? What magic wand are they failing to wave, exactly?
dacvew, not to be a dick, but the 60 vote meme was a crock of shit.
Bush never had more than 55 senators, and typically 51:
And what i mean by “backed away” is that after achieving this majority, a number of senators (i believe ben nelson among them) made some public statements about how 60 really isn’t the magic number after all. I’ve ben searchign for the links at work.
NOTE: howard dean is now saying kill the bill.
Still not seeing the magic wand. So we got a gaggle of corrupt Dem senators when we went hunting in red states, plus a CT scumbag. They’re going to vote for their corporate bribsters instead of their constituents. What is it you expect the majority to do about it?
Under Bush we had the same kind of senators supporting the same kind of shit they’re supporting now. What is it you think the majority or the leadership can do about it?
I think Aravosis is full of shit claiming that there was no connection between Dem cooperation and Sept 11. Bush was riding high with approval ratings in the 80s as I recall. Going against the CIC in the midst of the hysteria was more than the weaker and more fearful Dems had in them — it didn’t matter if, in a rational world, the issue at hand had no direct bearing on that crisis. As to Medicare Part D, it was crappy, but better than we had before. Did you want the Dems to filibuster the whole thing?
actually, i worked at a senior center wehn part d was passed, and it was a disaster for our clients, all of who were on fixed income. that donut hole killed people, and I don’t mean that as hyperbole. i knew people who DIED.
and as aravosis points out a lot of the later stuff had NOTHING to do with 9/11. Alito was 2006, 5 years after the fact.
aravosis points more to Bush taking the bully pulpit than anything else:
I think the guy’s right. And I haven’t seen much of that “rallying the country” since early this year. Kinda stopped after january 20.
The problem I have when comparing Democrats to Republicans in this manner is that Democrats are not a monolithic group, whereas the Republicans are. It’s easier to keep party unity and gain votes when you all believe the same damned thing.
That’s what makes progressivism such a stark contrast with conservatism: we work to solve problems, conservatives accept the status quo. Not all progressives agree with the same policy to meet the same objectives, and even still, the Democratic party isn’t made up of progressives.
All moderates have been shoved out of the GOP, starting with Gingrich’s revolution.
The only area where I think the bully puplit could have been effectively used was financial regulations, and that’s because all areas of the spectrum are pissed off at the bankers. Even then, you’d have zero Republicans helping you, with a few shoddy votes in your own Caucus.
Digby once said that liberals are automatically put at a disadvantage in negotiations because everyone knows they want to help people in some way, that damned bleeding heart, and I think she’s right.
It’s also a nice distraction from the Cookie a-Crumbling. Now all we can do is worry about the scale of ‘dark money’ (the Fed’s magic act and all that drug money) that has entered our financial system and what that might have bought and why we’ve spent the billions on bankers, instead of giving tax credits for paying down principal (which also goes to bankers but also increases consumer liquidity), not encouraging further debt creation to artificially inflate the housing market.
Unless the ‘little’ get gets off the hook a bit on this one, we really are all just being turned into debt slaves.
Pwn-ership society.
Wow, BooMan, you know, I’m gonna preface this by saying that you are very sharp, and a cool head at times when I myself am a bit hot under the collar. So I respect you tremendously, and appreciate what you’ve done as I’ve watched you build this blog over the past few years.
That said, you just can’t say the word, can you? RAHM. http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/12/rahm-to-reid-give-lieberman-what-he-wants.php
I don’t understand the crappy-bill rhetoric. The Medicaid expansion all by itself is worth passing. And mandates are a fair trade for ending rescission and the pre-existing condition nonsense. Especially with the affordability credits.
I can’t tell whether you’re a person who enjoys bending over for the private insurance companies (the ones that created much of the current mess, the ones who kill people by spreadsheet) or a person who loves incumbent Democrats so much that you’ll spout anything to defend them.
brian:
I read FDL every single day and comment there as well. For a short time I was a front-pager there myself. I’ve been reading FDL almost as long, maybe longer, than BMT. I tend to see things from the FDL perspective, not the BMT perspective and i am not shy about writing what i believe.
That said, right now I believe you are being a royal fucking dick to people you don’t even know. What makes you think you have the right to tell your fellow commenters they “enjoy bending over for the insurance industry”? Do you have some magic mind-reading powers that other people don’t have? Or is it that you think everyone’s ignorant except for you, Brian Compiani, super-genius, master of Senate and House procedures? No it can’t be the latter, because just a few minutes ago i was reading a comment by you that didn’t seem to grasp how the minority can use procedure to obstruct the business of Senate.
I disagree 100% with a lot of the people here, and regularly get into sharp debates with Booman. But there’s a big difference between arguing passionately and attributing motives or thoughts to people you don’t even know. How long have you been here? A week? Two, maybe?
Your bullshit antagonism is not adding to the discussion, is not educating anyone, and is not shedding light on a complicated situation. You seem to be here only to hector the writers and readers. Way to bring people over to your side, asshat.
And jesus christ, i don’t even agree with booman on this topic AT ALL, but you are being such a fucking ASSHOLE someone has to say something. STOP BEING A FUCKING TROLL.
Thanks brendan. To me this place is one of the most reasoned political blogs there is in the blogosphere. I have learned so much from everyone who has contributed here over the time that I have been around. In my opinion the Frog Pond is second to none. So far, it has mostly avoided being regularly infiltrated by those who make generalized, unsupported and inflammatory statements which contaminate the commentary here, in spite of the fact there are often very passionate debates which take place.
The worst thing in the world that could happen here is for the comment threads to become Kos-ified, if you know what I mean.
Thanks for speaking up and saying what needed to be said.
Thank you! I was just about to post the number one rule here. Don’t be a prick.
Yeah, but it’s not Lieberman’s ego, it’s his constituency, the insurance industry.
Don’t have to be graphic about it, but they are bad guys here, they and the politicians who are beholden to their money and power.
Just is.
Giving money personhood is the problem. As I once sang:
“A company can do things
a good man would never do
like change its name and move,
and leave behind
folks who count on you.
Leave behind just a skeleton crew.”
See you on the picket line. Or the food line.
i disagree bob. it’s not even the insurance industry: it’s getting revenge on the left.
that’s amply demonstarted by the flip-flop on medicare expansion, which Lieberfuck supported 3 months ago. the minute the left said “medicare expansion? OK!”, he flipped. if the left said “we like puppies!” Lieberman would try to outlaw dogs. he’s a vindictive SOB who’s still mad about 2006.
furthermore, he owes his seat to the GOP, which saved his bacon in that election. he knows who owns him. he’s been a time bomb waiting to go off ever since, and the democrats were too busy basking in winning an election to do even recognize it.
Yep, it’s pure revenge. It might have some to do with the industry, but I think that’s on the side, quite possibly to the point of irrelevancy. Lieberman is the exact type of man who loves people fawning over him, and who holds grudges. When we said he was irrelevant, he was determined to make damn sure no one thought of him as irrelevant ever again.
Pathetic and disgusting that he’d play with human lives over such a thing, but hey, it won’t be the first time someone’s done that. I mean, a personal grudge and a want to finish daddy’s job was Bush’s rationale for invading Iraq (imo).
I think it goes deeper than that. Don’t forget, he thinks God itself wants him to be president. With that kind of mindset, dissing him is the same as dissing the god that wants him to be the new messiah. In that sense he’s kind of Bush on steroids.
I’ve come to be much more understanding of the old Soviet habit of sending political opponents to the mental hospital. If the likes of Lieberman and the GOP are any indication, that might have been the rational thing to do.
forgot about that – guess he speaks slowly b/c of the time delay of sound travelling from afar, kind of like correspondents in Baghdad being interviewed by USA based anchors. that’s why he gets December named after him
I think he’s been here about 4 days and evidently his assignment is attack Booman and annoy Frogponders. And I really appreciate Booman’s Silver Lining post here.
In principle, I agree that the bill institutes much-needed reform of the health insurance industry, which by itself is certainly worth doing. I would also argue that this bill falls way short in the area of cost containment and expanding affordable coverage. That said, it does lay down some ground rules with respect to ending some of the dirty tactics employed by insurance companies (recission, etc.). Is this anything close to universal single payer? Not by a long shot. Are we better off overall if this passes? I think so.
That said, the Dems and WH need to do a better job of explaining to people what this bill actually does, before the right-wing spin machine frames the debate yet again, tea-bagger style.
One more thing – for all the die-hards that think that the quickest way to universal single payer (my personal preference) is by screaming “fuck all the Democrats” and staying home for the 2010 elections, I respectfully suggest you re-evaluate that line of thinking.
What’s needed is for the Dems to forgo the temptation to try to spin insurance reform as real healthcare reform. Get out front in calling this a first step, much less than they wanted, but a huge movement toward ironing out some of the major injustices in the current system. If they can point to ending rescission and preexisting condition scams and some cost controls, they’ll have something worthwhile to sell that can become a rallying point for electing more and better Dems to make the next steps possible.
I think they’d have to drop the mandate, though, or make it kick in way later on condition that other parts of the plan have fallen into place by then — put the trigger on the madate, in other words, not the public option. The hardest part will be to turn on any Dem senator that blocked the bill they wanted, and to use every political weapon they have to utterly destroy Lieberman. Voters have now seen what we get from “reaching out”. What they’ll respond to now is some bloody hardball.
Just look at what kind of fine National Health Insurance Joe and Hadassah Lieberman’s beloved Israel has, google Health Care in Israel. The whole Lieberman thing is so ironic, cynical, especially considering how the USA subsidizes Israel. Everyone gets care according to means, including tourists, progressive contributions according to income, oh great, etc. But not in the good old US of A. When will a good majority of USA-ians look farther than their nose, renounce their enslavement to private corporstions? A curious bit of superstition, that one.
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Jane Hamsher about Hadassah Lieberman and her ambassadorship for the Komen Foundation
Due to its policy allowing affiliates to offer financial support to abortion providing facilities and its endorsement of embryonic stem cell research, the Respect Life Apostolate neither supports nor encourages participation in activities that benefit Susan G. Komen for the Cure.
Komen and “pinkwashing” — the use of breast cancer by corporate marketers
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."See also nyeve at Daily Kos.
You know, I’ve been trying not to pay attention to Jane’s latest crusade so I’m not entirely clear on its rationale. Therefore, my impressions are entirely superficial but, it strikes me as extremely wrong to be angry with a man and try to get even with him by attacking his wife via her charitable work.
Nobody living with scum like Lieberman can be free of the taint. It’s kind of like Bushes — there are no good ones.
Is the nuclear option not on the table? What would it take for someone to push the button?
I think we can see the role that Jane Hamsher and friends play in transmitting MSM narratives about the weakness and corruption of the Democratic leadership and Presidency. Instead of Congress being inundated with angry citizens demanding action, we get an endless stream of idiotic demands to fire Rahm Emmanuel and explanations of how the wizards on the “left” always knew Obama was a fraud and now have even more evidence.
So the “left” functions as an Teabagger support group.
Indeed it can.
But what is “left” of which you speak?
Why the people who think that Paul Krugman is a “progressive” economist and that Rahm Emmanuel is de debbil.
Nate is right and you are wrong.
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/12/why-progressives-are-batshit-crazy-to.html
The bill is still very significant.
We actually do not know who is right or wrong yet. Every day the shape and content of this legislation is shifting. It’s still got several rounds of compromise and modification yet to be imposed upon it. Every time I’ve jumped into the details and said to myself, “That’s not so bad,” that part of the bill has been altered… like my attention is a kind of jinx. Now that I’ve read Nate’s glowing hope for subsidies, they are almost certainly doomed to be discarded. LOL!
So at this point, I’ve decided to wait and judge whatever final bill is passed, if any, before deciding if it improves my life or compells me to become a desperate, dangerous outlaw.
Did you actually read it? Nate killed his own analysis right up front:
But it does change the numbers, and the subsidy is by no means set in stone. So Nate’s analysis is irrelevant – it’s based on a bill that no longer exists.
I do agree, however, that we’re bat shit crazy to automatically oppose a bill that doesn’t have x or y in it. Let’s support the process and see what we CAN get out of it. If the final bill does more harm than good, then it should be opposed. But that should be a very high bar, indeed.
If the bill passes both houses without the PO or the Medical buy-in, what are the chances one or both of those provisions will be pushed through separately via reconcilation? (apologies if this has already been asked and answered).
I would say reconciliation has a better chance of passing a PO or Medicare expansion than having it put back in the conference report. It would make more sense to pass the insurance reform now and then back it up with the PO or Medicare buy-in via reconciliation (also, this piece by itself stands a better chance of standing muster with the slew of parliamentarian objections that are sure to follow). It will take more time to do it this way, but better to take what’s on the table and go for the dessert later.
Personally, I prefer universal single-payer, but lotsa luck getting that through the current Congress…
Also, I suspect if mandates to purchase coverage are part of the final bill (likely), and people start to finally figure out they are being ripped off by the insurance companies when they are forced to buy junk insurance, there might be some more momentum for a public plan. Nobody that I can see has raised this possibility, but it fits quite well in the realm of unintended consequences, IMHO.
I think the only momentum in that case will be to throw the Dem bums out. A mandate without subsidy is pure political poison.
Although this seems to be the prevailing CW, I’m inclined to believe in the rule of unintended consequences. Once the mandate is law, the chances of getting rid of it anytime soon are slim. In fact, there may be side effects of this that we have yet to realize, which often seems to be the case with big-ticket stuff like this. Of course, then there’s the all-but-certain court challenge to any mandates…
Bottom line here: “Tough shit folks – wait another 15 years for us to even take this up again” is simply not an option, and the Dems know it. This outcome, if anything, would be more ripe for a “throw the bums out” scenario.
I don’t think the odds are slim at all. Once people see that the Dems added a new regressive “tax” to their paychecks for the benefit of the hated insurancecos, there’s gonna be another Republican generational majority. They’ll heroically zap the hated mandate in a NY minute, saving the grateful populace from yet another “liberal” sellout of the working/middle classes.
A veto/filibuster proof majority?
The other problem with axing the mandate is that you will also have to get rid of the prohibition on excluding people for pre-existing conditions. You really can’t have the latter without the former, and once this passes (no more pre-existing conditions), good luck making that go away.
I don’t believe anyone’s proposing a mandate without subsidies — without a public option, perhaps.
Massachusetts has had a mandate without a public option, penalties, and a subsidy schedule stingier that either the HELP or House tri-committee bill, and since 2006.
Latest poll has support for repealing the law at 11%. Latest figures on non-compliance have it shrinking for the third straight year.
And the backlash at the polls? The Democratic House and Senate that passed it remain 10-1 and 7-1 Democratic. Only the Republican governor who signed the legislation is gone.
The odds against a great health reform bill were always clear to anyone who did not believe that stamping feet and pouting got things done. Obama has perhaps made errors, but he’s tantalizingly close to a major win. The function of the fucking stupid “progressive” blogs is to spread Republican spin and demoralize the actual left. You can validate this easily by attempting to explain what DOL is doing to anyone of the “progressives”. You will be met by a blank hostile stare. Because apparently people who are so “leftist” that they want Tim Geithner fired (just like McConnell wants) don’t give a damn about the labor movement. And once you realize that the labor movement means nothing to the poutocracy, you realize that they are irrelevant to the project of actual reform and democracy except in as much as they succeed in convincing that the struggle is hopeless.
DOL?
Obama has done more to demoralize me than Republicans.
The Department of Labor under the most pro-labor secretary since the New Deal.
Not newsworthy in the anger-left-zone.
More Democrats? MORE DEMOCRATS?!
I don’t ever remember hearing that the Republicans needed more Republicans, even when they didn’t have anywhere near 60 votes in the Senate. However, they passed legislation after legislation over the limp Democrats who always chirped in unison that they needed More Democrats in order to fight. Well now. The Democrats have overwhelming majorities in both houses and a “Democratic” president. Now the excuse is that we still need More Democrats. John Aravosis wrote this at AmericaBlog today:
John is absolutely correct. I’m sick of hearing all the swooning distraction letters. “It’s not Obama’s fault. Nothing to see here. Look, a kitten is trapped in a tree!” Obama is in over his head. He’s not a leader, he’s a moralizing follower.
I read that in RedState too.
A recent report on the healthcare bill by the Office of the Actuary of the HHS Department estimates “savings” from the Medicare program of $571bn over ten years. Much of this would come from reduced benefits and by holding provider’s feet to the fire on costs. But the HHS report goes on to say:
Meh, it looks like Lincoln, Dodd and Reid are all toast. I do not get why Dodd is not resigning, well self over country I guess.
Doesn’t it seem like all of this carping is a bit premature before anyone has had a chance to actually read a final bill? I know many people have convinced themselves they know exactly what is in the Senate bill. Can anyone show me the Senate bill?
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Another version (pdf)
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."I’m talking about the final “compromise” bill that comes out of the Senate, sans any public option or Medicare buy-in, thanks primarily to Joe Lieberman. Seems like most of the complaining has been about the Senate version, which nobody here has seen.
Well, Dean presumably knows what’s in it, and he thinks it ain’t worth keeping. I’m inclined to trust his judgment.
I would rather see the final product myself rather than take Gov. Dean’s word for it. I realize he’s pissed off (me, too), I just think he might have been venting his frustrations a bit on Countdown tonight.
I love Howard Dean – I worked on his campaign in Vermont in 2003-2004. But even Dean can let emotions get the best of him. I share his frustration. But I want to see what the final bill looks like before saying yes or no. I think he was right to express his opinion – and he may yet prove right about what needs to be done. But I refuse to follow even the people I most respect blindly. I’ve learned over the years that EVERYONE is fallible, everyone has blind spots, and I have to make up my mind for myself.
I second that thought…He’s done more good for the Democratic Party (including his 2004 campaign) than just about anyone in recent memory. Our country would be significantly better off with more people like him in politics. I also understand why he’s pissed: mainly because he really cares! I’d support him again for Prez in a heartbeat.
Call me a slacker, but I won’t be trying to read the 2000-page (or whatever) bill, and wouldn’t know what the hell they were talking about most of the time anyway. So pretty much all of us are going to rely on somebody’s interpretation/summary. So I listen to people I trust. Dean is at the head of the line on that.
I’m not going to read it cover-to-cover either, but I would at least like to know that what we are debating for an up-or-down vote is the final product (after all amendments have been introduced and voted on/tabled/disposed of/whatever). My only point about Dean was that I think he may have been doing more venting (and justifiably so) than reasoned analysis yesterday. I, too, value his opinion on the subject, and I can hardly think of anybody more qualified to speak on the issue. From someone who really thinks universal single-payer is the way to go, I am also deeply disappointed.
Remember what Yglesias wrote last month?