Daily Kos: Obama's Health Care Poker Game

B-)

Daily Kos blogger:

There are as many theories as there are pundits about what the Obama White House is up to on health care reform.

Let's assume that, as a poker player, Obama is at least following the fundamental theorem of poker:

Every time you play a hand differently from the way you would have played it if you could see all your opponents' cards, they gain; and every time you play your hand the same way you would have played it if you could see all their cards, they lose. Conversely, every time opponents play their hands differently from the way they would have if they could see all your cards, you gain; and every time they play their hands the same way they would have played if they could see all your cards, you lose.

Some of the obfuscation and shifting positions -- like where is the line in the sand? is it at the public option or somewhere else? -- become a little clearer to read when you look at it that way. It's keeping the opposition from reading your cards correctly.

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It also suggests a reason for letting the GOP/health insurance industry axis take the offense on the health care fight. Some people call it rope a dope. But it isn't tiring your opposition out - it's making them reveal their cards - who they really are, what they're fighting for, what the stakes are, and just how disgustingly far they're willing to go in order to win.

To my mind, this all leaves one big question though. What "payoff" is Obama (and the Democrats) actually looking for? Is it even about health care?

Here are the two main possibilities I see:

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http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/8/20/770054/-Whats-Obama-Up-To-On-Health-Care-Reform

Here are the two main possibilities I see:

1. The payoff is to protect the interests of the party by getting "something" done while making sure donations from Big Pharma and the health insurance industry aren't driven away from Democrats. Losing such donors entirely to the GOP would be disastrous. Rahm recruited Blue Dogs specifically to ensure they'd derail any dangerously progressive bills that might pry the death grip of the insurance industry off the throat of the American people. The worst abuses by the industry can be fixed, with their agreement, by trading regulation for a mandate for everyone to buy private insurance. Everyone wins! The insurance industry gets a bigger market subsidized by the American taxpayer! Dems get credit for "doing something" about health care and a continued guarantee of bribes from the insurance industry! The American people? They get screwed, but who cares about them? They can be convinced of anything when election time rolls around, as long as that corporate money keeps flowing to get the necessary propaganda campaign ramped up to convince them.

2. The payoff is to make sure Americans join the rest of the developed world by getting a functional universal health care system that includes a public option. President Obama has said he's willing to lose a second term over it and some Blue Dogs might lose their seats in 2010 over it. But the Dems are going to do it, darn it, no matter the cost to themselves! They thought it would be a political winner, but it's turning out that those darn conservatives are so good at scaring the public that a plurality of the country has now rejected the only aspect of reform that could actually, you know, reform the system in a way that runs counter to the wishes of the insurance industry - a robust public option. The lies are coming fast and furious from the right, the media isn't doing its job to sort through fact and fiction, and the American people aren't stepping up to demand universal health care reform that will benefit themselves over the for-profit insurance industry. Who could have expected any of that? Dems are doing their best to make their case, but the odds are stacked against them. Still, no matter what, they'll do the right thing, using whatever tactics they can, like splitting the bill and using reconciliation, and will pass a robust public option that gives true competition to the insurance industry. People may have been frightened off of supporting a public option for now, but they'll appreciate it once they start using it, and the rewards for it electorally will come eventually.

You might guess which possibility I'm leaning toward. It does seem like a no-brainer to me.

Poll

The Democratic leadership's main goal is to:

Push through real health care reform, no matter what
63% 15 votes

Not annoy the health insurance companies too much
33% 8 votes

Other, explained in comments
4% 1 votes

:patriot:

:puke: