Obama’s Trust Problem - by Paul Krugman.

According to news reports, the Obama administration — which seemed, over the weekend, to be backing away from the “public option” for health insurance — is shocked and surprised at the furious reaction from progressives. Well, I’m shocked and surprised at their shock and surprise.

A backlash in the progressive base — which pushed President Obama over the top in the Democratic primary and played a major role in his general election victory — has been building for months. The fight over the public option involves real policy substance, but it’s also a proxy for broader questions about the president’s priorities and overall approach.

The idea of letting individuals buy insurance from a government-run plan was introduced in 2007 by Jacob Hacker of Yale, was picked up by John Edwards during the Democratic primary, and became part of the original Obama health care plan.

snip...

It’s hard to avoid the sense that Mr. Obama has wasted months trying to appease people who can’t be appeased, and who take every concession as a sign that he can be rolled. Indeed, no sooner were there reports that the administration might accept co-ops as an alternative to the public option than G.O.P. leaders announced that co-ops, too, were unacceptable. So progressives are now in revolt. Mr. Obama took their trust for granted, and in the process lost it. And now he needs to win it back.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/21/opinion/21krugman.html

:popcorn:

Last year, this was an ad he ran against Hillary:



The individual mandate was a bad idea last year, and it's a bad idea now. I will feel completely betrayed if Obama signs a bill that contains it. I'll be even more mad if the individual mandate passes without a "robust" public option.

I support NO give-aways to the health insurance cabal until we have a robust public option! And by "robust" I mean a plan that is projected to cover 50+ million Americans within five years.

:dem:

-Laelth

and Phrma are champing at the bit!

Next!

We the people...not so much.

At that rate, the public option could really dominate the market and drive down prices. That's what he predicted it would take to really provide competition and "keep the insurance companies honest." I'd be willing to settle for half of that, but any less and I will assume that the Democratic Party is completely bought off and no longer serves the interests of the American people.

If that happens, the party will lose me (and a lot of people like me) forever.

:dem:

-Laelth

He's playing 11-dimensional chess while the Republicans and the left of the left are playing tiddlywinks.

When he went back on his word (pick any example; there are plenty), it wasn't a *lie*, it was strategery. He's not vacationing on Martha's Vineyard because he wants to hang out with his rich cronies. He'd much rather be working that extra job at Taco John's like the rest of us. Don't you see?

:dem:

-Laelth

could care less. We don't have a bill out of committee or conference to tout. And the media is just upset because it doesn't know the inside game, all the time.

He could just as easily remind that the bailouts started under Bush, and we're trying to get regulation from a reluctant Congress.

I like PK a lot but the point is Obama has not lead. You blame it on a reluctant Congress? Do you know that there are 100 Senators, all of whom aspire to be president with egos to match? Did you know that if you have no plan, all roads lead nowhere? The reason we don't have the things you talk about is because Obama has wasted 6 months negotiating with himself. Like now Grassley says we need 80 votes.

we know that the public would want something bi-partisan, however impossible. Much of this has seemed dealing with the media created swings more than anything else.

I don't think we know the strategy to get to the end game of public option and anything passing an obstructionist GOP, and propbably important we and they don't know, either.

:dem:

-Laelth

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

those with ideological blinders on on both the right and the left. Mr. Krugman needs to take his blinders off.

Obama made it clear many times in public that he wanted the Baucus committee to FINISH by then, and has, since then, continued to give the "gang of stinkers" "cover" while they negotiate in secret, with the president's publicly proclaimed endorsement, to hack away anything decent in the plan to get to a phony consensus.

Obama should have pulled the plug on those idiots when they failed to meet expectations.

instead, he ended up looking weak, and ever since, he and his admin have been all over the map, saying contradictory and ridiculous things (belt and suspenders?).

I'm amazed at the public ineptitude we have seen, and am not surprised that this has cost him support.

We need a leader, but what we are getting is nothing of the sort.

while doing nothing else....

and I will include most pundits and others making their pronouncement in past tense.

In otherwords, they are contributing to a pessimistic atmosphere on something that is only halfway done.

This was the same thing done about the last election, the stimulus and the economy, and it is happening again with healthcare.

Time will tell if these "critics" were right or wrong, but in the meantime,
the fact that they spend so much energy doing the "judging" while we are in the mids of things
doesn't make them particularily heroic, useful, or prescient....it just makes them an opinionated almost dogmatic small piece of the larger problem which is serious as a heart attack; they lament endlessly and needlessly, but do nothing to help the cause; nothing at all.

down Obama's leadership, while what he's really doing is being savvy, keeping the GOP off-balance, revealing their unwillingness to deal. Krugman is another who is okay for a while, then gives Obama both barrels, dissing his behavior in office, mostly upset for not following his advice. Sorry, but we avoided the worst of the depression, while now awaiting regulation reform.

Also, like it not, Obama is giving cover to our conservative flank, which I'd rather have than not.

We still don't have a bill.

it is clear progressives are now working AGAINST him in polling which makes his job that much harder.