I frequently lose patience with Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York. Perhaps his comments wouldn’t look so bad in their full context but he sounds like he values middle class voters more than the underclass and the medically uninsured:
Democrats made a mistake by passing President Barack Obama’s health-care law in 2010 instead of focusing more directly on helping the middle class, third-ranking U.S. Senate Democrat Charles Schumer said today.
“Unfortunately, Democrats blew the opportunity the American people gave them” in electing Obama and a Democratic Congress in 2008 amid a recession, Schumer of New York said in a speech in Washington. “We took their mandate and put all our focus on the wrong problem — health care reform.”
Schumer said Democrats should have addressed issues aiding the middle class to build confidence among voters before turning to revamping the health-care system. He said he opposed the timing of the health-care vote and was overruled by other party members.
I’d be more willing to forgive these remarks as Monday morning quarterbacking about political strategy if the analysis was worth a damn. Had the Democrats not pursued health care reform in 2009, they surely would not have enacted it in late 2010. In truth, 2009 was the only “opportunity the American people gave them” to get it done.
We don’t live in a magical world where the Democrats could have passed immigration reform in 2009 and health care reform on the eve of the 2010 midterms. Some things couldn’t wait and other things had to wait, and still other things never got done because the opportunity to do them was crowded out by the economic crisis.
I wish we didn’t have to trade people’s lives to have a better political strategy, but that was the choice we faced, and I’m glad we didn’t follow Schumer’s horrible advice and make the wrong decision.
If you want to know why the Democratic brand isn’t better, take a look at their message man, Chuck Schumer.
Wall Street gave their support to Obama for exactly the outcome that happened. Obama became President and Wall Street became even more powerful. ACA was the conciliation prize for the people. As head of the Congressional Corporate Caucus I don’t understand Schumer’s problem since his friends won.
Don’t worry Chuckie — at the rate you and your Wall St. buddies are killing off the “middle class,” there won’t be enough of them left to concern yourself with.
He’s right that Dems should focus on helping the middle class more. And the way to do that was to does gn a health care reform that more obviously helped the middle class as well as the uninsured.
*design, stupid tablet auto correct.
In the political environment at the time, with the GOP having been all-in without complete obstructionism from the beginning, I’m curious as to how it could have been designed to “help the middle class” without causing the deficit scolds to shit their pants?
Being able to keep their kids on their insurance until they are 26 helped the middle class
Closing the donut hole helped the middle class
Ending pre-existing condition restrictions for insurance helped the middle class
That said I will always say that the biggest mistake the Obama team made was over learning the lessons of the Clintons’ attempt at healthcare reform. Where theirs died in committee because they didn’t consult congress at all Obama let the gang of 6 in the Senate drag out the process way too long and thus gave the Republicans the oxygen to define the bill to the public at large. What should have happened is before that August recess the Obama team going to them and saying okay what sweeteners do you need in this to get your vote so this can be moved out of committee. Once they named their price they should have simply been “bought off” with it so the bill could have been moved along.
And this is my really controversial opinion among progressives. Losing Daschle as HHS secretary was what really torpedoed the healthcare reform process. Yes I know many a progressive can’t stand the guy but he knows healthcare and more importantly he knows the Senate. If he were the one leading the process for the White House I believe he would have been able to push the bill through the gang of 6 quicker and we wouldn’t have had the disastrous August 2009 recess because a bill would have been all but done. As a WH official said at the time this is a huge blow. There is really no one else.
After Daschle got the bill through the Senate he could have stepped down and someone with insurance experience like Sebeilus could have stepped up.
But you know what else? A lot of the middle class already have employer insurance. They were satisfied and with it. What they see is the government giving money to poor people so they can get something the middle class already has, only for cheaper while they don’t get help. We live paycheck to paycheck but qualify for $10 of subsidies each for example. (I want to point out that I think Obamacare was better than nothing but only because our system was garbage.)
Meanwhile any premium increases are blamed on Obamacare by insurance companies who are finding new ways to screw over everyone. Its no wonder if the middle class are disgruntled by the law.
Because there are parts of the ACA that benefit the middle class. Closing the donut hole is a big one. Guess who no longer has to cover the donut hole for mom and dad? The middle class.
That is why I say the process was problematic to say the least. The bill stalling with the “gang of 6” gave the Republicans the oxygen they needed to define it as handout for the poor. Had it been pushed through the Senate quicker that disastrous August recess could have been avoided. That is also why I say losing Daschle as HHS secretary precisely at the time the administration needed someone who could work the Senate was what really knee-capped the whole thing.
Schumer’s comments are maddening and entirely representative of the wimpy strategy that doesn’t shout out the accomplishments the Dems can take credit for. I don’t care much for Terry McCauliff, but he is spot on with his recent criticisms of his party. Sure, folks who have insurance through their employers gained little immediately from the ACA. But it should give them security and freedom to know they are no longer tied to their jobs just for the insurance. That is huge IMO.
Only in the sense that those who have achieved a level of privilege are able to extend a piece of that privilege to their children long after they are legally adults. IOW further stacking the deck for the children of the “haves.”
And we wonder why there’s so little US income/wealth mobility between the classes.
And now that insurance can be used by their children until they are 26 if they don’t find a job that offers it.
Or maybe we should deal with the problem of jobs.
Not getting why liberals are in favor of people being dependent on a parent’s health insurance coverage (most likely their employer sponsored health plan) until they’re 26 years old but they are adults for other rights and privileges years before then.
God! Now having a job is privilege?
Is having a job a right? How many millions in this country and billions in the world would like to have your job, income, and bennies?
Quite a few would like to have it since I’m at the median income with above average bennies. But it’s neither a privilege or a right. What is a right is how I got the job, by free and open competitive exam without regard to race, religion, gender, politics or age. My immediate co-workers, at my pay level and title, are white, black, East Indian, Korean, Chinese, Filipino, Mexican and Puerto Rican. The whites include ethnics like me, southerners from Arkansas, Kentucky, and Missouri, and northern anglo-germanic whites. We include atheists, agnostics, Protestants, Catholics, buddhists, and Muslims (three – one arab, two Indians). We used to have a Jew but he retired. There are four women and eighteen men, however that ratio would be expected in contemporary America in a technical blue collar job. We also have a Native American but he is at a higher pay grade than I. Political views range from Tea Party through regulation Democrats to two avowed Socialists.
That’s the way it should be. And it should be everyone’s right to compete under those conditions.
I should add that our ages range between 45 and 81 with most in the 54-65 bracket. We do need some young blood, but that’s difficult with declining employment.
And we have a union, without that we could never have negotiated the pay and benefits.
It’s almost like Schumer hasn’t heard that the Republicans got together right after the election and decided to fight everything Obama would do, tooth and nail. It’s almost like he wasn’t there when they passed the stimulus bill with no Republican votes. But he was, so I don’t know what his goal was in saying this. Sometimes I really feel that Democrats feel their purpose in life is to make sure the Republican party remains viable.
Plus, you can’t helped but be moved by the Senator from Wall Street’s touching concern for the middle class that his owners destroyed.
He sounds like a fool. I completely agree with the order of priorities that Obama took in the broad sense–as much stimulus as you could get, which helped the middle class A LOT, then get health insurance done, which helped middle class a lot because of the way it lowered the spiraling costs of healthcare, etc. I have heard people wish we could have gotten some kind of jumbo stimulus that would have set us up for a better 2010 midterm, and so on, but I don’t think the political realities supported that.
For getting the most bang for your buck and strategic thinking, Obama isn’t perfect, but I do think he’s the best in the business.
does he suggest as a replacement? I don’t recall him arguing the stimulus package was too small.
Democrats erred by not passing the health care bill that Americans openly or secretly wanted–Medicare for All.
Democrats erred by allowing Wellpoint to write the legislation.
Democrats erred by not defeating Joe Lieberman when he ran as an independent.
Democrats erred when they deferred to Chuck Schumer on banking and financial regulation policy.
Democrats erred in letting the Blue Dogs set the agenda instead of having them walk the plank (platform variety) sooner rather than later.
Democrats erred by not going big on infrastructure when they had enough votes.
Chuckie is much too restrained in his critique. It must be some sort of dog-whistle to the Cuomo fans.
Democrats erred when they were part of an institution called the U.S. Senate that gummed up, via the filibuster, over 400 GREAT bills from the house that Obama would have been happy to sign, including a carbon tax. Democrats erred as a sentence starter only works because of the outsized power that the system gives people like Max Baucus and Joe Lieberman.
Especially the part about making blue dogs walk the plank. Like it or not a progressive democrat is not going to get elected in every state in the country.
I will never understand the cognitive dissonance of progressives saying we need Dean’s 50 state strategy (which I agree with by the way) in one breath and then saying the blue dogs need to go in another.
You want a 50 state strategy? The price of that is blue dogs.
Also the Ds NEVER had enough votes to go big on infrastructure. Here goes my other unpopular opinion I blame part of that on liberal lion Ted Kennedy. He was very ill and he knew it. He should have stepped down before he collapsed. Same with Robert Byrd.
Finally, like it or not, all Americans don’t openly or secretly want Medicare for all. Many like their employer mandated insurance. Beyond that single payer is not the only system that works. Germany doesn’t have a single payer system. They have highly regulated employer insurance and a strong public insurance system for the impoverished.
I think it is a shortcoming of progressives that they have honed in on single payer as the only viable solution (while at the same time oddly touting the merits of many a national healthcare system like Germany and France that is not single payer)
There is an argument that politicians reflect their constituents; another is that politicians can shape the opinions of their constituents.
The pro-infrastructure “progressive” Democratic politicians of the 1960s and 1970s in local and state office in the Carolinas were able to make the argument for their positions and shape their constituency to some extent.
The price of a 50-state constituency is not Blue Dogs. No one has tried to buck the conventional wisdom of the past 30 years and try a populist and progressive alternative to Republicans. It is not for nothing that the conservative critique of the Republican Party in the 1960s included the tag line “a choice not an echo”. Neither in primaries or in the general election are voters being given a choice. Nor are they being given a choice between sold-out politicians and politicians who will look out for their interests.
France and Germany might not be single payer but they are so tightly regulated that they might as well be. Otherwise, it is not a “national” healthcare system but some sort of strange market.
Sounds like some folks are making an active case against progressive solutions to the issues that face the country just on the basis of a label.
I agree medicare for all would be the best option. But if you are going to write an insurance plan, for heavens sake add more regulations about costs and deductibles. A little more help for catastrophic illness would be nice and make it truly universal.
Schumer is my senator, and this really pisses me off. I just sent him a note to let him know.
Nobody in the Senate fights harder for the middle class than Elizabeth Warren. Certainly a lot harder than Schumer. E.J. Dionne, after an interview with Warren, wrote in his PostPartisan blog of Aug.23, 2012:
“I was struck by her comments on the Affordable Care Act because she is arguing that Democrats have been reluctant to claim and defend the act as a major achievement, and that this is a mistake. Warren believes (and I happen to agree) that the law is not only a substantial accomplishment, but also provides a foundation for further improvements in the American health care system. For too long, many of those who supported and voted for the act have been reluctant to talk about it.” And Dionne prints Warren’s full remarks further down.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/post/elizabeth-warren-on-health-care-and-religion/
2012/08/23/5c509058-ed6c-11e1-9ddc-340d5efb1e9c_blog.html
It is exactly this running from the ACA that cost Democrats numerous seats in the recent election. But for Schumer, after this object lesson in self-defeat, apparently it’s not enough not to talk about it, he has to tell the world it was a mistake to pass it in 2010.
Pray tell Mr Schumer, when else could you have passed it? It’s a miracle you passed it at all.
Self-serving twit.
Bravo. Exhibit A in the “Runnin’ From Obamacare” strategy. Who needs Repubs with this kind of Dem[!] messaging?
I suppose Schumer responds that he was just criticizing the “timing”. Well, exactly when were Dems supposed to pass health care reform, if not 2010? Further, the “timing” wasn’t exactly all Repubs were attacking, they were attacking substance as well.
Finally, his explanation (“we focused our efforts on health care”) means that the Congress can’t walk and chew gum at the same time, despite that fact that many, many bills were actually enacted by the Dem Congress and Obama in 2009-2010. Remember the Repub “It’s all toooooo much!” lament?
Historians will probably bat this one around for some time when the Obama years begin to be “history”. But what kind of helpful politics is this to the Dem brand right now, and from leadership no less? Who’s being blamed Obama, Congressional Dems or both?
Health care was much bandied about as an issue in 2008, as I recall. As usual with extraordinarily complicated policy areas, no prez candidate had much of a comprehensive plan thrown out, details were verboten. Was any type of health care finance reform certain to doom Dems, Chuck, or just the one that was finally arrived at after seemingly interminable efforts. If the ACA wasn’t (and isn’t) “popular”, that doesn’t mean something else wouldn’t have been more popular, but of course more popular things (like a public option) were tubed by Conserva-Dems Lieberturd, Nelson etc.
It’s pretty easy to mouth “helpin’ the middle class!” these days. The more difficult matter (in 2009 and now) is exactly what you are going to propose to do. Basically, as Marie2 has spent some pixels explaining, the issue is massive wage stagnation and all GDP growth being skimmed off by Wall Street Wizards and Plutocrats–i.e. Chuck’s constituents, as just about everyone here has already noted. So listening to him talk about how he personally had “other priorities that were overruled” (without specifics, as usual) is a bit hard to take.
Leave aside that the actual priority (in 2009 and now) was combating climate change (we know that was never popular with anyone), yet that was Pelosi’s first big bill passed, sent to die in the World’s Greatest Deliberative Body (barf). She also passed health care reform with a public option, which IMO would have gone some way to make the ACA more popular with all. But Chuck’s senate colleague’s with filibuster proof majority sat on their hands and Repubs practiced their slash and burn politics, to great effect.
If this is some new Dem gambit by Schumer to focus on proposals that ACTUALLY help the middle class, that might be one thing. With a completely destroyed brand, Dem leadership sure as hell better start coming up with something big, and not wait for the Prez candidates to advance everything in their uselessly vague manner.
But REALLY “helping the middle class” is going to mean cramming significant new rules and regimes concerning employment security and unionization and imports and outsourcing and subcontracting and domestic job creation. In other words, all the million-and-one things Chuck’s Wall Streeters and CEOs and hedge fund artists, etc. are using to drive down wages and shovel the mass of profits and earnings back into the hands of the already rich and away from the working schmoes. So don’t talk about things that you’d really best keep your mouth shut about, Mr, Wall Street enabler and protector. If you start talking about the “middle class”, whose side are you actually going to be on?
Wasn’t the senior Senator from New York the guy killing proposals in committee? I think it’s time for him to retire. He had a good run.
So what did Schumer want instead of health care reform? More tax cuts and bank bailouts? Oh! We got those too.
how mass murderers can walk into so many elected officials’ offices and get a sympathetic hearing
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Neither in primaries or in the general election are voters being given a choice. Nor are they being given a choice between sold-out politicians and politicians who will look out for their interests.dich vu thiet ke web
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