“Progressives” now stand behind the notion that the best we can do is to privatize the profits and socialize the losses. That’s where this bill falls short. If it included strict regulation (and enforcement of that regulation) of the insurance industry it would be the good start that all the president’s men (and women) proclaim it to be.

“Kick ass President”…as the Kool-Aid man would say, “Oh Yeah!” No, sorry, by the time the general election rolled around i was just voting against Sarah Palin…and not even against John McCain.

He had to start somewhere in reforming healthcare. There was a tremendous backlash with even the mention of a public option. Do you think it would’ve been possible in one fell swoop to completely shutter the current system. I read articles like this and wonder what reality the author is living in at times. This is the beginning minute of a 12 round fight and you sound as though you want to throw in the towel already because of a bumpy start. What are your options, name a candidate that would be popular enough to be voted into office that reflects your platform (doesn’t sound like you’d support Kucinich either). Just relax it’ll be up to all of us and our kids to make this the system it should be. Sounds as though you might have overdone it with the koolaid during the campaign and you got stuck with a nasty lingering hangover. You thought you were electing Super Man and all you got was a kick-ass President… sorry…

Never underestimate the power of the people in government to screw the people. That’s why libertarians say we should limit the power of government.

By the way, if an insurance company is run right and use the premiums like they’re supposed to, they don’t need the government to “force people to buy their insurance”. They don’t have to drop people or deny them coverage and they still make profits by providing real health insurance.

If you don’t recognize what this health care bill is, it’s called a CARTEL. Not a cartel that provides valuable products that people want but one that scams money out of the hands of consumers enforced by government.

Another example of a cartel is the Federal Reserve System with it’s head corporations J.P. Morgan/Chase and the other criminal gang.

Actually, lots of analysts predicted that healthcare stocks would rally once a bill was passed. There are two reasons for this. First, passage of the bill finally removes uncertainty over what would be put into place. The thing markets hate most is uncertainty, and that’s now gone. So while health insurers and pharma companies will see more earnings here, from the 32 million potential patients coming into their world, their costs will also be going up as well. But market analysts can now make some reasonable guesses about costs and benefits. Second, pharma stocks, by the way, have been trading at historically low multiples, so about the only way they could go is up, anyway. So don’t read too much into this.

I respect the perspectives here, but I notice that so far nobody has bitten off an important question I raised: to wit, Obama cut a secret backroom deal with the insurance industry before the dance began.

So what? We weren’t going to get single payer with a bunch of Blue Dogs running around, and clowns like Lieberman blocking everything in sight. Sausages and laws, as I said earlier.

We saw an example in the Brown versus Coakley contest in Massachusetts late last year, in which Brown ran campaign commercials blasting the mandate, after it was included but long before it was signed into law…with Brown squeaking out a win. I get the feeling that the same thing is about to happen in November.

Strongly disagree. Brown won simply because everyone loathed Coakley, who ran probably the worst campaign in modern memory, and managed to insult fans of both the Boston Red Sox and the Boston Bruins–actually, quite an achievement, if you think about it.. I know everyone reads ol lots of positive tea party spin into his win–these people will certainly be disappointed. In two years whjen Brown runs for re-relection, he will undoubtedly lose to pretty much any Democrat who actually bothers to campaign.

The point is that Obama is either nefarious or incompetent, because he didn’t bother leveraging his power for the best bill possible. Which arms did he twist? Who did he threaten? Man, the original House bill wasn’t too shabby, but that’s not what we got.

You know, I don’t disagree here. I think we could have gotten a better bill too. Maybe. But I don’t know what that would have cost in terms of re-election prospects, individual deal-making, and other aspects of the political calculus of this. I have numberous disappointments with Obama–appointing Summers and Geithner in particular, but also the squiishy Justice Department rulings on John Yoo etc, the shafting of Howard Dean, the fact that Guantanamo hasn’t been closed, and a whole raft of other things, incuding the potential prospect of a never-ending war in Afghanistan.. So that’s a pretty good list of reasons to not trust the guy. I don’t dispute that. I voted for Edwards, who had a much better healthcare platform than either Obama or Hilary, and look what heppened with him. Talk about self-immolation. So what do I know?

But here’s where I come from. I didn’t vote in the 1968 presidential elections, mainly because I, like many others, was indignant over the Chicago convention, how Humphrey’s nomination was pushed through and McCarthy got screwed, the behavior of the Chicago police (yes, it was, in fact, a police riot) and the rest of it. I was outraged, and I fully bought into the “no difference” meme then. It’s not new, you know. And there were enough people like me to make a difference in the election.

So what we got instead was Richard Nixon, the Southern Strategy and the Republican re-alignment in the South, the the transformation of the Republican party from conservatism to corporatism, and everything that led to Ronald Reagan and the dismantling of the Americn dream, the results of which we are still witnessing in the wreckage of our cities, the increasing economic polarization of our population, and the increeasingly virulent racism of a major American political party. And Bush, with his legions of appointments of people whose sole purpose was to dismantle goverment while making themselves rich at the same time. Oh, and being Christians.

So I take the long view here. Do I want Obama and his people to be better? Of course. But will I take a disappointing Obama over any Republican? Absolutely. I mean, just look at them–Mitt Romney? Tim Pawlenty? Mike Pence? Eric Cantor? Palin? You’ve got a combined IQ of about 100 here, and any of them could become president. But the only way we’re going to make Obama and the Democratic leadership better and more responsive is to make our representatives better. Which means remaining actively involved, not withdrawing. I firmly believe that. Which is why I have voted in every election since 1968, even those where I figured it probably didn’t affect the outcome. It’s what you do.

“notaboomer

let the trading in mandated-health-insurance- premiums-backed derivatives begin.”

Once millions of uninsured start signing up, billions in taxpayer money will flood the bank accounts of the health insurers. Will they then repackage this money as derivatives, get bond-rating agencies to rate them as AAA, and sell these derivatives packages on the financial markets?

Sound familiar?

The only difference is that taxpayers are “bailing out” the health insurers, and the uninsured, on the front end, while in the case of sub-prime mortgage-based derivatives packages, taxpayers did the “bailing out” on the tail end.

And while the health insurers and their investors hardly need to be “bailed out” (they’re hardly dying like Lehman Brothers or Bear Stearns did during the sub-prime mortgage derivatives meltdown), the uninsured do (because 44,000 actually keep dying each year, thrown under the for-profit bus).

But wouldn’t a robust public option have saved the lives of these people (the uninsured and their children), too, and dramatically brought down rising health costs as well? Aaaah, but this taxpayer-backed, government-run public option would have cut out the middle-men, the health insurers, and some people in Washington and on Wall Street could not allow this to happen. No “bail outs” would be allowed unless those “bail outs” passed through the hands of the health insurers first.

In the mandate, a whole lot of money will land in the hands of the health insurers and their bankers, making it possible for a huge slush fund to arise to cover insurance premiums for the uninsured. It will sit there, paying out occasionally for medical expenses. What to do with the rest? Derivatives packages, anyone? But this time taxpayer-assured at the front end? What a neat trick. I wonder which health industry lobbyist came up with this idea, an idea that was incorporated in the final health care “reform” package, in place of any public option or universal single-payer being included? Someone who also added the IRS as the enforcement arm of the mandate?

On the electoral front, do any Democrats in Washington realize how the Republicans will use this before the November elections? We saw an example in the Brown versus Coakley contest in Massachusetts late last year, in which Brown ran campaign commercials blasting the mandate, after it was included but long before it was signed into law…with Brown squeaking out a win. I get the feeling that the same thing is about to happen in November.

And this really pisses me off about this debate. The “pro-Obama” (for lack of a better phrase) people keep saying things like it’s unrealistic to have gotten better or think how much worse it would be without what we got. And blah, blah, motherfucking blah.

Look. NOBODY got health care out of this, they get to buy insurance…which may, or may not, actually provide the health care they need when they need it without bankrupting them. A great many of the medical expense related bankruptcies in this nation happen to people who have insurance. Let me know when our leaders deem it wise to include rate regulation in the bill mandating that we purchase insurance. See who’s getting regulated here?

I get that the political process is messy, venal and ugly beyond comparison. I never expected perfect. What i did expect is that a Democratic president with majorities in both houses wouldn’t spend the whole run-up and debate time quashing every last good idea put forward. This isn’t Civil Rights legislation. This is corporate regulation, and once again, a corporate sector went into being “reformed” coming out smelling like roses. How’d those insurance stocks do today? 30 million mandated customers couldn’t have hurt, eh?

The point is that Obama is either nefarious or incompetent, because he didn’t bother leveraging his power for the best bill possible. Which arms did he twist? Who did he threaten? Man, the original House bill wasn’t too shabby, but that’s not what we got.

I’ve never thought that single-payer had an ice cube’s chance in hell of being enacted now or in the near future (and now, never). But as i’ve said more than a few times, there are proven, market based models out there that were ignored. The Swiss, the Dutch, the Koreans (and maybe more, but those are off the top of my head) all have market based systems that work…the Korean system is more mixed than simply market based, but i know first-hand that it works.

Sure this could be improved in the future. The PATRIOT Act could be repealed too…multiple pointless wars could be ended…the banks could be regulated…the economy could be put on a realistic footing. Give me some odds that any of these things will happen under this president.

Hopium addiction is dangerous. These people aren’t going to do the right thing without being pushed and pushed hard, but we’re not supposed to push…we’re supposed to be thankful for whatever they give us and hope that they’ll give us some more?

And as for me getting a drunk pregnant. It wouldn’t have been a problem, but the Democrats are doing their best to make sure we can’t abort the poor thing.

It means a door that has been shut tight as a clam for ninety years has now been wedged open by a tiny crack. When progressives can elect more than 50% of the Democratic Caucus to the House and more than 1 and a half progressive Senators, maybe we’ll see something better. Abandoning the path because the first uncertain step does not complete the journey is an affront to the millions who have died without seeing much real progress in their entire lifetimes. The perfect should not be the enemy of the good. I think Voltaire said that.

Now, maybe this means it was the only way to get a deal done. Maybe it means he’s a sold-out whore. Maybe it means something in between. I’d love it if someone here, preferably someone in the camp that’s more or less arguing the Pro-Obama point in the debate, would tell me what they think it means.

Sorry, it was too much to resist. But I don’t admit the validity of the metaphor in the first place. Most of the effects of FAS are not, to put it a bit too simply, fixable. A bill, a law, a system can be changed. Microencephalitis cannot.

And thank goodness Wufnik chimed in… just how does anyone over the age of twelve think change in a huge system happens? Smoothly? Elegantly? With moral certitude and choirs from on high? You’ve been shouting for years now that he’s not the Messiah. WE KNOW.

First it’s “he’s just a man, we don’t expect miracles, he’s the best choice we’ve got left” (which is perfectly legitimate and very good to remember) and then it’s “he’s flawed, he’s not performing the Immaculate Conception of Health Care Reform, oh my sainted aunt he’s a POLITICIAN.” Yes, he is, and a very adept one, and just how much of that ineffable commodity called political capital do you think he had to spend to even get the issue up for a vote? Don’t you understand that this particular politician has now given up the only political goal left for someone who’s been elected President? Do you believe that he believes he’ll be re-elected? Show me someone, anyone, at the level of national influence who’s been willing to do that… and don’t start by looking around in the last thirty years or so.

Finally, if anyone here has ever tried to get urgently-needed health care for a completely incapacitated and totally indigent person, and I mean someone who is DYING and has NO other resources, then go ahead. Talk to me at length about how much this sucks without offering any suggestions for improvement. Maybe I’ll listen. Probably not. I’ll probably be thinking about beating Medicare and Medicaid deadlines, navigating the overlapping and hugely overworked city, county, state and federal mishmash of harassed and exhausted caregivers, charming my way to the top of a hundred-and-fifty-person waiting list again, filing paperwork in triplicate, quadruplicate, online, in person, by mail, coordinating doctors’ reports with regulations from agencies which use completely different terms for the same already abstruse medical concepts, spending ten hours a day driving, calling, sitting, waiting and all the time knowing that I’m able to do this only because I DON’T have a full-time job, I DO have my own private health insurance, I DO have all the privileges and social advantages of an upper-middle-class existence plus being able to afford my own much-needed meds and if I didn’t, as most people don’t, the person I love would be DEAD by now… I’m sorry, what were you saying? This change isn’t perfect?

In other words, I’ll be getting the fuck on with things.

“Regardless of how lame the Obama Administration has been, the recent and upcoming SCOTUS rulings on gun control should be a wake-up call about how wrong the Naderites were about how there is ”no difference between the Democrats and Republicans.’ Shrubya had 8 years to replace retiring liberal and moderate justices with reactionary activists. The result? Sometime this summer you are going to wake up one morning in a country where all gun control laws have been abolished.”

Discuss.

“The fact is, compromises with venality and/or evil are almost always necessary in the American political system; it’s virtually impossible to accomplish anything without buying off powerful interests. Getting anything like universal health coverage is going to require giving protection money to insurance interests. This is nothing to be happy about, but arguments that fail to recognize this aren’t going to be very useful.”

And, you know, I was around during the passage of the Civil Rights Bill that Johnson got through Congress. There was a whole lot of ugliness that attached to that as well, including a whole bunch of deal-making that would be vaguely reminiscent of what’s gone on here. Just keep in mind that while this might not be as revolutionary as either the Civil Rights bill or Medicare, there are millions of people who will benefit in various and important ways from the bill that just got passed. Of course it’s not what many of us wanted–my wife is just as upset as some of the people here–but, yes, you take what you can get. Obama counted up the votes he could get, then had to figure out how to get them, and did what he had to do. Two things you should never watch being made, as the saying goes–sausage and laws.

I’m sure that if people here have suggestions on how to get rid to the Blue Dog Democrats and people like Lieberman or Nelson, Obama would appreciate hearing them. As far as I can tell, the only way to do that is to beat them in primaries or elections.

I can appreciate the feeling of being unelectable. The closest I’ve come is working for a mayoral campaign as a full-time staffer. Local politics are SERIOUSLY ugly and any skeletons (real, imaginary, or Photoshopped) will be exhumed by private investigators and supporters of the opposition and paraded in public. I wouldn’t put my family or friends through that. And my skeletons aren’t that bad (but guilt by association or marriage can be just as damaging).

I’m with Ann on this–I’d rather be optimistic. It’s not universal, single-payer healthcare, but we’ve got to do something. Of course, we’ll be just as tarred and feathered for this quarter-measure as we would have been for a real government takeover, so maybe we should have just gone for the big brass ring (but few people in DC have the guts for that fight).

So here’s the real question: if we’re all fed up with the status quo in terms of inaction, wrong action, poor choices, etc. WHAT DO WE DO? Not voting is NOT an option–it’s NOT DOING.

No, but that doesn’t mean i won’t be mad as hell at the mother for giving the poor thing fetal alcohol syndrome to start life with.

That’s not rhetorical. I’d really like to know what you think.

Sam – a minor correction – it was a much greater mind, Groucho Marx, who responded with that famous quote about not joining any club that would have someone like him as a member in response to a protests against a Beverly Hills CC that wouldn’t admit – Jews (including Groucho and his brothers)…when another CC offered Groucho admission, he uttered those famous words…and that’s the rest of the story….

A buddy of mine who served as a Green Beret in Vietnam responded this way when I asked him if he’d be voting for Nixon or McGovern in 1972 – “Fuck ‘em. Fuck ‘em all….” He went to his grave feeling that way. I swore I didn’t want to go to mine feeling like that….

And I don’t go a day anymore without remembering that wonderful quote from GB Shaw: “The more I see of men, the better I like dogs….”

And Jeff, it’s not about being conned – it’s about trying to make America work – and feeling frustrated that one’s best efforts at good, responsible citizenship are seen inside the Beltway as gullibility and stupidity. I understand why it’s made Lex, Sam, et al, as skeptical, even cynical, as they are.

I hear America singing – and it is not a pretty song….