[I thought I'd update and re-post this, since with HR3962 our GENIUS Dems have really outdone themselves their indefatigable efforts to preserve the two-party system by giving the Republicans ever better odds in 2010 and 2012. Not that it matters to them; they're all made in Versailles
by now anyhow. --lambert]
Obviously, I'm not a member of that curious breed, the "Democratic Strategist," nor do I play one on the teebee, nor do I have an interest in joining the League of Triple-A Democratic Strategists as a way to make it into The Show; and anyhow, if I were any good at strategerizing, somebody would be paying me to do it (Inside Rotisserie Baseball commenters take note).
Then again, because I'm not paid [except for your donations!], I can't ignore the obvious on health care insurance reform, and it seems to me that the "some bill, any bill" that the current Congress is going to emit will have some problems down the line. Among them:
1. Pffft. That deflated feeling, as of air escaping from a tire, will come when people compare the promise of "hope" and "change" to what is actually delivered -- and when (2013). As far at the [a|the] [strong|robust]? public [health insurance]? [option|plan], I still think my "baseline scenario" -- the mandate will force millions to buy junk insurance, bailing out the insurance companies -- is the most likely outcome, and it's not going to play well over time, especially with Obama's youthful base [UPDATE See Ian Welsh]. Then again, we might think that the electoral process has become a stepping stone to lucrative jobs on K Street or on the teebee, and so what we think of as the politics or optics of it all is just not relevant to insiders and wannabe insiders.
2. GENIUS framing: Pay for welfare with a new tax on working people. The Dems somehow managed to frame universal health care as welfare, because access to the health exchanges through the public option is means-tested, and the public option is subsidized [UPDATE and most of the expanded enrollment numbers are now from Medicaid, and not the pissant public option].
Means testing + subsidy = welfare.
Worse, they're forcing (working) people who already have crap insurance they don't like (hi, Wal-Mart [waves]), to keep it -- even if they too would prefer the so-called public option! And even worse than that, they're forcing people with so-called Cadillac plans -- that is, good plans that unions won -- to subsidize ... Well, can't you see the Conservative meme on this coming down the pike? I can. "Welfare Health care cheats." Yay! (Of course, as in HR676, they could be taxing Wall Street transactions. Then again, we're talking the FKDP here.)
3. Encouraging tax resistance and resistors. Yes, the Democrats have managed to make the deeply respected and welcomed Internal Revenue System a collection agent for the Q score-optimized health insurance companies: If you can't prove you've purchased (junk) insurance, the IRS will take the money out of your hide. That's going to be popular! Unfortunately, except for a few Quakers who refused to pay their phone bills during Vietnam, there's no tradition of tax resistance on the left. So who's going to do the resisting? You've got it, the right -- Just as soon as they figure out a socially acceptable way to say, "Hell, no, we're not paying the IRS so n*ggers can sleep on the same hospital sheets as your momma." Just what we need: Another flash point for right wing populism -- with no policy bulwark to defend against it (which single payer, by actually delivering care, would have provided).
4. Lack of legitimacy. I'm sure I'm not alone in regarding any health care reform process that marginalizes single payer advocates as illegitimate.
How can a health reform process that demeans and excludes the advocates of the only legislation on offer that can be proven, by evidence, to save both lives and money be legitimate?
How can a health reform process that maintains a news blackout on single payer advocates be legitimate?
I say it can't, and that goes for both the Dem leadership and the tribunes of the people on the A list.
So, this is one set of markers I've just laid down for outcomes on health care reform. I certainly hope I'm wrong!
UPDATE More following the passage by the House of HR 3962:
5. The mandate could be unconstitutional. To briefly quote:
[I]f enacted, [the mandate] would be a pecuniary burden laid upon individuals to support shareholders of insurance companies... If government mandates us to support the insurance business what will it mandate next? Is it too much to ask that Washington cite authority for such a radical mix of government power and corporate profits?
6. The Stupak amendment does not treat male and female equally before the law. To quote DDay:
[O]ver time this amendment would end reproductive choice insurance coverage entirely.
The amendment designates two areas where abortion coverage could not be offered – the public option, and on any plan receiving subsidies in the exchange. Because insurance companies would have to take all comers and not deny anyone coverage under the new bill, they would not be able to restrict customers who receive subsidies. So effectively, every plan in the exchange would not allow abortion coverage.
How can it be constiutional to restrict medical procedures on the basis of sex?
7. No Sasketchewans. HR 3962 in effect outlaws single payer experiments in the states by permitting continued successful court challenges to them under ERISA, which was what the Kucinich Amendment was designed to prevent.
8. Finally -- not that this matters to the FKDP or the "creative class," since none of them are personally affected -- Those on the margins may end up with less care, not more. Read this whole post by Cannonfire, which concludes:
She should go to the ER right away. But will she?
Under today's system of socialized emergency medicine for the poor, she probably would go to the hospital within 24 hours. But under Pelosi's plan, she knows that stepping into that hospital mean paying an unpayable fine, because she can't afford to be on a health plan. And she's terrified to fill out any forms giving out her personal information, because the last year she filled out a tax form was the year she "fell off the grid."
So she stays home, spitting out her saliva every minute, unable to sleep, feeling ready to die. Maybe she ends up doing just that.
Well, screw Ellen. She didn't pay taxes. She didn't really contribute to the economy. It's not as though society owed her a decent job or a social safety net. Let the bitch die. Too bad the taxpayers have to fork over the money to put her underground.
Ellen's story has millions of variations, and all of them will play out in the coming years.
The jobs are not coming back, because both the Republicans and the Democrats consider the remedies (protectionism, Keynesian job-creation) ideologically impermissible. If there are X number of Ellens out there right now, there will be 2X by 2015. For most of those Ellens, the awful health care system we have now is preferable to the proposed reforms.
Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama have sent a message to all of those Ellens: Get Out of My Emergency Room!
Well, sure. Not only is Ellen a woman, she's unterbussen. This is not a bug, but a feature.
UPDATE Hilariously, "Strategery" shows up in the headline of Mike Lux's latest thuggish post at "Open" "Left." The blog that everybody reads and nobody hates strikes again!
- lambert's blog
- Login or register to post comments
Front page
Comments
Chat w/ grocery clerk who brought up lousiness of Dems' health
care plans going through Congress--
Youngish guy, taking time off from finishing university due to cuts in loans available and he can't make payments while in school due to not being able to borrow enough to pay for school and pay back loans while in school.... WTF
?
Anyway, he brought up how lousy the proposed plans sounded to him and he was scared of the mandate to buy insurance, which he can't afford while a student, and he was scared of the fine if he didn't buy.
Great job, Dems. Getting known as the political party which forces unpaid mandates on every individual. Way to go.
Now, if the health care plan which Dems passed meant everyone was on a level playing field, things would be different. People woule not resent taxes to pay for clearly evenhanded, fair, everyone gets the same coverage health care. People respond to fairness (as tests have shown, even little kids do, as well as primates), but they also respond strongly to seeing things which feel unfair to them. Multi-level health care? Oh, just great, Dems. With the poor being better off than those just above the cutoff point? Not too smart, Dems.
Think about those bank ads with the little kids getting bamboozled by some slick salesman type (even about a pony!). That's going to be the template to for Repub ads against Dems.
Think about cuts to Medicare to pay for general health care. Think about paying to keep the Big Insurance Pararsites in the profits to which they have become acustomed....
And affordability? Heh. Only logical, sensible, fair way is single payer. Medicare for All...with a robust private plan.
I'm with
jawbone 100%. I heard last night Sanders might filibuster. I'm going to write him and a few of the,hopefully, sane members left in the Senate to support him.
par4
mirabile dictu!
Maybe Sanders can save the Democratic Party from itself.
Nothing is true; everything is permitted.
And another thing!
For #7, or an item of its own: in the wake of the horribleness of the Stupak bill, the Democrats other unterbussen move for women has been a bit forgotten. No coverage for birth control or standard girly-parts wellness care:
from Lerner at The Nation, via TC.
Some women's groups are celebrating that the bill ends gender-based discrimination in premiums (Lerner mentions it, her whole bit is worth the read). But by not making basic gynecological care part of covered services, what the Dems give with one hand they take away with the other, by making women pay for the services that only women get.
You don’t know me, son. So let me explain this to you once: If I ever kill you, you’ll be awake, you’ll be facing me, and you’ll be armed.
-Malcolm Reynolds, “Serenity”
Then again, we might think
Then again, we might think that the electoral process has become a stepping stone to lucrative jobs on K Street or on the teebee, and so what we think of as the politics or optics of it all is just not relevant to insiders and wannabe insiders.
More and more I think people are taking Tauzin as their role model.
It would be pretty funny if a filibuster by Lieberman and Sanders killed this turkey. It is incredible that anyone would think it is a good idea.
NYT Kristof: top priority is pass a bill, any bill
Nicholas Krisof wrote in his Facebook update (around 10:15 AM EST):
That's right: the Stupak amendment is just a "curb" on the human rights and medical care of women and girls. The top priority is "reform" for men (As we have mentioned already, this isn't even actual health care but just a rearrangement of a murderous system).
Honestly, if the basic human rights of an entire group is something that can be passed over by a group then you have to wonder about the so-called heath "care" they're proposing. How is that not a huge red flag, even if you didn't give a fuck about gender rights?
Just substitute one oppressed group for another,
and let's see how this would fly.
Am I wrong, or would this seem like a bigoted statement for Kristof to make?
ERA Now!
Yes, it's bigoted
The trump card so many, including supposedly pro-rights people, use is that abortion is a weighty moral issue involving "life" so we must be extra careful to respect the opinions of obvious bigots. Even if it were true, that every fetus was an actual person, there are certain rights that cannot be violated regardless of someone else's life hanging in the balance. I have a little niece and let's say I was the only person in the world who could save her life by donating some bone marrow. No one could force me to save her life. If we don't have a right to individual autonomy, what rights do we have as human beings? Being a person is more than simply being alive but having rights and liberties.
I was quite surprised when I read that Kristof update this morning. I had to read it twice because this is a man who presents himself as a champion of gender rights. He's hawking a book on the subject right now, actually. The majority of comments were supportive of his stance. Even if this was actual single payer reform, how can we be OK with denying any group their fundamental rights, particularly when they involve medical care?
Deny one group's rights, deny all
because if rights can be denied, they aren't rights, they're privileges and so you have no rights. The principles behind the Stupak amendment (and the Hyde amendment for that matter) affect everyone whether people want to admit it or not.
"Do what you feel in your heart to be right -- for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do, and damned if you don't. " - Eleanor Roosevelt
Sing it, BDBlue!
I am sick over this. Especially after having been beaten about the head with Roe v Wade last year.
Feminism* does not equal Roe v Wade, and thinking so will sink us. Thank heaven for the new NOW leadership, so far...
* and. as far as I'm concerned, feminism = humanism.
---------------
We can't afford not to have single-payer!
I feel it's because the Third Wave got off track.
I'm not saying Second Wave feminism was perfect, because I understand that women who were neither white, nor middle-class, felt excluded from it. So, I understand the historical need for a Third Wave. However, the thing we really, really did not want to do was take the focus off public policy and put it into navel-gazing and "empowering" our sexuality. Pardon me, but the personal is NOT political. The political is political. And everyone's sexuality is different, so there is no way to build a movement on it.
It seems to me that feminism was only successful when it focused on a single issue and didn't give in until that issue had been recognized at a Constitutional level. "Votes for women" worked because women were absolutely relentless and gained the support of key government figures in their fight. They even won over Woodrow Wilson after a while. "Equality for women" worked also, until the ERA was stopped in its tracks by Phyllis Schafly and her crowd of anti-feminists. Because abortion was legalized, feminists seemed to let the ERA go, thinking that the fight was basically over.
Unfortunately, ever since then, we've been losing ground to the fundiegelicals. I feel that we who support equal rights for women, need to rediscover that focus and disengage from the political process except where it concerns ratifying the ERA. No volunteering. No donating. No voting. No nothing until the ERA is ratified and women receive explicit Constitutional protection, just like men do.
ERA Now!